Mexican

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

Authorities have arrested a purported "secretary" for the Mexican Mafia who allegedly helped funnel information through Los Angeles County jails - from her home in Kansas. Cecilia Virgen-DeLeon, 31, was taken into custody about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday in Salina, a town of about 50,000 in the heart of the state, L.A. County Sheriff's Deputy Francis Hardiman said in a phone interview from Kansas. The so-called secretaries of organized crime groups often use fraudulent cellphone accounts to help push information - about drug movements, hits and other matters - to shot-callers inside the jails, Hardiman said.

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

When Jaime Martin del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu opened their Bell restaurant 15 years ago, some customers wondered if they knew how to cook. Accustomed to Mexican food laden with sour cream, melted cheddar cheese and mild salsa that has long been served up in the Los Angeles area, patrons balked at eating La Casita Mexicana's enchiladas covered in pumpkin seed mole, cotija cheese and red onions. Many of the doubters, to the restaurateurs' surprise, were Mexican American. Regional Mexican cooking isn't a tough sell anymore.

Philip Hsiang and his wife, Mary Ann, used to pay almost $1,000 a year for a pair of cellphones under a family plan contract. But as recession gripped the economy a few years back, the Davis couple opted for low-cost prepaid phone service and never looked back. They shaved $800 off their annual phone bill, even though Hsiang could easily afford the pricier plan on his salary as an electrical engineer. "As a Chinese immigrant to the U.S., it's a virtue to be frugal," Hsiang said.

Until he raised his pistol for the last time, Ignacio Coronel Villarreal was known for keeping his head low and footprints light. In a world populated by many larger-than-life drug bosses, the slightly built Coronel ruled with a quiet ruthlessness. He was seldom photographed and moved so carefully in the suburb of mansions where he lived in western Mexico that just one bodyguard was with him when the dragnet closed. Even his age and birthplace are a source of mystery. This much is known: By the time Mexican troops killed Coronel on Thursday outside the city of Guadalajara, he had reached the top rungs of drug trafficking, lording over a broad stretch of the Pacific coast as part of a years-long alliance with the country's most-wanted crime boss, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman.

In the fifth paragraph of "Two-Week Stays in Oaxaca" (Mature Traveler, Nov. 26), Bill Hughes refers to "Spanish cooking." If my guess is correct, he means "Mexican cooking." As we all know, there is a vast difference between the two. As a matter of fact, there are a few good Spanish restaurants in Mexico. DONALD J. HARRISON Idyllwild

On May 12, county Supervisor Susan Golding held a press conference asking the federal government for relief from the "massive invasion" of undocumented aliens that she said is bankrupting the county. She stated that "local citizens are getting less and less, and the illegal immigrants are getting more and more" of the county budget. She also quoted estimates supposedly from Sheriff John Duffy (since refuted by his office) stating that "61.5% of all rapes, 34% of the car thefts and one-fourth of the burglaries in our county are committed by aliens."

The remarkable story of Jose Antonio Martinez (the "whiz kid" who became an excellent student after migrating from Mexico as an impoverished laborer at the age of 15), featured in Tina Griego's "Following a Dream" (June 21), reflects not only the misadventures of many young Mexicans who leave our country in search for a better life, but also some of the misperceptions about this phenomenon. I hope that your readers will not conclude from this report that those who decide to stay in Mexico "will be nothing more than slaves" during the rest of their lives, "working long hours for little pay, with a hungry wife and children to support."

Mexico's second-biggest city gets major touristic props for its tequila, baroque architecture and mariachi music. The United States' second-biggest city is famous (or infamous) as the world capital of cars, indolent pleasures and the film industry. But in the course of last week's Guadalajara International Book Fair, two metropolises with growing cultural and intellectual ties discovered there was more to each other than Hollywood movies or agave-distilled spirits. The 23-year-old Feria Internacional del Libro, to use the book fair's official title, needs no introduction in most Spanish-speaking parts of the hemisphere.

