LOS ANGELES TIMES

A trip to Mexico's Museum of Drugs

The museum, which is used to educate soldiers and is closed to the public, offers powerful testimony to the inventiveness and huge resources that traffickers continue bringing to the fight.

REUTERS

U.S. presses on Panama, Colombia deals

Panama has made "very good progress" on labor issues blocking U.S. approval of a free trade agreement, but needs to do more to address U.S. concerns over its tax laws, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said on Tuesday.

GLOBAL ATLANTA

State Dept. Official: Free Trade Agreements More Likely Under Obama

With a Democrat in the White House, free trade agreements are more likely to win Congressional approval, expanding foreign markets for U.S. companies, Charles S. Shapiro, a senior U.S. State Department official and former ambassador to Venezuela told GlobalAtlanta.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Flu is injecting itself into Mexican politics

The slumping economy and the bloody drug war had been Mexican voters’ top worries ahead of midterm elections in July. Then the mysterious A(H1N1) virus gave Mexicans the scare of their lives and made those who did not end up in a hospital bed — or a grave — feel fortunate.

THE WASHNGTON POST

Mexico raced to build flu testing laboratory

The staff was overwhelmed. The director was sleeping only a few hours a night. The telephones kept ringing and ringing as thousands of saliva samples from sick patients were rushed in. But the national testing laboratory was unable to identify a deadly new strain of swine flu

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Conservative candidate wins in Panama

Panamanians elected a conservative, pro-business candidate as their new president Sunday - signaling their hope for a new alternative as the Central American nation's once-booming economy cools.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Latin America appears to warm to IMF

With Ecuador hit hard by the worldwide economic crisis, the government has quietly resumed talks with IMF officials, mirroring a trend in Latin America as one country after another overlooks the fund's sometimes ignominious reputation in the region to seek its assistance.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Obama defends greeting Venezuela's Hugo Chávez

Rebuffing criticism of the warm greetings he exchanged with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, President Obama said today that the United States, with its overwhelming military superiority and need to improve its global image, can afford to extend such diplomatic "courtesy."

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Obama Defends Reaching Out to Chávez

President Obama, facing criticism at home for appearing too cozy with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, defended his overtures on Sunday, saying the handshakes and polite conversation the two leaders shared here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Rising expectations on Cuba follow Obama

A day after President Obama pledged a new future in Washington’s relations with Cuba, Latin American leaders insisted at a summit meeting in Trinidad that the future is now.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Race a dominant theme at Summit

In presenting himself at a summit here as an equal partner to Latin America, President Obama is drawing on his race as evidence of U.S. social progress and of his own affinity for the region's poor.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Obama urges 'equal' ties in hemisphere

President Obama was forced to confront long-standing resentment of U.S. dominance of Latin America as he told regional leaders here Friday evening that his administration seeks an "equal partnership" with the rest of the hemisphere.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

U.S., Mexican leaders tiptoe around major issue

The relationship between Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox started promisingly in 2001 with talk of a U.S.-Mexico plan to reform the U.S. Immigration system. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks, and there was little appetite for aiding foreigners living in the United States illegally.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

U.S.-born migrants struggle in Mexican schools

Juan Maldonado is suffering the same culture shock as many other children of Mexican immigrants: He's out of place at school and hasn't mastered the language. The difference? The U.S.-born Maldonado feels like an outsider in Mexico.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Mayors on front line of Mexico's drug war

Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz has received public death threats. The city's police chief had resigned after a similar warning.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

In Mexico, a distant link in a chain of tragedy

A reporter abroad trusted his colleagues. Now, a murder charge has him wondering how well he really knew them.

THE WASHINGTON POST

The emerging secrets of Guatemala's disappeared

For years the national police dumped millions of old files in a onetime munitions depot inhabited by bats. About two weeks ago, authorities opened the door to the warehouse, stacked floor to ceiling with musty papers. Now Guatemalans are using the documents to search for information about loved ones murdered or disappeared in the long dirty war against critics of security forces.

KCJA

The Dominican Senate said it will investigate allegations by three local journalists who claim they were intimidated by a senator who they reported was under investigation for health insurance fraud in the United States, EFE reports.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Mexico the new dental destination

Americans flock to Mexican border town that takes bite out of high prices found in U.S. clinics

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Mexico's butterfly reserve alights in the soul

Millions of the orange-and-black monarchs travel from the United States and Canada each winter to reach this rural corner of Michoacan state, in southwestern Mexico.