Veracruz

  Authorities disbanded the police force in the port city of Veracruz on Wednesday and handed patrol duties to the military in a bid to clean up corruption. The Mexican navy and state police took over enforcement after Veracruz state officials laid off 900 officers and 46 administrative workers. Veracruz becomes the latest city where the military is on patrol. State spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said the move aimed to "create a new police model" that will demand officers who are better trained and "more committed to the public security function.

Last week, a group of Latino and Mexican artists up for three Grammy Awards gathered in a narrow Boyle Heights storefront - mostly in the flesh, some via Skype, a few present in spirit. They'd assembled to honor a strain of regional folk music nicknamed "the Mexican blues" that generations of L.A. musicians have stamped onto their DNA but that until this year the Grammys had largely ignored. The music, son jarocho (pronounced ha-RO-cho), is a hothouse hybrid of baroque Spanish instruments, ferocious Afro-Caribbean beats, Native American poetics and wise-cracking wordplay that Iberian conquistadors and black slaves imported to the tropical Mexican state of Veracruz.

MEXICO CITY - With presidential and local elections slightly more than two weeks away, violence - some of it political, some of it part of a raging drug war - is surging in Mexico, with candidates killed, journalists snatched and major arrests threatening to touch off a wave of reprisals. And in a sign of the profound corruption that a new president will face, a video released this week shows police officers marching men from a hotel in the middle of the night. The men turned up dead the next day, and the police are suspected of acting on orders from drug gangs.

SALTILLO, Mexico - The mothers knock on the doors of flophouses and morgues. They sift through pictures of prisoners and the dead. Clutching pictures of their own, some from long ago, they ask the same questions, over and over. Have you seen him? Does she look familiar? Occasionally, there is a reported sighting. More often, it's another shake of the head, a "Sorry, no. " And with that, weariness stooping their shoulders and worry sagging their faces, they board their bus and move on to another town.

Gunmen dumped the bodies of 35 people with suspected ties to organized crime under an overpass filled with motorists Tuesday on the outskirts of the Mexican port city of Veracruz, officials said. The bodies were left in a pair of trucks and on the road near a major shopping center in the community of Boca del Rio, a popular site for Mexican tourists to the port city, along the Gulf of Mexico. Reynaldo Escobar, prosecutor for the state of Veracruz, said the dead bore signs of torture.

Thirty years behind bars for a few misinformed tweets? It's a possibility for the so-called Twitter Terrorists of Mexico. In a case that has riled human rights groups and users of social networking sites, the state of Veracruz on Mexico's gulf coast is pursuing tough charges including terrorism and sabotage against a man and a woman who spread rumors of an attack by drug gangs on a primary school. The messages, the government alleges, caused hysteria among parents in the state's port city of the same name, Veracruz.

They had scraped together money for a vacation in the port city of Veracruz. Four couples, owners of small fruit and taco shops, from the quiet state of Guanajuato. After checking in to their hotel and spending the day by the pool with their children, the husbands wandered off, still in their shorts, to buy ice at a nearby 7-Eleven. Maybe they decided to pop into a bar, one the hotel guard recommended. At first, the wives weren't too worried when the men didn't come back. Even the next morning, the women figured they had tied one on and slept it off somewhere.

In 1958, San Fernando Valley native Ritchie Valens climbed the U.S. pop charts with a butt-kicking little tune called "La Bamba. " According to the song's Spanish-language lyrics, dancing to it properly required "a little grace" and a little bit of something else. Few teenagers bopping to "La Bamba" probably realized they were jumping around to a rock-a-fied version of son jarocho , a structurally elegant but high-spirited fusion of Afro-Caribbean beats and often wise-cracking wordplay on timely political topics.

As someone who lived and worked in Mexico for 14 1/2 years and with intimate knowledge of the three cities Reed Johnson mentioned in his article ["Stay Safe, but Enjoy," Nov. 16], I'd like to add some random thoughts. One should never travel lonely stretches of streets or beaches; it's an invitation for robbery. As long as you don't have a car accident, you won't have any problem in Veracruz, which is an otherwise charming city. I married a local girl so I may be biased. Better than Veracruz, though, is Xalapa (from an Indian spelling; the X is pronounced like an H)

SALTILLO, Mexico - The mothers knock on the doors of flophouses and morgues. They sift through pictures of prisoners and the dead. Clutching pictures of their own, some from long ago, they ask the same questions, over and over. Have you seen him? Does she look familiar? Occasionally, there is a reported sighting. More often, it's another shake of the head, a "Sorry, no. " And with that, weariness stooping their shoulders and worry sagging their faces, they board their bus and move on to another town.

