OBAMA-SUMMIT

WASHINGTON — White House officials leave open the possibility that President Obama could recommend Cuba's removal from a list of state sponsors of terror around the time of the Summit of the Americas later this week in Panama. The officials also sought to soften tensions with Venezuela that threatened to overshadow the summit. 

VENEZUELA-REGIONAL SILENCE

PANAMA CITY — From Mexico to Brazil, leaders in Latin America have largely kept silent in the face of a crackdown on dissent in Venezuela — and that's unlikely to change at this week's Summit of the Americas. By Joshua Goodman and Peter Orsi. 

PRESIDENTIAL RACE-PAUL

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — Sen. Rand Paul, a favorite of the conservative tea party movement and frequent antagonist of leaders of his own Republican Party, declared Tuesday that he is running for U.S. president "to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government." 

POLICE OFFICER-FATAL SHOOTING

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — A white South Carolina police officer is charged with murder, hours after law enforcement officials viewed a dramatic video that appears to show him shooting a fleeing black man several times in the back. 

OBAMA-CLIMATE HEALTH

WASHINGTON — Global warming isn't just affecting the weather, it's harming Americans' health, President Barack Obama says as he announces steps government and businesses will take to better understand and deal with the problem. By Josh Lederman and Nedra Pickler. 

POWER OUTAGES-WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON — Widespread power outages affected the White House, the Capitol, museums, train stations and other sites across Washington and its suburbs — all because of an explosion at a power plant in the adjoining state of Maryland, an official said. 

UNITED STATES-NORTH KOREA-MISSILES

WASHINGTON — Nuclear-armed North Korea already has hundreds of ballistic missiles that can target its neighbors in Northeast Asia but will need foreign technology to upgrade its arsenal and pose a more direct threat to the United States, U.S. researchers say. Those are the latest findings of a research program investigating what secretive North Korea's nuclear weapons capability will be by 2020. 

BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING

BOSTON — Jurors in the federal death penalty trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev begin deliberations, a day after both prosecutors and his lawyers told them Tsarnaev must be held accountable for participating in the terror attack. 

PANAMA-ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGN

PANAMA CITY — Since President Juan Carlos Varela won his come-from-behind election last year, he has deftly ridden a groundswell of popular rage over corruption as prosecutors pursue investigations against more than a dozen allies of his predecessor.