Costa RicaWinning a landslide victory on the National Liberation Party ticket, Laura Chinchilla was elected Sunday as Costa Rica’s first female president, beating her two male opponents by over 20 percent, the Tico Times reported. Praised for her pro-business approach and social conservatism, Chinchilla’s victory, according to the Los Angeles times, affirmed Costa Rica’s commitment to maintaining its position as one of Central America’s most politically and economically stable countries. Her party gained prestige in the 1980s when incumbent President Oscar Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize for working to end Central American wars. Chinchilla is 50 years old and the mother of two.

United States

According to The New York Times, the Obama administration has just announced a loan guarantee of $8.3 billion to the Southern Company to construct twin nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia. Coming from a much larger fund of $18.5 billion set aside by the 2005 Energy Policy Act, this loan is the first in what will be a series of incentives to promote clean energy across the country, including projects slated to begin in South Carolina, Maryland, and Texas. As these will be the first reactors to be built since the Three Mile Island incident of the late 1970s, environmentalists have voiced concerns. For President Obama, however, the proposed plants dovetail with larger plans to increase jobs and reduce carbon emissions.

Scotland

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have discovered what they believe to be a more affordable and efficient method of DNA screening involving the chemical analysis of saliva, Reuters reported. Intended to detect the genes responsible for various degenerative inherited diseases, the new method is expected to cost less than $1,000 and take only a few hours. The advance has already prompted competition between international gene sequencing firms to develop even faster means of detection based on this model. According to Professor Mark Bradley of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry, partnerships between the researchers and the greater DNA sequencing industry should take off within the year.

Pakistan

Cooperation between U.S. and Pakistani intelligence forces recently resulted in the capture of the Taliban’s top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi, the BBC reported. Considered second in the terrorist group’s hierarchy only to the Taliban’s founder and spiritual leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, Baradar is currently in Pakistani custody where he faces interrogation by U.S. and Pakistani officials. This capture, it is expected, will significantly destabilize Taliban operations across the Middle East. Baradar’s absence will be felt most in Afghanistan’s southwestern regions where insurgents’ ties with the commander were the strongest.