Former rebels take power in election

A leftist television journalist won El Salvador’s presidential elections, bringing a party of former guerrillas to power for the first time since a bloody civil war and ending two decades of conservative rule.

Mauricio Funes, a moderate plucked from outside the ranks of the rebel-group-turned-political-party Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, became the latest leftist to rise to power in Latin America at a time of uncertainty over how President Barack Obama will approach the region.