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Latin America

Cars sit on a submerged road in an area flooded by heavy rain in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Southern Brazil is still reeling from massive flooding as it faces risk from new storms

Authorities in southern Brazil are rushing to rescue survivors of massive flooding that has killed at least 100 people, but some residents are refusing to leave belongings behind while others are returning to evacuated homes despite the risk of new storms.
 
File - A worker counts money at a grocery store in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 21, 2023. Prices have surged so dramatically that the government has multiplied the size of its biggest banknote in circulation to 10,000 peso note, five times the value of the previous biggest bill, according to the central bank on May 8, 2024, and the new bill is expected circulate in June. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

With inflation soaring, Argentina will start printing 10,000 peso notes

 
FILE - Colombian performer Shakira leaves court in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. Spanish state prosecutors have recommended that an investigating judge shelve a probe into another alleged case of tax fraud by pop star Shakira. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu Parra, File)

Spanish prosecutors recommend 2nd investigation into Shakira’s taxes be thrown out

 
Volunteers carry an elderly man rescued from an area flooded by heavy rain in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)

Too much water, and not enough: Brazil’s flooded south struggles to access basic goods

 
Peruvian Julia Paredes, left in white hat, listens to instructions from a Border Patrol agent with others seeking asylum as they wait to be processed after crossing the border with Mexico nearby, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Boulevard, Calif. Mexico has begun requiring visas for Peruvians in response to a major influx of migrants from the South American country. The move follows identical ones for Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Brazilians, effectively eliminating the option of flying to a Mexican city near the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Mexico tightens travel rules on Peruvians in a show of visa diplomacy to slow migration to US

 
In this image taken from video, Australia's Debra Robinson with her husband Martin, address the media on the beach in San Diego, Tuesday, May 7, 2024 following the deaths in Mexico of their two sons during a surfing trip. The sons, Callum and Jake, and U.S. friend Jack Carter Rhoad, were allegedly killed by car thieves in Baja California, across the border from San Diego, somewhere around April 28 or 29. (Channel 9/POOL via AP)

Mother of Australian surfers killed in Mexico gives moving tribute to sons at a beach in San Diego

The mother of two Australian surfers killed in Mexico has delivered a moving tribute to her sons at a beach in San Diego.
 

Mexico hit by hours of rolling blackouts due to high temperatures and low power generation

Mexico has been hit by hours of rolling blackouts late Tuesday due to high temperatures and temporary drops in electrical power generation.
 
FILE - Tim McCanon, center, is rescued by the Community Fire Department during severe flooding on Friday, May 3, 2024, in New Caney, Texas. In a world growing increasingly accustomed to wild weather swings, the last few days and weeks have seemingly taken those environmental extremes to a new level. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

From flooding in Brazil and Houston to brutal heat in Asia, extreme weather seems nearly everywhere

In a world growing increasingly accustomed to wild weather swings, the last few days and weeks have seemingly taken those environmental extremes to a new level.
 
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Ramiro Martinez Alvarado, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pose for a group photo at the National Palace in Guatemala City, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Blinken is in Guatemala for a two-day visit where he will attend a regional meeting on irregular migration. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Western Hemisphere nations pledge to continue coordinating response to historic regional migration

Representatives from 22 Western Hemisphere countries gathered in Guatemala have renewed their commitment to continue offering legal pathways to enter their countries, to provide aid to communities most affected by migration and to coordinate their response to manage immigration flows.
 

Nicaragua cancels a controversial Chinese interoceanic canal concession after nearly a decade

After nearly a decade, Nicaragua’s congress has finally canceled a controversial canal concession granted to a Chinese businessman that critics said endangered the environment and threatened to displace rural communities.
 
Presidential candidate Jose Raul Mulino, of the Achieving Goals party, shakes hands with supporters after winning the general election, in Panama City, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Panama’s new president-elect, José Raúl Mulino, was a late entry in the race

In a historic and tumultuous election in Panama, José Raúl Mulino has landed in the role of president-elect despite not even expecting to be the candidate a few months ago.
 
Madonna performs in the final show of her The Celebration Tour, on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Madonna’s biggest-ever concert transforms Rio’s Copacabana beach into a massive dance floor

The performance was the last show of The Celebration Tour, her first retrospective, which kicked off in October in London.
 
In this image made from video, Mexico's police officers stand guard at the Ensenada station in Ensenada, Mexico, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Mexican authorities said Thursday they have found tents and questioned a few people in the case of two Australians and an American who went missing over the weekend in the Pacific coast state of Baja California. (AP Photo)

Mexican officials say 3 bodies recovered in Baja California during search for 3 missing foreigners

Mexican authorities say three bodies have been recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend.
 

13 killed as heavy rains unleash landslide in Haiti, force planes near Puerto Rico to land elsewhere

Officials say at least 13 people died in northern Haiti following two days of heavy rains. Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency says the majority of deaths were caused by a landslide in the southeastern region of the coastal city of Cap-Haitien.
 

