MEGAN JANETSKY

A boy stands on the bumper step of a paddy wagon holding undocumented Haitians detained by immigration officials, in Dajabon, Dominican Republic, Friday, May 17, 2024. As violence and political turmoil grip neighboring Haiti, the Dominican Republic will hold elections Sunday that have been defined by calls for more crackdowns on migrants and finishing a border wall dividing the countries. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
What’s next for a crackdown on Haitian migrants as the Dominican Republic leader enters a new term?
After Dominican President Luis Abinader coasted into a second term over the weekend, he promised that “the best is yet to come.”
 
Relatives and friends carry the coffin that contain the remains of man slain in a mass shooting, into a church for a funeral service in Huitzilac, Mexico, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. The shooting in the mountain township beset by crime just south of Mexico City resulted in several deaths, authorities said Sunday. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Mexico’s cartel violence haunts civilians as the June 2 election approaches
Cartel violence haunted the central Mexican town of Huitzilac days after a mass shooting claimed the lives of eight men. The shooting coincides with a larger wave of violence leading up to Mexico’s June 2 election.
 
A political billboard with a message that reads in Spanish: "Better health coverage for the most vulnerable sectors", promotes the candidacy of incumbent President Luis Abinader, who is running for reelection, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Haiti’s crisis rises to the forefront of elections in neighboring Dominican Republic
As soaring violence and political turmoil grip neighboring Haiti, the Dominican Republic will hold elections Sunday that have been defined by calls for more crackdowns on migrants and finishing a border wall dividing the countries.
 
Presidential candidate Jose Raul Mulino, of the Achieving Goals party, celebrates after winning on the day of the general electing in Panama City, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Last-minute candidate José Raúl Mulino wins Panama’s presidential election
José Raúl Mulino, the stand-in for former President Ricardo Martinelli in Panama’s presidential election, is on his way to becoming the new leader of the Central American nation.
 
FILES - This combination of two file photos shows Xochitl Galvez, at left, arriving to register her name as a presidential candidate on July 4, 2023 in Mexico City, and at right, Claudia Sheinbaum at an event that presented her as her party's presidential nominee on Sept. 6, 2023 in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, Files)
Candidates spar in Mexico’s first presidential debate ahead of June 2 election
In Mexico’s first presidential debate ahead of June 2 elections, former Mexico City Mayor and frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum appeared comfortable with her lead, remaining calm amid ex-Senator Xóchitl Gálvez’s personal attacks.
 
Coco nibbles on a blade of grass in a National Palace courtyard, in Mexico City, Thursday, March 4, 2024. Nineteen feral cats have free rein of Mexico's National Palace, long roaming the gardens and historic colonial halls of the most iconic buildings in the country. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
A new declaration in Mexico gives 19 cats roaming the presidential palace food and care fur-ever
Feral cats have long wandered the gardens and elegant halls of Mexicos’ presidential palace. But this week the 19 palace felines made history when the government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared them to be “living fixed assets.”
 
Police stand guard at the entrance of the penitentiary where former Vice President Jorge Glas is being held, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Saturday, April 6, 2024. Ecuadorian police broke through the external doors of the Mexican Embassy in Quito, Friday evening, to arrest Glas, who had been residing there since December. (AP Photo/Cesar Munoz)
Ecuadorian police broke into Mexico’s embassy, sparking outrage. Why is this such a big deal?
On Friday night, diplomatic relations between Mexico and Ecuador dramatically imploded after Ecuadorian police burst into Mexico’s embassy in Quito and arrested Jorge Glas, Ecuador’s former vice president. What has provoked such fierce outrage?
 
Peru's President Dina Boluarte shows her jewelry during a press conference at Government Palace in Lima, Peru, Friday, April 5, 2024. Authorities are investigating on whether she illegally received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, luxury watches and jewelry. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
Peru’s president interrogated by prosecutors for hours amid expanding ‘Rolexgate’ probe
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte has begun testifying to prosecutors on Friday after authorities said the president possesses jewelry including Rolex watches and received cash transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
 
Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who faces a government ban on her running for office, leaves after giving a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. The main Venezuelan opposition coalition said early Tuesday that electoral authorities didn’t let it register its presidential candidate Corina Yoris as the deadline ended. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan opposition coalition able to register provisional candidate after electoral outcry
Venezuela’s main opposition coalition says that the country’s government allowed them to register a provisional candidate for the upcoming presidential elections.
 
A coloring book featuring Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is for sale outside the presidential palace in Mexico City, Thursday, March 14, 2024. Despite not being eligible to run for reelection in the upcoming June 2 presidential vote, López Obrador looms larger than any of the candidates competing for the helm of Mexico’s government. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Hats, T-shirts and dolls reflect outgoing Mexican president’s outsized presence in upcoming election
Souvenirs bearing the image of 70-year-old Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sell like T-shirts at a Taylor Swift concert.
 
