The Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — The plan was simple, but perilous. Some 300 heavily armed volunteers would sneak into Venezuela from the northern tip of South America. Along the way, they would raid military bases in the socialist country and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicolás Maduro’s arrest.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rioting inmates at a prison in the northern state of Amazonas held seven guards hostage for several hours Saturday, protesting against the suspension of all visits in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A 5.4-magnitude earthquake hit near southern Puerto Rico on Saturday, briefly knocking out power and jolting many from their beds on an island where some people still remain in shelters from previous quakes earlier this year. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In Brazil’s bustling Amazon city of Manaus, so many people have died within days in the coronavirus pandemic that coffins had to be stacked on top of each other in long, hastily dug trenches in a city cemetery. Some despairing relatives reluctantly chose cremation for loved ones to avoid burying them in those common graves.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A planeload of 89 Guatemalan deportees that arrived Thursday all tested negative for the coronavirus before boarding their flight from Texas, Guatemalan officials said Thursday.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday suspended immigration court hearings for asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico through June 1, bowing to public health concerns while extending a state of limbo those locked down in Mexican migrant shelters.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — One of Mexico’s best-known protest singers, Óscar Chávez, died Thursday at age 85 after being infected with the coronavirus.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico is taking its first tentative steps in relaxing a nearly two-month lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic, while health experts warn that the U.S. territory is relying on faulty statistics and has not yet seen its peak of cases.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has finalized an agreement with Honduras that would allow some people seeking asylum in the United States to be sent to the Central American country instead.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s government has failed to tap into millions of federal dollars set aside for the island as a growing number of unemployed parents struggle to feed their children in a U.S. territory where nearly 70% of public school students are poor.

NEW YORK (AP) — Every afternoon, Sandra Pérez and Francisco Ramírez go over their list of fellow New Yorkers who need help because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some are sick. Others lost jobs, but have children to feed. Others are elderly or disabled. All are immigrants, like them.

PHOENIX (AP) — The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has sued the federal government over its denial of coronavirus relief payments to U.S. citizens who are married to immigrants without social security numbers.

HOUSTON (AP) — Two guards at an immigration detention center in Louisiana have died after contracting the coronavirus, raising new questions about whether the U.S. government is adequately protecting 30,000 immigrants in custody and the staff guarding them.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Sealing some Salvadoran prisoners’ cells with sheet metal is a draconian measure sure to draw accusations of human rights violations, but President Nayib Bukele circulated photos of the cell modifications himself, counting on the support of a population traumatized by gang violence.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro yielded Wednesday to growing criticism around his nomination of a new federal police chief seen as too close to his family, revoking the controversial appointment just hours after it was temporarily suspended by the Supreme Court.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s government has not only failed to enforce laws that protect its indigenous peoples and their communal lands, but is actively promoting illegal land grabs and granting concessions to mining and timber companies, according to a report released Wednesday.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Prisoners in Peru staged a riot to protest their precarious living conditions following the deaths of several fellow inmates from the new coronavirus, but the revolt in itself proved fatal, with nine prisoners winding up dead, authorities said.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — As Brazil careens toward a full-blown public health emergency and economic meltdown, President Jair Bolsonaro has managed to add a third ingredient to the toxic mix: political crisis. Even if it doesn’t speed his downfall, it will render Brazilians more vulnerable to the pandemic.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top advisers to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign are forming an outside political group to support the candidate who beat him in the Democratic primary, Joe Biden, hoping to push the former vice president to the left on key issues and boost his appeal with young voters, Latinos and others who often shunned him in favor of Sanders.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of many of Latin America’s household maids, leaving them without work or government assistance or effectively trapping them inside the homes of their employers because of government-ordered lockdowns.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil is emerging as potentially the next big hot spot for the coronavirus amid President Jair Bolsonaro’s insistence that it is just a “little flu” and that there is no need for the sharp restrictions that have slowed the infection’s spread in Europe and the U.S.