AP Week in Pictures: Latin America and Caribbean

April 25 - May 1, 2025

Rio de Janeiro’s LGBTQ+ community modeled creations inspired by Lady Gaga’s style before Gaga’s concert. San Lorenzo soccer fans in Buenos Aires held a huge banner of the late Pope Francis in the stands, commemorating the Argentine pontiff who was a supporter of the club. Displaced Haitians took shelter after fleeing gang violence in Port-au-Prince.

This gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published in the past week by The Associated Press from Latin America and the Caribbean.

The selection was curated by AP photo editor Leslie Mazoch, based in Mexico City.

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Mexican singer Vivir Quintana, center, and band members join hands before the introduction of her new album "Cosas que Sorprenden a la Audiencia" or Things that Surprise the Audience, in Mexico City, Thursday, April 24, 2025. Quintana's first "corridos" album tells the stories of women who were incarcerated for killing their abusers while defending themselves. (AP Photo/Aurea Del Rosario)

Gerson of Brazil's Flamengo jumps for a ball challenged by Carlos Gruezo of Ecuador's Liga Deportiva Universitaria, center right, during a Copa Libertadores Group C soccer match at Rodrigo Paz Delgado stadium in Quito, Ecuador, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

A mourner holds a giant puppet depicting the late Pope Francis during a caravan through emblematic places of his life in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, April 26, 2025, on the day of his funeral in Rome. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A woman rests at a shelter for families displaced by gang violence in the Petion-Ville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, April 26, 2025.(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

A protester holds a flare during an International Workers' Day march marking May Day in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

Fidel Guajardo, a horseback rider known as a huaso, preps with his daughter Soledad for the Quasimodo Feast, a procession held on the first Sunday after Easter, in Colina, Chile, April 27, 2025, on which the huasos accompany priests to give communion to the sick. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Tires burn outside the "Cerro Negro" ceramics factory after company lay offs in Olavarria, Argentina, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

A member of the LGBTI community models a creation inspired by Lady Gaga's style, some made by the models themselves and others created by the sustainable fashion house "Escola de Divines," at the Central Train Station days before Lady Gaga's concert in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

A San Lorenzo banner featuring the late Pope Francis is displayed in the stands, commemorating Francis who was a lifelong supporter of the club, during a local soccer match against Rosario Central in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

People watch the arrival of Mexican Navy tall ship Cuauhtemoc to Havana Bay, Cuba, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A woman protests the Panamanian government's decision to sign an agreement with the United States that demonstrators deem at odds with their sovereignty, in Panama City, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

SAN FRANCISCO & JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 12, 2026--

Abridge, the leading enterprise-grade AI for clinical conversations, is collaborating with Availity, the nation’s largest real-time health information network, to launch a first-of-its kind prior authorization experience. The engagement uses cutting-edge technology grounded in the clinician-patient conversation to facilitate a more efficient process between clinicians and health plans in medical necessity review.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260112960386/en/

Rather than creating parallel AI systems across healthcare stakeholders, Abridge and Availity are working together to ensure shared clinical context at the point of conversation powers administrative processes, such as prior authorization review and submission, improving outcomes for patients and the teams delivering care.

This collaboration unites two trusted and scaled organizations: combining Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform, serving over 200 health systems and projected to support over 80 million patient-clinician conversations in 2026, with Availity’s next-generation, FHIR-native Intelligent Utilization Management solution, which helps payers and providers digitize and operationalize coverage requirements within administrative workflows.

Availity’s FHIR-native APIs enable fast, scalable, and secure connectivity of payer information across the entire healthcare ecosystem. With Abridge’s Contextual Reasoning Engine technology, clinicians can gain visibility into relevant clinical information during the conversation to support documentation aligned with prior authorization requirements.

“At Availity, we’ve invested in building AI-powered, FHIR-native APIs designed to bring clinical policy logic directly into provider workflows,” said Russ Thomas, CEO of Availity. “By embedding our technology at the point of conversation, we’re enabling faster, more transparent utilization management decisions rooted in clinical context. We’re excited to collaborate with Abridge and to demonstrate what’s possible when payer intelligence meets real-time provider workflows.”

The development of real-time prior authorization is just a component of a broader revenue cycle collaboration that is focused on applying real-time conversational intelligence across the patient, provider, and payer experiences. The companies intend to support integration by collaborating on workflow alignment between their respective platforms in the following areas:

“Abridge and Availity are each bringing national scale, deep trust, and a track record of solving important challenges across the care and claims experience to this partnership,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “We’re building real-time bridges between patients, providers, and payers, unlocking shared understanding, focused at the point of conversation.”

About Availity

Availity empowers payers and providers to deliver transformative patient experiences by enabling the seamless exchange of clinical, administrative, and financial information. As the nation's largest real-time health information network, Availity develops intelligent, automated, and interoperable solutions that foster collaboration and shared value across the healthcare ecosystem. With connections to over 95% of payers, more than 3 million providers, and over 2,000 trading partners, Availity provides mission-critical connectivity to drive the future of healthcare innovation. For more information, including an online demonstration, please visit www.availity.com or call 1.800.AVAILITY (282.4548). Follow us on LinkedIn.

About Abridge

Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. Abridge is now trusted by more than 200 of the largest and most complex health systems in the U.S. The enterprise-grade AI platform transforms medical conversations into clinically useful and billable documentation at the point of care, reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout while improving patient experience. With deep EHR integration, support for 28+ languages, and 50+ specialties, Abridge is used across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient.

Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform is purpose-built for healthcare. Supported by Linked Evidence, Abridge is the only solution that maps AI-generated summaries to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. As a pioneer in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems.

Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS 2025 for Ambient AI in addition to other accolades, including Forbes 2025 AI 50 List, TIME Best Inventions of 2024, and Fortune’s 2024 AI 50 Innovators.

Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation

Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation