Mexico City

There are plenty of reasons to visit Querétaro, but it's the instability and conflict and violence that finally won me over. The instability of 1810, that is. The conflict of 1848. The violence of 1867. All set amid 18th century colonial architecture, surrounded these days by commerce and calm. Coming to this city in Mexico's central highlands, about 130 miles northwest of Mexico City, you get a glimpse of the 19th century days when Mexico was busy breaking free of Spain, losing about half of its land to the U.S., then deposing and executing a foreign-born monarch.

If Carlos Fuentes could have invented the perfect character to star in one of his novels, he might have come up with a protagonist named Carlos Fuentes. That character would be a glamorous global citizen who was born in Panama as a diplomat's son, then hopscotched to Washington, D.C., London, Paris and other glittering power centers. A dapper ladies' man who married an actress and claimed to have had affairs with screen sirens Jeanne Moreau and Jean Seberg. A lifelong adventurer, like the tragedy-haunted journalist hero of Fuentes' novel "The Old Gringo," played by Gregory Peck in the 1989 film version . A man who, like many of Fuentes' characters, overcomes personal tragedy of near-mythic proportions partly through the sheer power of his own relentless drive and productivity.

Javier Guzman, a 25-year-old industrial engineer, eased his SUV toward the curb on a recent Sunday as a masked state police officer in the middle of the road signaled him to pull over. Guzman rolled down his window, greeting the officer with a " buenas tardes . " "Do you live here? Where are you coming from?" the officer asked. "I live here, this car is mine," Guzman replied. He had nothing to hide, yet began coughing nervously. The officer, dressed in black, from combat boots to ski mask, circled the vehicle.

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.

The U.S. State Department issued a new state-by-state warning for travelers to Mexico that details the more violent areas of the country but also points out popular places such as Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City where travel advisories aren't in effect. The warning announced Wednesday gives specific cities and states, with a map of the country, where gun battles and drug trafficking violence are likely to occur. Mexican tourism has been under a cloud for the last six years since gruesome killings related to drug cartels scared off visitors to many parts of the country.

Mexicana, one of the largest air carriers between the U.S. and Mexico, suspended four daily flights from Los Angeles International Airport to Mexico on Monday, following news of financial problems at the Mexico City-based airline. Officials at LAX confirmed that daily flights from Los Angeles to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City and Guadalajara were suspended at least until the end of the month. Mexicana operates 15 daily departures from LAX, carrying 1.3 million passengers annually.

Margaritas made with volcanic ash. Braised oysters with chipotle bearnaise. Foie gras with habanero-spiked guava. There's a revolution afoot in this city's restaurants. The eyebrow reflexively shoots up. The first thought is globalization, that creeping sameness that threatens cultural individuality when tradition fades in favor of pop sensibilities.

Arturo Durazo, a former police chief of Mexico City who built an empire based on extortion, racketeering and arms dealing, died Saturday of cancer at his home in Acapulco. He was 81. A boyhood friend of former Mexican President Jose Lopez-Portillo, Durazo was a low-level police official in the customs agency until Lopez-Portillo promoted him to police chief in 1976.

Reporting from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico -- The mayor had good news: A notorious thug from one of the drug cartels had been found killed. Hector "El Negro" Saldana would no longer menace the people of San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico. Trouble was, Saldana's body hadn't yet been discovered when Mayor Mauricio Fernandez made the announcement with a flourish at his swearing-in ceremony in October. How did Fernandez know about Saldana's demise hours before investigators found the body stuffed in a car hundreds of miles away in Mexico City?

The former director of Mexico City's judicial police and his two brothers were found slain gangland-style Tuesday morning in a working-class neighborhood here. Police acting on a tip found the bodies of Jesus Ignacio Carrola Gutierrez and his brothers, Miguel Angel and Marcos, in the back of a stolen van in the Tacubaya neighborhood. Each was bound, gagged and shot in the head, authorities said. "It appears they were executed inside the same vehicle," Mexico City Atty. Gen.

