Latin America News Headlines

COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's top security officials promised Tuesday that a new federal offensive to rescue towns besieged by the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state would stay "until there is security and peace for all state residents."

COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's top security officials gathered Tuesday in the western state of Michoacan to launch a campaign with thousands of army troops to rescue towns besieged, sometimes for months, by the powerful Knights Templar drug cartel.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala's top court has thrown another curve into the genocide case of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, overturning his conviction and ordering that the trial be taken back to the middle of the proceedings.

LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) — Residents of a western Mexico area who endured months besieged by a drug cartel cheered the arrival of hundreds of Mexican soldiers Monday.

MATAMOROS, Mexico (AP) — Just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, stands a dormitory-style shelter filled with people recently deported from the U.S. and other migrants waiting to cross the border.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck off the coast of Chile on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but Chilean officials said it was not felt on land and discarded the possibility that it might unleash a tsunami.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It was just about a day after Argentine strongman Jorge Rafael Videla had seized power in March of 1976, and the bloodletting was already beginning.

GRANDE RIVIERE, Trinidad (AP) — Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening, the turtles inch along the moonlit …

PETARE, Venezuela (AP) — Stern-looking soldiers clutching assault rifles wave down the beat-up Chevy Caprice entering this sprawling slum on the outskirts of Caracas.

HAVANA (AP) — A week of drag shows, colorful marches and social and cultural events in Havana culminates Friday with celebrations of the International Day Against Homophobia.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — An Organization of American States study released Friday is calling for a serious discussion on legalizing marijuana.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power over Argentina in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens in a dirty war to eliminate so-called "subversives," died quietly in his sleep Friday while serving life in prison for crimes against humanity. …

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil plans to modernize and expand its overcrowded ports, attract private investments to the sector and make it easier for companies to hire skilled foreign workers, in a bid to spur economic growth,

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — In a story May 13 about suspects disappearing or dying after being in the custody of the Honduran National Police, The Associated Press misquoted U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield as suggesting that the Honduran armed forces have engaged in vigilantism. In fact, Brownfield …

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A new Organization of American States study commissioned in response to calls by some Latin American leaders for rethinking the drug war discusses possible decriminalization of consumption of marijuana as part of a public health approach.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow Argentines in a war to eliminate "subversives," died Friday while serving life sentences in prison for crimes against humanity.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla has died of natural causes while serving life sentences in prison for crimes against humanity.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans scrambled to stock up on toilet paper Thursday as fears of a bathroom emergency spread despite the socialist government's promise to import 50 million rolls.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Coffee production in Puerto Rico has hit the lowest level ever in the island's history, leaving farmers and government officials worried about how to revive a once burgeoning industry amid a deep economic crisis.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — You can see the streets where he grew up and played soccer, the church where Jorge Bergoglio prayed as a teenager and the cathedral where the man who would become Pope Francis said Mass. You can even visit the stand where he bought his newspapers every weekend and where he went for a hair …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Two million Argentines will get wage hikes of 24 percent under a deal President Cristina Fernandez brokered with six allied labor unions.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's Supreme Court heard opening arguments Wednesday in a landmark abortion case in which a woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus has not been allowed to terminate a pregnancy in which the fetus is given no chance of surviving.