Nuevo Laredo

Mexican federal police on Saturday rescued two of four journalists kidnapped five days earlier by a drug gang in northern Mexico, authorities said. The case highlighted the dangers faced by journalists in Mexico, where criminal gangs often seek to silence news coverage or slant it in their favor. The captors had demanded the airing of homemade videos that linked a rival gang to corrupt police in the states of Durango and Coahuila. Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said intelligence work led to a predawn operation that freed cameramen Javier Canales of Multimedios Laguna and Alejandro Hernandez of Televisa from a house in Gomez Palacio, Durango.

While most of the nation is suffering through a recession-plagued holiday season, business is booming in--of all places--this border city, one of America's poorest metropolitan areas. Shoppers wheel dollies stacked with merchandise down Convent Street, the main drag extending from the bridge spanning the Rio Grande. Customers snatch electric mixers off the floor at Lazaro's electronics store as quickly as harried stock clerks can put them out.

The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing guidelines for use of force by border agencies amid a sharp increase in agent-involved killings along the U.S.-Mexico border. The scrutiny of U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement practices comes in response to a request by 16 members of Congress who expressed concern over the death of a Mexican man who suffered a fatal heart attack after being Tasered by a customs officer in 2010. The review by Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General will determine whether the incident at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego reflected systemic brutality or use of excessive force, and whether the rapid rise in staffing in recent years has affected training.

HOUSTON -- Texas border patrol agents were on alert Tuesday for more than 130 inmates who escaped from prison in a Mexican border town. The inmates escaped through a 21-foot tunnel from the prison in Piedras Negras, and more than half had been serving time for federal crimes, including drug trafficking, officials told ABC News . Piedras Negras is just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio. The attorney general of Coahuila state, Homero Ramos Gloria, said that three employees of the prison, including the director, were being questioned about the potential involvement of staff in the mass breakout, according to Mexican media reports.

"You are in American territory," a Border Patrol agent shouts into a bullhorn. "Turn back." Sometimes Enrique strips and wades into the Rio Grande to cool off. But the bullhorn always stops him. He goes back. "Thank you for returning to your country." He is stymied. For days, Enrique, 17, has been stuck in Nuevo Laredo, on the southern bank of the Rio Bravo, as it is called here. He has been watching, listening and trying to plan. Somewhere across this milky green ribbon of water is his mother.

The Almanzas slowed down as they drove their black pickup past what they believed to be an army checkpoint in violent northeastern Mexico. They rolled down their windows, they say, so the soldiers could see they were a family. But the masked men in uniform instead opened fire, and two Almanza children, aged 9 and 5, were killed. Fifteen days earlier and just 100 miles away, two promising university students were killed at the gates of their school during an army battle with drug traffickers.

DeWayne Buice, who does the best Maxwell Smart in the major leagues, is a crack right-handed relief ace who has taken the American League by storm at 22 with a heat-seeking fastball that can melt speed guns at 30 paces. Would you believe a fairly reliable 25-year-old set-up man who can baffle opposing hitters with a savvy mix of sliders, knucklers and split-fingered fastballs?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has launched what it calls a comprehensive review of its officers' use of force amid a sharp increase in fatal confrontations along the Southwest border. The initiative, which appears to be the most far-reaching of its kind in recent years, calls for an assessment of current tactics and the participation of an independent outside research center. Mexican government officials, who have condemned the shootings, will also be provided briefings on closed investigations involving force, according to a memorandum prepared for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

She arrives at the Rio Grande exhausted, worried and crying. It has taken Lourdes Izaguirre, 26, of Honduras three months to get here. She cannot call home; her family has no phone. She has walked away from Byron, 5, and Melissa, 10, as well as her 10-year-old sister and 11-year-old brother, whom she had been raising for her ailing mother. She is heading north to find work in the United States and has gotten as far as Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Texas. Izaguirre and other mothers have gathered on the second floor of Parroquia de San Jose--St.

The United States is closing its consulate in this border city for a week in the wake of a shootout in which assailants used machine guns, grenades and a rocket launcher to attack a home, the U.S. ambassador said Friday. In a statement from Mexico City, Ambassador Tony Garza said that "in light of this alarming incident and continued violence along the border, I have decided to suspend all operations except for emergency services for American citizens" for one week beginning Aug. 1.