As the play begins, the myth-like El Pachuco figure slices through a scrim curtain depicting sensational news headlines from 1940s Los Angeles, slowly dons the pieces of his black-and-red zoot suit and begins telling the story of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial. This time, however, instead of coolly hissing, "Ladies and gentlemen..." directly to the audience, the Pachuco character bows and begins, "Damas y caballeros ..."

For the first time in Mexico and for the first time in Spanish, a full-scale production of "Zoot Suit," the landmark Chicano musical play by Luis Valdez, premieres Thursday night in Mexico City. The production is the most ambitious mounting of "Zoot Suit" since the playwright and director took the show to Broadway's Winter Garden Theater in 1981 -- almost 30 years ago.

For Mexican theater, "Zoot Suit" is also an ambitious and somewhat risky undertaking. The show is an unusual co-production between the newly reformed National Theater Company and the theater at the UNAM, the national university, and deals with the history and culture of Mexican Americans. Valdez relocated to Mexico months ago to direct and cast the production with some of Mexico's most distinguished stage actors and many up-and-coming performers. The script -- studied in high schools and universities across the southwestern United States -- was fully translated to Mexican Spanish.

* Post updated below.

One person has been confirmed dead after an attack on an international humanitarian caravan near an autonomous municipality in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca, several news outlets are reporting. The three-vehicle caravan was taking food and supplies Tuesday to San Juan Copala, a small Triqui ethnic community that has been blockaded by paramilitaries as part of a sustained conflict with the self-declared autonomous government of San Juan Copala.

Details on the attack remain scarce because Oaxacan state authorities have not been able to confirm the incident as of Wednesday and the area still appears to be blockaded, said Kristin Bricker, an independent American freelance journalist with extensive experience covering southern Mexico. Bricker has a report on the attack here.

On Tuesday afternoon, as the caravan passed the nearby town of La Sabana, gunmen hiding in roadside brush opened fire on the travelers, wounding at least 15 and reportedly kiling two, news reports said, citing non-official sources. German, Finnish, Italian, and Belgian citizens were traveling with the group as observers or volunteers. At least two journalists in the caravan have been reported "disappeared."

"This is far from the first time they've killed people from San Juan Copola," Bricker told La Plaza. "And it's not the first time they've attacked a caravan."

Al Jazeera has a report on the incident in English, noting that the community has been subjected to a series of attacks and blockades by suspected paramilitaries in recent years, resulting in several deaths. The gunmen in Tuesday's attack have been identited as members of a paramilitary group known by its Spanish acronym UBISORT. The group is said to be tied to the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), La Jornada reports.

The group is labeled a paramilitary organization by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but UBISORT has distanced itself from the incident, according to this report.

"UBISORT prior to the caravan sent out a communique saying they were not going to let the caravan pass through La Sabana, and they were not responsible for what could happen," Bricker said.

Bricker said one Mexican citizen is confirmed dead, identified as Alberta Cariño, director of the community radio group CACTUS, which was hit by an attack in 2008 that left two women dead. In the San Juan Copala attack this week, a Finnish citizen is also believed to have been killed but that report has not been confirmed.

The caravan group consisted of representatives of CACTUS, the state teacher's union, and APPO, the umbrella organization that led a popular uprising against Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz in 2006. American independent journalist Brad Will was among those who died in confrontations between the APPO and government-alligned forces in the course of the conflict.

* UPDATE: The Associated Press has confirmed the death of Finnish citizen Jyri Antero Jaakkola in the San Juan Copala attack.

-- Daniel Hernandez, in Mexico City

Photo: A bloodied garment from an attack near San Juan Copala. Credit: ElUniversal.com.mx

Tens of thousands of Central Americans enter Mexico illegally every year, most with the hope of continuing on to the United States. But many stay in Mexico, at least for a time, where they may be beaten, killed, raped, kidnapped by criminal gangs, put in jail or shaken down by corrupt Mexican officials.

That is the grim conclusion of a new report by Amnesty International, Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico.

"It is one of the most dangerous journeys in the world," the human rights organization says. 

Amnesty International called on Mexican authorities to act urgently to protect migrants "who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part" in the widespread abuse.

The government responded quickly, saying it "shared [Amnesty's] concern" and was working to find ways to ease the harrowing plight of migrants, among whom there is a growing number of women and children.

Many who set out for the United States from Guatemala, Honduras and other Central American countries end up staying in Mexico because they run out of money or learn that opportunities in the U.S. have dried up. As we reported  last year, this poses a dilemma for Mexico, even as the government here is demanding better treatment for its nationals in the United States:

The treatment of immigrants has become a divisive and embarrassing issue for Mexico. A country that has historically sent millions of its own people to the U.S. and elsewhere in search of work, Mexico has proved itself less than hospitable to Central Americans following the same calling.

The Amnesty report says that up to 60% of female migrants suffer some form of sexual abuse; migrants are routinely forced to pay bribes; detention centers are woefully overcrowded, and victims are too terrorized to make formal complaints, rendering them "invisible."

-- Tracy Wilkinson ,in Mexico City

Photo: Central Americans precariously hop trains to travel across Mexico. Credit: Ricardo Ramirez Arriola / Amnesty International

A group of 250 men, women and children arrived on Mexican shores over the weekend from earthquake-torn Haiti, bringing to 324 the total of Haitian citizens who have relocated to Mexico since the Jan. 12 disaster. Sunday's arrivals from Port-au-Prince traveled to the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico after five days at sea aboard the Mexican naval ship "Usumacinta."

Mexican immigration authorities said the new arrivals are relatives of Haitians already living in Mexico and came as part of a family reunification program. The National Migration Institute (INM) said each would be granted a "humanitarian visa," allowing them to work and study in Mexico, use public services, and travel to and from the country. Previously, two smaller groups of migrants from Haiti arrived in Mexico in the days following the earthquake.

The INM reported that the Haitians sang "Merci, merci, Mexique" (French for "Thank you, thank you, Mexico") as they boarded buses and private vehicles and headed to reunions with family members. The new arrivals are expected to settle primarily in Mexico City, Mexico State, the city of Pachuca, and in Monterrey, said an official at the Haitian embassy in Mexico City.

La Jornada reported that health authorities administered the A/H1N1 flu vaccine to the arriving migrants.

In the weeks after the Port-au-Prince quake, which left as many as 250,000 dead, Mexico saw an outpouring of donations and government aid for survivors on the island, reflecting a deep affinity that developed within Mexican society for the Haitian victims. To get a sense of how deeply that affinity runs, consider this: a newspaper in Tijuana on Tuesday devoted an entire article to merely report that no Haitian among the recent arrivals is expected to move to the border city. (Interestingly, El Sol de Tijuana also noted that 27 Haitians have resided in Tijuana for "several years.")

In late January, after Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard suggested that the capital would be "ready" to welcome Haitian orphans as "future sons and the daughters" of the city, thousands contacted officials at the Haitian Embassy to request adopting a child -- although no such program existed.

The newest threat for Haiti, still actively recovering from the January quake, is rainy season. More from The Times here.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Haitians arriving in Veracruz on Sunday. Credit: La Jornada

We've grown accustomed to those travel warnings that the U.S. State Department issues every so often, advising U.S. citizens to "exercise extreme caution" when visiting parts of Mexico -- usually after some new shootout or gruesome slaying.

Now it's Mexico's turn to say: watch out. The Mexican government Tuesday issued its own travel warning, urging Mexican citizens to be careful in Arizona. The reason of course is the new tough immigration law that Gov. Jan Brewer signed last week and that requires people to carry proof of legal status or face arrest. Critics, including the Obama administration and immigrant advocates, say the law is discriminatory; Mexican President Felipe Calderon slammed the law as racist and hateful.

"As was clear during the [Arizona] legislative process, there is a negative political environment for migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors," the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry said in its alert, posted in Spanish and English on the ministry's website.

Although details on how the law will be enforced remain unclear, the ministry said, "it must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time."

The controversial law has refocused Washington's attention on possible immigration reform, The Times' Peter Nicholas writes:

 White House officials say the Arizona law underscores an untenable void in federal immigration policy. Without congressional action, they warn, Arizona and other states will create a patchwork of laws that don't resolve the core problem: how to strengthen the borders and deal with the 11 million people who are in the U.S. illegally.

A Times' editorial seems to agree and offers Arizona a backhanded thanks for accomplishing what so many others have failed to do: put immigration back at the top of the U.S. agenda.

