A federal judge dismissed weapons charges against a flamboyant gambling magnate-turned-politician on Tuesday, dealing a stinging setback to President Felipe Calderon's battle against organized crime and fueling claims that a pre-dawn military raid on the former mayor's compound was an attempt to damage his party ahead of Mexico's presidential elections. But Jorge Hank Rhon did not go free as he left the federal prison. State officials immediately took him into custody and the former Tijuana...

Berta Guadalupe Díaz said that Jorge Hank Rhon bought her a hearing aid and helped in the effort to bring public services to the neighborhood she leads. “I have so many reasons to thank him, so many. To me, what the government did to him is an injustice because he’s helped people so much,” said Díaz, 66, who was one an estimated 3,000 residents who turned out Tuesday afternoon to support Hank Rhon. They gathered at 4:30 p.m. in the Río zone, on...

Mexico's rival crime gangs are in an arms race, and the latest sign of that are the homemade "Mad Max"-type heavily armored vehicles they deploy to withstand fierce clashes with each other. The army found two more "narco tanks" over the weekend in Ciudad Camargo in Tamaulipas state along the border with Texas. In earlier discoveries in April and May, armored vehicles found by authorities contained swiveling turrets, snipers' peepholes and gadgets to dump oil and scatter...

U.S. Embassy officials met with a 14-year-old boy accused of being a drug cartel assassin to check on his welfare and provide him with information on a lawyer in case it turns out he is American, a spokesman said Tuesday. Mexican officials and his family say the boy, who became a kind of urban legend in Mexico before his capture and claims he carried out at least four executions, was born in the United States even though he spent much of his childhood in Mexico. But Embassy spokesman...