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The world’s most notorious and powerful drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, has reportedly been captured in Mexico. The head of the Sinoloa Cartel - nicknamed Chapo or "shorty" - was caught last night, according to the AP, at a hotel resort in Mazatlan in a joint US-Mexico operation. Forbes ranked Guzman 67 out of 72 on their list of the World’s Most Powerful People. With revenues believed to exceed $3bn, his Sinaloa cartel is easily the most powerful in Mexico, responsible for an estimated 25% of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S. via Mexico. While this may...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

Leftist lawmakers in Mexico City’s legislature introduced a bill Thursday that would legalize the sale of marijuana within the capital, expanding on a national law that already decriminalizes the possession by users of small amounts of pot throughout the country. It wasn’t immediately clear how wide support was for the idea within the local assembly, which is controlled by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, but Mayor Manuel Mancera backed the idea and the legislature is one of the most liberal in Mexico. It has previously legalized abortion and gay marriage.The ambitious plan is sure to create controversy in a country...

As a result of continued drug violence in their communities, Mexican citizens have been arming themselves to fight back against ruthless cartels and breaking the law to do so. In Mexico, regular citizens are not allowed to own firearms. When citizen, vigilante groups first started arming themselves against the will of the government, police and officials expressed concern and asked the groups to disarm. But now, after armed communities have proven to be an effective force to keep drug cartel activity at bay, the government is changing its tune in some areas of the country. More from CNN:

The Mexican Congress has just passed a resolution calling upon the United States to facilitate the granting of asylum to Mexican citizens who claim they are escaping from violence. Due to widespread killings and attacks in the country, primarily due to drug trafficking, the Mexican Congress is admitting officially that they cannot protect their own citizens from other Mexicans. It figures, therefore, that the responsibility must now fall to the United States.

Moises Verduzco says he learned how to handle himself in a fight from his teen years running with a street gang near Los Angeles. Now back home in western Mexico’s violent Michoacan state, Verduzco and other United States-bred youths are putting those lessons from the barrio to war against the Knights Templar criminal cartel. Verduzco, 22, spent most of his life in the working-class city of Hawthorne, Calif., until the US deported him to Mexico a few years ago following a criminal conviction. “This is way better,” he says, comparing his preferred vigilante post with California gangster life. “Here you...

[Members of a self-defense group guard a road near Nueva Italia, Mexico, Jan. 15. The government wants the groups to give up their guns, but locals, including many priests, say the government has been unable to keep them safe. Members of a self-defense group guard a road near Nueva Italia, Mexico, Jan. 15. The government wants the groups to give up their guns, but locals, including many priests, say the government has been unable to keep them safe.] NUEVA ITALIA, Mexico - A Mexican bishop has rebuked the federal government for sending soldiers to grab the guns of the...

Associated PressJanuary 14, 2014 Updated 9 hours ago APATZINGAN, Mexico — Federal forces and heavily armed vigilantes are warily watching each other in a violence-wracked farming area of western Mexico after one deadly clash and a failure by leaders from both sides to work out a deal on disarming.

Early in the morning on January 13, Mexican soldiers clashed with members of an armed citizen’s militia group. Multiple casualties were reported. Mexico’s government recently amped up its presence in the surrounding state of Michoacan after ongoing conflicts between armed civilians and drug cartel members have escalated. A recent push by the vigilante group to drive members of the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel out of the city of Apatzingan has led to an even more complicated situation. While heavily armed soldiers congregated in the center of Apatzingan, other units operating outside of the city tried to disarm some of the...

Residents living in fear of violent criminal gangs in south-west Mexico are taking matters into their own hands .... Hundreds of armed vigilantes stormed a Mexican town and arrested federal police in the latest bloody battle between residents, criminal gangs, and the police locals say are in league with the gang members. Around 600 members of local 'autodefensas', or self-defence groups, stormed Paracuaro in the troubled Michoacan state yesterday in an attempt to seize control of the town back from the feared Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) drug cartel. The battle was the latest in a long-running war between the drugs...