Lolling with bright blue mats, sleeping masks and travel pillows, people lie sprawled out at the base of the iconic Monument to the Revolution to take a nap, in Mexico City, Friday, March 15, 2024. Dubbed the “mass siesta,” the event was in commemoration of World Sleep Day. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Hundreds of people in Mexico City stretch out for a ‘mass nap’ to commemorate World Sleep Day
Those walking through the milling streets of downtown Mexico City were greeted with a strange and sleepy sight.
 
Brine evaporates in pools at the lithium extraction plant facilities of the SQM Lithium company near Peine, Chile, Tuesday, April 18, 2023. In the “lithium triangle” – a region spanning Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – native communities sit upon a treasure trove of the stuff: an estimated trillion dollars in lithium. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Native groups sit on a treasure trove of lithium. Now mines threaten their water, culture and wealth
In the “lithium triangle” — a region spanning Argentina, Chile and Bolivia — native communities sit upon an estimated trillion dollars in lithium.
 
Women play their drums as they march against gender-based violence marking International Women's Day, in Mexico City, Friday, March 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Aurea del Rosario)
Facing historic shifts, Latin American women bathe streets in purple on International Women’s Day
Women across Latin America are bathing their city streets in purple in commemoration of International Women’s Day at a time when gender rights advocates in the region face both historic steps forward and setbacks.
 
FILES - This combination of two file photos shows Xochitl Galvez, at left, arriving to register her name as a presidential candidate on July 4, 2023 in Mexico City, and at right, Claudia Sheinbaum at an event that presented her as her party's presidential nominee on Sept. 6, 2023 in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, Files)
Mexico is about to have its biggest election ever. Here’s what to know
Campaigning formally starts on Friday for the biggest election in Mexico’s history. Voters will choose the country’s president, along with the 628 seats in Congress and thousands of local posts _ more than 20,000 positions overall.
 
FILE - Migrants gather in Necocli, Colombia, a stopping point for migrants taking boats to Acandi which leads to the Darien Gap, Oct. 13, 2022. The flow of thousands of migrants daily through the migratory highway, the Darien Gap, has been cut off following the Feb. 26, 2024 capture in Necoclí of some boat captains who had been ferrying the migrants to the starting point of their jungle trek. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)
Migration through the Darien Gap is cut off following the capture of boat captains in Colombia
The flow of thousands of migrants daily through the treacherous migratory highway, the Darien Gap, has been cut off following the capture of a number of boat captains who had been ferrying the migrants to the starting point of their jungle trek.
 
FILE - Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega poses for a photo during the ALBA Summit at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. Nicaragua’s government has shut down the country’s scouting organization and seven other nongovernmental organizations, state media La Gaceta reported Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, the latest in an ongoing crackdown that has seen the government toss out religious orders, charities and civic groups. (Adalberto Roque, Pool Photo via AP, File)
UN experts accuse Nicaragua’s government of abuses ‘tantamount to crimes against humanity’
A panel of U.N.-backed human rights experts has accused Nicaragua’s government of committing “serious systematic human rights violations, tantamount to crimes against humanity.”
 
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, left, accompanied by his wife Gabriela Rodriguez, wave to supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace in San Salvador, El Salvador, after polls closed for general elections on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. El Salvador President Bukele and his New Ideas party have won the supermajority the leader needs in Congress to govern as he pleases, electoral officials announced Monday, Feb. 19. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)
El Salvador’s Bukele wins supermajority in Congress after painstaking vote count
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and his New Ideas party have won the supermajority the leader needs in Congress to govern as he pleases.
 
A family member shows a phone photo of Juana Guadalupe Recinos, who was detained last year during the government's crackdown on its war against drugs, in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. Police detained Recinos on a charge of “illegal gathering” as she walked to work leaving her two sons motherless for more than a year. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
The president jailed 1% of El Salvador’s population. Their children are paying the consequences
El Salvador’s social services agency says more than 40,000 children have had one parent or both detained in President Nayib Bukele’s nearly two-year war on gangs.
 
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, left, accompanied by his wife Gabriela Rodriguez, wave to supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace in San Salvador, El Salvador, after polls closed for general elections on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele takes aim at critics in looking ahead to 2nd presidential term
El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele is savoring what appears to be a landslide presidential reelection victory. And he’s railing against the press and international critics.
 
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who is seeking re-election, shows his ballot before voting in the general election in San Salvador, El Salvador, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Salvadorans celebrating expected reelection of ‘world’s coolest dictator’ as their president
Salvadorans are packing the capital’s central square to celebrate the expected reelection of Nayib Bukele as president even before any official results from Sunday’s election have been announced.
 