 --Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City

Photo: A demonstrator with U.S. and Mexican flags. Credit: Los Angeles Times

The Purepecha people of Mexico built a large empire in what is now the western state of Michoacan, beating back the Aztecs at a shared border and resisting Spanish colonization until European diseases ravaged the society. Unique among Mesoamerican peoples in many ways -- their language is said to be most related to Quechua, in far-off Peru -- the Purepecha were skilled in crafting copper and pottery but left few clues otherwise about their history and culture.

Recent work by archeologist Christopher Fisher and a team from Colorado State University, however, is shedding new light on the group's history, The Times' Thomas H. Maugh II reports. Researchers say they have discovered and mapped a previously unknown Purepechan city on Lake Patzcuaro, six miles from the remains of Tzintzuntzan, considered the civilization's last capital. Fisher believes that the recently mapped city could have operated similarly as a modern "suburb" would to the capital before the Purepecha -- or Tarascans -- consolidated their empire and moved their main ceremonial center to Tzintzuntzan.

The new urban center, still not officially named, may be as large as two square miles (five square kilometers) and includes house mounds, small temples, plazas, and a pyramid (depicted above), reports Colorado State. The discovery was made in summer 2009 as part of an ongoing survey of the Lake Patzcuaro basin, Maugh writes:

Because the lake level has been dropping, the Purepecha site now sits a couple of miles east of the lake -- Fisher is vague about the precise location because of fears of looting -- but at its height was probably no more than a quarter mile from the shore.

The site sits on a landform called malpais, a young, rugged volcanic landscape "that looks like gravel dumped into a big pile," he said.

Fisher's team used handheld computers and GPS receivers to map about 1,300 of the center's features. The team's findings were presented last week in St. Louis at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fisher tells La Plaza that the site is not a government INAH zone, so the risk of looting remains high.

"We are not excavating and are more concerned with the mapping and preservation of the site at the moment," Fisher said.

More images provided by the university are available here.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Graphic model of newly discovered pyramid on Lake Patzcuaro, Mexico. Credit: Colorado State University

Violent street gangs in El Salvador  -- most with roots in Los Angeles -- are a threat to national security in both the United States and Central America, just like domestic terrorists. That's according to the top FBI agent stationed in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador.

Leo Navarrete, legal attache at the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, told La Prensa Grafica (link in Spanish) that authorities are on the lookout for connections between gangs and big-time drug traffickers, whose operations are spreading across Central America as the trade expands southward beyond Mexico's borders.

"Gangs can be seen as a form of domestic terrorism," Navarrete said. "You see them extorting people, bodies in the streets. It is a way to destabilize society."

The numbers of pandilleros in El Salvador began skyrocketing in the 1990s when U.S. authorities deported thousands of Salvadorans to their home country, even though many had lived most of their lives in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, where the gangs developed. Today they are one ingredient in the social crisis that gives El Salvador one of the highest homicide rates in the region. You can see the video "La Vida Loca" by journalist Christian Poveda about the gangs' lives and rituals. Poveda was killed last year, apparently by the very gangsters he portrayed.

Rising violence has chilled life in El Salvador, two decades after the end of a ruthless civil war.

Just Friday, a Mexican official working on security in El Salvador survived an assassination attempt that killed his wife. The man, Guillermo Medina, was identified in Mexico as an officer of the Mexican Embassy in San Salvador who worked with Interpol.

-- Alex Renderos in San Salvador

Photo: Relatives of gang members cover their faces during a recent demonstration in San Salvador. Credit: Frederick Meza via El Faro, http://www.elfaro.net/

frederick meza

Top-ranked golfer Lorena Ochoa, one of Mexico's most beloved athletes, formally announced her retirement Friday, saying she wanted to have children and dedicate more time to her family.

"I go with my head held high, and with a huge smile ... satisfied with what I have accomplished and proud of where I am," Ochoa said.

Speaking at a news conference in Mexico City, a tearful Ochoa said she will continue to hit the links, just not as a pro, and left open the possibility of representing Mexico in the next Olympics.

"In the first place, I wanted to retire as No.1, which I have had the fortune to be the past three years," said the popular golfista. "Second, I have always dreamed of saying goodbye in Mexico, at home, with my people. Finally, I want to live and enjoy the daily things in life that, were I to continue playing, I could not do."

She added that she wanted to give her family the attention that she has been unable to offer in recent years, and that she and her husband of less than a year want to have kids.

