U.S. drug war

U.S. Marine Gen. John Kelly stepped down as the chief of U.S. Southern Command on Thursday, marking the end of a 45-year career that included commanding Marines during the invasion of Iraq, overseeing the military's controversial prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and becoming a high-profile Gold Star parent after his son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.

Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán called actress Kate del Castillo "beautiful," while she confessed her "dream" of meeting him in leaked text messages filled with warm exchanges.

The U.S. government has not detailed how it assisted in the capture of El Chapo. But a report by the online magazine SOFREP suggested that Delta Force operators and U.S. law enforcement officials were involved in the mission.

MEXICO CITY – Sean Penn's interview with drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán caused a cross-border uproar on Sunday, with Mexican authorities seeking to question him while U.S. critics lashed out at the U.S. actor.

The recapture of kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was a boost to the Mexican government, but his Sinaloa drug cartel lives on despite the loss of its "CEO," analysts say.

One of the inmates granted clemency was Sharanda Jones, a 48-year-old Texas woman who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a single cocaine offense. She was a first-time, nonviolent offender.

Alleged Mexican drug lord Tirso Martínez Sánchez pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges Friday, one day after he was extradited to face the charges in a U.S. court.

Two nephews of Venezuela's first lady, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, appeared in a Manhattan court Thursday and denied charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Campo Flores was crying as he walked into the courtroom.

Néstor Reverol, a former interior minister and counter-drug chief under the late Hugo Chávez, is alleged to have tipped off drug traffickers to raids and "stopped or hindered" drug investigations, a person familiar with the federal case told The New York Times.

Illegal coca cultivation is surging in Colombia, erasing one of the showcase achievements of U.S. counternarcotics policy and threatening to send a burst of cheap cocaine through the smuggling pipeline to the United States.