It was night when residents began hearing gunshots in the remote southern Mexico town of Tila. Then came trucks and the voices of men discussing which houses to burn. Flames began to leap around the town in Chiapas state. Five hours of shooting were followed by three days during which people hid inside their homes […]
Voters choosing Mexico’s next president are deciding between a former academic who promises to further the current leader’s populist policies and an ex-senator and tech entrepreneur who pledges to up the fight against deadly drug cartels. In an election likely to give Mexico its first woman president, nearly 100 million people are registered to vote […]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Voters choosing Mexico’s next president are deciding Sunday between a former academic who promises to further the current leader’s populist policies and an ex-senator and tech entrepreneur who pledges to up the fight against deadly drug cartels. In an election likely to give Mexico its first woman president, nearly 100 million […]
COTIJA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s drug cartels and gangs appear to be playing a wider role in Sunday’s elections that will determine the presidency, nine governorships and about 19,000 mayorships and other local posts. The country’s powerful drug cartels have long staged targeted assassinations of mayoral and other local candidates who threaten their control. Gangs […]
Mexico’s “most powerful and ruthless” cartels operate in all 50 states and clash in American cities, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a May report. The Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels have flooded major U.S. cities with meth and fentanyl and use violence to protect their turf, the report found. “The deadly reach of the […]
A press conference held by Gov. Kristi Noem, regarding the U.S.-Mexico border and cartels on South Dakota’s nine Indian reservations, did not glean much more information than what she has already publicly stated. But Noem did talk about the issue of cartel influence in a broader sense than before. Noem, citing data from the Drug […]
The Yankton Sioux Tribal Headquarters in Wagner. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) Six of the nine Native American tribes in South Dakota have now voted to ban Gov. Kristi Noem from their lands. The Yankton Sioux Tribe Business and Claims Committee voted unanimously on Friday to ban the governor, citing her comments about drug cartels, Native […]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A retired Roman Catholic bishop who was famous for trying to mediate between drug cartels in Mexico has been kidnapped, the Mexican Council of Bishops said Monday. The church leadership in Mexico said Msgr. Salvador Rangel disappeared on Saturday and called on his captors to release him, in a statement. The […]
Relations between South Dakota tribes and Republican Gov. Kristi Noem have long been strained, but they have become even more contentious recently as Noem has pointedly criticized tribal leaders, accusing some of profiting from drug dealing and questioning their commitments to children on reservations. In speeches at community forums, Noem has slammed leaders of the […]
The Justice Department arrested five men across Texas after accusing the group of illegally purchasing firearms and trafficking the weapons to drug cartels in Mexico, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas announced Monday. In a superseding indictment filed earlier this month, the Justice Department charged each of the men with conspiracy […]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Friday he won’t fight Mexican drug cartels on U.S. orders, in the clearest explanation yet of his refusal to confront the gangs. Over the years, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has laid out various justifications for his “hugs, not bullets” policy of avoiding clashes with the cartels. In […]
In one moment, a column of soldiers and military pickups creeps along a dirt road in western Mexico. In the next, a massive explosion sends debris and a body flying. The ground where a soldier stood seconds earlier is a gaping hole, the aftermath of an improvised land mine planted by one of the region’s […]