The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Migrants attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border at the highest level in two decades as the U.S. prepares for even larger numbers with the expected lifting of a pandemic-era order that turned away asylum seekers.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The logjam of trucks at the U.S.-Mexico border finally began breaking Thursday after nearly a week as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott eased off his latest dramatic action over immigration that has gridlocked some of the world’s busiest trade ports and taken a mounting economic toll.

Authorities are investigating the cause of death this week of a Mexican woman whose leg was entrapped while using a climbing harness and ended up hanging upside down on the border wall in eastern Arizona.

One of the busiest trade ports on the U.S.-Mexico border remained effectively closed Wednesday as frustration and traffic snarls mounted over orders by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requiring extra inspections of commercial trucks as part of the Republican’s sprawling border security operation.

Some National Civilian Police commanders in El Salvador have been pressuring their officers to meet daily arrest quotas as part of the government’s crackdown on street gangs that have yielded more than 10,000 arrests, a police union said Tuesday.

Analysts in Mexico said Monday that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s successful push to hold the weekend’s recall vote could, paradoxically, leave Mexico’s democracy weaker. His Morena party used illegal, old-style electioneering tactics to get out the vote for what was a largely symbolic vote.

Fewer than two of every 10 eligible Mexican voters bothered to cast ballots Sunday on whether their popular president should end his six-year term barely midway through or continue to the end, according to the National Electoral Institute’s initial statistical estimate.

More than a million customers in Puerto Rico remained without electricity on Thursday after a fire at a main power plant caused the biggest blackout so far this year across the U.S. territory, forcing it to cancel classes and shutter government offices.

El Salvador’s Congress, pushing further in the government’s dramatic crackdown on gangs, has authorized prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for news media that reproduce or disseminate messages from the gangs, alarming press freedom groups.

Cuban boxers will be allowed to fight professionally for the first time since the 1960s under a deal with a Mexican promoter, officials said.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for new police officers and soldiers, President Nayib Bukele said that if the gangs “unleash a wave of crimes, we are going to cut off food in the prisons.”

The ground shook at the instant the voice of Mexican music star Alejandro Fernández collided with the deafening cheers of fans gathered for his first concert in Venezuela in over a decade. Prominent artists are returning to stages in the South American country this year after leaving it out of tours for years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that it is ending a policy that limited asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The government said it was already making plans to erect tents and take other steps to prepare for an expected influx of migrants.

More than a dozen migrants excitedly ran out of their dormitory at the Good Samaritan shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico at the mere mention that the Biden administration may lift a rule that expels people at the border before they can request a chance at humanitarian protection in the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is expected to end the asylum limits at the U.S.-Mexico border by May 23 that were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to people familiar with the matter.

Security forces intensified operations against El Salvador’s street gangs Tuesday with mass arrests, the cordoning off of neighborhoods and house-by-house searches under a state of emergency that has raised concerns among some organizations it could open the door to human rights abuses.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Pedro Castillo, Peru’s embattled president, avoided joining the South American nation’s list of impeached leaders as opposition lawmakers Monday night failed to get enough votes to remove him from office eight months into his term.

Federal immigration authorities announced Friday that they’ll stop housing detainees at an Alabama jail with a history of problems and will limit the use of three other detention centers.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress granted President Nayib Bukele’s request to declare a state of emergency early Sunday amid a wave of gang-related killings over the weekend.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday brushed off comments by a senior U.S. military official who said there are more Russian spies in Mexico than anywhere else in the world.

A San Diego appeals court judge who is the daughter of Mexican immigrants was confirmed Tuesday as the first Latina to serve on the California Supreme Court. Patricia Guerrero, 50, grew up in the agricultural Imperial Valley and has worked as prosecutor, law firm partner and Superior Court judge and is on the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal.