A man believed to be the leader of the Gulf drug cartel, which controls some of the most valuable and violently contested smuggling routes along the US border, has been arrested by Mexican marines, the navy said.

Police in a Mexico City suburb have arrested a mother and several relatives for allegedly gouging out the eyes of her five-year-old son in what authorities said was a drug-fuelled ritual.

Five gunmen sprayed three passenger buses with bullets in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz, killing seven passengers before being chased down and shot dead by soldiers.

Alleged drug cartel leader Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen was killed in a shootout in the border city of Matamoros, a Mexican official said.

Tropical Storm Hermine was making its way north today after drenching parts of north-eastern Mexico and south Texas.

The sprawling remains of Hurricane Alex has drenched much of northern Mexico, paralysing the major city of Monterrey.

Hurricane Alex ripped off roofs, flooded streets and forced thousands of people to flee coastal fishing villages today as it pushed into northern Mexico after making landfall as a powerful Category 2 storm.

At least two people died and 44 were injured when a tanker carrying liquid propane gas struck the side of a freight train near Mexico’s border with the US.

For weeks, no one came forward to apply for the Nuevo Laredo police chief job in Mexico because many saw it as a death sentence.

One of Mexico’s most powerful drug lords was captured today after a gun battle with troops in the border city of Matamoros.

A band of about two dozen men armed with AK-47s and wearing bullet-proof vests stormed the State Ministry of Police headquarters in Matamoros, Mexico, and freed a man who had been detained in a kidnapping investigation.