CONGRESS-HOMELAND SECURITY

WASHINGTON — Congress passes a one-week bill to avert a partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, as leaders in both political parties quell a revolt by House conservatives furious that the measure left President Barack Obama's immigration policy intact. 

MEXICO-DRUG LORD CAPTURED

MEXICO CITY — Mexico gets another big score in its recent tear through the list of most-wanted drug lords, yet no one expects the capture of the boss of the once terrorizing Knights Templar cartel will lower drug trafficking or violence. It will just change the landscape. By Christopher Sherman and Katherine Corcoran.

PRESIDENTIAL RACE-BUSH

OXON HILL, Maryland — Likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was trying to walk a political tightrope at a big gathering of conservatives, trying to woo them while also distancing himself from their role in a clash in Washington that threatened homeland security funding.

MEXICO-ATTORNEY GENERAL

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's embattled attorney general, Jesus Murillo Karam, is leaving the post to take a new cabinet-level job as head of urban and rural development. 

UNITED STATES-CUBA

WASHINGTON — The United States and Cuba claim progress toward ending a half-century diplomatic freeze, suggesting they could clear some of the biggest obstacles to their new relationship within weeks. 

BRAZIL-POLICE KILLINGS

RIO DE JANEIRO — Rio de Janeiro's police department says its homicide division will start investigating "resistance killings," or slayings by officers who say that victims died in shootouts while resisting arrest.

VENEZUELA-UNREST

CARACAS, Venezuela — Students and opposition leaders are pressuring Venezuela to roll back a new regulation authorizing police to fire on protesters following the death of a 14-year-old boy at the hands of a police officer. 

COLOMBIA-SPYING SCANDAL

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia's Supreme Court convicts two close aides of former President Alvaro Uribe for organizing a spying ring that illegally intercepted the communications of some of the conservative leader's top opponents. 

ARGENTINA-STRASSERA OBIT

BUENOS AIRES — Julio Cesar Strassera, the prosecutor who won conviction against leaders of Argentina's dictatorship and coined the term "Nunca mas," or "Never again," to describe the repressive period, has died at age 81.