BUENOS AIRES (CNS) – With seven mouths to feed, Mirta Franco Godoy knew she had to find work fast.In 2001, Argentina's economy came crashing down amid mounting public debt, economic instability and a run on the country's banks.Her family had previously managed to get by with odd jobs, including tailoring and seamstress work. But as the economic crisis deepened, those earnings were no longer enough.Desperate to make ends meet, many Argentines began sifting through trash, collecting cardboard and other recyclable materials to sell to companies. Known as "cartoneros," or waste pickers, they became part of a growing informal economy. At the time, Argentina had no widespread municipal system for separating recyclable materials from ordinary trash, instead sending most waste to landfills.  Workers walk past stacks of wooden pallets and recyclable materials near the Nodo Fiorito recycling facility in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, Nov. 9, 2026.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (CNS) -- In Latin America's most secular country, Pope Leo XIV received a welcome that surprised even longtime Vatican observers: Tens of thousands of people were eager to see the pope, as tickets for a prayer vigil at the country's largest stadium were snapped up within hours of going online.The roughly 70,000 free tickets for the Nov. 7 vigil at Montevideo's Centenary Stadium were quickly claimed in less than three hours, mirroring an unexpected display of enthusiasm in a country where only about 35% of the population identifies as Catholic and more than 50% declare having no religious affiliation at all, in a 2024 survey by Latinobarómetro.Local media outlets reported that this demand broke records."I have never seen it in this country!" said Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, a former secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and former Uruguayan ambassador to the Holy See, speaking to journalists Nov. 3, detailing that he said he h