Mexico's newest drug cartel, and certainly the most bizarre, is La Familia Michoacana, a violent but Christian fundamentalist narco-gang based in the torrid Tierra Caliente region of western Michoacan state. The group is infamous for methamphetamine smuggling, lopping off enemies' heads and limbs, and massacring police and soldiers. Yet La Familia's leader, Nazario Moreno — aka El Mas Loco, or The Craziest One — has written his own bible, and his 1,500 minions hold prayer meetings before doing their ...

For a day last week Rafael Merry del Val stepped reluctantly out of the shadow of the retirement in which he has lived since the death of Pope Pius X, his beloved friend. He celebrated the silver jubilee of his elevation, at the hands of Pius X, to the cardinalate. He celebrated a high mass. He attended a banquet in his honor. Then once again he withdrew into the cloister of his memories.It was a political tangle which precipitated Merry del Val on his so-glittering early ...

On Tuesday afternoon, the 12 members of Ohio's Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee convened in a corner room on the second floor of the state senate building in Columbus. No vote or amendment was on the agenda, just a hearing on what is simply called Senate Bill 5. Outside the door, hundreds of protesters pressed into the halls and stairwells of the capitol as thousands more crowded the surrounding streets. They all wanted to testify. SB5, introduced ...

When Iceland installed Johanna Sigurdardottir as Prime Minister last February, newspapers around the globe printed variations of the same headline: ICELAND APPOINTS WORLD'S FIRST GAY LEADER. Everywhere, that is, except Iceland. The Icelandic media didn't mention Sigurdardottir's sexuality for days, and only then to point out that the foreign press had taken an interest in their new head of state — a 67-year-old former flight attendant turned politician whom voters had consistently rated Iceland's most trustworthy politician. Sure, she was ...

CAN a nation with a trillion-dollar economy be running out of money? That startling question is forcing itself upon every government official who must shape a budget, from President Nixon down to the head of the smallest local mosquito-abatement district. By most measures of private wealth, the U.S. is the world's richest country. But in terms of its ability to pay for the public services—health care, education, welfare, garbage pickup, pollution control, police and fire protection—that make the life of ...

"The first step to winning the future is encouraging American innovation." That was Barack Obama in his State of the Union address last January, when he hit the theme repeatedly, using the word innovation or innovate 11 times. And on this issue, at least, Republicans seem in sync with Obama. Listen to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Mitch Daniels and the word innovation pops up again and again. Everyone wants innovation and agrees that it is ...

In the years following the Cold War and the hemorrhaging of Yugoslavia, Serbia earned the dubious distinction as Europe's pariah state, widely viewed as a brutal aggressor in the Balkan wars. But the past decade has seen Serbia change tack, steering away from prickly nationalism, and the arrest on Thursday of General Ratko Mladic, Europe's most wanted war-crimes suspect, represents a key moment in the country's journey to global respectability. It also, crucially, acts as a fillip ...

"Put off today what you can do tomorrow" has long been the motto of many baby boomers. Until, that is, the biological clock began its inexorable countdown. Today even some of the most committed postponers of parenthood are finally deciding to have children, producing a record crop of late-in-life babies. The number of women 35 or over who are giving birth for the first time has quadrupled in the past decade, and is expected to increase further in the next ...

As big as a football field and nearly as empty, Barack Obama's re-election headquarters looks like a start-up gone wrong. Wires sprout like weeds from the carpeting, legions of bookshelves stand empty, and the swing-state maps hastily pinned to the wall are freebies from the AAA auto club down the street. In one room that could fit hundreds of people, just a few dozen sit at long desks. Most don't look old enough to buy a beer. ...

Her arrival is often signaled by trumpet fanfares, gun salutes or the strains of "God Save the Queen," but within the privacy of her own homes another sound presages Her Majesty's approach: the pitter-patter of tiny feet. During their stay at Buckingham Palace this month, President Obama and the First Lady will discover that Queen Elizabeth II is rarely parted from her panting devotion of corgis and dorgis . Canine outriders announce her appearance a good few seconds before she ...