Violence

Jackie Chan, the comical kung fu king, is starring in a new movie so violent that its director decided not to release it in mainland China, which doesn't have a film ratings system. Hong Kong director Derek Yee said Monday that he considered toning down the violence in "Shinjuku Incident" so it could pass censorship in China, but decided not to because he thought it would hurt the integrity of the movie.

The people of Villanueva said they'd had enough. Men in cowboy hats, women with hand-scrawled signs, children on bikes -- they gathered outside town and blocked the main interstate highway. "If you can't do it, quit!" they told their police force. They demanded that the army take over. The army rolled into this town in Zacatecas state last month and ordered the police to stand down and surrender their weapons. They did. Things only got worse.

Buried under two months of winter in Buffalo, N.Y., Kim Kramer could take no more. "I came home and said, 'I've got to get out of here,' " said Kramer, a 44-year-old teacher. Two weeks later, she was awash in sunshine here on Mexico's Caribbean coast, sipping a midday Hurricane and looking pleasantly thawed. Before Kramer got on the plane to Cancun, though, she made sure to check: Was it dangerous to go there?

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit Mexico in two weeks as part of an Obama administration effort to bolster its neighbor in its bloody war with organized crime cartels and quell mounting U.S. anxiety over cross-border violence. The announcement Friday of Clinton's planned visit came just days after President Obama signed a spending bill that provides $300 million in additional aid for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug gangs.

Once the shadowy and violent domain of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, Medellin has undergone a renaissance over the last decade due to enlightened civic policy and public works, offering government officials proof that urban decline can be reversed. Once one of the world's deadliest cities, Medellin's homicide rate has dropped by more than 90% since the mid-1990s.

The United States does not need to send troops to the border in response to Mexico's drug war, nor is Mexico in danger of becoming a failed state, law enforcement officials told a congressional panel Monday. Witnesses testifying before members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in El Paso urged the lawmakers to bolster law enforcement in the region, increase aid to Mexico and push to reform institutions whose weaknesses had been exposed by the struggle with drug trafficking gangs.

Villagers in central Kenya clashed with a criminal gang using machetes, axes and clubs, killing at least 29 people and leaving the streets stained with blood, police said Tuesday. Residents near the town of Karatina fought Mungiki members overnight because the gang had been extorting money from them, deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said. "The majority of the dead are Mungiki members," Owino said. At least three others were seriously wounded.

Soldiers sent to halt a Taliban advance toward the Pakistani capital fought their way over a mountain pass Thursday, killed at least 14 militants and narrowly escaped a wave of suicide car bombers, the army said. Troops ousted militants from the Ambela Pass leading over the mountains into Buner and were inching toward the north, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. Soldiers opened fire on four suspected suicide car bombers who drove toward them near the pass, Abbas said.

California is taking one last stab at regulating violent video games. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown on Wednesday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a state law banning the sale of such games to children. The law was overturned by a federal district court on 1st Amendment grounds in 2007. An appeals court in February denied California's attempt to overturn that decision.

Twice before, the anti-drug agents had gotten a tip about a load of cocaine at the hulking industrial park on this dreary stretch of highway half an hour outside Guatemala City. Twice before, a U.S. official said, they had found nothing. On their third visit, they found a firing squad. Gunmen unleashed a furious barrage of bullets and at least one grenade, in some cases finishing the job point-blank.