Initial reaction in some of the Mexican Internet chatrooms was less than positive, suggesting Ochoa, who is 28, was too young to swing aside her career. And Times' sportswriter Kevin Baxter wondered earlier this week what her departure would do to the sport of golf, quoting Golf Channel analyst Charlie Rymer as saying:

'Obviously when you lose your No. 1 player it certainly is not good news. ... It's a tough pill to swallow. You provide a stage for your larger-than-life stars and that's what pushes the needle in golf. There's some negatives to that. When you put your eggs in one basket, sometimes the basket gets a little fragile and the eggs roll out.'

Ochoa is wildly popular in Mexico, where she has used some of her multi-million-dollar winnings to build schools and a cancer wing at a hospital in her native city of Guadalajara.

In her Friday announcement, she said a tournament next week in the Michoacan state capital of Morelia will be her final pro outing.

Photo: A tearful Lorena Ochoa calls it quits. Credit: Mexsport via El Universal

If you don't want to end up bald or gay, don't eat chicken, says Bolivian President Evo Morales. Speaking at an environmental conference this week in Cochabamba, Bolivia, (officially titled the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth) Morales told attendees in an inaugural address that chicken producers inject female hormones into the fowl, "and because of that, men who consume them have problems being men."

Thousands at the conference reportedly laughed -- perhaps nervously -- when Morales made the statements. He also said hormone-injected chicken causes young girls' breasts to grow prematurely, according to Noticias 24.

The Associated Press notes that most Western countries ban hormone injections in chicken, but Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, also went on to diagnose the practice as the cause of male baldness. "Baldness, which seems normal, is a sickness in Europe," he said. "Almost everyone is bald. And that's because of what they eat."

The Bolivian president pointed to his own shock of thick black hair as proof. No sign of baldness on his head, Morales said.

A gay-rights advocacy group in Spain sent a letter of protest in response to Morales' statements to Bolivia's embassy in Madrid, but otherwise, reaction on the international level has been somewhat muted.

The Cochabamba conference ended Thursday with accords calling for industrialized nations to "change the system of capitalism that is imposed upon us."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Bolivian President Evo Morales. Credit: EFE; Noticias 24

The Mexican government has raised its voice against Arizona’s tough new immigration bill. The controversial measure, awaiting Gov. Jan Brewer’s signature to become law, requires people to carry proof of legal status, and requires police to check for it.

Generally, the governments of Mexico and the United States try not to comment on each other’s internal policies. But every now and then, an issue is too hot to ignore. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented the other day that the Mexican army’s presence in violent Ciudad Juarez “hasn’t helped.”

This time, it was Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan’s turn. In a statement, he said his government views “with great concern” the “potentially grave effects” that Mexican nationals might risk while visiting or working in Arizona.

"The initiatives that criminalize the migratory phenomenon create space for an undue application of the law that amounts to racial profiling," the statement said. The measure could impair commercial, touristic, cultural and friendly ties "that have characterized the relationship of Mexico with Arizona," the statement said.

The full statement is on the Mexican Foreign Ministry's website, in Spanish.

-- Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City

Photo: Supporters of the Arizona immigration bill rally. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

An unnamed Mexican man filed suit in federal court in Los Angeles this week against two of the most well-known and influential Catholic cardinals in North America: L.A.'s Roger Mahony and Mexico City's Norberto Rivera Carrera. Using an obscure law that enables foreigners to seek justice in the United States against human rights abuses committed elsewhere, plaintiff "Juan Doe" alleges that Mahony and Rivera ignored claims of sexual abuse against Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera for more than 20 years.

The cardinals shuffled Aguilar between parishes in Mexico and Southern California while allegations piled up that he had abused dozens of boys, the suit says.

From The Times:

The Mexican-born Aguilar first came to the attention of police in late 1986, after he was beaten by several attackers. Authorities speculated that the attack was in retaliation for his alleged abuse of young boys during overnight stays at the rectory in the Diocese of Tehuacan, Mexico. A month later, then-Bishop Rivera wrote to Mahony to offer Aguilar for placement in a Los Angeles ministry, with a coded reference to the priest being problematic, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit was filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which was enacted in 1789. Legal experts have cast doubt on the viability of the suit, but the plaintiff's attorney says international law should cover sexual abuse in such claims. Reporter Carol J. Williams offers more details, with video, in this post.

