CUERNAVACA, Mexico – Two hundred Mexican Navy marines stormed an upscale apartment complex and killed a reputed drug cartel chief in a two-hour gunbattle, one of the biggest victories yet in President Felipe Calderon’s drug war.

Arturo Beltran Leyva, the “boss of bosses,” and six members of his cartel died in the shootout Wednesday in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City, according to a navy statement Thursday. Read the full story

The endless tangle of questions about bullets, trajectories, wounds, time sequences and inconsistent testimony that has surrounded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and has obsessively fascinated, if not entirely blinded, two generations of self-styled assassination investigators, probably never will be satisfactorily resolved. Each new release of documents from the various bureaucracies involved in the nearly half century old investigation may only deepen the apparent contradictions.

Within this morass of facts. however, there is a central actor, Lee Harvey Oswald. His rifle, which fired the fatal bullet into the president, was found in the sniper’s nest at the Texas Book Depository. So was his palm print. He had also bought the ammunition. His cartridge cases were found near the body of a murdered policeman on the route of his flight. Read the full story

MEXICO CITY — The next wave of swine flu has arrived, and Mexicans are bracing for an outbreak that may be even larger than the one here last spring that became a pandemic. Daily diagnoses reached higher levels in September than the H1N1 peak in April, with 483 new cases in just one day this month alone. It’s unlikely there will be large-scale closings of schools and stadiums, however, because health officials know the virus is usually mild if treated early. Read the full story

U.S. Closes Mexico Border Crossing After Shootout

Federal agents opened fire Tuesday on three vans carrying at least 70 suspected illegal immigrants when the drivers of the vehicles tried to drive through a California border crossing that is considered the busiest such crossing in the world, officials said. Four people were injured. Read the full story

MEXICO CITY — Gangland violence punctuated Mexico’s Independence Day celebrations in Ciudad Juarez, the troubled city bordering El Paso, with two separate attacks killing at least 15 people.

Gunmen assaulted a drug rehabilitation center on Juarez’s poor west side about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, killing eight patients and two doctors, including the director of the center. Shortly after midnight Wednesday, another group of killers stormed into the Coco Bongo nightclub and mowed down five revelers with assault weapons, police said. Read the full story

Passengers Freed From Hijacked Jet in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Three hijackers threatened to blow up an Aeromexico Boeing 737 that landed at Mexico City’s airport from Cancun Wednesday afternoon, Transport Minister Juan Molinar told Mexican radio. Read the full story

Who: United States vs. Mexico
What: CONCACAF World Cup 2010 Qualifying
When: Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009, 3 p.m. EST
Where: Estadio Azteca; Mexico City, Mexico

It’s a World Cup qualifier, and all hands will be on deck. The national team has just two days of preparation — Monday and Tuesday — before the match Wednesday afternoon at what will be a packed Azteca Stadium. Read the full story