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Gabriela Sá Pessoa

Freelance journalist based in São Paulo, Brazil

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AP News •

Brazilian moms are leading the charge to secure CBD for sick kids

SAO PAULO (AP) — The 4-year-old boy struggled to balance while walking through the living room. His mother’s eyes attentively followed his every move. Then a seizure knocked him to the ground, the dull thud of his small body echoing through the home.On this July morning in Guaruja, a coastal city in Brazil’s state of Sao Paulo, Murillo quickly regained his senses as his mom, Janaína Silva, cradled him.“From five minutes of agony, it’s now just seconds,” Silva said, recalling how only three month...
AP News •

Masked assailants ransack Venezuela opposition leader's headquarters as post-election tensions mount

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A half dozen masked assailants ransacked the headquarters of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in the latest escalation of violence against opponents of Nicolás Maduro following the country’s disputed presidential election.The raid occurred at around 3 a.m., Machado’s party said, adding that the assailants broke down doors and hauled away valuable documents and equipment. Images published by Machado’s party on social media show several walls covered in b...
AP News •

Brazil's Pantanal wetlands fire season hasn't officially started but it's already breaking records

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s massive Pantanal wetlands haven’t technically entered annual fire season, but already the number of blazes has broken records and is leading experts to predict this year will be the most devastating in decades.

Typically dry out and are prone to fires But the National Space Research Institute’s satellites spotted over 2,500 fires in the region in June alone -- by far the most ever recorded for the month in data going back to 1998. It’s more than six times the amount in
AP News •

Outraged Brazilian women stage protests against bill to equate late abortions with homicide

SAO PAULO (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Sao Paulo on Saturday as protests sweep across Brazil in opposition to a bill that would further criminalize abortions. If passed, the law would equate the termination of a pregnancy after 22 weeks with homicide.

The bill, proposed by conservative lawmakers and heading for a vote in the lower house, would also apply in cases of rape. Critics say those who seek an abortion so late are mostly child rape victims, as their pregnanci
Valor Econômico •

Área do Nordeste se torna definitivamente árida

As mudanças climáticas já fizeram com que o clima do norte na Bahia mudasse de vez. Uma região da Caatinga de 5,7 mil km2, na divisa com Pernambuco, se tornou definitivamente árida - a primeira do país, mostra um estudo recente do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe) e do Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (Cemaden). Agora, produtores rurais e cientistas somam esforços para adaptar espécies e evitar os riscos de desertificação, o que tornaria essas terra
AP News •

A second scourge is battering Brazil's flooded south: Disinformation

SAO PAULO (AP) — While flooding that has devastated Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state has yet to subside, another scourge has spread across the region: disinformation on social media that has hampered desperate efforts to get aid to hundreds of thousands in need.

Among fake postings that have stirred outrage: That official agencies aren’t conducting rescues in Brazil’s southernmost state. That bureaucracy is holding up donations of food, water and clothing. One persistent rumor contends that aut
AP News •

Caramelo, the Brazilian horse stranded on a roof by floods, is rescued after stirring the nation

CANOAS, Brazil (AP) — A Brazilian horse nicknamed Caramelo by social media users garnered national attention after a television news helicopter filmed him stranded on a rooftop in southern Brazil, where massive floods have killed more than 100 people .

About 24 hours after he was first spotted and with people clamoring for his rescue, a team in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state on Thursday successfully removed Caramelo, providing a dose of hope to a beleaguered region.

The brown horse had been
AP News •

Too much water, and not enough: Brazil's flooded south struggles to access basic goods

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) — The mayor of a major city in southern Brazil on Tuesday pleaded with residents to comply with his water rationing decree, given that some four-fifths of the population is without running water, a week after major flooding that has left at least 90 people dead and more than 130 others missing.

Efforts were continuing to rescue people stranded by the floods in the , as more rains were forecast for the region into next week. The capital, Porto Alegre, has been virtually
AP News •

Revival of vinyl records in Brazil spares a 77-year-old singer – and others – from oblivion

SAO PAULO (AP) — It took almost a half century for Brazilian singer Cátia de França to find her audience, but she finally has — with the help of a near-obsolete audio technology.

Born in Paraíba, a state in Brazil’s poor northeast region, 77-year-old de França’s blend of psychedelic rock with traditional rhythms and modernist poetry long went overlooked, even as she toured the nation in the 1970s and ‘80s.

During the pandemic, she retreated to a conservation area in the mountains above , “wher
AP News •

What to know about Elon Musk's 'free speech' feud with a Brazilian judge

SAO PAULO (AP) — Headline-grabbing billionaire Elon Musk is clashing with a in Brazil over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation on X, the social media platform Musk bought when it was Twitter.

Since his many of Twitter’s policies, and transformed what people see on the site. As its owner and perhaps most influential user, he’s also used it to try to sway political discourse around the world. His latest entanglement is inside the nation of 203 million people that has the largest po
AP News •

Brazil Supreme Court strikes down military intervention thesis in symbolic vote for democracy

SAO PAULO (AP) — unanimously voted Monday that the armed forces have no constitutional power to intervene in disputes between government branches, a largely symbolic decision aimed at bolstering democracy after years of increasing threat of military intervention.

