The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20240515053636/https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Latin America

Youth perform a street dance style known as passinho for their social media accounts, in the Rocinha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The passinho, or “little step”, created in the 2000s by kids in Rio’s favelas, was declared an “intangible cultural heritage” by state legislators, bringing recognition to a cultural expression born in the sprawling working-class neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Brazilian dance craze created by young people in Rio’s favelas is declared cultural heritage

The passinho is a Brazilian dance style created in the 2000s by kids in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. And it has been declared an “intangible cultural heritage” of the state of Rio, bringing recognition to a cultural expression born in the working-class neighborhoods.
 
A vendor waits for customers at the central market for fruit and vegetables in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina reports its first single-digit inflation in 6 months as markets swoon and costs hit home

 
Argentina President Javier Milei speaks during a ceremony to commemorate Holocaust and Heroism Day, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina will get next installment of bailout as IMF praises Milei’s austerity policies

 
FILE - Girls holding hands are led past a burnt car blocking the street as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 2, 2024. As young Haitians are increasingly exposed to violence, the country is undergoing a wider push to dispel a long-standing taboo on seeking therapy and talking about mental health. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)

Violence is traumatizing Haitian kids. Now the country’s breaking a taboo on mental health services

 
Emergency workers work the scene of a fatal bus crash carrying laborers that overturned Tuesday morning, May 14, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP)

Driver of pickup that collided with farmworker bus in Florida, killing 8, is arrested on DUI charges

 

11 people die in shootings in small town in southern Mexico state of Chiapas, prosecutors say

Authorities in Mexico say 11 people have been killed by shootings in a small town in the southern of Chiapas.
 
State workers Flavia, center, and Lia Pesaresi, right, protest the policies of President Javier Milei outside Congress, including the layoffs of some of their colleagues in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, April 12, 2024. Milei's government has cut 15,000 state jobs over the past three months amid austerity measures. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In progressive Argentina, the LGBTQ+ community says President Milei has turned back the clock

A quota law in Argentina that promotes the inclusion of transgender people in the workforce has helped many find jobs, including a former sex worker who was hired in the country’s Foreign Ministry.
 

4 Dominicans are accused of smuggling wildlife and throwing 113 birds overboard to their deaths

Officials say four men from the Dominican Republic have been indicted in Puerto Rico on charges of smuggling wildlife in a case involving more than 100 dead birds.
 
Image

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake wakes people on the Mexico-Guatemala border

A strong earthquake has shaken the border of Mexico and Guatemala driving frightened residents into the streets. The temblor struck just before 6 a.m.
 
FILE - Migrants cross a river during their journey through the Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama, hoping to reach the U.S., Oct. 15, 2022. President-elect José Raúl Mulino said Thursday, May 9, 2024, he will shut down the migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

Panama’s next president says he’ll try to shut down one of the world’s busiest migration routes

Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the U.S. border.
 

Mass shooting causes deaths in crime-ridden township on southern edge of Mexico City, officials say

Authorities in Mexico say a mass shooting in a mountain township beset by crime just south of Mexico City resulted in several deaths.
 
Smoke from wildfires blankets the city as a couple has a picnic in Edmonton, Alberta, Saturday, May 11, 2024. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

Wildfire in Canada’s British Columbia forces thousands to evacuate. Winds push smoke into Alberta

Canadian authorities are urging all remaining residents in a town in British Columbia to leave immediately, despite improving weather conditions, after thousands were evacuated due to a fast-growing wildfire.
 

8 people were killed in a shooting attack at a bar in Ecuador, local police say

Police say eight people have been killed in a shooting attack on a birthday party in a bar in Ecuador, which has suffered an escalating wave of gang-fueled violence.
 
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)

Flooding forecast to worsen in Brazil’s south, where many who remain are poor

More heavy rain has started coming down in Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state. Many of those remaining on Saturday are poor people with limited ability to move to less dangerous areas.
 
FILE - Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, right, and then Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, greet supporters at a rally in Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo, July 1, 2019. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s ruling party presidential candidate, slipped up during a campaign speech Friday, May 10, 2024, and said López Obrador was motivated by “personal ambition,” but later acknowledged the phrase “could be misinterpreted.” In Mexico it is used to describe a desire for personal economic gain. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

Mexico’s ruling party presidential candidate slips, says outgoing leader led by ‘personal ambition’

Mexico’s ruling party presidential candidate slipped up during a campaign speech Friday and said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was motivated by “personal ambition,” but later acknowledged the phrase could have been misinterpreted.
 
Maria del Carmen Ayala Vargas, who said her son Ivan Pasrtana Ayala disappeared in 2021, attends the annual National March of Searching Mothers, held every Mother's Day in Mexico City, Friday, May 10, 2024. Her sign reads in Spanish, "I'm not looking for those to blame, but for my son." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Mother’s Day is a sad reminder for the mothers of Mexico’s over 100,000 missing people

Hundreds of mothers of missing people, other relatives and activists have marched through downtown Mexico City to mark a sad commemoration of Mother’s Day.
 
Police officers leave the home of Nicanor Boluarte, the brother of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, in Lima, Peru, Friday, May 10, 2024. Prosecutors arrested the president's brother for allegedly being part of a group that trafficked influence by appointing officials in exchange for money and forcing them to collect signatures to register a political party, according to the Attorney General’s Office. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Police arrest brother and lawyer of Peru’s president over alleged influence peddling

Peruvian authorities have arrested President Dina Boluarte’s brother and her lawyer over influence-peddling accusations.
 
