Gunmen sprayed bullets at a restaurant where the mayor of a Texas border town was eating with a Mexican state attorney general and other officials, killing a woman leaving the building.

A US SECURITY consultant who negotiated the release of dozens of kidnap victims in Latin America has himself been kidnapped by masked gunmen in northern Mexico.

A flash flood swept through a northern Mexican city, killing at least 31 people caught in the path of an overflowing river, forcing hundreds into shelters, and damaging homes and cars.