Families claim Americans are ‘unjustly detained’ in Turks and Caicos for possession of ammunition

The families of four Americans charged in Turks and Caicos for carrying ammunition continued to claim on Thursday that their loved ones were “unjustly detained” on the island awaiting legal proceedings.
 
People evacuate a flooded area after heavy rain in Sao Sebastiao do Cai, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)

Southern Brazil has been hit by the worst floods in more than 80 years. At least 39 people have died

The civil defense agency in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul says heavy rains have killed 39 people, with another 68 still missing.
 
Brazilian singer Catia de Franca, 77, belts out a tune at a warehouse converted into a venue for independent artists in Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 19, 2024. It took almost half a century for de França to find her audience. Her belated fame largely reflects a revival taking place in Brazil, where vinyl records outsold CDs and DVDs for the first time last year. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

AP Week in Pictures: Latin America and Caribbean

April 16 - May 2, 2024

Brazilian singer Catia de Franca performs her blend of psychedelic rock with traditional rhythms and modernist poetry.
 
Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks at the International Workers' Day march in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Petro on Wednesday described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” and announced his government would end diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombia breaks diplomatic ties with Israel but its military relies on key Israeli-built equipment

Colombia has become the latest Latin American country to announce it will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its military campaign in Gaza.
 
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Death toll from heavy rains in southern Brazil jumps to 29, with 60 more still missing

The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state has jumped to 29, with another 60 people missing, according to the state’s civil defense agency.
 
Residents walk past a burnt car blocking the street as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood the morning after an attack amid gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Gangs in Haiti launch fresh attacks, days after a new prime minister is announced

Gangs in Haiti have laid siege to several neighborhoods in the capital, burning homes and exchanging gunfire with police for hours in one of the biggest attacks since Haiti’s new prime minister was announced.
 

Police say 5 people died in Mexico from drinking a poison potion in a Santeria ‘power’ ritual

Police in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca say five people have died after drinking a poison potion in a Santeria ‘power’ ritual.
 
Israeli soldiers gather near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel before they enter Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Colombia’s president says country will break diplomatic relations with Israel over war in Gaza

Colombian President Gustavo Petro says his government will break diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday in the latest escalation of tensions between both countries over the Israel-Hamas war.
 

Heavy rains in Brazil’s south kill at least 10 people, leave 21 missing, civil defense says

Heavy rains in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state have killed at least 10 people and left 21 missing since Monday.
 
FILE - Cargo ships wait in Panama Bay before moving through the Panama Canal in Panama City, Sept. 23, 2023. The climate phenomenon known as El Niño — and not climate change — was a key factor driving low rainfall that disrupted shipping at the Panama Canal, scientists said Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco, File)

Study says El Nino, not climate change, was key driver of low rainfall that snarled Panama Canal

A study says the climate phenomenon known as El Nino and not climate change was a key driver in low rainfall that disrupted shipping at the Panama Canal last year.
 

Armed men storm a hospital in central Mexico, killing a patient

Armed men burst into a hospital in central Mexico and killed a patient who was being treated for a previous gunshot wound.
 
Colombia's President Gustavo Petro speaks during a press conference flanked by Colombia's Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez at the Narino Presidential Palace in Bogota, Colombia, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Petro said thousands of grenades and bullets have gone missing from army bases. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombia’s president says thousands of grenades and bullets have gone missing from army bases

Colombian President Gustavo Petro says that hundreds of thousands of pieces of ammunition have gone missing from two military bases in the South American country.
 
IDENTIFIES TRANSITIONAL COUNCIL MEMBERS - Transitional Council members, from left to right; Fritz Alphonse Jean, Laurent Saint-Cyr, Frinel Joseph, Edgard Leblanc Fils, Regine Abraham, Emmanuel Vertilaire, Smith Augustin, Leslie Voltaire and Louis Gerald Gilles, pose for a group photo after a ceremony to name its president and a prime minister in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Fils was chosen as the president of the panel. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Haiti’s transitional council names a new prime minister in the hopes of quelling stifling violence

Haiti’s newly installed transitional council has chosen a little known former sports minister as the Caribbean country’s prime minister, as it tries to establish a stable new government amid stifling violence.
 
FILE - Argentina's President Javier Milei speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the National Harbor, in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

This fiery economist became Argentina’s president railing against politicians. Now he’s wooing them

Argentina’s lower house has voted to approve a dramatically downsized version of President Javier Milei’s economic overhaul package, known as the omnibus bill.
 
FILE - Pemex oil workers set the drill on the Centenario deep-water drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Veracruz, Mexico, Nov. 22, 2013. The 1938 nationalization of Mexico's oil sector from U.S. and British companies is a point of pride for millions of Mexicans.(AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)

Mexico proudly controls its energy but could find it hard to reach its climate goals

Mexico’s taking control of its oil from U.S. and British companies is taught in schools and celebrated every year.
 
