Daniel Vorcaro’s web of connections

🎙️ Podcast: Banco Master and the Supreme Court

Just after a historic trial, justices have pulled the court into the swirling scandal involving Banco Master. Now the Chief Justice's push for ethical standards is being put to the test

🕸️ Six Degrees of Banco Master

Since the Banco Master case first broke, we warned that it wouldn’t be long before it reached high-profile politicians. It has now.

✈️ Coming to America

What Lula and Trump discussed on Monday. Alleged conflict of interest in Brazil’s top courts. The Banco Master web extends to former Lula cabinet ministers.

🧾 Tax reform advances

More progress for Brazil’s tax reform. The Mercosur-EU trade deal goes online. Congress to benefit Bolsonaro by cutting his coup sentence.

🎲 Brazil bans prediction markets

Prediction markets have been banned in Brazil. The government is fine-tuning its new debt relief program. How JBS could benefit from a new rule on EU meat quotas.

🚧 Mercosur: 35 and unfinished

Mercosur turns 35. Brazilian beef exporters are racing through their China quota. A virus stolen from a university lab.

😓 Boric’s last headache, Mercosur’s final steps

Chinese undersea cable plans trigger US sanctions on Chile. And Mercosur countries are moving fast to ratify last month’s trade deal with the European Union.

⚠️ Not worth a dam

The country's 2026 dam-safety audit shows an expanding inventory, a shrinking inspection workforce and a budget moving the wrong way.

♻️ Green job mirage

A new study finds green activities have been stuck since 2014 — and the workers most exposed to decarbonization are the least prepared for it.

🐮 Holy cow

Brazil signed onto an initiative targeting fossil-fuel leaks. Its real methane emergency is elsewhere.

🧳 Tourist tax

A Brazilian Alpine destination joins a global tourist-tax wave

🤔 What is Neymar's legacy?

The 2026 World Cup was supposed to crown Brazil's most prolific scorer. Instead, it delivered a quiet, ill-tempered exit.

🤩 Style points matter

A round-of-16 date with the only team Brazil has never beaten reopens the country's oldest football argument: whether a title counts less if it isn't earned with flair

🇯🇵 The Zico connection

In the 1990s, the Brazilian legend Zico helped build Japanese football from the ground up. Now Japan is all that stands between Brazil and the World Cup's round of 16.

💸 Beautiful game, ugly books

Brazil has spent five years coaxing private capital into its chronically indebted football clubs. Now, it is writing the fine print.

🗿 Where memory outlasts stone

In Latin America, heritage is as likely to be sung, spoken or remembered as it is to be carved — and that fragility is the point.

📵 Off the grid

Brazil just crossed 90% internet use for the first time.

🤔 How people misread Brazil's gangs

The US has branded Brazil's largest criminal organizations as terrorist groups. A former investigator cautions against drawing a straight line from them to Mexico's cartels or Italy's mafia — the comparison, he says, is far from perfect.

🤔💭 The man before the president

Before he was president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso was arguably Brazil's sharpest sociologist.

🪖 Untouchables no more

Bolsonaro and co-conspirators begin serving their prison sentences as the coup trial ends. The Lula government has fallen out with Congress, again. Projections for Black Friday leave retailers giddy.

🦶 Bolsonaro arrested after violating ankle monitor

Jair Bolsonaro was arrested after trying to remove his ankle monitor. Brazil celebrates more US tariff cuts. Final COP30 decision viewed as a dud.

⌛ Bolsonaro’s final countdown

Bolsonaro submits last appeal before coup conviction becomes final. More questions around a major data center project in Brazil’s Northeast. MBRF’s major halal meat deal.

⚖️ Another coup trial

The next wave of coup trials. Brazil experiences a brief power outage. In Brasília, Lula’s next Supreme Court pick is the hot topic.