Guatemala City - Guatemala's ex-president Alfonso Portillo returned home after serving time in a U.S. prison for money laundering in a graft scandal involving Taiwan.

Guatemala City - Guatemala's Fuego volcano calmed down Sunday after an eruption blanketed nearby towns in ash, the nation's volcano monitor reported.Guatemala City's La Aurora airport remained closed due to ash that had fallen on the runway.

Guatemala City - A court in Guatemala sentenced a former police chief to 90 years for an assault on the Spanish embassy in 1980 when a group of protesting Indians, peasants and university students were holed up inside.

Guatemala City - Guatemala's ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt was hauled to court on a stretcher Monday to attend his retrial on genocide charges before proceedings were halted by a motion to change judges.

Guatemala City - Lawyers for Guatemalan ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt said Friday he is too sick to attend court next week, when he faces a retrial for genocide over the killings of indigenous people in the 1980s.

The mystery of the demise of the 3,000 year old Mayan civilization has baffled historians and archaeologists for decades. However, new research at the Blue Hole of Belize lends weight to the idea that catastrophic drought brought the empire to its knees.

Bronx - While much of the world's attention has been focused on Ebola, another disease with equally devastating implications is surging. The CDC estimates that some 300,000 people throughout the U.S. may have Chagas disease, and many cases may remain undiagnosed.

Guatemala City - The head of Guatemala's prison system was arrested on bribery and money-laundering charges linked to a notorious jail-based criminal syndicate, prosecutors said.

Guatemala City - Fearful of losing their culture and land, ethnic Maya people in Guatemala -- who have faced centuries of discrimination themselves -- drove out a group of 230 ultra-Orthodox Jews, experts say.

Guatemala City - A community of 230 Orthodox Jews from several countries Thursday began leaving the Guatemalan Indian village where they have lived for six years after claims and counterclaims of discrimination and threats.

Guatemala City - Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said Tuesday that Latin America is "losing fear" of legalizing drugs after decades of fighting traffickers with ample US prodding but limited success.

Puntarenas - In Costa Rica, pirates are alive and well, but instead of searching for gold, they are finding ways around legal loopholes and killing thousands of sharks. They are doing this so that people in China can impress guests with a bowl of shark fin soup.

- Weeping and singing Christian hymns, Guatemala's indigenous Ixil Mayans buried Wednesday the remains of 31 civilians killed by the army during the country's bloody civil war three decades ago.

Guatemala City - The body of a 15-year-old who died while trying to migrate illegally into the United States was repatriated to Guatemala Friday, amid a raging U.S. debate over how to stem a flood of similar cases.

- A Guatemalan court handed down the country's first conviction of a leftist guerrilla leader for the killings of indigenous farmers during the 1960-1996 civil war.

Newark - Mauricio Isidro Rivera Hernandez wasn't bringing back his grandmother's home baked cookies to share with friends. These freshly baked cookies contain a secret ingredient - 118 pellets of cocaine - and are worth $50,000.

Guatemala City - US Vice President Joe Biden travels to Guatemala on Friday to discuss the growing numbers of unaccompanied minors from Central America and Mexico illegally trying to cross the US border.

A study on the differences in size and mating calls of a tiny Puerto Rican frog over a 23-year period suggests the male frog is getting smaller and its mating call becoming shorter and higher pitched. The differences may be caused by climate change.

According to a new report endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists, the decades-long global war on drugs has failed and it's time to shift the focus from mass incarceration to public health and human rights.

Honduras continues to have the world's highest homicide rate, according to a recent United Nations report, followed by four other countries in Latin America.