A screaming teenager with a gunshot wound has been found dangling from a rope over a busy highway in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.

A letter purportedly signed by La Familia drug cartel announcing a one-month truce circulated in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan.

Mexican police recovered 18 bodies in a mass grave identified in a narco-video as the burial site for 20 men who were kidnapped a month ago in the Pacific coast city of Acapulco.

Mexico looked beyond its drug war and looming Atlantic storms today to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional independence cry: “Viva Mexico!”

FEDERAL forces have detained 10 mayors and 18 other officials for allegedly protecting one of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels in an unprecedented anti-corruption sweep in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan.

US Treasury Secretary John Snow has appealed to finance ministers from 19 other countries to donate money to rebuild war-torn Iraq.