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND : A pitcher once was both the winning pitcher as well as the losing pitcher in a baseball game. STATUS : True. Back in the 2009 season, Joel Hanrahan of the Pittsburgh Pirates received his first win of the season...in a game between the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros! You can read this past edition of Baseball Urban Legends Revealed to get the specifics, but suffice it to say that it involved a suspended game and a trade.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico picks a president in July, and the winner would be smart to study the lessons of a new film depicting public schools in the country as a giant factory of failure. Classrooms that are crumbling. Pupils who don't understand what they read. Parents who aren't involved. Teachers, often inept, who are protected by a powerful union boss and the politicians who fear her. If this were science class, Mexico's education system might be floating in a jar of formaldehyde, a sorry specimen of how not to prepare young people for the 21st century.

Javier Guzman, a 25-year-old industrial engineer, eased his SUV toward the curb on a recent Sunday as a masked state police officer in the middle of the road signaled him to pull over. Guzman rolled down his window, greeting the officer with a " buenas tardes . " "Do you live here? Where are you coming from?" the officer asked. "I live here, this car is mine," Guzman replied. He had nothing to hide, yet began coughing nervously. The officer, dressed in black, from combat boots to ski mask, circled the vehicle.

The unchecked scourge of drug violence in Mexico and that country's campaign to hobble the cartels is expected to overshadow economic discussions when Mexican President Felipe Calderon visits the White House today. Calderon will be meeting with President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss economic policies, climate change and security issues facing the three North American nations, according to the White House. U.S. officials have been pushing for Mexico to reform the state-owned oil monopoly, Pemex, to open the country's oil sector to private investment and develop new oil and gas reserves.

A powerful and prolonged earthquake rocked Mexico on Tuesday, toppling houses near the epicenter in the south, cracking building facades in this sprawling capital and briefly terrifying a population well schooled in natural disasters. Despite the quake's 7.4 magnitude, however, there were no reports of serious injury, according to President Felipe Calderon and officials across the country. Aftershocks rattled the area through the rest of the day. "This is one of the strongest we've ever felt," said Calderon, who urged Mexicans to remain calm.

The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico this year took the unusual step of issuing guidelines on how Mexicans should vote in the upcoming presidential election: Candidates should value marriage as a bond between a man and a woman and should place prime importance on "the right to life, starting at conception. " Both ideas were clearly aimed at leftist parties and others who have backed same-sex marriage and abortion, legalized in recent years in Mexico City. Pope Benedict XVI arrives Friday to a Mexico that, officially, is a strictly secular nation.

Tainted drug money runs like whispered rumors all over Mexico's economy - in gleaming high-rises in beach resorts such as Cancun, in bustling casinos in Monterrey, in skyscrapers and restaurants in Mexico City that sit empty for months. It seeps into the construction sector, the night-life industry, even political campaigns. Piles of greenbacks, enough to fill dump trucks, are transformed into gold watches, showrooms full of Hummers, aviation schools, yachts, thoroughbred horses and warehouses full of imported fabric.

The grill is sizzling by the time Clarita Trujillo of Tacos Clarita steps onto the sidewalk. She's got her apron on, her lips painted red, and she's ready to cook. " Orale, muchachos !" she tells a few boys who roll past on skateboards. "Behave yourself. Or what's your mom going to say? "Come here and taste my enchiladas. They're good for you. " Trujillo will talk to anyone along Huntington Drive in El Sereno — to Doña Ana, Doña Juanita and Doña Lupita, to the bakers, the shop owners and the street sweepers.

Aztec dancers marched up the main street in town, burning fragrant tree-resin incense and blowing conch shells. They wore their finest headdresses, body paint and ceremonial gowns, arriving at the mountain village of Ixcateopan, Mexico, as they do each year for a festival marking the anniversary of the birth of Cuauhtemoc, the last emperor of the Aztecs and a symbol of noble resistance. The dancers believe the town's crumbling ex-church is Cuauhtemoc's final resting place.