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How Ecuador reached the shocking point of a political assassination

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How Ecuador reached the shocking point of a political assassination


Ecuador has enjoyed notably little political violence. Until now.

Who was he? 59-year-old Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was a former investigative journalist who was outspoken against what he saw to be clear, increasing government corruption in his country.

  • According to reporting from NPR’s Simeon Tegel, Villavicencio wanted to target drug trafficking and violence from cartels and gangs, as the once peaceful nation has been forced to reckon with deadly prison riots and an increasing presence of Mexican cartels within its borders.
  • What’s the big deal? Villavicencio was fatally shot on Wednesday, moments after exiting a campaign rally in Quito, the nation’s capital.

  • Ecuador is subsequently in a state of shock. President Guillermo Lasso announced a 60-day national state of emergency, and said he would be mobilizing military forces into the streets to crack down on gangs.
  • The presidential election is still slated for Aug. 20, according to National Electoral Council head Diana Atamaint. Villavicencio reportedly had a chance of finishing second, according to polls, and could have sent the election to a runoff vote, Tegel reports.
  • Villavicencio had previously drawn attention to the death threats he had been receiving, but he made a point to refuse a bullet-proof vest, and did not shy away from his pointed rhetoric towards drug traffickers and corrupt government officials, who he says have turned Ecuador into a “narco state.”
  • Villavicencio’s sister Alexandra has told journalists she believes the Ecuadorian government is responsible for her brother’s death, and alleges there is a larger plot to silence him.

  • Listen to the full conversation with Will Freeman by tapping the play button at the top.


    Galo Paguay / AFP via Getty Images

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    AFP via Getty Images

    Following Villavicencio’s assassination, a woman holds a sign reading: “Fernando, valiant hero of the motherland, the village weeps for your parting, and we demand justice!”

    What are people saying? All Things Considered’s Juana Summers spoke with Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He shared some insight on what led up to this boiling point for Ecuador, and what may come in the next few months.

    On the initial reaction to the assassination:

    You already feel when you’re there that life has been turned on its head by this huge surge in crime since 2020. But what you’re seeing now is that it’s not concentrated to one part of the country. 

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    No one is safe, not even a candidate running for president. And I think a growing number of Ecuadorians feel almost abandoned by their own state institutions left to fend for themselves. So it’s a really chilling incident, and I hope that the investigation that follows gets to the bottom of who or what structure was behind this.

    On the uptick in violence:

    It’s a story that’s been building for a while. People look at homicide rates shooting up since 2020 and sometimes they assume that’s when the crisis began. I’d argue that it began years earlier.

    There are several features of Ecuador that make it an ideal country for drug trafficking. And lately we’ve seen the amount of cocaine traffic through the country going through the roof. 

    So one is that it’s sandwiched between Colombia and Peru. Two of the world’s largest cocaine producers. 

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    Ecuador also has a dollarized economy that’s very attractive for crime groups. It allows them to launder money easily. Ecuador also  just had a devastating experience with the COVID-19 pandemic and with poverty and hunger spreading, it created a big pool of recruits for organized crime.

    But on the other side,  this crisis is an accumulation of serious political blunders by president after president. In the 2010s, you had a left populist president, Rafael Correa, who clashed with police, kicked the DEA out of the country, and really limited Ecuador’s ability to monitor narco trafficking.

    That set the stage for what we’re seeing today. But his conservative and centrist successors who’ve been in office since didn’t do any better. Under their watch, they lost control of the prison system, the armed forces and police and judiciary all became more susceptible to corruption, to cooptation by organized crime.

    And unfortunately, what you see today is polarization between the left and right, which is preventing Ecuadorian politicians from coming together and finding a solution to this terrible crisis.

    So what now?

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  • President Lasso has requested help from the FBI in investigating the assassination, and declared three days of mourning in wake of Villavicencio’s death.
  • Freeman adds that amid new details being reported about the assassination, the true nature of Villavicencio’s death will be vital in determining next steps: “I think we need to really get to the bottom of whether there’s potentially a political story behind this assassination.”
  • Learn more:

  • After the assassination of a candidate who took on drug cartels, Ecuador is in shock
  • Ecuador arrests 6 Colombians in slaying of presidential candidate
  • The state of democracy in Latin America
  • Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.





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    How to watch South Carolina vs Iowa State women’s basketball: Time, channel, live streams

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    How to watch South Carolina vs Iowa State women’s basketball: Time, channel, live streams


    The 4th-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team next ships off to the Sunshine State for a matchup with No. 15 Iowa State at the Fort Myers Tip-off. The game is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. ET with TV coverage on FOX and streaming on-demand.

    • How to watch: Live streams of the South Carolina vs. Iowa State game are available with offers from FuboTV (free trial), SlingTV (low intro rate) and DirecTV Stream (free trial).
    • For a limited time, FuboTV is offering $30 off the first month after the free trial period. With the $30 offer, plans start at $49.99.

    #4 South Carolina Gamecocks (5-1) vs. #15 Iowa State Cyclones (5-1)

    NCAA women’s basketball matchup at a glance

    When: Thursday, Nov. 28 at 1:30 p.m. ET

    Where: Suncoast Credit Union Arena, Fort Myers, Fla.