The whereabouts of Aguilar, now defrocked, are unknown. Rivera on Thursday dismissed the suit as the work of "opportunists." Tod M. Tamberg, Mahony's spokesman in L.A., called the allegations "preposterous and without foundation."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City. Credit: El Universal

Today’s One-Line News Briefs:

Buenos Aires— Argentina's last dictator, 82-year-old Reynaldo Bignone, was convicted and sentenced Tuesday to 25 years in prison for torture and illegal detentions committed during the nation's 1976-1983 military regime.

Bogota, Colombia — Colombian Gen. Fernando Joya, two colonels and three other servicemen were killed when a military helicopter and a civilian helicopter crashed into each another at a base in the southwest province of Tolima.

The Hague, Netherlands — A United Nations court rejected Argentina's claims that a Uruguayan pulp mill is pumping dangerous pollution into the river on their mutual border, angering Argentine protesters who have waged a three-year campaign against the mill.

Mexico City — The lower house of Mexico’s Congress joined the Senate by approving the creation of a space agency that will seek to bolster research and raise Mexico's scientific profile, a proposal that now goes to President Felipe Calderon.

-- Times wire reports

Dear Readers: Your humble columnist is both a latinófilo and a lover of the English language and Shakespeare. Last year, I wrote about the ethnic diversity at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the presence of a strong cadre of Latino actors there.

So when I heard about a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" being staged last week at elementary school in South Central Los Angeles, I couldn't miss it. My visit to Nevin Avenue Elementary is the subject of my latest column, a little parable about language, hope and community reinvention. A few years back, the school was in such bad shape that the state took it over. Now it's thriving. Nine-year-old Salvador Medina, as Puck (pictured below), stole the show. You'd think it would be hard for a child so young to master a Shakespearean speech, but Salvador pulled it off.

Several of the actors, students from grades two through five, later met Tom Hanks at the Shakespeare Center Los Angeles production of "Much Ado About Nothing."

-- Hector Tobar

Photo Credits: The Shakespearites;  Ryan Miller / Capture Imaging 
  

 

Today’s One-Line News Briefs:

-- San Jose, Costa Rica — Former Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez went on trial Wednesday in a corruption case that forced him to resign as head of the Organization of American States six years ago.

-- Miami — Nearly 250 Colombians who say they and relatives were victims of violence by Colombian right-wing paramilitaries filed a lawsuit in Florida seeking more than $1 billion in damages from the Chiquita banana company, which has admitted making payments to paramilitaries.

-- Monterrey, Mexico — A cargo plane crashed into traffic while trying to land overnight in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, killing all five crew members on board, authorities said.

-- Times wire reports

Mexico's federal government went ahead over the weekend with a plan to disconnect cellphone lines whose users did not submit their identities to a national registry by midnight Saturday, a move intended to strike a blow to organized crime. About 69% of the 83.5 million cellphone lines in Mexico had been registered, La Jornada reported. But by Sunday, 25.9 million cellphone lines not registered in time were in the process of being cut off.

As with many operations undertaken by the federal bureaucracy in Mexico, organizational disorder increased as the process quickened.

Confusion reigned among many over how to complete the process to register their lines. The registration system, known as RENAUT, was swamped by last-minute users. And one provider, Movistar, threatened to ignore the government's order to disconnect lines, saying telecommunications were a "constitutional right."

Foreigners living in Mexico, meanwhile, were left to figure out their options on their own by sharing information on online message boards.

"The disconnection of 31% of cellular telephone lines in the country represents an unprecedented act ... in the history of telecommunications and in commercial contracts between individual parties," said La Jornada in its Sunday coverage.

Cellphone providers, of course, stood to lose tens of millions of pesos if large numbers of cellphone lines were temporarily disconnected. But the government did not budge. Procrastination, the president of the Federal Communications Commission said gravely on Friday, "carries consequences."

When the deadline finally hit, a stunned disbelief gripped some Mexicans, clutching their hand-held links to the world in homes and businesses over the weekend: How could my cell number just ... be cut off?

To register, users had to provide their CURP number, similar in some uses to a Social Security number in the United States. But many Mexicans said they did not have a CURP or know their number. On some social-media sites, others admitted to unlawfully using someone else's CURP -- in some cases, that of a dead person -- to register. In apparent protest of the registration law, an estimated 12,000 cellphone lines were reportedly submitted to the registry under the name Felipe Calderon, Mexico's president.

