WASHINGTON (AP) — Teachers unable to get paychecks. Tax and customs systems paralyzed. Health officials unable to access medical records or track the spread of COVID-19. A country’s president declaring war against foreign hackers saying they want to overthrow the government.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A U.N. special envoy warned Thursday that Haiti’s police force needs immediate help to fight crime and violence, noting that gangs have grown so powerful they recently seized control of a local courthouse.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — With jokes, upbeat Caribbean music and vacation scenes of sun-kissed beaches and palm trees, Haitian influencers on YouTube and TikTok advertise charter flights to South America.
LA LIMONERA, El Salvador (AP) — Esmeralda Domínguez was about 100 yards from home when soldiers and police blocked her on a small bridge. The authorities had waited there for hours. Dominguez, neighbors said, was the only person they stopped.
VILLA CLARA, Cuba (AP) — Some of the more than 840 Haitians who tried to reach the United States in a boat but ended up in Cuba said Thursday that they fled violence in their country and were charged thousands of dollars by smugglers who ushered them onto a dilapidated boat and later abandoned them at sea.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress granted a request Wednesday by President Nayib Bukele for a second extension of the country’s anti-gang emergency decree.
The vote extends for 30 more days the state of emergency that was originally issued for one month in late March and then extended in April for another month.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — It was about 6 a.m. when Venique Moïse flung open the door of her house and saw dozens of people running — their children in one hand and scant belongings in the other — as gunfire intensified.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — A ransomware gang that infiltrated some Costa Rican government computer systems has upped its threat, saying its goal is now to overthrow the government.
Perhaps seizing on the fact that President Rodrigo Chaves had only been in office for a week, the Russian-speaking Conti gang tried to increase the pressure to pay a ransom by raising its demand to $20 million.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Haitians are fleeing in greater numbers to the neighboring Dominican Republic, where they board rickety wooden boats painted sky blue to blend with the ocean to try to reach Puerto Rico — a trip in which 11 Haitian women drowned this week, with dozens of other migrants believed missing.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Eight Turkish citizens have been kidnapped in Haiti’s capital, an official told The Associated Press on Monday, apparently the latest in a string of high-profile kidnappings by powerful gangs.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Five human rights groups reported Wednesday there have been complaints of at least 338 violations of human rights during El Salvador's massive arrests of suspected gang members.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Human rights groups on Monday criticized the massive arrests of suspected gang members in El Salvador..
The roundups, begun in late March after a spike in homicides, have resulted in the arrest of over 22,000 presumed gang members.
ORANGE, Calif. (AP) — Federal prosecutors announced a sweeping racketeering case Wednesday aimed at dismantling the leadership of the Mexican Mafia that controlled street gangs in part of Southern California.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress voted Sunday to grant a request by President Nayib Bukele to extend an anti-gang emergency decree for another 30 days.
The measure was approved with 67 votes in the 84-seat congress, where Bukele's party holds a majority.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the government of El Salvador Thursday to respect human rights, after authorities declared a state of emergency and rounded up 14,000 suspected gang members.
SANTA TECLA, El Salvador (AP) — A day after the bloodletting -- 62 gang killings that convulsed El Salvador -- the crackdown began.
Before dawn on Sunday, March 27, just hours after congress approved a state of emergency, heavily armed police and soldiers entered the packed, gang-controlled neighborhood of San Jose El Pino.
BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) — Seven inmates have been charged with killing two fellow prisoners and wounding two others during a January attack at a federal prison in Texas that led to a nationwide lockdown of the federal prison system.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The mass killing that left six people dead and 12 wounded outside bars just blocks from California’s Capitol last weekend was a gunfight involving at least five shooters from rival gangs, Sacramento police said.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The mass killing that left six people dead and 12 wounded outside bars just blocks from California’s Capitol last weekend was a gunfight involving at least five shooters from rival gangs, Sacramento police said Wednesday.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — 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.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s president threatened Tuesday to stop providing food for imprisoned gang members as he continued his crackdown following a wave of killings that led to a state of emergency and implementation of measures that have drawn international condemnation.
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A clash between prison gangs armed with guns and knives left 20 people dead, Ecuadorian officials said Monday, and they announced that they had fully regained control of the penitentiary.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twelve people, including three U.S. Army soldiers, are accused in a large-scale gun trafficking ring that prosecutors allege supplied nearly 100 guns to gang members in Chicago and led to at least two killings, the Justice Department said Friday.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's Congress on Wednesday increased sentences for crimes committed by gang members, expanding on a state of emergency lawmakers granted last weekend as President Nayib Bukele pursues the country's powerful street gangs.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — 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.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitians took to the streets Tuesday to protest rising insecurity, with demonstrations turning violent in the southern city of Les Cayes where people stormed the airport and attacked and burned a small plane owned by a U.S.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The government of El Salvador said Monday it has arrested more than 1,000 gang suspects after a wave of killings over the weekend.
President Nayib Bukele ordered food for gang members held in Salvadoran prisons be reduced to two meals per day, seized inmates’ mattresses and posted a video of prisoners being frog-marched through corridors and down stairs.
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.
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A federal jury will hear opening statements Monday in the trial of a Long Island woman accused of luring four young men to their slaughter by more than a dozen members of the MS-13 street gang.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Last week, phones across Puerto Rico began to ring as members of a private WhatsApp group dedicated to helping others in the U.S. territory stared at their screens in disbelief.
WHEATON, Ill. (AP) — Under penalty of a beating or death, Erik Eck pledged at age 13 to adhere to the Latin Kings' first rule: “Once a King, always a King.” Tattoos that bedeck his entire body express his fealty forever to one of the largest gangs in the U.S.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The governor of Mexico’s Morelos state claimed Monday his predecessor and the previous police chief negotiated with a drug gang.
Gov. Cuauhtémoc Blanco had himself been forced to deny any drug links earlier this month after a 3-year-old photo surfaced showing him posing with three men identified as local drug gang leaders.