Latin America

To drivers on the George Washington Bridge, Martín Morales probably looked like just another weekend warrior in his windbreaker and bicycle helmet, out for a ride in the suburbs across the river from New York City.

Around 620 indigenous people live in this UNESCO-recognized biome, spread out in six different villages in a five-acre territory. They continue to struggle to maintain their language, traditions and rituals.

The mandate comes as Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives investigates members of Vázquez’s COVID-19 taskforce for a since-canceled contract worth $38 million for rapid testing kits.

The men appear so chummy that the Mexican president, who has not traveled outside his country since taking office nearly 18 months ago, is talking about visiting his U.S. counterpart.

Trump tweeted the decision to “stop immigration” late Monday night, calling the spread of the coronavirus an “invisible enemy.”

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. pressed Mexico on Tuesday to reopen border assembly plants that are key to the U.S. supply chain, including defense contractors, as more employees staged walkouts and protests at the facilities because of fears over the coronavirus.

Health Ministry Undersecretary Paula Daza said that 4,600 people have recovered from the deadly virus.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president acknowledged Monday that drug cartels have been handing out aid packages during the coronavirus pandemic, and called on them to stop.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — Four days after firing his health minister amid the coronavirus pandemic, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Monday he wants social isolation policies to end nationwide this week despite commitments by many states to maintain such policies.

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Sixteen migrants from several countries have tested positive for coronavirus in Mexico’s northern border state of Tamaulipas, the state government said Monday.

Remittances shelter a large number of poor and vulnerable households, underpinning the survival strategies of over 1 billion people.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — After more than a week suffering a cough and fever —potential signs of COVID-19— Maria do Espírito Santo went to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil’s biggest city in the Amazon rain forest. There were no beds available, just a plastic chair, so her family took her home.

Public health experts say the death toll could be a result of frequent travel between Spain and Ecuador, exacerbated by a resource-strapped health system.

The low numbers of Venezuela in contrast with its size and population —256 infected in a country of over 27 million— has raised questions about the veracity of the official toll.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro came out in public to support a small protest Sunday that defended military intervention, prompting strong criticism across the political spectrum while also infringing his own ministry’s recommendation to maintain social distancing.

COVID-19 caught the city off guard, and the few treatment options available were squandered and wasted. Guayaquil was the region’s test case for what will happen when low government capacity meets political inertia, disbelief and ineptitude in the face of a pandemic that knows no mercy.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Seated in a wheelchair at one of Peru’s oldest hospitals, 84-year-old Emma Salvador struggled for each breath, aided by an oxygen mask pinching her face. Her son fanned her with folded sheets of paper, wishing he could do more.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Ricans are becoming increasingly disgruntled with how the government is handling the COVID-19 crisis as details emerge, including the death a 29-year-old man who became the U.S. territory’s youngest victim after his father said he wasn’t tested the first two times he sought help at an emergency room.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The Trump administration’s failure to test all but a small percentage of detained immigrants for the novel coronavirus may be helping it spread through the United States’ sprawling system of detention centers and then to Central America and elsewhere aboard regular deportation flights, migrants’ advocates said Friday.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump has promised Mexico will be able to buy 1,000 ventilators and other intensive-therapy equipment used in treating severe cases of COVID-19.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan officials have taken to state TV in recent weeks to crow that the socialist government is conducting more coronavirus tests than any other country in Latin America. But instead of detecting more infections, as has happened elsewhere when testing ramps up, they are reporting fewer.