Providers have told their customers their lines, including their calling credit, will not disappear while the RENAUT system has them cut off.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo credit: ElUniversal.com

L.A. Times metro columnist Hector Tobar, a former Mexico City bureau chief and local reporter for the Times, shares his experiences in Los Angeles through Friday columns. He writes an occasional bonus column on other days. As the son of Guatemalan immigrants and a native of East Hollywood, Tobar can relate to the challenges faced by families throughout the city. For a look at some of his work, click on the links below. La Plaza will feature his columns from time to time.

-- Angeleno Jack Sanchez hopes the city will restore the sign marking Sanchez Street, which was named for his great-great-uncle. After all that his ancestors lost, it doesn't seem like much to ask.

-- Immigrant parents must demand improvement at kids' schools. Case in point: L.A. Unified's troubled Markham Middle campus.

-- At Plaza Mexico in Lynwood, some merchants and shoppers voice anger about the conditions that led them to migrate, and they worry about misperceptions back home about life in the U.S.

-- People need to know the full nuanced story of those who die trying to walk into the United States.

-- Native Spanish speakers break the code of the written word with help from an L.A. adult-education center.

-- When I was a boy growing up in Los Angeles circa 1970, I did something that brought dishonor to my people.

-- Efrain Hernandez Jr.

Photo: Columnist Hector Tobar. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Paulette Gebara Farah, the 4-year-old Mexico City girl who went missing from her bedroom -- only to be found dead there nine days later -- is at the center of a bizarre mystery that has riveted Mexican society, Ken Ellingwood writes in The Times:

The discovery ignited a flurry of water-cooler speculation and Internet chatter: How could the girl's body have gone undetected by the parents, nannies, investigators and countless others who traipsed through the home? Was it planted there? If so, by whom?

Moreover, will anybody believe authorities if they claim to have solved the mystery?

For more than two weeks, the case has dominated television, radio and the newspapers, reduced by revved-up Mexican media to one word: Paulette. It is hard to remember a recent case that has so caught the public attention.

The 'Paulette' case has even taken on political ramifications, Ellingwood says. If authorities in the state of Mexico, outside Mexico City, can't figure out what happened to Paulette, the controversy could prove a black eye for Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto, considered by many as a front-runner for the presidential election in 2012.

Part of what has made this story so fascinating is the amount of attention it has received, despite the many social and security crises challenging the country on a daily basis. Below, to help you keep the pertinent characters in order as the story continues to unfold, is a who's who of the mystery's main figures:

Paulette Gebara Farah: The 4-year-old victim. Developmentally disabled, Paulette reportedly went missing from her bedroom in the Interlomas suburb on the night of March 21, or early March 22. She was found dead in the same room early on March 31, wedged into her own bed. Paulette was buried at the French Cemetery in Mexico City on April 6.

Lisette Farah: Paulette's mother. An attorney, she gave numerous media interviews inside the bedroom from which the girl went missing -- including upon Paulette's bed. After she, her husband and two nannies were placed under a form of house arrest a week into the investigation, she faced numerous public accusations including "personality disorder," insincerity, marital infidelity, and even culpability in the girl's death.

Mauricio Gebara: Paulette's father. A businessman, he was reluctant to give media interviews early into the search, according to some accounts. He and Farah became estranged as the case unfolded. Last week, Farah gave a radio interview in which she accused her husband of "hiding something." Gebara and his family have taken custody of the couple's other child, Lisette, a 7-year-old girl. "The only thing I can say is that, for me, it wasn't an accident," Gebara said in one interview, referring to Paulette's death.

Alberto Bazbaz: The attorney general of Mexico state. He's held news conferences announcing major developments in the case. Almost from the start, Bazbaz has been accused of bumbling the investigation. Two opposition parties in Mexico state have called for his resignation.

The Casimiro sisters: Erika and Martha were live-in nannies in the home. Along with Paulette's parents, they were detained and released by authorities after inconsistencies emerged in the four adults' statements to investigators. Watch in this video profile of the sisters at El Universal as the two tear up recalling their affection for the young victim. "The girls always spent more time with us," Martha says at one point. "Especially Paulette."

Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto: A bona fide star in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, as it is known is Spanish, Peña Nieto hasn't made any significant public comments on the Paulette case. But if the investigation ends poorly and to the dissatisfaction of the public, any blame would eventually trickle up to the governor's palace.

