Northeast Brazil has its own distinct Carnaval

The Victorious Lion troupe, a collection of middle-aged Brazilian men wearing unwieldy and colorful costumes, banged their drums to the...

Mexico prison brawl ends with 44 killed

Dozens of inmates were killed Sunday in a fierce brawl inside a Mexican prison, authorities said, the latest lethal incident in Latin...

Mexico female presidential candidate Vazquez Mota embraces role

Reporting from Mexico City -- "I will be the first woman president of Mexico."

Honduras report bolsters criticism of prison system

The prison where more than 350 inmates died in a fire this week was packed with more than three times the number of prisoners it was built...

Honduras' deadly prison fire stirs furor

Angered by a prison fire in Honduras that officials say killed more than 350 trapped inmates, rights advocates on Wednesday decried...

Venezuela turnout shows hunger for peace, Henrique Capriles says

Fresh from a sweeping victory in the Venezuelan opposition's joint primary, Henrique Capriles declared Monday that the larger-than-...

Venezuela's Henrique Capriles will face Hugo Chavez in race

Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles easily won Sunday's primary vote to become the single challenger against President...

Venezuela votes to determine Hugo Chavez's challenger

Turnout is likely to be a key factor in a primary Sunday that will decide who challenges President Hugo Chavez in an election this fall,...

Brazil arrests strike leaders to halt police work stoppage in Rio

In an attempt to stop the spread of chaos throughout the country one week before Carnival, Brazil on Friday arrested leaders of a police...

In Latin America, Chinese cars are gaining buyers

Mexico arrests Sinaloa drug cartel's reputed enforcer

Mexican authorities have arrested a reputed enforcer for the country's most powerful drug cartel, a man also alleged to have amassed weapons...

Critics say Mexico bicentennial tower a monument to its failings

If Mexico's bicentennial tower knew what people were saying, it might slink off and hide (if 341 feet of stone could skulk, that is).

The eclectic sounds of Rodrigo y Gabriela

Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero came to this beach resort seeking a fresh start after realizing that their Mexico City metal band...

Brazil's poor seem left behind in growth spurt, observers say

Two children ran through the rubble, ducking under smoke pouring from a building that was still burning. Everywhere were signs that people...

Colombia attacks blamed on alliances of rebels with criminals

An exquisite Mexico beach, cursed by plastic

Just off a rutted dirt road, a beach as white as flour pops into view from behind a wall of sea grape and rustling palms. Pelicans slice...

Brazil buildings collapse; at least 4 dead, 18 missing

Rescue workers in Brazil searched for survivors Thursday after three large buildings collapsed in downtown Rio de Janeiro, killing at...

Mexico City's parking space holders in a tight spot

They stand at the curb, waving a red rag like an urban matador. "Hay lugar, hay lugar!" they call to passing motorists. ("There's space.")

Tracking down Colombia's missing manhole covers

The clue that cracked the case of Bogota's vanishing manhole covers came from a GPS chip embedded in one of the strangely coveted items.

In Mexico, false suicide reports shine light on Tarahumara plight

It took false reports of mass suicide for Mexicans to rally in great number to the aid of the legendary Tarahumara Indians, who are facing a...

Mexico government sought to withhold drug war death statistics

Six months before a presidential election that his party is widely expected to lose, President Felipe Calderon is on the defensive about the...

Trying to get back to the only life he knew

The freight train slowed through downtown and screeched to a stop in front of Luis Luna. He scrambled under a boxcar and climbed onto narrow...

On his stroll toward Mexico's presidency, Pena Nieto stumbles

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...

Brazil finally ready to confront abuses in past dictatorship

Vera Paiva has spent four decades trying to find out what happened to her father after he was arrested in 1971 during Brazil's military...

Former drug kingpin pleads guilty to racketeering, conspiracy

Reporting from San Diego -- Former drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal racketeering and money-...

Will the year 2012 be an apocalyptic game-changer?

There are years that are remembered for changing the course of human history:1492. 1776. 1945.

Mexico seeks to fill drug war gap with focus on dirty money

Tainted drug money runs like whispered rumors all over Mexico's economy — in gleaming high-rises in beach resorts such as Cancun, in...

Tacos Clarita seeks to rekindle the flame of success

The grill is sizzling by the time Clarita Trujillo of Tacos Clarita steps onto the sidewalk. She's got her apron on, her lips painted red,...

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...

35 bodies dumped on street in Mexico

Gunmen dumped the bodies of 35 people with suspected ties to organized crime under an overpass filled with motorists Tuesday on the...

Suspicion in Mexico's Sinaloa cartel

Last of four parts

Guatemala ex-general's tough-on-crime stand resonates with voters

Four years ago, former army Gen. Otto Perez Molina promised voters to employ a mano dura, or firm hand, to end Guatemala's crime...

2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet

A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-...

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...

U.S. to require more gun-buyer information in border states

As a backlash mounts over the government's failed Fast and Furious gun-tracing operation, the Justice Department will begin requiring...

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...

U.S. AK-47s linked to Mexican attorney's slaying

A congressional investigation into a controversial federal gun-running surveillance operation is moving to Mexico this week amid new reports...

Al Schwimmer dies at 94; founder of Israel's aerospace industry

Al Schwimmer, a former aircraft engineer who smuggled American planes to Israel for its 1948 war of independence, founded its aerospace...

Mexican priest alleges mass kidnapping of Central American migrants

A Roman Catholic priest who has long championed the cause of migrant workers denounced on Monday what he said was another mass kidnapping of...

Leonora Carrington dies at 94; a leading figure of the Surrealist movement

Reporting from Mexico City -- She painted eerie rituals with cloaked figures in forests, dancing deer with trees growing from their backs,...

In Mexico City, crowds protest drug violence

Bearing white balloons and fake bloodstains, tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded Mexico City's historic downtown Sunday to call for...

Rene Emilio Ponce dies at 64; Salvadoran general blamed for killing of six priests during civil war in 1989

Reporting from San Salvador and Mexico City -- Rene Emilio Ponce, the once-powerful army general blamed for one of the most egregious...

Mexican president wants to do away with local police

Amid a bloody war against drug cartels, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday that he was sending Congress a plan to overhaul the...

There's no plan in sight for Haiti's homeless

Reconstruction of this earthquake-crippled nation hangs on a simple, potentially explosive question: Who owns the land?

In Mexico, a dividing line on 'El Infierno'

It doesn't take long for Benjamin Garcia — "El Benny" — to get sucked into hell.

Determined federal prosecutor targets the Tijuana cartel

Mexico's crackdown on organized crime is working, Calderon says

Fresh off this week's capture of a notorious drug lord, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared Wednesday that his sustained assault on...

Successful Tijuana security chief's job at risk

He is the rare Mexican lawman feared by organized crime. Tijuana's secretary of public security has chased out major drug traffickers,...

Unraveling Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel

First of four parts

Flying high for the Sinaloa drug cartel

John Charles Ward would take flight in the half-light before dawn, when he could race down the runway without...

The strands of the Sinaloa drug cartel web

Second of four parts