Mexico

Suspected drug gang killers dumped the mutilated bodies of more than 40 people on a highway near the northern city of Monterrey in one of the worst atrocities to hit Mexico in recent years.

The mutilated remains of 18 people, including some who were beheaded, have been found close to a highway near the western Mexican city of Guadalajara, officials say.

A kindergarten teacher in northern Mexico has been honoured for her courage after a video showed her calmly instructing children to duck and cover as gunfire rattled outside their school.

Mexican authorities have returned about 400 migrants to their native Guatemala, a day after they and 113 other migrants were found inside two trailer trucks.

A suspect in the killing of a US immigration agent in Mexico has been detained, the Mexican Defence Department says.

Gunmen stormed two homes and massacred 13 young people at a birthday party in the latest large-scale attack in the violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, even as a new government strategy seeks to restore order with social programmes and massive police deployments.

Mexican authorities say seven people were killed in a shootout between rival drug gangs in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

Drug cartels fund a tenth of Mexico's economy. They have infiltrated many local and state police forces and staged assaults on army bases.

Gunmen assassinated the front-running candidate for governor of a Mexican border state in what President Felipe Calderon called an attempt by drug gangs to sway local and state elections this weekend.