Mexico

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

SACRAMENTO — The California State Teachers' Retirement System will cast its 5.3 million shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. against the reelection of the company's board after allegations of bribery in the retailer's Mexican operations. Citing "a breakdown of corporate governance and lack of oversight," Jack Ehnes, chief executive of CalSTRS, made the announcement Tuesday "CalSTRS believes former and current Wal-Mart executives and board members breached their fiduciary responsibilities," Ehnes said.

J. Paul Reddam might not be the type of businessman for whom people suffering through the recession can bring themselves to root. Reddam, 56, is president of Anaheim-based CashCall, the mortgage refinancing and high-interest personal loan company who critics say has unfairly capitalized upon people's financial woes during the country's economic and employment crisis. But the Sunset Beach resident is also owner of Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another, who could provide horse racing with a huge shot in the arm Saturday with a victory in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

Fade to ... almost dark? An annular solar eclipse will be visible in part of the West on Sunday hours before sunset when the moon will cover up all but a sliver of the sun. Inside what's called the annular path, a "ring of fire" will appear as the moon passes in front of the sun. Just about every national park in the West is hosting some type of viewing party or astronomy fest Sunday to mark the heavenly occasion. (Check out all the national park events .) The roughly 200-mile-wide path begins in southern China and sweeps east across southern Japan , the Pacific Ocean, touches land again roughly around Redding, Calif., then continues to central Nevada, southern Utah, northern Arizona, New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, according to NASA's website . "We're just off the center line and will see about 81% coverage [of the sun]

First came the Mexican consular photo identification cards that closely resembled U.S. driver's licenses and allowed immigrants, including those in the country illegally, to establish credit and apply for government services. Then the Mexican government worked with the Treasury Department to make sure the U.S. banking system remained open to immigrants. Now Mexican consulates in the U.S. are taking on an even more formidable challenge: the healthcare system.

In Mexico, the story of the country's black population has been largely ignored in favor of an ideology that declares that all Mexicans are "mixed race." But it's the mixture of indigenous and European heritage that most Mexicans embrace; the African legacy is overlooked.

The Hispanic population in the United States grew by 43% in the last decade, surpassing 50 million and accounting for about 1 out of 6 Americans, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. Analysts seized on data showing that the growth was propelled by a surge in births in the U.S., rather than immigration, pointing to a growing generational shift in which Hispanics continue to gain political clout and, by 2050, could make up a third of the U.S. population. "In the adult population, many immigrants helped the increase, but the child population is increasingly more Hispanic," said D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center.

Mexico received more bad economic news Friday with a report that shows poverty is steadily on the rise. The number of Mexicans living in poverty grew to 52 million in 2010, up by more than 3 million people from two years earlier, the report says. That means 46.2% of the population lives in poverty. Within that group, 11.7 million people live in extreme poverty, a figure that held steady over the same period. The report was produced by the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, an autonomous but federally financed agency, and represents the state's most comprehensive study of poverty to date.

LAFAYETTE, La. - Visitors to this oil town might be forgiven for wondering whether the BP oil spill and subsequent drilling moratorium ever happened. "Now hiring" signs are plastered on billboards around town, and hotels such as the Crowne Plaza are chock full of seminars training students to work on offshore rigs. Many offshore companies can't find enough workers for the jobs they're listing. This parish has the lowest unemployment rate in Louisiana, 4.8%. Such is the opportunity on the offshore rigs that Sheila Clark, whose husband, Donald, died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion two years ago, said her 22-year-old son recently asked her how she'd feel if he went to work on a rig. "I can't stop him," said Clark, who moved to Baton Rouge after her husband's death.

The U.S. State Departmenthas issued an updated travel warning for tourists planning to visit Mexico, adding more detailed information on drug violence on a state-by-state and city-by-city basis. The new warning comes in response to concerns by Mexico tourism officials, who worried that previous travel warnings scared off U.S. tourists by generalizing about the threat of crime violence in Mexico. Mexican officials welcomed the update. "The Mexico Tourism Board has long advocated for travel advisories which abide by three key [tenets]

Adali Gutierrez rarely mentioned his scarred and disfigured chin. He kept quiet about the mangled lower lip that twisted when he talked. A 21-year-old raising four orphaned siblings had bigger worries. Today, however, he speaks without hesitation. A plastic surgeon has fashioned him a new lip and smoothed over the divots in his skin. Faded are the lesions that reminded him constantly of the night his parents were gunned down in Mexico. It was January 2010. Maria and Guillermo Sr. had arrived at a police station to bail out Adali, who had been stopped for drunk driving.

