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Ahh! Brazil, we often think about the country as some sort of wonderful exotic getaway, a land where African roots are still at the surface, a land where samba and the 'Jogo de Cintura', the game of the hips, rules. But as Latin America's largest country Brazil also has the largest economy. And in recent months that economy has been faltering. International monetary organizations have pledged new loans to shore up the Brazilian economy. But those loans are tied to specific government performance and that has cast a shadow over the country's national elections. On October 6 Brazilians will elect a new president. The race pits socialist Luiz da Silva, known as Lula, against a more moderate leftist Ciro Gomes, who's sometimes referred to as 'Lula light'; and they are facing a third pro-business candidate who's trailing badly in the polls. But as Reese Erlich reports from Rio de Janeiro the ideological differences are narrowing as all candidates scrabble to move towards the political center.

The competition leading up to Brazil's presidential race will face more than economic challenges, wide spread racial disparities continue in the country that has long prided itself as being a racial paradise. As the last country to end slavery, Brazil has the largest number of African descendants outside of Africa. Nearly half of Brazil's population of 270 million people are of African or mixed racial heritage. More and more Afro-Brazilians are beginning to assert their cultural and political independence and also to demand reparations as a way to address the country's persistent racial inequalities. While the U.S. attempts to back off of affirmative action policies, Brazil now is moving forward with race based policies as a way to level the playing field. From Rio de Janeiro, Sandina Robbins has this report.

According to the National Association for Bilingual Education, Ay mucho de nosotros que somos bilingues, there are some 3.5 million bilingual students in schools across the country. Y la pregunta, the question of how best teach to these children has been the subject of debate for decades. While educators discuss the merits of bilingual education, the number of Spanish peaking children in the United States continues to grow. Pero los científicos, the scientist studying language and its effect on the brain are discovery that there are benefits of speaking more than one language. Latinos USA's health and science correspondent Camille Mojica Rey was more.