Vice president reassures Venezuelans on leadership

CARACAS, Venezuela — Vice President Nicolas Maduro assured fellow Venezuelans that the government was prepared to hold a...

Economists see painful cuts coming for Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela — As perishable foodstuffs rotted on cargo ships that had waited three weeks to unload at Venezuela's largest port,...

Venezuela vice president faces leadership test

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has kiddingly called Nicolas Maduro "the bus driver" in reference to his...

Venezuela court rules Chavez can skip oath

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled unanimously that cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez does not have to take...

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez's absence raises questions

CARACAS, Venezuela — A group of constitutional law professors on Tuesday said President Hugo Chavez's absence from an oath-taking...

Guatemala official takes on nation's ugly past, violent present

GUATEMALA CITY — She holds one of the most dangerous jobs in this spectacularly dangerous country,...

Venezuela contemplates next move with Hugo Chavez absent

CARACAS, Venezuela — The nerves of Venezuelans are sure to be tested in the coming week as the country seeks answers not only to the...

Mexico considers marijuana legalization after ballot wins in U.S.

MEXICO CITY — Forgive the Mexicans for trying to get this straight:

Ecuador President Rafael Correa begins reelection campaign

QUITO, Ecuador — Glad-handing in Quito's central market, President Rafael Correa on Friday launched his campaign for a third term with...

Venezuela leader Hugo Chavez's status questioned by opposition

CARACAS, Venezuela — Amid rising uncertainty about whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is healthy enough to remain in office,...

Use of torture by authorities has risen in Mexico, groups say

Los Angeles Times

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez said to suffer 'complications'

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is confronting "new complications" due to a respiratory infection nearly three...

In Brazil, a river dam collides with the past

SANTO ANTONIO, Brazil — The wind blows in from the river, mingling with the scent of the day's last meal in the kitchen. The smells of...

Colombia residents want Germany to return stone statues

BOGOTA, Colombia — Nearly a century ago, Konrad Preuss did pioneering work in Colombia's most important archaeological zone, called...

In Mexico, 1,000-year-old mummified dog begs for attention

MEXICO CITY — For nearly 50 years, the mummified remains of a dog believed to have lived 1,000 years ago sat forgotten in a school...

Colombia units use U.S. techniques to bust drug operations

CARTAGENA, Colombia — Under cover of a moonless night in early July, the crew took no more than five minutes to load more than a ton...

In Brazil's cracolandias, roving hordes of lost souls

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Between the high-rises in the dark center of this megacity, a swarm of people covers an entire block. They are...

Peña Nieto team decries past drug cartel strategy — and keeps it

MEXICO CITY — You find the capos of the drug trade, and you arrest them or kill them.

In Honduras, a controversial tycoon responds to critics

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Miguel Facusse has his share of enemies. Even his friends acknowledge that the man who may be the most...

Merida, Mexico, says: Hope to see you after the world doesn't end

MERIDA, Mexico — Contrary to any Hollywood doomsday scenarios or a variety of less-than-optimistic New Age theories, the world will...

Mexican president announces new security force

MEXICO CITY — Mexico will have a new 10,000-member security force that will be deployed to regions of the troubled country where...

In Venezuela, opposition candidate winning a key post

CARACAS — Former opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles appeared to have won reelection as governor of a key Venezuelan...

Alzheimer's-plagued Colombia region is focus of drug trial

YARUMAL, Colombia — The unusually high incidence of early-onset Alzheimer's disease in this isolated cattle town has thrust it to...

In Venezuela, illness could test Hugo Chavez's legacy

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez's announcement Saturday night that his cancer has returned and that he may not be able to...

Brazil's Sao Paulo slums see a return to violence

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Renewed tension between police and Sao Paulo's largest criminal gang are being blamed for a surge in violence in...

U.S. gingerly expands security role in Central America

VILLA NUEVA, Guatemala — Lusvin Jerez has seen, firsthand, the way the U.S. has intervened in the security affairs of his obscure...

A father's long battle for his daughters

Luis Ernesto Rodriguez eyed the metal door as he waited for his little girls. Now 6 and 5 years old, they were his only children,...

Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto assumes presidency amid protests

MEXICO CITY — Enrique Peña Nieto, a 46-year-old career politician and member of Mexico's old-guard political party, Saturday...

Caught in the current of reverse migration

CUATRO MILPAS, MEXICO— In this hardscrabble farming village, an American teenager like Luis Martinez was bound to stand out.

Illegal immigrant deportation flights to Mexico City scaled back

A U.S. pilot program designed to deport illegal immigrants by flying them to Mexico City will operate for only two months this year and...

Mexicans see a losing battle in the war on crooked police

MEXICO CITY — In the midst of a violent drug war, President Felipe Calderon fired crooked cops by the hundreds, and hired new ones...

Oswaldo Paya dies at 60; Cuban anti-Castro activist

Cuban activist Oswaldo Paya, who spent decades speaking out against the communist government of Fidel and Raul Castro and became one of...

Mexico drug war displaces families in Sinaloa highlands

CULIACAN, Mexico — For generations, the extended Hernandez family tended fields of marijuana high in Sinaloa's western Sierra Madre...

Sinaloa cartel, Zetas push Mexico's drug violence to new depths

CULIACAN, Mexico — The cartel henchman nicknamed "El Loco" was reported behind the latest atrocity in Mexico's ever-more-depraved drug...

Colombia rebels' hostage recalls friendship with wild pig

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A little wild pig named Josefo, abandoned by his mother, helped keep Sgt. Jose Libardo Forero sane.

Carlos Fuentes dies at 83; Mexican novelist

If Carlos Fuentes could have invented the perfect character to star in one of his novels, he might have come up with a protagonist named...

Tomas Borge dies at 81; last living founder of Sandinista movement

MEXICO CITY — Tomas Borge, last living founder of Nicaragua's Sandinista movement and one of its most hard-line enforcers as it...

From a Mexican kingpin to an FBI informant

WASHINGTON — Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver...

Miguel de la Madrid dies at 77; former president of Mexico

MEXICO CITY —Former Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid, who led the country amid economic meltdown and natural disaster in the...

Ricardo Legorreta dies at 80; Mexican modernist architect

Ricardo Legorreta, the architect who introduced Mexican modernism to a global audience and who brought his crisp, brightly colored aesthetic...

Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the...

Mexico still waiting for answers on Fast and Furious gun program

Last fall's slaying of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of a Mexican state prosecutor, shocked people on both sides of the border. Sensational...

Suspicion in Mexico's Sinaloa cartel

Last of four parts

FBI report at odds with ATF claim on weapons

The claim by senior ATF officials that none of the weapons lost in the botched Fast and Furious sting operation were used in the shooting of...

'Magú' Luján dies at 70; influential Mexican American artist

Gilbert "Magú" Luján — a painter, muralist and sculptor whose whimsical, slyly humorous art works, frequently evoking a...

ATF sought to downplay guns scandal, emails show

Two days after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry was killed in December, the top ATF supervisors in Phoenix said in internal emails...

Gun-smuggling cartel figures possibly were paid FBI informants

Congressional investigators probing the controversial "Fast and Furious" anti-gun-trafficking operation on the border with Mexico believe at...

Argentine singer killed in Guatemala ambush

Reporting from San Salvador and Mexico City -- Argentine songwriter and singer Facundo Cabral, an icon of Latin American folk and protest...