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Latin America

Footprints create the shape of a heart in a snow-covered rugby field in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

An unusual autumn freeze grips parts of South America, giving Chile its coldest May in 74 years

Chileans are bundling up for their coldest autumn in more than 70 years mere days after sunning in T-shirts.
 
Argentina's President Javier Milei gestures as he presents his book "El camino del libertario" in Madrid, Spain, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Argentine president begins unusual visit to Spain, snubbing officials and courting the far-right

 
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)

Haiti is seeking a new prime minister. Dozens of candidates jostle for the key job

 
Commuters wait to board a subway car, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, May 17, 2024. Argentine commuters in Buenos Aires on Friday were hit by an abrupt 360% increase in subway fares, as part of President Javier Milei's budget austerity campaign. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Subway commuters in Buenos Aires see fares spike by 360% as part of austerity campaign in Argentina

 
A member of the LGBTQ+ community holds up a sign with a message that reads in Spanish: "Nothing to cure", during a protest against a decree following a decision by the Ministry of Health classifying transgenders as mentally ill, in Lima, Peru, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Protesters rally in Peru against decree classifying seven gender identities as “mental illness”

 

In Brazil’s flooded south, a secret mission to recover thousands of guns from an airport

A group of volunteers working to save people from the floods in southern Brazil have claimed they were misled into participating in an operation to remove several thousand firearms from the airport of Rio Grande do Sul state’s capital Porto Alegre.
 
Gloria Esperanza Reyes makes her monthly offering of flowers and sugarcane syrup to Yemaya, the Yoruba goddess of the sea, in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. She also is venerated as Our Lady of Regla, a Black Madonna at a Catholic church across the Bay of Havana. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Afro-Cuban drums, Muslim prayers, Buddhist mantras: Religious diversity blooms in once-atheist Cuba

The 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro installed an atheist, Communist government that sought to replace the Catholic Church as the guiding force in the lives of Cubans.
 
FILE - Migrants begin their journey north in hopes of reaching the U.S. border, in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, April 23, 2023. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo met Friday, May 17, 2024, in this Mexican border city to tackle issues of shared interest, foremost among them immigration. (AP Photo/Edgar Hernandez Clemente, File)

Mexican and Guatemalan presidents meet at border to discuss migration, security and development

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo were meeting Friday in this Mexican border city to tackle issues of shared interest, foremost among them immigration.
 

A mayoral candidate and 5 other people killed in gunfire at a campaign rally in southern Mexico

A mayoral candidate and five other people have been killed in a shooting at a campaign rally in the violence-wracked southern Mexico state of Chiapas.
 
An improvised altar with photos of Evarado Ventura Hernández stands at his relatives' house in Agua Del Sol, Oaxaca, Mexico, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Ventura Hernandez was one of eight farmworkers, all from Mexico, killed in a bus that overturned Tuesday morning in Florida. (AP Photo/Maria Alferez)

Families of Mexican farmworker bus crash victims mourn the loss of their loved ones

Families are mourning the loss of their loved ones from a bus crash in Florida earlier this week. Officials say eight Mexican farmworkers were killed after 41-year-old Bryan Howard sideswiped a bus carrying about 53 farmworkers, where the bus veered off the road and rolled over.
 
A girl plays a jump rope game at a school housing residents displaced by gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

AP Week in Pictures: Latin America and Caribbean

May 10-16, 2024

As young Haitians are increasingly exposed to violence, the country is undergoing a wider push to dispel a long-standing taboo on mental health services teaching parents how to put a smile on their children’s faces.
 
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters gathered in Sabana de Mendoza, Venezuela, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Edmundo González Urrutia became the opposition Unitary Platform's candidate for president after Machado, who won the opposition's presidential primary in 2023, and her handpicked alternative were banned from registering for the July 28 election. (AP Photo/Regina Garcia Cano)

Venezuela’s barred opposition candidate is now the fiery surrogate of her lesser-known replacement

At an intersection packed in four directions, rally-goers scream and light up cellphones in the evening as Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado climbs onto a flatbed truck like a presidential candidate.
 
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister following their talks in Kyiv on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski, Pool Photo via AP)

State Department removes Cuba from short list of countries deemed uncooperative on counterterrorism

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has removed Cuba from the State Department’s short list of countries deemed as not cooperating as much as they could in counterterrorism efforts.
 
Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

What to know about a bus crash that killed 8 Mexican farmworkers in Florida

A bus carrying people to work in a watermelon field in central Florida was sideswiped by a suspected drunk driver and overturned in a field, killing eight of them and injuring up to 40 others.
 
Guatemalan journalist Jose Ruben Zamora, founder of El Periodico newspaper, arrives to court in handcuffs for a hearing in Guatemala City, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Zamora has been jailed for almost two years and seeks his release. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Guatemalan court orders release of journalist jailed for nearly 2 years on money laundering charges

A Guatemalan court has ordered the release of journalist José Rubén Zamora, jailed for nearly two years on money laundering charges.
 
FILE - Migrants heading north ride arrive to Lajas Blancas, Darien province, Panama, Oct. 6, 2023, after walking across the Darien Gap from Colombia. A U.N. report says child migration through Panama’s dangerous Darien Gap is up 40% so far in 2024. UNICEF, the U.N. child welfare agency said Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco, File)

Child migration through Panama’s dangerous Darien Gap is up 40%, UN report says

A U.N. report says child migration through Panama’s dangerous Darien Gap is up 40% so far this year.
 

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.
 
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

Government data in Argentina says the country’s monthly inflation rate has eased sharply to a single-digit rate in April for the first time in half a year.
 

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.
 
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

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

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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.