Latin America

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Faustino López was terrified after his wife, Angélica, was hospitalized with the coronavirus last month.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela said Wednesday that the two nations, both under increasing U.S. pressure, are exercising their right to trade freely in a deal that includes shipping the South American nation five tankers of gasoline to relieve deep shortages.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A registry of death certificates in Mexico City suggests there were 4,577 cases where doctors mentioned coronavirus or COVID-19 as a possible or probable cause of death, more than three times the official death toll in the city.

Ofelia Fernández is the youngest lawmaker in Latin America. Despite online hate, she’s leading the youth movement for the political rights of women.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Beyond the hot spots of Brazil and Mexico, the coronavirus is threatening to overwhelm Latin American cities stretching from Chile to the Colombian Amazon in an alarming sign that the pandemic may be only at the start of its destructive march through the region.

MIAMI (AP) — AT&T said Tuesday it will immediately ditch Venezuela’s pay TV market as U.S. sanctions prohibit its DirecTV platform from broadcasting channels that it is required to carry by the socialist administration of Nicolás Maduro.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s fight with the other two branches of government continued Tuesday amid the COVID-19 pandemic after he suffered another defeat at the constitutional court and threatened to veto legislation passed overnight by the congress.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Ten more Guatemalans deported from the United States last week have tested positive for COVID-19 upon their return.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Local governments across Mexico pushed back Monday against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s call to reopen the economy in some 300 townships that do not have active cases of coronavirus, with leaders saying they preferred to wait until June before resuming normal activities.

“Adopt a Grandparent” urges volunteers to help senior citizens if they need safe support.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro greeted hundreds of supporters —and joined some in a series of push-ups— who gathered before the presidential offices Sunday to back his open-the-economy drive even as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the country.

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — In the remote Amazon community of Betania, Tikuna tribe members suspect the coronavirus arrived this month after some returned from a two-hour boat trip down the Solimoes River to pick up their government benefit payments.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has imposed some of the hemisphere’s toughest measures against the new coronavirus: closing his country’s borders, imposing a national quarantine and dispatching police and the army to detain violators.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Three Guatemalans deported from the United States this week tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon arrival in their country, Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry said Friday.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s health minister resigned Friday after less than a month on the job in a sign of continuing upheaval over how the nation should battle the coronavirus pandemic, quitting a day after President Jair Bolsonaro stepped up pressure on him to expand use of the antimalarial drug chloroquine in treating patients.

A 2018 court ruling to legalize gay marriage is set to take effect on May 26. Some lawmakers are criticizing moves to delay its implementation.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — As Mexico moves toward a gradual reactivation of its economy Monday, the number of new coronavirus infections grows higher every day, raising fears of a new wave of infections that other countries have seen after loosening restrictions.

With verite style filmmaking, the short pokes a little fun at the tourism industry, its tourists, while looking at the deep equities that exist in the Colombian city, where the underprivileged cater to the rich and no questions are asked—it’s the norm.

Mexico reported 353 new deaths, and Brazil reporter 881.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaragua released more than 2,800 prisoners Wednesday, one day after the death of an inmate who reportedly had suffered from respiratory problems and while the government maintained there was no local spread of the coronavirus in the country.

Even before COVID-19, infectious disease spread rapidly among Salvadoran prisoners.