Reckless Reality |

Meet the child known as “patient zero” by his doctors — 5-year-old Edgar Hernandez, who survived the earliest documented case of swine flu in an outbreak that, officials say, has now spread across four continents.

His family lives in the 3,000-population village of La Gloria in the state of Veracruz, where a flu outbreak was reported on April 2. State officials arrived and tested dozens of people.

Lab tests confirmed that Edgar was the only patient in Veracruz to test positive for the swine flu virus; the others had contracted a common flu. Health officials had returned to Edgar’s sample only after cases of the new flu strain were spotted around the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Two bullet-ridden bodies have been found at the foot of a monument in the violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, one of them partially stuffed into a large pot.

Police haven’t identified the bodies and had no immediate suspects. Mexico’s drug cartels have gone to increasingly gruesome lengths to intimidate their rivals, often torturing and beheading their victims. The bodies were discovered before dawn at the bottom of the Juan de Onate monument on John Paul boulevard.

One of the bodies was sitting inside a large pot commonly used for cooking pork, with his legs sticking out.The other had his hands tied.

Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, has become a battleground for rival drug cartels, with citizens waking up nearly every day to news of shootouts and killings. Read the rest of this entry »

MONTERREY, Mexico – Manuel Uribe, who hasn’t left his bed in six years, married his longtime girlfriend, Claudia Solis, on Sunday in northern Mexico.

Wearing a white silk shirt with a sheet wrapped around his legs, Uribe smiled as Solis, 38, walked down a flight of stairs wearing a strapless ivory dress, a tiara and hot-pink lipstick.

He later broke into tears as a notary declared the couple husband and wife in a civil ceremony attended by more than 400 guests.

For the traditional first dance as newlyweds, Uribe and Solis held hands and swayed to a romantic ballad.

The reception featured a banquet with meat, buttered vegetables and a five-tier wedding cake for dessert. A popular local norteno band played in the background.

The wedding, which was closed to most media, will be featured in an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary on Uribe, the 43-year-old former mechanic said.

“I have a wife and will form a new family and live a happy life,” Uribe told hordes of reporters earlier as they followed him through the streets of Monterrey. Read the rest of this entry »

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican archaeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers discovered the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and what could be the remains of human sacrifices at the site in the Yucatan Peninsula. Read the rest of this entry »

The money found hidden inside walls, suitcases and closets in one of Mexico City’s wealthiest neighborhoods came from the profits of methamphetamines sold in the United States, [DEA chief Karen Tandy] said.

Mexican law enforcement and the DEA worked for a year on the operation, she said. Read the rest of this entry »