Brazil's lower house of congress votes to start impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, who is accused of manipulating government figures.

Brazil's lower house of Congress is due to hold a crucial vote on whether to impeach President Dilma Rousseff over charges of manipulating government accounts for political gains.

Panama is creating an international panel to help improve transparency in its offshore financial industry. The move follows the leak of millions of documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca, showing it helped some clients evade tax and avoid sanctions.

The Barcelona talisman Lionel Messi, who was in the country ahead of World Cup qualifiers for his national team, and POTUS's daughters weren't able to connect, but Messi made good on the missed opportunity. He signs a pair of his No. 10 national team jerseys for the two and sends them to the White House.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for urgent research into different strains of the Zika virus and says that health services in affected areas should be ready for potential increases in the incidence of neurological syndromes and/or congenital malformations.

Evidence mounted linking Zika to the birth defect microcephaly, and the United Nations health agency set a review of travel advice related to the outbreak of the virus while US officials planned strategy to control mosquitoes that spread it.

Brazil is planning to fight the Zika virus by zapping millions of male mosquitoes with gamma rays to sterilize them and stop the spread of the virus linked to thousands of birth defects.

US and Brazilian researchers are heading to João Pessoa in the state of Paraíba on Monday to recruit mothers and babies in one of the biggest government-led studies to understand whether the Zika virus is linked to microcephaly, a rare birth defect.

The Zika virus may be particularly adept at entrenching itself in parts of the body that are shielded from the immune system, making it harder to fight off and possibly lengthening the timeframe in which it can be transmitted, top US experts say.

Over 3,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, President Juan Manuel Santos says.

South American health ministers hold an emergency meeting on slowing the spread of the Zika virus, dubbed a "nightmare" by hard-hit Brazil, where it is blamed for brain damage in babies.

The World Health Organization's emergency committee will debate whether a Zika virus outbreak suspected of causing a surge in serious birth defects in South America should be considered a global health emergency.

For scores of women in the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the joy of pregnancy has given way to fear.

More than 2,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country's national health institute says, as the disease continues its spread across the Americas.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vows to "win the war" against the Zika virus, but some experts criticized her government's response and warned the Olympics could fuel the disease's spread.

Recently captured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is unapologetic for running one of the world's biggest drug trafficking organizations in a Rolling Stone interview with American actor Sean Penn.

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is recaptured and sent back to the maximum-security prison he escaped from six months ago.