El Universal has a special multimedia feature on the Paulette mystery, with an interactive timeline.

Over the weekend, Mexico state investigators once again interviewed Lisette Farah and the Casimiro sisters. For the sake of balance, it's worth noting there were numerous fatal accidents, homicides and discovered executions in the metropolitan region in the same time span.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City.

Photo: Erika and Martha Casimiro. Credit: El Universal.com

Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro is reeling after a  mudslide Wednesday swept over and destroyed a slum, killing as many as 200 people. The Morro Bumba community in the city of Niteroi (Rio's sister city) was wiped away in a flash, reports the AP: "Nothing was left behind but a massive crater of blackened, sodden earth and the remnants of flimsy brick shacks."

The official death toll was   still at 169 since the start of unusually heavy rainfall  in Rio de Janeiro state  Monday. Not counting the still-unconfirmed deaths from the recent slide, the official toll had already surpassed the last major flooding and mudslides in Brazil in 2008. Rio state Gov. Sergio Cabral called the Wednesday slide a catastrophe, with little chance of finding survivors.

The rescue efforts across Rio are moving slowly, as the soft hillsides where the city's favelas rise are still considered unstable, authorities said. From The Wall Street Journal:

"I don't know how to describe the noise," Valdenice de Moraes, who lives nearby, told the Globo TV network. "It was deafening and sounded like lots of wooden planks breaking at the same time."

How will this affect Rio as it prepares to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016? At the blog Daily Rio Life, the author writes:

This situation puts a spotlight on Rio's everyday issues such as homelessness, unsafe building in the favelas (many of these homes are now lost due to mudslides), terrible living conditions in the favelas, litter (because it hampers drainage and thus contributes to more flooding), traffic woes and overall organization and readiness to deal with situations that arise. 

Here's a slideshow of photos from the disaster at The Washington Post.  Al Jazeera has a video report from the Rio favelas where residents and rescuers are digging through the mud. Brazil's O Globo news site has the latest updates, in Portuguese.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Relatives mourn deaths in the Morro Bumba slum near Rio. Credit: Associated Press

The White House has released details on First Lady Michelle Obama's upcoming visit to Mexico City, for two days of events with Mexico's first lady, Margarita Zavala. The visit, Tuesday to Thursday, will be Obama's first solo international trip and promises a different tone than recent visits to Mexico by U.S. diplomats, which have been mostly focused on security, immigration, and drugs. 

After arriving the night of April 13, Obama will visit Los Pinos, Mexico's presidential residence, for a private meeting with Zavala. From there, the two first ladies will tour the vast National Anthropology Museum. Obama then visits two schools, a public elementary school and the private Universidad Iberoamericana.

On Thursday, the first lady will meet and thank employees of the United States Embassy and host a leadership summit, then depart for Washington.

Obama has never been to Mexico, notes Politics Daily, and her visit "will be on the front pages of every single newspaper in Mexico," said Mexico's ambassador in Washington, Arturo Sarukhan.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo credit: L.A. Times.

San Antonio Archbishop Jose Gomez’s appointment to succeed Cardinal Roger Mahony as leader of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was hailed by many members of the Catholic Church this week, but some representatives of community groups in Texas view his work there as less than stellar.

Several leaders of social and workers rights organizations in San Antonio warned in interviews that Los Angeles community groups should not expect a partner in their social fights.

“He hasn’t done anything negative. Many people like him a lot ... but we haven’t seen very much engagement from him in social issues that affect our people, like immigration,” said Juan Flores, executive director of La Fe Research and Education Center in San Antonio. “I know that the level of activism in Los Angeles is very high, and I would think that community leaders might want to have a colleague in the archbishop, but that may not happen with him.”

Ruben Solis, a long-term organizer with the Southwest Workers Union, said Gomez operates more within the church than in the community.

“The previous archbishop had a more open public commitment with social causes, and now the church has kept away from those,” Solis said. “There is no visibility [on] the part of the archbishop.”

Graciela Sanchez, executive director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, which advocates for women’s rights and the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community, agreed.

“Personally, and as a representative of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center,” Sanchez said, “we're happy that he's leaving to [go to] L.A.”

The full story is available in Spanish at www.vivelohoy.com.

-- Francisco Castro

Photo: Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio addresses the news media after Cardinal Roger Mahony introduced him Tuesday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times