The court’s decision came in response to an argument that and his allies deployed in recent years. They have claimed that Article 142 of Brazil’s Constitution affords the military so-called “moderating power” between the executive, leg
AP News •

A Rio councilwoman's killing was a mystery. An arrest gave a peek at corruption keeping it unsolved

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Two days after Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman , her widow sat down with the chief of the state’s civil police, Rivaldo Barbosa, who pledged to do everything in his power to hold the guilty parties to account.

In fact, the man Veja magazine once exalted as “Rio’s Sherlock” had the exact opposite intent, according to newly revealed allegations. Federal Police arrested Barbosa on March 24 — over six years later — for allegedly helping orchestrate Franco’s killing and taking
AP News •

Brazilian police arrest suspected masterminds behind the killing of councilwoman-turned-icon

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s federal police arrested two men Sunday for allegedly ordering the killing of a popular Rio de Janeiro councilwoman in 2018, a long-awaited step after years of society clamoring for justice.

The assassination of Marielle Franco, a 38-year-old city councilwoman, in a drive-by shooting shook Brazil profoundly and reverberated around the world. She stood out as one of the only Black women on the council and was also bisexual. Her assertiveness and mere presence ruffle
The New York Times •

They Tried to Rally South America Behind Ukraine. They Nearly Got Killed.

Héctor Abad Faciolince grew up in what had been one of the most violent cities on earth. Since Colombia won its independence more than 200 years ago, it has weathered political unrest, military crackdowns and violent drug cartels.

His own father, who had accused the military of sponsoring death squads, was assassinated in 1987 by paramilitary forces that had turned his hometown, Medellín, into a war zone.

But his brush with death came half a world away.

At the end of a trip last month that he
The New York Times •

A Ukrainian fencer is disqualified after refusing to shake hands with a Russian opponent.

Olga Kharlan, left, of Ukraine, refused to shake the hand of Anna Smirnova, of Russia, after their Fencing World Championship bout in Milan on Thursday. Ms. Kharlan’s gesture resulted in her disqualification from the tournament.

Olga Kharlan, a four-time Olympic fencing medalist, was disqualified from the World Fencing Championships in Milan on Thursday after refusing to shake hands with her Russian opponent. After Ms. Kharlan defeated Anna Smirnova, a Russian competitor who had joined the comp

'Salva' por brasileiros, cidade nos EUA recruta professores bilíngues

O trem perde velocidade e as fachadas começam a ficar mais claras. Primeiro, o Rei da Carne. Depois, a Igreja Cristã Evangélica. Pouco à frente, a Brazilian Stakehouse, uma churrascaria. E um encanto se quebra quando o maquinista avisa, em inglês: "This is Framingham" (Aqui é Framingham).

É o português de sotaque mineiro que parece a língua oficial da cidade. Na padaria Pão Brasil, uma televisão ligada na hora do almoço exibe ao vivo as últimas notícias de Minas Gerais no MGTV, da TV Globo. A o
The Boston Globe •

Saving the Amazon, before it’s too late - The Boston Globe

And they should act soon because preserving the Amazon has become a matter of international urgency. The forest stores an enormous amount of carbon that would be unleashed into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change if deforestation by farmers, loggers, and miners in Brazil isn’t halted. Last year, the Amazon was estimated to be losing about 60 square miles of rainforest — an area just bigger than the whole city of Boston — per week.

Through their purchases, American consumers may be u
The Washington Post •

Brazil to reopen probe of George Santos in 2008 checkbook fraud case

SANTOS, Brazil — Authorities in Brazil are seeking to reinstate a 15-year-old fraud charge against George Santos, the latest controversy to hit the New York Republican, who was due to be sworn in to Congress on Tuesday. The charge, news about which was first reported by the New York Times on Monday, stems from the alleged theft and use of a checkbook in Rio de Janeiro state in 2008, when Santos was 19. Authorities opened an investigation but suspended it when they were unable to find him. He is
The Washington Post •

Brazil’s toxic politics stain a soccer icon: The national team jersey

As Brazil begins World Cup play Thursday favored to win a record sixth title, what would normally be a moment of joyful anticipation in Latin America’s largest nation is being dampened by lingering division in the aftermath of last month’s ugly presidential election. The divide is ripping at the seams of the canarinho, the once-sacred “little canary” shirt, which was co-opted as campaign wear before, during and after the vote by supporters of the “Trump of the Tropics” — election loser Jair Bols
The Washington Post •

Brazil gets tough on Crackland, and the drug market spreads

It’s been two months since hundreds of drug-addicted people spilled into Mendes’s neighborhood, and her morning walks have been tense ever since. Now, when she goes to the gym, the retired tourism manager takes only her key. She avoids going out at night at all.

Since crack cocaine engulfed São Paulo in the 1990s, nearly every city administration has proclaimed victory over Crackland, only to see it resurge, whack-a-mole style, in a different location, to the horror of the residents and busines
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Hello, there!

I am an investigative journalist whose works have been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, BBC, UOL, and Folha de S.Paulo. I have also been researching, producing, and fact-checking for two documentaries that will soon be featured on major streaming platforms. I was the 2023 IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow at MIT Center for International Studies, The Boston Globe and The New York Times. 

Jornalista investigativa e pesquisadora. Já tive trabalhos publicados no The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, BBC, UOL e Folha de S.Paulo. Também tenho experiêcia com pesquisa e checagem para audiovisual - um podcast e dois documentários em produção para duas plataformas de streaming. Em 2023, vivi nos Estados Unidos como IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer em uma temporada no MIT, no The Boston Globe e no New York Times.

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