Mexico City

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's Congress stripped Mexico City's mayor of his immunity from prosecution yesterday, clearing the way for his arrest in a vote that could also block him from running in the 2006 presidential race. The House vote against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, mayor of Mexico City, similar to impeachment, could force him to stand trial on charges that he disobeyed a court order to stop construction of a road on contested private land. It effectively removes him from office.

Thousands of university students marched through central Mexico City on Wednesday to protest media coverage that they say favors the candidate of the former ruling party in upcoming presidential elections. The students say newspapers and television stations are tilting their coverage toward Enrique Pena Nieto, who is leading polls by double digits ahead of the July 1 vote. Many of the students were from the elite Iberoamerican University, where a May 11 appearance by Pena Nieto set off a rare wave of protests by young people against a return to the presidency of the Institutional...

With "Battle in Heaven," I suppose I should start where its talented but maddening maker, Carlos Reygadas, would probably like us to begin. With the sex. In the opening shot, the camera embarks on a journey from a man's face, along his naked, corpulent trunk, stopping at the nude, dreadlocked young woman kneeling at his waist. Judging from the man's blank expression, he doesn't appear to be having the time of his life. Over the course of the film, it's a look you'll know well, and you might feel the same way yourself.

Police in a Mexico City suburb arrested a mother and several relatives Thursday for allegedly gouging out the eyes of her 5-year-old son in what authorities said appeared to have been a drug-fueled ritual. The boy was taken to a hospital in Nezahualcoyotl, a part of Mexico state bordering Mexico City, in serious condition early Thursday and later transferred by helicopter to a more specialized facility in the capital, officials said. Nezahualcoyotl spokesman Fernando Chavez said a passing police car was flagged down on the street by someone who reported the incident and when...

CAMBRIDGE - On the face of it, Melanie Smith's solo show "Spiral City & Other Vicarious Pleasures," at MIT's List Visual Arts Center, looks like a bold attempt at making a portrait of a city. And not just any city. Smith, who was born in Britain, has chosen as her subject one of the world's largest: Mexico City, where she has lived since the late 1980s. Just think of it: To take on a whole city - and with a full quiver of means at your disposal! (Smith uses paint, photography, video footage, audio, and various installation techniques.)

A Jamaica Plain woman who disappeared last month has been found in Mexico City, police said. Boston police said that they were informed by an unspecified US government agency that Amber DeVoe, 28, who was reported missing on June 27, was found safe in Mexico City Tuesday. Police had reported possible sightings of DeVoe in the South End days after she was reported missing, and friends launched a Facebook page to help find her. Friends said DeVoe, a Michigan native, had recently moved to Jamaica Plain and played on a softball team and that her mother had come to Boston to...

Mexico City's government is offering a free app for BlackBerrys that will alert users when a major earthquake is approaching the capital. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says there are monitoring stations in remote areas of the country that detect earthquakes and send signals to Mexico City from 5 to 10 seconds before a tremor's waves reach the capital. Ebrard says the app began working Tuesday. He says even a few seconds warning will be valuable in helping people take action to protect their lives.

An unspecified number of flights have been diverted from Mexico City because a power failure darkened the capital's international airport. Airport managers say power and flight service is expected to be restored before midnight. Officials say the apparent failure of a transformer threatened to start a fire at the facility. But they stress that passengers and planes were never at risk. The airport hasn't said how many incoming flights were diverted to terminals at Acapulco, Veracruz, Monterrey and elsewhere in Mexico as a result of Wednesday's outage.

The bodies of 10 men and a woman who had been shot with high-powered rifles were found Friday piled near a water well on the outskirts of Mexico City, authorities said. Another man was found alive and taken to a hospital, said Antonio Ortega, a spokesman for the Mexico State police. He said some of the bodies were blindfolded and had their hands tied. State officials said police found another body nearby a few hours later but could not confirm it was related to the mass attack.

Mexico City's mayor says he will be a candidate for the presidential nomination of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard is competing with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election. Party leaders say they will commission an opinion poll of the general public to pick their nominee. Ebrard runs slightly ahead of Lopez Obrador among all voters, while Lopez Obrador is favored by party members. Ebrard said Wednesday he is proposing "a fairer, safer and more prosperous society.