This image shows the front page of the March 19, 1938, edition of The El Paso Times with an AP story, "Mexico Seizes U.S., British Oil Interests." Mexico took control of its most precious natural resource by seizing the oil sector from U.S. companies in 1938, in a move that's taught starting in first grade today and celebrated each year as a great patriotic victory. (The El Paso Times via AP)

AP WAS THERE: Mexico’s 1938 seizure of the oil sector from US companies

Mexico took control of its most precious natural resource by seizing the oil sector from U.S. companies in a move that’s taught to schoolchildren and celebrated as a great patriotic victory.
 
FILE - Argentina's national soccer team coach Diego Maradona attends a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009. A medical examiner's report into the death of Maradona injected uncertainty Monday, April 29, 2024, into a case of criminal negligence brought against eight medical workers involved in his care, raising new questions just a month before the staffers are set to stand trial for homicide. (AP Photo/Carlos Hernandez, File)

A medical report on soccer legend Maradona’s death aims to undercut homicide case against medics

A medical examiner’s report into the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona has injected uncertainty into the criminal negligence case brought against those involved in his care.
 
FILE - El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks to the press at Mexico's National Palace in Mexico City, March 12, 2019. Authorities confirmed on April 17, 2024 that Bukele released the father of a Salvadoran soccer player Marcelo “El Chiky” Díaz from prison after the athlete from Salvador's national team published a plea for his release on social media, saying his father was wrongfully arrested as a suspected gang member on the way to see him play. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

El Salvador’s congress approves changes to reform constitution, a move critics call anti-democratic

El Salvador’s Congress, which is controlled by President Nayib Bukele New Ideas party, approved a change to an article of the Constitution to facilitate larger constitutional reforms without having to wait until after the election of a new legislature.
 

A Colombian army helicopter has crashed in a rural area of the country’s north, killing 9 soldiers

Nine members of Colombia’s military lost their lives when their helicopter crashed in a rural area of northern Colombia.
 

Luxury jewelry maker Cartier doesn’t give stuff away, but they pretty much did for one man in Mexico

Luxury jewelry maker Cartier isn’t known for giving stuff away, but in the case of one Mexican man, they pretty much did.
 
FILE - Uruguay's former President Jose Mujica, left, and his wife Lucia Topolansky enter La Moneda presidential palace for a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the military coup that toppled the government of late President Salvador Allende in Santiago, Chile, Sept. 11, 2023. Mujica announced on April 29, 2024, that he has esophageal cancer after a tumor was detected during a medical check-up. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File)

Iconic former Uruguayan President José Mujica is diagnosed with esophageal cancer

José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay known for his bold socially liberal agenda, says he has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
 
FILE - This combination of two file photos shows Xochitl Galvez, left, arriving to register her name as a presidential candidate on July 4, 2023, in Mexico City, and Claudia Sheinbaum, right, at an event that presented her as her party's presidential nominee on Sept. 6, 2023, in Mexico City. The two women, considered the frontrunners in Mexico's presidential election, discussed social spending and climate change in the race's second debate Sunday, April 28, 2024, which also included Jorge Álvarez Máynez. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Mexico’s presidential candidates discuss social spending, climate change in 2nd debate

Mexico’s leading presidential candidate repeatedly touted the social programs of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and walked a fine line between supporting the national oil company and promising a clean energy transition in the second debate ahead of the June 2 election.
 
The presidential candidate of Achieving Goals, Jose Raul Mulino, addresses supporters during a campaign rally in Panama City, Sunday, April 28, 2024. Panama will hold general elections on May 5. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Panama’s leading presidential candidate is a late entry promising a return to better times

The leading candidate to be Panama’s next president is a last-minute stand-in who promises to return the Central American country to a boom time that experts say will be difficult to recapture.
 
Journalist Gustavo Gorriti poses for a portrait at his home in Lima, Peru, Friday, April 26, 2024. Gorriti, 75, is one of Latin America’s most storied journalists with more than four decades of investigative reporting that exposed high-level abuse of power in Peru and abroad. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Renowned Peruvian investigative reporter battles criminalized smear campaign — and cancer

One of Latin America’s most storied journalists, Gustavo Gorriti has endured death threats from drug traffickers, survived Peru’s harrowing Shining Path insurgency and a kidnapping by silencer-toting military intelligence agents during a 1992 presidential power grab.
 

Mexican journalist is slain south of Mexico City, spurring outrage among colleagues

Mexican journalists are protesting a day after one of their colleagues was killed in the southern state of Morelos.
 
People light candles during a vigil for three police officer in front of Chile's police headquarters in Santiago, Chile, Saturday, April 27, 2024. Armed assailants ambushed and killed three law enforcement officers in southern Chile on Saturday before setting their car on fire, authorities said. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Assailants ambush and kill 3 police officers in southern Chile, shaking the country

Authorities say armed assailants have ambushed and killed three law enforcement officers in southern Chile before setting their car on fire.