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    TV channel: FOX

    Live streams: FuboTV (free trial) | SlingTV (low intro rate) | DirecTV Stream (free trial)

    Both South Carolina and Iowa State lost their first games of the 2024-’25 season within the past eight days, with the Gamecocks falling on the road to No. 5 UCLA (77-62) on Sunday and the Cyclones to Northern Iowa (87-75) last Wednesday in Cedar Falls. South Carolina is now 5-1 in its defense of the 2024 NCAA women’s championship with a top-10 win over NC State highlighting the team’s early-season résumé. The Gamecocks will be Iowa State’s first ranked opponent after falling to No. 2 seed Stanford in overtime (87-81) in the second round of last season’s NCAA Tournament

    South Carolina Gamecocks vs. Iowa State Cyclones: Know your live streaming options

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    • FuboTV (free trial)excellent viewer experience with huge library of live sports content; free trial lengths vary; monthly rate after free trial starts at $59.99 after current $20 discount offer.
    • SlingTV (low intro rate) discounted first month is best if you’ve run out of free trials or you’re in the market for 1+ month of TV
    • DirecTV Stream (free trial) not the same level of viewer experience as FuboTV, but the standard 7-day free trial is still the longest in streaming.

    South Carolina and Iowa State are set for a 1:30 p.m. ET start on FOX. Live streams are available from FuboTV (free trial), DirecTV Stream (free trial) and SlingTV (low intro rate).



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    South Carolina high school football scores: Live updates, live streams (11/8/2024)

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    South Carolina high school football scores: Live updates, live streams (11/8/2024)


    The 2024 South Carolina high school football season is in high gear and SBLive Sports is the place to follow of the live scoring updates and finals.

    Follow the action get the most to date scores by tracking the SBLive South Carolina High School Football Scoreboard. We will have in-game score updates and all of the final scores from every corner of the state. You can also search for full schedules and complete scores from all of your very favorite teams.

    Here’s a guide to following all of the South Carolina high school football this week.

    STATEWIDE SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD

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    CLASS 5A SCORES | CLASS 4A SCORES

    CLASS 3A SCORES | CLASS 2A SCORES

    CLASS 1A SCORES

    SCISA CLASS AAAA | SCISA CLASS AAA

    SCISA CLASS AA | SCISA A

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    2024 SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCHEDULES: FIND YOUR TEAM

    Can’t make it to your favorite team’s game but still want to watch them live? You can watch dozens of South Carolina high school football games live on the NFHS Network:

    WATCH LIVE ON NFHS NETWORK

    We also invite you to visit the brand new South Carolina homepage on High School on SI, powered by SBLive Sports, for the latest news, highlights, analysis, scores, photos and information on South Carolina high school sports. Follow our live game coverage and read our feature stories, breaking news, the latest recruiting news, rankings and much more.

    Follow SBLive South Carolina throughout the 2024 high school football season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!

    Be sure to Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school football news.

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    To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App | Download Android App

    — Mitch Stephens | mitch@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi



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    ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands

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    ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands


    ESPN.com’s College Football Playoff predictor isn’t perfect because it applies analytics to a situation that ultimately will be decided by a committee of humans. But it does provide a nice guide and discussion piece about which teams have the best chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.

    Because of that human element, the predictor has been updating twice each week, once on Sunday to account for Saturday’s games and again after the latest CFP rankings are released.

    [More for subscribers: What latest rankings mean for South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances]

    While the Gamecocks won their game on Saturday and got a lot of help from the teams around them last week, the logjam of SEC teams ahead of them in Tuesday’s rankings is still limiting their upside at this time.

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    With the committee putting South Carolina behind fellow three-loss SEC teams Alabama and Ole Miss, the predictor currently gives South Carolina a 20 percent chance of making the 12-team field, which is three percentage points lower than its chances in Sunday’s update.

    The Gamecocks do, of course, have one more huge opportunity to pad their resume when they travel to Clemson this weekend to renew the annual rivalry in what may be the biggest game in the matchup’s history.

    Beat the Tigers, who are currently No. 12 in the CFP Top 25, and South Carolina’s chances of making the playoff jump to 46 percent, according to the predictor.

    While that’s just under a coin flip, it’s also 12 percentage points lower than it was in Sunday’s update.

    South Carolina is still very much in the hunt but is going to need to win and play very well against Clemson and get more help around it.

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    [GamecockCentral: $1 for 7 days]

    As a reminder, the CFP committee’s top 12 teams won’t correlate exactly with the 12-team field.

    The CFP will consist of the top five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked at-large schools. The top four conference champions will receive the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded by its CFP ranking. If that ranking is outside of the top 12 it will be seeded 12th as the final team in the field.

    The teams seeded 5 through 12 will fight it out in the first round with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round to face the top four seeds.

    The Gamecocks and Tigers are set for a noon showdown Saturday in Clemson.

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    ESPN Analytics uses FPI to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation. The most likely CFP teams are provided for user selections. After user inputs, a likely bracket is generated and randomly simulated using FPI.



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