MEXICO CITY - With rare speed, authorities in the violence-plagued coastal state of Veracruz say they have solved the killings of five journalists and news media workers, pinning the slayings on two notorious drug cartels. But press freedom advocates Thursday questioned what they considered a too facile resolution of one of the most alarming strings of journalism attacks in a country where such bloodshed has become all too familiar. "The government of Veracruz is trying to shelve its worst-ever crisis of violence against the press," the advocacy group Article 19 said in a statement.

In 1958, San Fernando Valley native Ritchie Valens climbed the U.S. pop charts with a butt-kicking little tune called "La Bamba. " According to the song's Spanish-language lyrics, dancing to it properly required "a little grace" and a little bit of something else. Few teenagers bopping to "La Bamba" probably realized they were jumping around to a rock-a-fied version of son jarocho , a structurally elegant but high-spirited fusion of Afro-Caribbean beats and often wise-cracking wordplay on timely political topics.

MEXICO CITY - With presidential and local elections slightly more than two weeks away, violence - some of it political, some of it part of a raging drug war - is surging in Mexico, with candidates killed, journalists snatched and major arrests threatening to touch off a wave of reprisals. And in a sign of the profound corruption that a new president will face, a video released this week shows police officers marching men from a hotel in the middle of the night. The men turned up dead the next day, and the police are suspected of acting on orders from drug gangs.

Gunmen opened fire Thursday on three passenger buses in the violence-racked state of Veracruz, killing at least seven people, Mexican authorities said. All five attackers were killed in a shootout with federal security forces after the attack, which took place on a rural highway near Panuco in the northern part of the coastal state. State spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said the gunmen were suspected in a separate attack earlier Thursday in El Higo, another town not far from the border with Tamaulipas state.

  Authorities disbanded the police force in the port city of Veracruz on Wednesday and handed patrol duties to the military in a bid to clean up corruption. The Mexican navy and state police took over enforcement after Veracruz state officials laid off 900 officers and 46 administrative workers. Veracruz becomes the latest city where the military is on patrol. State spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said the move aimed to "create a new police model" that will demand officers who are better trained and "more committed to the public security function.

The callers to the radio program were voicing their support for the Matazetas, the Zeta killers. Better they fight among themselves. Let them kill each other. Anything to rid us of the thugs who long ago took control of our city and are slaughtering our people. It is a sign of the desperation and deep outrage over surging drug-war violence that a shadowy group of vigilante killers is not only tolerated but welcomed by many here in Mexico's third-most populous state. Full coverage: The drug war in Mexico Yet it also comes with a disturbing question: Just who is behind the killings of Zetas — another drug gang?

The "boy killer" who for many became a symbol of the lawlessness and social deterioration of Mexican society because of the nation's drug war was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for killing four people in Morelos state. Edgar Jimenez Lugo, alias "El Ponchis," was 14 when he was arrested by the Mexican army in December. The teenager admitted before news cameras at the time that he began killing at age 11 and that a cartel paid him $200 a week to do it. He claimed to have beheaded four of his victims.

Solar Turbines, a San Diego-based heavy-equipment manufacturer, illustrates how passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement is great news to many Southern California businesses. Tariffs of up to 20% that Mexican customers pay for Solar's oil field transmission engines and generators will be eliminated, giving Solar a significant pricing advantage over European and Japanese competitors whose products are still subject to those charges, Solar Vice President James D. Lutton said.

Gunmen dumped the bodies of 35 people with suspected ties to organized crime under an overpass filled with motorists Tuesday on the outskirts of the Mexican port city of Veracruz, officials said. The bodies were left in a pair of trucks and on the road near a major shopping center in the community of Boca del Rio, a popular site for Mexican tourists to the port city, along the Gulf of Mexico. Reynaldo Escobar, prosecutor for the state of Veracruz, said the dead bore signs of torture.

Thirty years behind bars for a few misinformed tweets? It's a possibility for the so-called Twitter Terrorists of Mexico. In a case that has riled human rights groups and users of social networking sites, the state of Veracruz on Mexico's gulf coast is pursuing tough charges including terrorism and sabotage against a man and a woman who spread rumors of an attack by drug gangs on a primary school. The messages, the government alleges, caused hysteria among parents in the state's port city of the same name, Veracruz.