China's long simmering battle against corruption has come to a boil, this time in Chongqing, the largest megalopolis in the world. A massive crackdown has implicated millionaires, gangsters, and even police officers. Known as "dahei" (combat triads), the campaign has put the spotlight on organized crime and how it has infested local bureaucracy and businesses through bribery, extortion, blackmail and violence. Criminal trials are underway following months of police investigation. Details of murky cases are trickling out. Among those ...

China's GDP increased 8.9 percent for the third quarter, moving closer toward the goal of 8 percent growth for the year. Criminal trials are underway following months of police investigation. Details of murky cases are trickling out. Among those on the dock is Xie Caiping, a portly woman believed be the "mama san" of one of Chongqing's notorious triads. Xie is accused of operating gambling dens, drug trafficking, giving and collecting bribes and terrorizing people, including policemen who had tried ...

You'd think Najibullah Zazi would stand out on the high, dry plains southeast of Denver, where the earth is as flat as a starched shirt and mere wrinkles count as topography. But if heartland suburbs were ever enclaves of uniformity, that day is long gone. Aurora, Colo., is a city of people from somewhere else, a low-slung municipality of 315,000 that includes extremes of both poverty and prosperity. Aurora is vast — nearly 154 sq. mi. — and ...

A multiagency search is under way for the killers of two U.S. citizens in northern Mexico, according to Chihuahua state officials. Benjamin LeBaron, 32, and his brother-in-law, Luis Widmar, in his mid-30s, were beaten and shot to death after armed men stormed into their home in Galeana on Tuesday morning. The killers have yet to be identified, but the case seems to be connected to local drug lords, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office. ...

Colombian police foiled a plot by Marxist guerrillas to assassinate the nation's defense minister, according to President Alvaro Uribe. Ten guerrillas dressed as police planned to infiltrate the family farm of Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos over Easter week and kill the official and his family, Uribe said Thursday on national television. The guerrillas, who belong to the FARC, the Spanish acronym for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, were captured, Uribe said. Uribe thanked and congratulated federal authorities, ...