Reuters - Honduras's post-coup de facto leader said on Friday he would give up his presidential duties for a week, a step Washington welcomed as a way to help ease a five-month-old political crisis.

Reuters - Colombia will not be provoked into armed conflict with Venezuela despite its neighbor's aggressive rhetoric and dynamiting of two border bridges, Colombia's defense minister said on Friday.

AP - The husband of an acclaimed dissident Cuban blogger was punched and shouted down by a pro-government mob Friday after he challenged the presumed state agents who earlier roughed up his wife to a street corner debate.

AP - Mexico's top domestic security official said Friday that sectors of the general public have cooperated with drug cartels in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, and the government is about to launch new social programs there to combat gangs.

AP - Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina's Congress has authorized the forced extraction of DNA from people who may have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago — even when they don't want to know their birth parents.

AP - Police say a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics, although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists.

AP - Honduras' interim president said Thursday he may step down temporarily to allow voters to concentrate on the upcoming presidential elections.

Reuters - Honduras's de facto leader said he may give up his presidential duties for a week so voters can focus on an election that Washington hopes will help end a five-month-old political crisis.

Reuters - The United States has severely restricted access to a spot on the Mexican border where families and lovers divided by illegal immigration could unite briefly to hold hands or kiss through a fence.