Mexico

The Mexican peso plunged to new lows against the dollar Monday as global investors again rushed for the perceived safety of the greenback despite the horrid U.S. economy. The peso was trading at 15.47 per dollar for large transactions between banks, compared with 15.15 on Friday and 14.5 two weeks ago. Retail buyers and sellers would be quoted different rates, but the trend is the same: more peso weakness.

Congress has hit the brakes on a Bush administration program to give Mexican trucks wider access to U.S. roads, putting President Obama in the middle of a politically sensitive trade dispute. A $410-billion spending bill that passed the Senate on a voice vote Tuesday would end funding for the cross-border trucking program, one of the most contentious issues to arise out of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The House approved the spending measure last month.

The grief-numbed parents of Hermosillo buried their babies and waited for answers. When none came, they marched. When they got desperate, they traveled the thousand miles to Mexico City and marched some more. They carried banners with photos of their children -- 48 in all -- killed when fire tore through a crowded day-care center named ABC. More than a month after the June 5 blaze in the northern state of Sonora, satisfying answers are in short supply.

California-based multimedia artist Mike Rogers was finishing his photographs for an exhibition in Mexico City when he got an urgent e-mail from the curator: The show had been called off. The capital's contemporary art museums were broke and shutting down. The message was exaggerated. Museums are not closing -- yet. But across Mexico City's eclectic art world, museum directors, curators, artists and performers are bracing for a round of recession-triggered budget cuts that could prove devastating.

Mired in a bloody battle with major drug traffickers, Mexico is quietly eliminating jail time for possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs. The government of President Felipe Calderon says removing the penalties will help in its fight against traffickers by freeing up law enforcement resources and shifting attention from minor consumers to big-time dealers and drug lords. The law also provides for free treatment for addicts. But critics say decriminalization sends the wrong message amid a drug war that has claimed more than 11,000 lives since late 2006.

The Mexican government on Tuesday proclaimed that it was making progress in its war against drug traffickers, in a state of the nation report delivered to a new Congress expected to challenge President Felipe Calderon during his remaining three years in office. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country for seven decades until 2000, is back in control of the Chamber of Deputies, which plays a key role in budget decisions that will be high on the agenda in coming months.

An alleged Whittier gang member wanted in an attack on two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies nearly nine years ago has been arrested in Mexico, authorities announced Monday. Emigdio Preciado Jr., who had been listed as one of the FBI's 10 most wanted, was arrested Friday night in the rural town of Corral Piedras, officials said. The community is in Nayarit state, along Mexico's central coast. He was arrested by Mexican federal police after a tip by U.S. authorities.

The police in Greenfield, a Monterey County farm town, had heard the rumors before: Migrant workers from rural Mexico were marrying off daughters as young as 12 and receiving sizable dowries. But no such cases were ever prosecuted -- until this week. Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, is in Monterey County Jail, charged with crimes related to an alleged attempt to set up a marriage for his 14-year-old daughter.

Arturo Sandria visited government agencies not once, not twice, not three times. (Hint: Try an even dozen.) He stood in mind-numbing lines, filled out forms, took another number, filled out more forms and, he says, paid $250 in bribes. But after six months, he was still in pursuit of his prize: a permit to paint his house. "Tedious," Sandria declared of his paper chase. "They ask for a lot of things that aren't really necessary."

The residents of North Monte Verde Drive, a stretch of oak-shaded suburban calm in the Covina area, normally would feel safe knowing that two off-duty police officers were visiting the neighborhood. Not this time. These officers were far from home -- agents of the Mexican federal police -- and they ended up on the wrong side of a bust, with a fortune in cash that prosecutors say was tied to narcotics trafficking.