Paramedics transport injured commuters after two trains collided in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A train in central Buenos Aires strikes a boxcar on the track, injuring dozens

Authorities in Argentina say at least 90 people were injured in Buenos Aires when a passenger train struck an empty box car on the tracks and derailed.
 
FILE - Grupo Frontera arrives at the Latin American Music Awards in Las Vegas on April 20, 2023. Regional Mexican music has become a global phenomenon, topping music charts, breaking streaming records and reaching new audiences as it crosses borders. Their sophomore album “Jugando Que No Pasa Nada" releases on Friday. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Grupo Frontera’s hybrid Mexican music went global. On a new album, their genre-melding has no limits

A lot can happen in two years. Just ask Grupo Frontera, who released their highly anticipated sophomore album, “Jugando Que No Pasa Nada,” Friday.
 
A dog, evacuated from an area flooded by heavy rains, looks out over a gate at a shelter in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Inside a makeshift shelter saving hundreds of dogs from floods in southern Brazil

Hundreds of volunteers have set up a makeshift dog shelter in an abandoned, roofless warehouse in the Brazilian city of Canoas, one of the hardest hit by floods in southern Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.
 
Footprints create the shape of a heart in a snow-covered rugby field in Santiago, Chile, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

AP Week in Pictures: Latin America and Caribbean

May 3-9, 2024

A rare snowfall blankets Chile’s capital, Madonna’s biggest-ever concert turns Rio’s Copacabana beach into a dance floor, and floods continue to ravage Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.
 

The CDC issues a report about infections from stem-cell treatments in Mexico

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a report about three cases of infections apparently linked to stem-cell treatments American patients received in Mexico.
 

Guyana says it gave permission for the US military to fly 2 powerful jets over the capital

Guyana’s government says it gave permission for the U.S. military to fly two powerful F/A-18F Super Hornet jets over its capital to demonstrate the close military and other forms of cooperation between this oil-exporting South American nation and the United States.
 
Firefighters use a raft to transport a horse after rescuing it from a roof, where it was trapped for days amid flooding, after heavy rain in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Wesley Santos)

Caramelo, the Brazilian horse stranded on a roof by floods, is rescued after stirring the nation

A horse that was perilously stranded on a rooftop by Brazil’s deadly floods has been rescued. The horse nicknamed Caramelo was one of many animals rescuers have tried help.
 
Women carry digging tools at the site where their search team said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. At left is Jacqueline Palmeros who has been searching for her disappeared daughter since 2020 in Mexico City, and at right is María de Jesús Soria whose daughter disappeared in Veracruz in 2016, and whose remains were turned over to her in 2022. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Mexico’s president accuses press and volunteer searchers for missing people of ‘necrophilia’

The administration of Mexico’s president has accused the press and volunteer searchers who look for the bodies of missing people of “necrophilia.”
 
Trains stand idle at the Retiro train station due to a general strike against the reforms of President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Argentina labor unions’ 24-hour strike against President Milei paralyzes daily life

Argentina’s biggest trade unions have mounted one of their fiercest challenges to the libertarian government of President Javier Milei.
 

Puerto Rico declares state of emergency as persistent rains unleash heavy flooding and landslides

Puerto Rico has declared a state of emergency following heavy rains, widespread flooding and landslides in the U.S. territory. One person is reported missing. Gov.
 
FILE - Ramon Fonseca speaks during an interview at his office in Panama City, April 7, 2016. Fonseca, a partner in the Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of the “Panama Papers” scandal over the hiding of wealth in offshore entities, has died, a lawyer from his firm confirmed Thursday, May 9, 2024. He was 71. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco, File)

Ramón Fonseca, partner in firm at center of “Panama Papers” scandal, dies

Ramón Fonseca, a partner in the Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of the “Panama Papers” scandal, has died.
 
Paralympian fencer Vanderson Chaves poses for a photo in the gym where he trains, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Just days before he started decisive competitions to secure his spot at the Paris Paralympics, his apartment was inundated, losing all his gear, medals, trophies and his passport. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Paralympian loses medals and equipment in Brazilian floods but is improvising to qualify for Paris

Vanderson Chaves has faced many challenges in more than a decade as a Paralympic fencer but none as fearsome as the massive floods in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.
 
Edgard Leblanc Fils, left, and Smith Augustin prepare to pose for a group photo with the transitional council after it named Fils as its president in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. The transitional council will act as the country’s presidency until it can arrange presidential elections sometime before it disbands, which must be by February 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Transitional council in Haiti embraces new changes following turmoil as gang violence grips country

A transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for Haiti is changing the way it operates in a move that is surprising many as gang violence consumes the country.
 

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.
 
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

Prices in Argentina have surged so dramatically in recent months that the government has multiplied the size of its biggest bank note by five — to 10,000 pesos, worth about $10.
 

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 - 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

Spanish state prosecutors have recommended that an investigating judge shelve a probe into another alleged case of tax fraud by pop star Shakira.
 
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

Mexico has begun requiring visas for Peruvians in response to a major influx of migrants from the South American country.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.