GUATEMALA CITY (AP) – Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) – El Salvador’s Congress voted Friday to give government prosecutors two more years to hold the more than 80,000 people swept up under the state of emergency while they investigate alleged ties to the country’s gangs.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) – A Guatemalan judge convicted six people of various crimes Tuesday in connection with the deaths of 41 girls in a 2017 fire at a facility for at-risk youth that had a history of abuse.