Ciudad Juarez

A giraffe named Benito started a 40-hour road trip Monday to leave behind the cold and loneliness of Mexico's northern border city of Ciudad Juarez to find warmth - and maybe a mate - in his new home 2,000 kilometers to the south.

A photographer for a newspaper in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, which has been dominated by drug cartels, was found shot to death, prosecutors said Thursday.

The body of news photographer Ismael Villagómez was found in the driver's seat of a car just after midnight Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, a violence-plagued city across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Thousands of people remained in Mexico hoping to enter the United States, as it was not yet clear how the stringent new rules for people crossing the border illegally would be enforced.

In the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, some 200 migrants were blocked by US troops from accessing Gate 42, the entry point to El Paso, Texas, where hundreds crossed on Thursday.

Mexican prosecutors announced a homicide investigation Wednesday into the recent deaths of 39 migrants in a detention center fire, accusing the people in charge of doing nothing to evacuate them.

Authorities faced mounting scrutiny of their handling of the disaster after video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving as flames engulfed a cell with migrants locked inside.

In Orange County, California, dozens of immigrant parents have signed legal documents authorizing friends and relatives to pick up their children from school and access their bank accounts to pay their bills in the event they are arrested by immigration agents.

At least 49 inmates were killed in a Mexican prison brawl on Feb. 11 as rival groups fought with bats, sticks and blades and ignited a fire in the overcrowded penitentiary, authorities said.

The head of the once-powerful Juarez drug cartel has been captured, officials said on April 19, confirming the most recent in a string of victories against Mexico's narco-traffickers.

Authorities captured Jesus Salas Aguayo, 38, on Arpil 17 at his ranch in the northern Mexican village of Villa Ahumada, some 120 kilometers from Ciudad Juarez.