Montevideo is seeing a cold, overcast evening with temperatures around 10C (49F) and a feels-like temperature of 7C (45F). Tonight's low will fall to around 5C (41F) with 87 percent humidity and winds at 15 km/h (9 mph).

Wednesday will be warmer, with highs reaching 15C (58F) under mostly overcast skies and light drizzle expected. Winds will pick up to around 27 km/h (17 mph). The real change arrives Thursday: the forecast shows thunderstorms bringing 26.8 millimeters (roughly one inch) of rain, with highs only reaching 13C (56F) and lows near 11C (52F). The rest of the week stays overcast and cool, with highs hovering between 11C and 12C (52F to 53F).

Punta del Este is slightly cooler tonight at 8C (46F), but will see a bigger warm-up tomorrow, reaching 18C (64F) before Thursday's storms arrive. The coastal resort will see lighter rainfall than the capital — about 13 millimeters — before conditions settle into the same cool, overcast pattern through the weekend.

Four armed men stormed the Banco República (BROU) branch in Pando on Monday afternoon, making off with approximately 10 million pesos, US$70,000, and 90,000 euros — a combined value near US$425,000. The robbery took just over one minute, with the gang entering around 5:50 p.m. armed with shotguns and pistols. One guard was struck in the head during the assault; he received medical attention at the scene and is out of danger.

The robbers fled in a Mercedes-Benz but crashed the luxury sedan about five kilometers away in Barros Blancos. After the wreck, the gang invaded a nearby home, threatened the family inside, and stole a Fiat Fiorino pickup to continue their escape. Police deployed a helicopter and road checkpoints, but as of Tuesday evening no arrests have been made. Three of the four robbers wore masks; one acted with his face exposed, and police are working with video footage to identify him. Investigators believe the gang may be foreign nationals.

President Yamandú Orsi told reporters Tuesday the robbery was "not a new modality" and expressed "absolute" confidence in Interior Minister Alejandro Lazo and Police Chief José Cardama. The bank workers' union AEBU called for increased security resources at branches following the incident.

President Orsi announced Tuesday he will hold individual meetings with leaders of Uruguay's political parties to discuss the international context and regional developments. The invitations come as the government seeks to build consensus on foreign policy amid shifting dynamics in the Americas and ongoing tensions over domestic priorities.

The opposition National Party (Partido Nacional, or Blancos) responded sharply, with spokespeople saying the government is "bipolar" and "needs a psychologist" for extending the dialogue invitation while simultaneously criticizing opposition positions on other fronts. The reaction underscores the strained relationship between the Frente Amplio administration and the former governing coalition, even as Orsi has framed dialogue as central to his presidency.

Separately, Frente Amplio leader Carolina Cosse used the annual Día del Comité de Base (Grassroots Committee Day) on Tuesday to call for "more Frente Amplio" in the face of difficulties and warned of growing distances that "strain the social fabric."

Two documentary filmmakers — Gaël Mocaër and Sebastian Perez Pezzani — and their Togolese fixer Fred Vedomey have been jailed in Togo after more than three weeks in detention, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported Thursday. Perez Pezzani was born in Uruguay, according to la diaria. The three were arrested July 27 in Kara, northern Togo, while filming a documentary for French public television. They were placed in pretrial detention Monday and charged with making "false declarations" in immigration procedures.

RSF called for their immediate release, saying the filmmakers had applied for work visas and received authorization from Togo's Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Arts. Togo's culture minister rejected that claim, saying they would not have been detained if they had proper authorizations. The country's media regulator said it received no accreditation request from the crew or France Télévisions. Police seized the crew's equipment and briefly released them July 30 before re-arresting them and transferring them to the capital, Lomé. Togo's government said Saturday it has "serious and corroborative evidence" against the men; their lawyer says they deny the charges.

The Instituto Nacional de Bienestar Animal (INBA, the National Animal Welfare Institute) is seeking a reform included in the government's Rendición de Cuentas (budget accountability bill) that would decentralize the agency from the Ministry of Agriculture (MGAP) and create its own financing mechanism. INBA president Esteban Vieta told Informativo Uruguay the change is critical because under current rules, "whoever wants pays" fines for animal mistreatment — the institute has no effective way to collect them.

INBA receives between 400 and 550 complaints per month but has only three staff to cover 17 interior departments, plus five more for Montevideo and Canelones. The proposed reform would allow one INBA official per department and give the agency the power to actually enforce financial penalties. The budget bill is expected to be debated in the coming weeks.

Uruguay's legal cannabis market shows a clear shift toward pharmacy purchases and away from home cultivation, according to the latest IRCCA (Instituto de Regulación y Control del Cannabis) data for the first four months of 2026. As of April 30, there were 88,955 people registered to buy cannabis at pharmacies, compared to 20,798 members of cannabis clubs and just 10,330 authorized home growers — a total of 120,083 users across all three legal channels.

Between January and April 2026, pharmacies sold more than 1.9 million grams of cannabis, continuing a multi-year upward trend. The data suggests Uruguayans increasingly view legal cannabis as a convenience purchase rather than a political or cultural statement; home cultivation, once a symbol of the reform's grassroots ethos, now accounts for less than nine percent of registered users. Pharmacy prices rose in stages through 2025 and into early 2026, but demand has kept climbing. The strongest strain available, Epsilon (up to 20 percent THC), accounts for roughly 75 percent of pharmacy sales.