On Aug. 12 the Mexican government's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued recommendations in the case of two graduate students killed the early morning of March 19 during a gunfight between soldiers and alleged drug cartel members in front of the prestigious Institute of Technology and Higher Education's Monterrey campus (ITESM) at Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo León. The incident took place as part of a heavily militarized "war on drugs" that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa put into motion shortly after taking office in December 2006; the government and the army claim that most of the thousands of victims are cartel members.

A full session of Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) decided by a 9-2 vote on Aug. 10 that same-sex marriages performed in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) are valid in all the country's states, although each state remains free to regulate marriages performed in its own territory. The court had ruled on Aug. 5 that the DF's law allowing same-sex marriage was constitutional, denying a challenge from federal attorney general Arturo Chávez Chávez.

On Aug. 5 Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) upheld a law enacted in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) last December recognizing same-sex marriages. Eight of the 11 justices voted with the majority; two opposed the marriage equality law and one was absent for reasons of health.

The long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost its hold on power in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in gubernatorial elections last month, but the PRI's local apparatus of control may only be hardening—especially in the state's conflicted Mixtec region, where paramilitary groups terrorize peasant communities that have broken with the political machine.

Mexican army Special Forces troops on July 29 killed Ignacio Coronel Villarreal AKA "Nacho"—a top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. After a manhunt across several Mexican states, elite forces closed roads in Zapopan, part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area in Jalisco state, surrounded at least three houses, and cut off communications in the area. Many soldiers arrived by helicopter, and fierce gun-battle ensued. After Coronel, 56, was killed, several of his men were arrested. One soldier was killed, and one injured. (e-consulta, Aug. 2; BNO News, July 30)

After three days of searching, Nuevo León state police on July 25 uncovered a total of 51 bodies from a clandestine narcofosa ("narco-grave") in a garbage dump in Benito Juárez municipality, outside Monterrey. There have been numerous such grisly findings in Mexico in recent months, but authorities say this was the biggest. Most of the bodies are of people age 20-30, and three are female. Some were some burned and mutilated. Police estimate they were buried within the past two weeks. Identification is pending forensic work.

After 90 days, a mass hunger strike by laid-off electrical workers in the center of Mexico City came to an end on July 23 following a preliminary agreement between federal governance secretary José Francisco Blake Mora and the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) the night before. Although dozens of workers and supporters had taken part in the strike at various times, only 11 men and three women remained at the end. Most were taken to the Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, a hospital run by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), but Cayetano Cabrera Esteva, the only striker to last out the full 90 days, refused to accept care from a government facility and was being treated by a private medical service.

On July 21, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, released a report he commissioned from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the Merida Initiative. Western Hemisphere Subcommittee ranking member Connie Mack (R-FL) joined Engel's request for the report, which argues that current evaluation mechanisms for the Merida Initiative need improvement. The report also finds that Merida funding funding has been mired in bureaucratic hurdles, but is now moving to Mexico and Central America at a much more rapid pace.