The U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast looks designed to further squeeze the economy of President Nicolás Maduro’s country. But what exactly is the Trump administraion’s aim in going after the tanker, and how could this impact the already beleaguered economy of Venezuela? The Conversation U.S. turned to Rice University’s Francisco J. Monaldi, an expert on Latin American energy policy, for answers.

Compas, a beloved Haitian music and dance genre inspired by merengue and infused with percussion, has made UNESCO’s cultural heritage list. The syncopated rhythm, created in the 1950s, wafts from bars, bedrooms and businesses across Haiti, lifting spirits and providing solace from the country’s grinding poverty and soaring gang violence.

Brazil’s “criminal economy” does not appear on any national balance sheet. Yet the cost of violence, contraband, tax evasion and environmental crime can be measured in the tens of billions of dollars every year and serves as a major drag on Brazil’s economic growth and stability.

In the documentary, “Status: Venezuelan,” the filmmaker follows a family in Doral — home to the largest Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S. — as they struggle to remain united and legal amidst the policy turbulence.

COMMENTARY Could this week's mayoral election in Miami — the self-proclaimed capital of Latin America — reflect the broader challenges Trump's bid for alpha control of the hemisphere faces?

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in public for the first time in 11 months after a daring escape from her homeland when she emerged from a hotel balcony in Norway's capital.

President Donald Trump says the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

The Honduran attorney general announced Monday night that he had issued an international arrest warrant for the country’s former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump and released from prison in the United States.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado's daughter has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her mother's behalf. She said Wednesday in a speech written by Machado that Venezuela shows the world "we must be willing to fight for freedom."

Two U.S. Navy F-18 fighter jets flew into Venezuelan airspace on Tuesday in an apparent intensification of the Trump administration's pressure on the Maduro regime and drug traffickers.