The Associated Press

Residents of five small gold-mining villages in southern Peru’s Arequipa region struggled to salvage belongings Tuesday after landslides caused by strong rains killed at least 12 people and dragged mud, water and rocks that turned precarious homes and other buildings into rubble.

Hundreds of years ago the Indigenous group, the Nahuas, believed that a hairless dog, the Xoloitzcuintle, was a sacred creature who could guide its deceased master through the underworld. “Xolos,” as they’re known, were the focus of a recent museum exhibition in Mexico City honoring the breed.

Avocados sell for as much as $2.50 apiece in the United States, so a single crate holding 40 is worth $100, while an average truckload is worth as much as $80,000 to $100,000. Mexico supplies about 92 percent of U.S. avocado imports, sending north over $3 billion worth of the fruit every year.

The Maya Train is intended to drive economic development to some of the country’s poorest areas, in part by bringing up to three million tourists each year. But one section crosses the Calakmul jungle, part of the Mayan jungle, the largest tropical forest in the Americas after the Amazon.

Brazilian lawmakers on Wednesday voted to reelect the heads of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, bolstering President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s prospects for passing legislation and governing in the polarized nation.

Jamaica’s prime minister said his government is willing to send soldiers and police officers to Haiti as part of a proposed multinational security assistance deployment. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and U.N. special envoy for Haiti Helen La Lime have backed the idea.

Pressed by Peru’s embattled president to take action in response to weeks of deadly protests, Congress narrowly agreed on Monday to reconsider a proposal to move the 2026 national elections up to this October.

Health authorities in Mexico issued an alert Wednesday over an internet “challenge” in which groups of students at three schools in Mexico have taken tranquilizers vying to see who can stay awake longer.

A U.S. government study has determined that with little room on the island for large-scale solar farms or wind generators, Puerto Rico should aim to reach its clean-energy goals by installing solar panels on all suitable rooftops, along with airports, brownfields, and industrial areas.

The search for a motive behind the shooting at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance hall that has left 11 dead led police to a mobile home community as they probed the past of the 72-year-old suspect Monday and his relationship to the club.

Peru indefinitely closed its famed ancient ruins of Machu Picchu on Saturday in the latest sign that anti-government protests that began last month are increasingly engulfing the South American country.

U.S. authorities handed over a key suspect in the 2014 disappearance of 43 college students to Mexico, after the man was caught trying to cross the border on December 20 without proper documents.

Mexico’s president said Wednesday his government will consider a plea by imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to be returned to Mexico, presumably to serve out his sentence.

Two former Fox executives went on trial Tuesday, accused of bribing South American soccer officials for TV rights to one of the continent’s biggest annual tournaments and using information gathered in the process to help the network’s winning World Cup broadcast bid.

Puerto Rico announced Sunday that it plans to privatize electricity generation, a first for a U.S. territory facing chronic power outages as it struggles to rebuild a crumbling electric grid.

The mayor of Mexico City announced Thursday that 6,060 National Guard officers will be posted in the city’s subway system after a series of accidents that officials suggested could be due to sabotage.

Protests against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte’s government that have left 48 people dead since they began a month ago spread through the south of the Andean country on Wednesday with new clashes reported in the tourist city of Cusco.

The Biden administration is under growing pressure from leftists in Latin America as well as U.S. lawmakers to expel Jair Bolsonaro from a post-presidential retreat in Florida following his supporters’ brazen attack on Brazil’s capital over the weekend.

As thousands of children were taken from their parents at the southern border during a Trump administration crackdown on illegal crossings, a federal public defender in San Diego set out to find new strategies to go after the longstanding deportation law fueling the family separations.

Authorities in Puerto Rico arrested Randy Ortiz Acevedo of the popular reggaetón duo Jowell & Randy on domestic violence charges after a judge on Monday ruled there was sufficient evidence against the singer.

Brazilian authorities vowed Monday to protect democracy and punish thousands of supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed and trashed the nation’s highest seats of power in chaos with striking similarities to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.