In this frame grab taken from video provided by Canal Once, Amanda, right, the first-ever drag queen to host a news program for Mexican TV, interviews magistrate Ociel Baena, the first openly nonbinary person in Latin America to hold a judicial position, on the “La Verdrag” news program, in Mexico City, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. Baena was found dead on Nov. 13, 2023, next to their partner in their home in the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes. (Canal Once via AP)
Meet the newscaster in drag making LGBTQ+ history in Mexican television
From its inception, the newscast La Verdrag was meant to radically transform the way LGBTQ+ community are viewed in Mexican society.
 
Supporters of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele campaign for his re-election outside a shopping mall in San Salvador, El Salvador, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. El Salvador will hold a presidential election on Feb. 4. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
El Salvador’s Bukele has everyone’s attention as he seeks reelection in spite of the constitution
To many, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is a national hero who took on the country’s violent gangs with an unrelenting hand.
 
El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa, who is running for re-election as the running mate of President Nayib Bukele, arrives for an interview at his office in San Salvador, El Salvador, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. El Salvador will hold its presidential election on Feb. 4. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
El Salvador VP acknowledges mistakes in war on gangs but says country is ‘not a police state’
Félix Ulloa, temporarily on leave as El Salvador’s vice president while he runs for reelection alongside Nayib Bukele, has denied accusations that their administration has made undemocratic moves to consolidate power.
 
Adolfo Voorduin, left, and Nancy Martinez embrace during a rally by members of the LGBTQ+ community to protest the murder of transgender activist Samantha Gomes Fonseca in Mexico City, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. Gomes was shot in Mexico City Sunday. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Wave of transgender slayings in Mexico spurs anger and protests by LGBTQ+ community
Authorities in Mexico say at least three transgender people were killed in the first two weeks of 2024, and rights groups are investigating two additional such cases.
 
Police present to the press arrested men who the police identify as the previous day's attackers on the TC Television station, at police headquarters in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. No one was killed in Tuesday’s attack and authorities say 13 attackers were arrested and would be charged with terrorism. (AP Photo/Cesar Munoz)
Ecuador hunkers down for a government war on drug gangs after attack during live TV newscast
Schools and stores are shuttered, many people stayed home and soldiers are roaming the streets of Ecuador’s biggest cities after armed gang members invaded a television station live afternoon newscast.
 
FILE - El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele greets supporters after he presented himself as the presidential candidate for the New Ideas Party in his bid for reelection, in San Salvador, El Salvador, Oct. 27, 2023. Bukele's administration launched a new Internet voting system in January 2024, for Salvadorans living abroad, boosting access for people who previously had to cast their vote by mail. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)
Votes by El Salvador’s diaspora surge, likely boosting President Bukele in elections
A record-breaking 51,226 Salvadorans living abroad voted in El Salvador’s upcoming presidential election in the first three days after the country opened overseas electronic voting for the first time, two electoral officials confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
 
A drug cartel has attacked a remote Mexican community with drones and gunmen, rights group says
A human rights group says a small community in the violence-torn Mexican state of Guerrero has been attacked by drones and armed men from a drug cartel.
 
Migrants camp outside the Church of Santa Cruz y La Soledad in Mexico City, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Mexico and Venezuela restart repatriation flights amid pressure to curb soaring migration to U.S.
Mexico and Venezuela say they have restarted repatriation flights of Venezuelans migrants in Mexico. Saturday’s announcement is the latest move by countries in the region to take on a flood of people traveling north to the United States.
 
FILE - In this May 2, 2019 photo released by the Miraflores Press Office, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, right, accompanied by his Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, waves upon his arrival to Fort Tiuna, in Caracas, Venezuela. Venezuelan military officials said Saturday, Dec. 30, 2023, that they will continue to deploy nearly 6,000 troops until a British military vessel sent to neighboring Guyana leaves the waters off the coast of the two South American nations. (Jhonn Zerpa/Miraflores Press Office via AP File)
Venezuela says troops will stay deployed until British military vessel leaves waters off Guyana
Venezuela says it will continue to deploy nearly 6,000 troops until a British military vessel sent to neighboring Guyana leaves the waters off the coast of the two South American nations.
 
Banners promoting the Miss Universe Pageant hang from a building in downtown San Salvador, El Salvador, Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. El Salvador hosts the 72nd Miss Universe Beauty Pageant. The pageant is the latest spectacle touted by President Nayib Bukele in his efforts to change the reputation of his historically violence-torn nation. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
El Salvador’s Miss Universe pageant drawing attention at crucial moment for president
The Miss Universe competition hosted by El Salvador is the latest spectacle touted by President Nayib Bukele in his efforts to change the reputation of his historically violence-torn nation.
 
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