Week # Air Date, 3/06/2006

Segment #1: LAREDO BORDER VIOLENCE

Just across from Laredo Texas, on the south bank of the Rio Grande, sits the other Laredo--Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. ..where it seems law and order has completely broken down. For the past year and a half, two of Mexico's most powerful and ruthless mafia organizations have been fighting over Nuevo Laredo and the drug smuggling routes that cross into the United States. Mexico has seen wars between drug cartels before-but the armed gangs have pitched battles in the street with bazookas and grenades. Last year the town's new police chief was gunned down just eight hours into his first day on the job. Earlier this month, masked men stormed into the offices of El Mañana newspaper, spraying the newsroom with bullets and setting off two grenades. This brazen attack on the press has the international community raising its eyebrows again, as we all wonder when...or if...the bloodshed in Nuevo Laredo will ever come to an end. Latino USA producer Adam Saytanides went to Nuevo Laredo, and brings this report. (10:54)

Segment #2: MARDI GRAS COMMENTARY

The Crescent City-battered by Katrina, and left desolate in her wake-has not lost its soul. Mardi Gras is in full swing in New Orleans. And so is commentator José Torres Tama. (4:30)

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José Torres Tama is a performance artist based in New Orleans.