The president of Peru is confronting his lowest approval rating as a result of climbing food prices. In New York, the United Nations is organizing a task force to deal with global food shortages and price spikes that have triggered riots in poor nations and led to the collapse of the Haitian government. According to Time magazine: [r]ising demand, soaring oil prices and the ravages of climate change" are to blame.

Soaring food prices in Haiti are causing a growing number of the country's impoverished to eat cookies made of dirt. Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic and was the second state to declare its independence in the Americas. (via FP Passport)

Nearly one in five Hispanic adults has a cell phone but not a land line, according to the Center for Disease Control. Hispanics are twice as likely to not have a land line as whites. Overall, those who are young and poor prefer cell phones.

"Between 23 and 40 percent of homeless adults [in the U.S.] are veterans," according to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. (via Foreign Policy Blog)

A sinkhole in Guatemala swallowed three people. The catastrophe was likely a result of a broken sewer pipe. A similar failure in February took the lives of two and prompted the evacuation of nearly 1,000 residents. More than half the population of Guatemala lives in poverty.

The Inter-American Development Bank moves to cancel the national debt of five of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lula da Silva began his second-term as the president of Brazil promising policies that will deliver economic growth. An estimated 20% of Brazilians live below the poverty line, most in cramped urban ghettoes known as favelas. (There are 712 favelas in Rio de Janeiro.) Last week, criminal gangs which operate in Rio's favelas torched buses filled with commuters, killing 18, in a warning to the region's newly-elected governor.

Five percent of U.S. Latinos are going hungry.