COLUMBUS, N.M. - From a small hill at a state park here, the border town of Palomas, Mexico, can be made out through the desert haze. It lies four miles to the south, but the corruption that roils Palomas and the rest of Northern Mexico may as well be a block away. Last year, black sedans and hatchbacks loaded with federal agents poured into Columbus, a town of 2,000 people, arresting the mayor, the police chief, a city trustee and nine others. They have all pleaded guilty in a gun-smuggling operation that sold about 100 firearms, mostly assault rifles, to Mexican drug cartels.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities responding to an anonymous tip discovered about 50 mostly mutilated bodies dumped on the side of a highway between Monterrey and the U.S. border, a region where rival gangs are battling for control over a lucrative drug-trafficking corridor. The bodies of at least 43 men and half a dozen women were found Sunday in plastic garbage bags near the town of Cadereyta Jimenez, the location of a large state-run oil refinery, officials in the state prosecutor's office told The Times.

WASHINGTON - Even as Americans debate whether to scrap President Obama's healthcare law and its promise of guaranteed health coverage, many far less affluent nations are moving in the opposite direction - to provide medical insurance to all citizens. China, after years of underfunding healthcare, is on track to complete a three-year, $124-billion initiative projected to cover more than 90% of the nation's residents. Mexico, which a decade ago covered less than half its population, just completed an eight-year drive for universal coverage that has dramatically expanded Mexicans' access to life-saving treatments for diseases such as leukemia and breast cancer.

MEXICO CITY - They areMexico's "democracy babies" - a generation that grew up just as the nation broke free of decades of all-encompassing one-party rule. Only 12 years ago, young people flocked to the polls with high hopes as part of what would be a historic ouster of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Now, as the country prepares to pick a new president in July,Mexico's young sound mostly disillusioned by the choices before them, and by joblessness and skyrocketing drug violence that have hit them especially hard.

Weeks after news about Wal Mart Stores Inc.'s alleged bribery and coverup in Mexico surfaced, rank-and-file workers at the world's largest retailer have taken their calls for change to the Internet. Venanzi Luna, a department manager at a Wal-Mart store in Pico Rivera, has created an online petition for fellow employees and customers at Change.org, a website that seeks to promote social change. The petition urges Wal-Mart to undertake "a thorough and independent investigation" into allegations of widespread bribery by company officials to gain approval for new stores in Mexico.

The Juarez police lieutenant was recovering from three gunshot wounds, the result of an assault by hit men for a drug cartel. His name was on a death list brazenly posted at a monument for fallen peace officers. Lt. Salvador Hernandez Arvizu didn't like his odds of surviving in Mexico. So he fled his hospital bed, hoping to take refuge in the U.S. At a border post in El Paso, he filled out immigration paperwork, made a formal request for political asylum -- and was taken directly to jail.

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were watching the Mexican boundary last year when they stopped a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. The driver fled back across the Rio Grande -- with a gunshot wound in his buttocks. Federal prosecutors convinced a jury in March that the agents had shot a defenseless man and schemed to cover it up. Much of the evidence against them came from the drug runner, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who reported the shooting to a friend at the Border Patrol in Arizona.

MEXICO CITY - Nearly two months remain before Mexico picks a new president, but it's increasingly difficult to envision a winner not named Enrique Peña Nieto. Peña Nieto, a former governor of Mexico state, the nation's most populous, has led all major polls, some by 20 points or more. This week, he emerged mainly unscathed from a presidential debate that foes had framed as a high-stakes showdown. Opponents entered Sunday's debate hoping for a game-changing gaffe by Peña Nieto.

TULTITLAN, Mexico - The travelers, with bloodshot eyes and sleep-wrinkled clothes, press around a man with a map of Mexico taped to the wall. He speaks, and his finger traces various routes north to the border. All roads lead to trouble. Up here, kidnappers and drug killers. Over there, Mexican army checkpoints. Farther along, a giant desert, with poisonous snakes and deadly heat. Listeners rise on tiptoes to see better. A woman asks for a piece of paper; she wants to remember the name of the Mexican state bordering Arizona.