Leftist canditate Roberto Sanchez pulled into the lead in Peru's presidential runoff on Monday, overtaking conservative Keiko Fujimori by a razor-thin margin. Fewer than 4,300 votes separate Sanchez from Fujimori, who has already tried and failed to reach the presidency three times.

Polls open for the final round of Peru's presidential elections on Sunday, with voters set to choose the country's ninth leader in 10 years. Following a first-round vote marred by logistical problems and fraud allegations, voters will choose between conservative Keiko Fujimori and leftist Roberto Sanchez.

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro criticised US President Donald Trump on Thursday for supporting hard-right presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer – and fervent Trump supporter – who made a fortune representing drug-trafficking paramilitaries, fraudsters and football stars.

Washington is pledging emergency aid to Bolivia and warning against attempts to topple President Rodrigo Paz as his government faces mounting protests aND worsening shortages. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that "the United States is watching", vowing continued support to Paz in the fight against "narco-terrorists" who profit "from death and destruction in our hemisphere".

The US on Thursday announced new economic sanctions against Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel, members of his immediate family, and members of the Castro family connected to the country's past two presidents. President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure on the island in recent months, even threatening to take the country over.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday hit back at lawmakers who voted to halt military action in Iran, describing the move as "unpatriotic". A handful of Republicans joined with Democrats in the House of Representatives to pass the largely symbolic resolution seeking to end the three-month-long conflict in a rebuke of Trump.

NASA said on Wednesday it will end its mission studying Mars' atmosphere and evolution after losing contact with its MAVEN spacecraft for six months. MAVEN, which entered Martian orbit in 2014, was designed for a one- to two-year mission but operated for more than a decade before falling silent in December 2025.

Colombia's hard-right presidential frontrunner Abelardo de la Espriella pledged closer ties with the United States on Tuesday after receiving US President Donald Trump's endorsement, strengthening his position ahead of a June 21 run-off election against leftist senator Ivan Cepeda.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will attend and speak at a rescheduled White House correspondents' dinner on July 24, nearly three months after a shooting outside the original event prompted his evacuation. Organisers said the gathering will proceed with enhanced security, insisting that violence will not dictate public life.

Donald Trump appointed a loyalist with no national security experience as head of US intelligence on Tuesday, while allowing him to keep his housing and mortgage oversight roles.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to enable AI developers to voluntarily ​submit their new models for government cybersecurity tests before public release. The order was triggered by concerns over Anthropic's Mythos model, which the company refused to release due to its ability to expose vulnerabilities in computer systems.

Californians have their final chance to vote Tuesday in a fiercely contested gubernatorial primary ahead of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s mandate coming to an end at the end of the year. The state's open-primary system, which allows the two best-performing candidates to advance regardless of party, has raised fears among Democrats that a split vote will pave the way for a Republican victory.

US President Donald Trump was said to be reconsidering a controversial $1.8 billion compensation fund on Monday, created as part of a settlement with the IRS, amid legal challenges and growing opposition from Republicans. The Justice Department has paused implementation following a court order, raising doubts about the fund's future.

Brazilian health authorities isolated two patients who recently arrived from African countries after they showed symptoms consistent with Ebola, officials said Friday, although one later tested negative. The move comes as the Democratic Republic of the Congo battles an outbreak that has surpassed 1,000 suspected cases and nearly 250 deaths since May.

Ballots for the first round of Colombia's presidential election open Sunday, as candidates with radically diverging visions for the future face off. The vote, seen as a referendum on outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s policies, comes 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 

Colombia's presidential election is headed to a run-off after voters delivered a sharply polarised first-round result on Sunday, setting up a contest between hard-right populist Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist senator Ivan Cepeda. The vote came at the end of Colombia's bloodiest campaign in more than a decade, with issues of security and rising violence dominating the race.

The United States on Thursday designated two of Brazil’s most powerful criminal organisations, the Red Command and First Capital Command, as terrorist organisations, escalating tensions with Brasilia, which strongly opposes the move. US officials said the groups operate transnational criminal networks and pose a security threat.

Fighting between rival armed groups killed at least 52 guerrilla fighters in the Colombian Amazon, one of the groups said Thursday. The clashes come just days ahead of crucial presidential elections that centre in part around rival strategies towards dealing with the country's decades-old insurgencies.

The US Justice Department has launched an investigation for perjury into E. Jean Carroll, the columnist who a 2023 civil trial found had been sexually assaulted by US President Donald Trump in a New York department store 30 years ago, a source close to the matter told AP Thursday. 

Veteran French banker Matthieu Pigasse has emerged as a central figure in Venezuela’s debt restructuring efforts after his firm Centerview Partners was appointed adviser on the country’s more than $150 billion debt overhaul without a formal competitive process.