President Obama has much to discuss with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, when they meet in Mexico City this week. No issue, however, is more urgent than the search for peace, justice and dignity for and between our peoples. For seven years, Mexico has been living a nightmare. More than 70,000 people, by some estimates, have been killed and thousands more have been disappeared in the wave of criminal and institutional violence of Mexico's war on drug cartels. The collateral damage is a humanitarian tragedy that requires our leaders to have deep and frank discussions about how to transform the failed policies exacerbating the violence.

LAREDO, Texas - This border city is trying to clear its name. It is so conjoined with its Mexican sister city across the Rio Grande, Nuevo Laredo, that the two are often referred to as "Los Dos Laredos," or simply Laredo. That was great for tourism in happier days. But as drug cartel violence exploded in Nuevo Laredo in recent years, pictures broadcast around the world of gunfights, decapitated bodies piled in abandoned minivans, and severed heads dumped in coolers often bore the same headline: "Laredo.

WASHINGTON - President Obama travels to Mexico this week amid signs that the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbor's new government faces a new period of uncertainty after years of unprecedented closeness forged by the deadly war against Mexican drug cartels. The government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is said to be wary of the level of U.S. involvement in security affairs that characterized the administration of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

The heavyweight boxing title aspirations of Riverside's Chris Arreola ended in a bloody mess Saturday night. The hard-punching, clever-talking Arreola, marketed as a great hope to become the first heavyweight champion of Mexican heritage, took a convincing beating from unheralded Bermane Stiverne. The boisterous, diehard Arreola fans in attendance in Ontario's Citizens Business Bank Arena, were they to be realistic, had to leave with the realization that their 32-year-old hero likely had had his last big shot.

Much of what we know about past civilizations in Mexico comes from the writings of colonial Europeans -- Spanish conquerors and priests -- who arrived in the Americas in the 1500s. But archaeological evidence from recent excavations at a site called El Palenque in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, shows that temple precincts similar to the ones the Europeans encountered had existed in the region some 1,500 years earlier. Married archaeologists Elsa Redmond and Charles Spencer, both of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, reported the discoveries Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .  Redmond and Spencer have been studying the remains of ancient civilizations in Oaxaca since the 1970s, when both were undergraduates at Rice University.

TUCSON -- It may take several days before officials determine the identities of the five males who died in a crash after the vehicle they were in failed to yield to U.S. Border Patrol agents, officials said Monday. Several other passengers, including those who told authorities they were Guatemalan and Mexican nationals, were injured, said Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves. Very few had identification on them, which makes it difficult for authorities to contact family, he said.

Six men, including a former soldier, have been arrested in the border town of Laredo, Texas, in connection with drug trafficking and an alleged murder-for-hire plot, according to federal officials. The arrests culminate a months-long federal sting operation in which the suspects allegedy helped hatch a plan to purchase weapons for drug cartel members in exchange for money and drugs. Kevin Corley, 29, and Samuel Walker, 28, both of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Shavar Davis, 29, of Denver were arrested over the weekend in Laredo,  according to a statement released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Re "Clambering for Attention" [May 12]: Can you tell us where we might be able to find the plant that's pictured, the Mexican flame vine? The vine sounds fabulous, and the colors are what we are looking for. Bobbe Kahn Dana Point Editor's note: If finding the vine at a local nursery proves difficult, Lili Singer advises ordering online. She suggests www.kartuz.com/floweringvines.html; scroll down to Senecio confusus.

The candidates for Los Angeles mayor proved they could be almost as disagreeable before a Spanish-language audience as they have been in front of English speakers - challenging each other's integrity in a debate Friday night on a Spanish-language television station. Councilman Eric Garcetti renewed his charge that opponent Wendy Greuel is beholden to the union that represents Department of Water and Power workers, while Greuel, the city controller, repeated her rebuttal that her rival is a hypocrite who has supported raises and other benefits for the same workers.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's leading newsmagazine says one of its investigative reporters has been threatened with kidnapping and possible death by government officials in the coastal state of Veracruz. Proceso magazine, in a statement posted on its website, said journalist Jorge Carrasco was in Veracruz this week reporting on the killing of another Proceso reporter there when he learned of the threats. (link in Spanish) “We have received information over the presumed intention of officials and former officials of the Veracruz state government to attack the physical integrity of the journalist,” the magazine said.