As months turn into years, ‘Maria’ still holds out hope that her daughter Jessica Solis Lozano is alive.

“I’m not going to give up,” Maria said. “I hope that she's still alive."

What keeps her going is Jessica’s two young children. Both are left to wonder if their mother will ever come home.

"Her kids ask for her every day."

Read full article.

Bodies found dumped in a well in northeastern Mexico may be those of the 18 musicians and staff of a band that went missing after a Thursday night performance, authorities said. The members of Kombo Kolombia were reported missing Friday by family members who said they lost contact with the group after it performed at a bar…

Please watch this piece about the disappearance two years ago of John Parks in Matamoros, MX, and share it widely.

http://www.krgv.com/news/few-answers-2-years-after-man-disappears-in-matamoros

These cases get precious little media coverage and scant attention from our government. Maybe if more people begin to know and understand the underlying issues we will begin to see policy…

Even before the tour bus comes to a stop, the women rise from their seats and wait in the aisle to exit. In their arms rest rolled-up flags of the Central American countries they come from. Large laminated photographs of missing loved ones hang by lanyards from their necks. They descend the stairs to a gaggle of waiting press photographers. This is their moment of hope, stirring once again the possibility of putting to rest years of uncertainty and desperation.

Maybe someone has seen…

Three years after his disappearance in Costa Rica and the Dixon family is no nearer to finding out what happened to their son.

Michael was last seen leaving his hotel in Tamarindo, Costa Rica on 18 October 2009.The British and Costa Rican response to the incident has been bugged by incompetence and false hope from start to end.

The Foreign Office did not tell the…

Days after the Mexican Navy announced it detained an alleged leader of the Zetas drug cartel who is suspected in the 2010 killing of American David Hartley on a lake near the U.S.-Mexico border, the victim’s wife said she's hopeful the suspect could provide answers to what happened to her husband.

"Maybe he knows where David’s remains are, or where he's located," Tiffany Hartley, the victim's widow, said.

Tiffany Hartley said she was with her husband riding Jet Skis on Falcon…

Another conversation with another mother (in this case, a mother -- could be a father, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend...) of a person missing in a foreign country, her own government (and mine) unwilling, unable to provide meaningful guidance, support, advice. I'm happy to be able to provide a bit of moral and practical advice and a connection with someone in her state who has been through the same ordeal. Then I'm on Facebook and see a guy who is scheduled to move in a couple weeks…

Writing in his blog Cruise Law News, maritime lawyer Jim Walker reports that, while cruise lines sell an idyllic image of care-free tropical vacations, in reality they know or should know that there are dangers on shore awating their passengers. In particular,…

A Brownsville, TX family is offering up to $10,000 for information that helps them find their son, who has been missing since the beginning of March. Family members said Chris Garcia was last seen crossing into Mexico on March 7. Watch the report.

Puerto Vallarta -- famous for, among other things, being the destination of The Love Boat in the 1970s cruise ship sit-com -- was the scene of crime last week as hooded bandits robbed 22 Carnival Splendor cruise ship passengers at gunpoint, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The passengers were traveling on a bus, several days into a cruise that left from Long Beach, Calif. The tourists, who departed California on Feb. 19 and returned Sunday, were traveling on a bus after going on a…

According to this article, Noel was on his way to Mexico to have some expensive dental work done. It seems a lot of people need to go south of the border for services they can't afford in the U.S. Perhaps the most significant piece of information from the article is:

"Brownsville police detective David Martinez...said there are no cooperative agreements between agencies on both sides of the…

The Mexican cartels' war against social media continued this week with murder of another blogger in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Texas. The note left next to the body -- identifying the victim as a moderator of Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, a local blog about goings-on in the city which has become a forum for reporting drug-related crimes and warning the public about dangerous areas -- stated: “This happened to me for not…

U.S. State Department data show that the first six months of 2011 represented the most deadly period of the past eight years for U.S. citizens in Mexico, the Christian Science Monitor reports. From January 4 to June 11 of this year, 65 Americans were killed in Mexico, a 300% increase since 2003. Read full article.

The report found that Baja California, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua,…

Authorities in Mexico are investigating the apparent abduction of 17 young men who were riding in a bus en route to the U.S.-Mexico border, the Nuevo Leon state security council said. The bus left the central state of Guanajuato on Sept. 14 bound for the border town of Miguel Aleman. Armed…

Since the Mexican government declared war on powerful drug cartels in 2006, social media has emerged as one of the main platforms for reporting about drug-related crime and corruption, filling a void left by professional journalists who were intimidated into silence. But for all its supposed advantages, including online anonymity, social media is hardly secure, as was demonstrated by the murder of two online critics earlier this week.

The mangled bodies of a man and a woman, both in…

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Mexico's Tourism Secretary Gloria Guevara argues that all of Mexico should not be tarred with the same brush in the area of safety.

"Mexico has 2,500 counties," Guevara said. "Eighty of those have issues. So does that mean that the entire country has issues? Of course…

This just in from KRGV in Texas:

"Britt May is an American citizen. His 10 children can't get answers from here or there. They've hit a wall..."

Please watch the video (right-hand side of the screen). More good coverage from Farrah Fazal.