President Felipe Calderon

Mexico's World Cup team got a visit from the president Saturday, part of a whirlwind of farewell ceremonies that concludes Sunday when Mexico meets Chile in front of a sellout crowd of more than 100,000 at Estadio Azteca. In an hourlong ceremony at the team's training center on the edge of Mexico City, President Felipe Calderon presented a Mexican flag to goalkeeper Memo Ochoa then challenged the team to play "like warriors" in next month's tournament in South Africa. "Putting on the jersey of the national team is an honor, a great privilege, an enormous responsibility.

MEXICO CITY - On the eve of President Obama's trip to Mexico, Mexican authorities on Tuesday announced the capture of a key drug cartel operative, the father-in-law and associate of one of the world's most-wanted fugitive kingpins. The major arrest - the first under new President Enrique Peña Nieto - comes as the extraordinarily close U.S.-Mexican cooperation in the drug war is undergoing significant changes. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that officials of the 5-month-old Mexican administration were alarmed to discover how deeply involved U.S. advisors were in sensitive areas of security and law enforcement during the six-year government of former President Felipe Calderon.

"The Team" aired for three short weeks and never scored high ratings. It proved one thing, though. Amid sharpening divisions over Mexico's drug war, even a mediocre cop drama can be fuel on the fire. The TV series debuted on the private Televisa network in early May and ended Friday, capping 15 prime-time episodes. But the controversy around it may outlast the reruns. Was the series, featuring a coed team of elite (and muy attractive!) federal officers on the trail of drug traffickers, just an ordinary crime drama?

MEXICO CITY - The case against six Mexican military officers accused of colluding with the Beltran Leyva drug cartel may be falling apart as federal prosecutors under new President Enrique Peña Nieto have reportedly admitted they lack sufficient evidence to back up the government's allegations. The prosecutors' statement to a federal judge presiding over the criminal case was included in court documents obtained by the newspaper Reforma and published Tuesday. A representative of the Mexican attorney general's office would not comment.

The claim has floated around for months, circulating among academics and critics of President Felipe Calderon's military-led war on Mexican drug gangs. It goes like this: Army and police operations that have included massive arrests, confiscation of drug shipments and numerous deadly shootouts, have left the largest and most powerful of the cartels relatively unscathed. The so-called Sinaloa cartel, based in the drug-rich Pacific state of the same name, has been allowed to escape most of the government's firepower and carry on with its illegal business as usual, according to this theory.

A day after tens of thousands of Mexicans joined in anti-violence protests, President Felipe Calderon offered Monday to meet with organizers to explain a government drug war that has produced growing worry as deaths climb. In televised comments, Calderon said talks could help bridge the gap between his administration and leaders of Sunday's March for Peace, which drew crowds of violence-weary people to the streets to appeal for a new crime strategy. Calderon offered no sign of backing away from his administration's military-led crackdown against drug cartels.

Carmen Aristegui, one of Mexico's best-known news hosts, likes to stir the pot. But did she go too far by saying the president should answer unsubstantiated rumors of a drinking problem? Aristegui, a veteran anchor on radio and television, was fired after telling her audience last week that President Felipe Calderon should respond formally to leftist lawmakers who hoisted a banner in Congress calling him a "drunk. " Those lawmakers offered no proof, and Calderon's public conduct has never suggested inebriation.

MEXICO CITY - In the six years of outgoing President Felipe Calderon's war against drug gangs, the U.S. became a principal player in Mexico, sending drones and sniffer dogs, police trainers and intelligence agents to a country long suspicious of its powerful neighbor. Calderon, who steps down Saturday, essentially rewrote the rules under which foreign forces could act here in matters of national security. There has been relatively little public protest, reflecting the severity of a conflict that has killed tens of thousands nationwide and spread violence south into Central America - without significantly reducing the flow of drugs.

MEXICO CITY - On the eve of President Obama's trip to Mexico, Mexican authorities on Tuesday announced the capture of a key drug cartel operative, the father-in-law and associate of one of the world's most-wanted fugitive kingpins. The major arrest - the first under new President Enrique Peña Nieto - comes as the extraordinarily close U.S.-Mexican cooperation in the drug war is undergoing significant changes. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that officials of the 5-month-old Mexican administration were alarmed to discover how deeply involved U.S. advisors were in sensitive areas of security and law enforcement during the six-year government of former President Felipe Calderon.

Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez Acuna is resigning, a source close to the government said. President Felipe Calderon is expected to give details today. The Interior Ministry was not immediately available to comment on the resignation, also reported on the website of the Mexican daily El Universal. Heading the Interior Ministry is one of Mexico's toughest posts because the government is battling powerful drug cartels.

MEXICO CITY - When Enrique Peña Nieto assumes the Mexican presidency on Saturday, returning to power a once-autocratic party that ruled for seven decades, he will immediately confront a sluggish economy and a bloody war against drug gangs. How he will handle those two problems is the biggest question surrounding the incoming government. Peña Nieto, 46, and his Institutional Revolutionary Party want to shift the focus away from the battle against drug cartels that consumed and ultimately haunted outgoing President Felipe Calderon.

MEXICO CITY - In the six years of outgoing President Felipe Calderon's war against drug gangs, the U.S. became a principal player in Mexico, sending drones and sniffer dogs, police trainers and intelligence agents to a country long suspicious of its powerful neighbor. Calderon, who steps down Saturday, essentially rewrote the rules under which foreign forces could act here in matters of national security. There has been relatively little public protest, reflecting the severity of a conflict that has killed tens of thousands nationwide and spread violence south into Central America - without significantly reducing the flow of drugs.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon will head to Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., after his six-year term ends Saturday. He will be a teaching and research fellow in 2013, the university and the president's office said in statements Wednesday. The announcement put to rest one of the most pressing questions in Mexico's political chatterbox: What's the next post or destination for Calderon, who declared a military-led campaign against drug cartels that left scores of civilians dead or missing across the country?

President Obama will meet with Mexico's incoming president, Enrique  Peña Nieto, on Tuesday in what is largely billed as a meet-and-greet visit. No doubt the two leaders will vow to work together on bilateral issues, including trade, immigration and border security. But the meeting may prove to be more than just a photo opportunity thanks to Peña Nieto's recent announcement that he plans to restructure the government and move control of the federal police from the Public Security Ministry to the Interior Ministry.

WASHINGTON - President Obama hosted the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Monday in a White House summit aimed at boosting the region's growing economic ties, but the scourge of drug violence in Mexico muddled the message and highlighted friction between the neighbors. Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the three announced an initiative to cut regulations that constrict trade across the northern and southern borders. But Mexico's drug war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, dominated a Rose Garden news conference.

MEXICO CITY —Former Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid, who led the country amid economic meltdown and natural disaster in the 1980s but laid the groundwork for freer markets and political opening, has died. He was 77. De la Madrid died Sunday morning at a Mexico City hospital where he was admitted several weeks ago for lung disease. A smoker, he died of complications from the disease, the semi-official Notimex news agency reported. His death was also reported by President Felipe Calderon and the Foreign Ministry, as condolences poured in from politicians across the political spectrum.

Leftist lawmakers who seized both chambers of Congress said they would not move until a national debate was held on an oil reform bill backed by President Felipe Calderon. A small group of lawmakers spent the night in Congress in blankets and sleeping bags after seizing the Senate and lower house chambers the day before. They accuse Calderon of trying to privatize the industry. Calderon says Pemex, the state oil company, would remain in Mexican hands but that some restrictions would be relaxed to allow outside help to boost sagging production.

The Mexican government honored several soldiers decapitated by suspected drug traffickers, sending the Defense and Interior secretaries to a ceremony aimed at reassuring the nation amid violence that has killed more than 5,300 people this year. President Felipe Calderon, who did not attend the ceremony at an army base in Chilpancingo, promised "firm action" in response to the attack. Regional military commander Gen. Enrique Alonso Garrido said the beheadings were an "offense against Mexican institutions and especially against those who wear a military uniform."

Singing, strumming guitars and trying to shield themselves from a searing sun, tens of thousands of Mexican Catholics came together Saturday nearly 24 hours before an open-air Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. They walked miles and took up positions in Bicentennial Park, a short distance from a hilltop monument that honors the 1920s Cristero War by Catholic counter-revolutionaries. But as religious fervor was on display in Silao, in central Mexico's Guanajuato state, a sexual-abuse scandal involving a notorious Mexican priest threatened to cast a pall over the pope's first visit to the Spanish-speaking Americas.

Six months before a presidential election that his party is widely expected to lose, President Felipe Calderon is on the defensive about the government's blood-soaked drug war, with new revelations that it sought to conceal death toll statistics from the public. By unofficial count, at least 50,000 people are believed to have been killed since Calderon deployed the military in the first days of his presidency in December 2006. A year ago, the government released an official death toll up to that point - 34,612 - and pledged to periodically update a database and make it public.