Backpage ad site: Aider of traffickers, or way to stop them?
By MARTHA IRVINE Is the huge classified ad site an abettor of sexual trafficking and exploitation, or a beacon of free expression? Does it generate crime, or help solve it?…
Drug-related crime
91-year-old Sydney man charged with importing cocaine
A 91-year-old retired surgeon has been charged with importing cocaine hidden in soap into Australia, prompting police to warn travelers to beware they are not tricked into becoming drug mules.…
Obama visits prison to call for a fairer justice system
Peering from the back seat of his armored black limousine, President Barack Obama rode into a razor wire-surrounded federal prison Thursday and said he met young inmates “who made mistakes…
Is Texas spending $800M to create its own border patrol?
By SETH ROBBINS and PAUL J. WEBER When former Gov. Rick Perry ordered a big reinforcement of security at the Mexico border in 2011, Texas bought six new gunboats that…
Police break up US-Italy drug ring run out of NYC pizzeria
FRANCES D’EMILIO By night, the Calabrian immigrant family served up piping-hot pizza. After hours, Italian and U.S. authorities say, the restaurant in the New York borough of Queens was busy…
Mexican officials find 60 abandoned bodies at funeral home
By JOSE ANTONIO RIVERA Sixty rotting bodies have been found at a shuttered crematorium near Acapulco after neighbors complained to authorities about a foul smell coming from the building, officials…
Venezuela’s No. 2 distances himself from defecting bodyguard
The powerful head of Venezuela’s congress moved Wednesday to distance himself from a bodyguard who defected to the United States and reportedly has implicated his former boss as head of…
Indonesia rejects foreign appeals, executes 6 drug convicts
By NINIEK KARMINI Indonesia brushed aside last-minute appeals by foreign leaders and executed by firing squad six people convicted of drug trafficking, including five foreigners, sending a message that the…