LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former Brazil coach Mano Menezes has been appointed as the new coach of Peru’s national team, the Peruvian soccer federation said Thursday.
The 63-year-old Menezes replaces Oscar Ibañez, who was fired after the team failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
“We know that the last few years haven’t been so brilliant in terms of results, but we are here because we can do something to get back on track so that Peru can once again be a leading player,” Menezes said.
The Brazilian's last job was with Gremio where he spent eight months and guided them to a ninth-place finish in the Brazilian championship to secure a spot in the 2026 Copa Sudamericana.
Menezes managed the Brazilian national team between 2010 and 2012. During his tenure, Brazil fell to 14th place in the FIFA rankings, its lowest ever.
Menezes has also managed other prominent Brazilian clubs, including Fluminense, Corinthians, Flamengo, Cruzeiro, and Palmeiras. Outside of Brazil, he has coached Shandong Luneng in China and Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia.
Peru also missed the 2022 World Cup. It qualified for the 2018 edition in Russia.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
CORRECTS SPELLING OF MENEZES - Brazil's Mano Menezes holds a Peruvian national soccer team jersey after being presented as the team's coach in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
CORRECTS SPELLING OF MENEZES - Brazil's Mano Menezes, center, holds a Peruvian national team jersey with Peru's Football Federation President Agustin Lozano, left, and Sports Manager Juan Jean Ferrari, after being presented as the team's new coach, in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
CORRECTS SPELLING OF MENEZES - Brazil's Mano Menezes speaks after being presented as the coach of Peru's national soccer team in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation's voting laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that would impose stricter requirements, including some before Americans vote in the midterm elections in the fall.
The package released Thursday reflects a number of the party's most sought-after election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before people can vote and proof of citizenship, both to be put in place in 2027. Others, including prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting — two voting methods that have proved popular in some states — would happen immediately. The Republican president continues to insist that the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.
“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity — including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement.
“These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” said Steil, R-Wis.
The legislation faces a long road in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar ideas as disenfranchising Americans' ability to vote with onerous registration and ID requirements. The effort comes as the Trump administration is turning its attention toward election issues before the November election, when control of Congress will be at stake.
The administration sent FBI agents Wednesday to raid the election headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking ballots from the 2020 election. That follows Trump’s comments earlier this month when he suggested that charges related to that election were imminent.
Republicans are calling their new legislation the “Make Elections Great Again Act" and say their proposal should provide the minimum standard for elections for federal offices.
The 120-plus-page bill includes requirements that people present a photo ID before they vote and that states verify the citizenship of individuals when they register to vote, starting next year.
More immediately, this fall it would require states to use “auditable” paper ballots in elections, which most already do; prohibit states from mailing ballots to all voters through universal vote-by-mail systems; and ban ranked choice voting, which is used in Maine and Alaska.
States risk losing federal election funds at various junctures for noncompliance. For example, states would be required to have agreements with the attorney general’s office to share information about potential voter fraud or risk losing federal election funds in 2026.
And starting this year, it would require states to more frequently update their voting rolls, every 30 days.
Stephen Richer, a Republican who clashed with Trump over the president's false election conspiracy theories while he served as the recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, posted on the social media site X that the bill is reminiscent of a Democratic effort to reshape national elections in the opposite direction that floundered during the term of President Joe Biden.
He wrote that the legislation “flattens federalism, and takes away many rights from the states.”
Similar Republican proposals have drawn alarm from voting rights group, which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.
For example, prior Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote have been criticized by Democrats as disenfranchising married women whose last names do not match birth certificates or other government documents.
The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans do not have a U.S. passport.
Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the United States. Last year he issued an executive order that included a citizenship requirement, among other election-related changes.
At the time, House Republicans approved legislation, the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” that would cement Trump’s order into law. That bill has stalled in the Senate, though lawmakers have recently revived efforts to bring it forward for consideration.
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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
FILE- Voting booths are set up at a polling place in Newtown, Pa, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