Border: A federal judge finds that the Department of Homeland Security, instead of arresting cartel members and the clients who pay them to smuggle children into the U.S., helps the drug lords complete the transactions. Former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano once proclaimed the U.S. border to be as secure as it has ever been. Yet her department has been found by Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Texas to have actively undermined that security by enabling drug cartels engaged in the lucrative smuggling of children. The case before Judge Hanen — United...

A federal judge in Texas is accusing the Department of Homeland Security of hand-delivering children smuggled into the United States to their illegal immigrant parents. U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen revealed the practice in a blistering court order filed late last week. He said the "dangerous" practice is effectively aiding human traffickers and particularly the drug cartels, which run many of these operations. "These actions are both dangerous and unconscionable," he wrote. The judge attempted to lift the curtain on what is happening behind the scenes of the Obama administration's changing approach to immigration enforcement. It has been well-documented...

National Security: The theft of a truck carrying dangerous radioactive material combined with terrorist group activity in the hemisphere shows that the need for a secure border involves more than illegal immigration. Mexican authorities said Wednesday they found the stolen truck and likely recovered all of the radioactive cobalt taken by a group of thieves who were probably after the truck, unaware it carried a deadly cargo. Cobalt-60, which is used in radiation therapy to treat cancer, was being transported from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive waste storage center. But what if the thieves...

The House Judiciary Committee has begun looking at reports that Mexican drug cartel members are abusing the U.S. asylum system to bypass regular immigration checks and get into the country, where some are setting up smuggling operations and others engage in the same violent feuds that caused them to flee Mexico in the first place. In one instance, a woman made a claim of asylum and three months later was apprehended at a Border Patrol checkpoint with more than $1 million in cocaine, according to a memo obtained by the committee that says criminal gangs are exploiting holes in the...

Late last week news broke of a connection between grenades illegally trafficked from the U.S. into Mexico by Jean Baptiste Kingery and the murder of Mexican police officers. Years ago, Kingery was suspected of trafficking parts for grenades into Mexico and then building explosives for cartels. An incident report detailing a fire fight between Mexican police and cartel members states, "Jalisco State Police Officers murdered during a shooting with members of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in Tepatitlan, Jalisoc, MX. In the late hours of October 10, 2013, officers with the Jalisco State Police engaged in a shooting with...

Terrorism expert Matthew Levitt writes that an increasing number of U.S. prison inmates have tattoos that are pro-Hezbollah or are in Farsi, the language spoken in Iran. … “Law enforcement officials across the Southwest are reporting a rise in imprisoned gang members with Farsi tattoos” and some express loyalty to Hezbollah. … Hezbollah’s business relationship with Mexican drug cartels is seen as a driving force behind the phenomenon. …

A proposed reunion of Minutemen, tentatively scheduled for a site near the border in October has been postponed, due to word that drug cartels have put a $100,000 bounty out for the death of any Minuteman, and a $250,000 bounty out for the death of any officer or leader of the Minutemen.

The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) based in Sarasota, FL, headed by Chairman Frances Rice, filed Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama with the following language: We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors. On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed...

<p>A loophole is allowing hundreds of immigrants across the Mexico border in to the United States.</p> <p>Immigrants are being taught to use "key words and phrases" to be allowed to enter and stay in the country.</p> <p>Just this past Monday, Border Patrol agents say about 200 people came through the Otay Crossing claiming a quote: "credible fear" of the drug cartels.</p>

In an open letter to the public in late July, several retired Border Patrol agents wrote on behalf of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers to warn that Mexican drug cartels are actively operating inside the United States spending millions every year to try to build their networks here. They argued that American politicians are protecting their activities as well. “Transnational criminal enterprises have annually invested millions of dollars to create and staff international drug and human smuggling networks inside the United States; thus it is no surprise that they continue to accelerate their efforts to get trusted...