Among the phenomena of the 1950s was the rise of the violent urban gangs with their freewheeling, sometimes lethal "rumbles" in protection of their "turf." By the mid-'60s, gangs seemed to be on the wane, their vital energies either drawn into the protest movements of that era or sapped by the burgeoning drug culture. Now in several of America's largest cities, the gangs are back—and with some ominous differences. Older, better armed, more sophisticated, the gangs today operate in all ...

A gang film called The Warriors attracts off-screen rumblesStaring from the poster, they looked like a nightmare of what might be, that terrifying day when the street gangs take over the city, any city. Some of them wore leather vests over bare chests. Others had on Arab headdresses. A few, their faces painted harlequin colors, wore baseball uniforms and carried bats. Massed as far as the eye could see, all looked menacing, and the threat was underscored by the text above the picture: "These are the ...

Sweeping injunction targets 'commuter drug dealers' in downtown L.A. In an aggressive new tack in the city's crackdown on drug-dealing on skid row, L.A. prosecutors on Wednesday announced a criminal injunction targeting "commuter dealers" who come into downtown from other parts of town to sell their goods. The L.A. City Attorney's Office said this is the first time they have aimed an injunction at drug dealers rather than gangs. The injunction would ban 80 drug dealers from entering skid row, and would ...

Some 2,000 police officers patrolled the streets of Rio de Janeiro Sunday after a bloody confrontation between rival drug gangs and authorities that killed 14 over the weekend, including two police officers.

Twelve people, including two police officers, were killed Saturday in a gun battle between two rival drug gangs in a slum in northern Rio de Janeiro, a state spokesman said.

When Canadian cocaine smuggler Charles Lai was being sentenced in a Seattle federal courtroom last month, the judge sending him to prison for 13 years offered a small item of good news. At least behind bars, Judge James Robart said, drug smuggler Lai would not become another fatality in Vancouver's gang wars. Authorities in Vancouver, just 30 miles from the border, are struggling to deal with the boom in the drug trade between the United States and Canada, along with ...

Pedro Rojas is the sort of wealthy Mexican who's usually in control of his world. "I don't panic or scare easily," says Rojas, a business owner and rancher from the Mexican border city of Juárez. But last year narcos, or drug traffickers, moved into his upscale neighborhood--punks in cowboy attire and sparkling pickup trucks buying expensive homes. Rojas and his neighbors were awakened at night or horrified in broad daylight by assault-rifle fire and the screaming of tires as cars ...