
By Dean Clancy
Budget voters are first chapter in victory over eternal budget deficits
Independent voices from the TWT Communities

The gunfire from a U.S.-backed Honduran anti-drug mission that appears to have targeted civilians by mistake wasn't the only terror that night more than a week ago, villagers say. They describe heavily armed commandos storming into homes and manhandling residents, and they think American agents joined in.
The Mexican army said Monday that the top leaders of the hyperviolent Zetas drug cartel ordered underlings to leave 49 mutilated bodies in a northern Mexico town square and then hung banners around the country denying responsibility.
People in Honduras' predominantly Indian Mosquito coast region burned down government offices and demanded that U.S. drug agents leave the area, reacting angrily to an anti-drug operation in which they say police gunfire killed four innocent people, including two pregnant women.

People in Honduras' predominantly Indian Mosquito Coast region burned down government offices and demanded that U.S. drug agents leave the area.
If the world ends on Dec. 21, 2012 _ as some believe the Maya predicted _ that leaves plenty of opportunity to see a new exhibit that examines the civilization's ancient kingdoms, intricate calendar systems and current culture.

Migrants in search of jobs in the U.S. face a gantlet of life-or-death risks in their treks across Mexico from its southern border: Many fall prey to extortion, kidnapping, rape and killing by crooked police and criminal gangs.

The vast majority of undocumented Central Americans passing through Mexico are young first-timers, fleeing violence, unemployment and impoverished conditions in their home countries. But stories of seeking to reclaim a life in the shadows of U.S. law are not uncommon.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Friday said she will grant special status to Syrians currently in the U.S., allowing them to stay here past their current visas while their home country remains in turmoil.

My criteria for a vacation were simple: Warm weather. Postcard beaches. Clear, sunny skies. Long, languid days to immerse myself in beach books. A price that wouldn't break the bank. And most of all, solitude.
The prisoners whose scorched bodies were carried out Thursday morning from a charred Honduran prison had been locked inside a crowded penitentiary, where most inmates had never been charged with a crime, according to a government report obtained by the Associated Press.

The prisoners whose scorched bodies were carried out piece by piece Thursday morning from a charred Honduran prison had been locked inside an overcrowded penitentiary where most inmates had never been charged, let alone convicted, according to an internal Honduran government report obtained by the Associated Press.

A fire started by an inmate tore through a severely crowded Honduran prison, burning and suffocating inmates in their locked cells and killing as many as 350 people in one of the world's deadliest prison fires in a century, authorities said Wednesday.

A fire started by an inmate tore through an aging and severely overcrowded Honduran prison, burning and suffocating inmates in their locked cells and killing as many as 356 people in one of the world's deadliest prison fires in a century, authorities said Wednesday.

The U.S. government's decision to pull out all its Peace Corps volunteers from Honduras for safety reasons is yet another blow to a nation still battered by a coup and recently labeled the world's deadliest country.