MEXICO CITY - Author Carlos Fuentes, who played a dominant role in Latin America's novel-writing boom by delving into the failed ideals of the Mexican revolution, died Tuesday in a Mexico City hospital. He was 83. Mexico's National Council for Culture for the Arts confirmed the death of Mexico's most celebrated novelist. The cause was not immediately known, said the culture official, who was not authorized to speak to reporters. Mexican news organizations reported that Mr. Fuentes died at the Ángeles del Pedregal hospital, where he was being treated for heart problems.

Dozens of Mexican women have spent the day on which their country celebrates mothers by demanding that authorities find their missing sons and daughters — most whom have disappeared in drug-torn regions. About 300 mothers and other relatives of missing victims traveled from other states to Mexico City on Thursday to march along the capital's main avenue on Mother's Day. The protesters chanted, "They took them alive, and alive we want them. " Mexico's government doesn't release statistics on disappeared victims in the armed offensive against drug cartels.

MEXICO CITY - In September 2005, a senior Walmart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company's largest foreign subsidiary, Walmart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Walmart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country. The former executive gave names, dates, and bribe amounts.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican television and movie actor Julio Aleman, who starred in the first telenovela ever produced in the country, died Wednesday. He was 78. Mr. Aleman had been fighting lung cancer since early 2000 and was admitted to a Mexico City hospital on Monday with an infection, according to Televisa, his broadcast employer. Considered a pioneer in the telenovela industry, Mr. Aleman also starred in movies and served as a state representative. His last telenovela was produced only two years ago. He had six children and married three times,...

Mexico City's government is offering a free app for BlackBerrys that will alert users when a major earthquake is approaching the capital. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says there are monitoring stations in remote areas of the country that detect earthquakes and send signals to Mexico City from 5 to 10 seconds before a tremor's waves reach the capital. Ebrard says the app began working Tuesday. He says even a few seconds warning will be valuable in helping people take action to protect their lives.

NEW YORK - Miguel de la Madrid, a former president of Mexico whose derided handling of the earthquake that devastated Mexico City in 1985 was the beginning of the end for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, died Sunday morning in a Mexico City hospital. He was 77. His death was confirmed by his office. No cause was specified, but Mr. de la Madrid had been hospitalized with emphysema for the past three months, according to his private secretary, Delia Gonzalez. A Harvard-educated technocrat, Mr. de la Madrid was elected in 1982 and presided during one of the most...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico City lawmakers made the city yesterday the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, a change that will give homosexual couples more rights, including allowing them to adopt children. The bill passed the capital’s local assembly, 39 to 20, to the cheers of supporters who yelled, “Yes, we could! Yes, we could!’’ Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, with the Democratic Revolution Party, was widely expected to sign the measure into law. Mexico City’s left-led assembly has made several decisions unpopular elsewhere in this deeply Roman Catholic country,...

MEXICO CITY - The cardinal said Mass in a shuttered cathedral. Soccer teams played to empty stadiums. Mexico's overcrowded capital locked itself indoors yesterday, terrified by a new strain of swine flu that was quickly spreading around the world. Mexico City residents are accustomed to living in public view. They eat greasy tacos at stands along smog-choked avenues, play pickup soccer on potholed streets, and snuggle with sweethearts in tree-lined parks. But yesterday even the enormous Zocalo plaza, where throngs of families congregate for...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A strong 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit central and southern Mexico on Tuesday, damaging some 800 homes near the epicenter and swaying tall buildings and spreading fear and panic hundreds of miles away in the capital of Mexico City. One of the strongest to shake Mexico since the deadly 1985 temblor that killed thousands in Mexico City, Tuesday's earthquake hit hardest in border area of southern Oaxaca and Guerrero states, where Guerrero official confirmed that some 800 homes had been damaged, with another 60 having collapsed.

MEXICO CITY - A strong, 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit central and southern Mexico Tuesday, damaging some 800 homes near the epicenter and swaying tall buildings and spreading fear and panic hundreds of miles away in the capital, Mexico City. One of the strongest to shake Mexico since the deadly 1985 temblor that killed thousands in Mexico City, Tuesday's quake hit hardest in the border area of southern Oaxaca and Guerrero states. Officials in Guerrero confirmed that some 800 homes had been damaged, with an additional 60 having collapsed.