OBIT-SCALIA

WASHINGTON — Antonin Scalia, the influential conservative and most provocative member of the U.S. Supreme Court, has died, leaving the high court without its conservative majority and setting up an ideological confrontation over his successor in the maelstrom of a presidential election year. Scalia was 79. 

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

GREENVILLE, South Carolina — Republican White House hopefuls call for President Barack Obama to step aside and allow his successor to nominate the next Supreme Court justice, in a debate jolted by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. 

POPE

MEXICO CITY — Pope Francis goes to the crime-ridden suburb of Ecatepec on Sunday to see firsthand the reality of the Mexican "periphery," where drug violence, gangland-style executions, kidnappings and extortion are daily facts of life. 

ZIKA-ABORTION BACKLASH

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Zika outbreak and its suspected link to microcephaly set off calls for Brazil to loosen its near-ban on abortion, and that has brought a backlash, particularly among families with disabled children, who are taking to social media to say all babies have a right to be born. 

ZIKA VIRUS

SAO PAULO — More than 200,000 army, navy and air force troops fan out across Brazil to teach people how to eliminate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus that many health officials believe is linked to severe birth defects. 

MEXICO-PRISON

MONTERREY, Mexico — The warden, superintendent and a guard have been arrested on murder charges following a prison riot in northern Mexico that killed 49 people, state prosecutors say. 

MISSING MISSILE

WASHINGTON — Cuba has returned a dummy U.S. Hellfire missile that was mistakenly shipped there from Europe in 2014, American and Cuban officials say. 

ILLEGAL SEAFOOD LAWS

PORTLAND, Maine — Federal authorities have proposed new rules they hope will take a bite out of illegal fishing imports that jeopardize the country's multibillion dollar commercial fishing industry. The proposed new rules about seafood traceability would protect the public from fraud.