Short lifespan in Rio drug gangs
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One-fifth of youths in Rio de Janeiro's drug gangs are killed within two years, mostly by police, a study says.
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The toll from stray bullets that rain down on Rio from the city's steep hillside slums as police and drug gangs battle with automatic weapons has grown sharply, with one innocent bystander killed or wounded every day.
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By Jason Webb SABANA CRESPO, Colombia  - Coca leaves, the rawmaterial of cocaine, should speed you up and give you a buzz.But you'd never know it to look at the Arhuaco Indians ofColombia's Sierra Nevada, who must be strong contenders for thetitle of World's Most Laid-Back People.
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The drug may have faded from the public eye but it is very visible on the social scene.
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Now that America's most-wanted cocaine trafficker is about to be extradited to the U.S., his rivals and lieutenants are struggling for command of Colombia's dominant cartel, authorities say. But whoever wins will inherit a criminal organization tottering on the edge of extinction.
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THURSDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDayNews) -- There's no 'grace period' when it comes to use of injection drugs like heroin or cocaine: A new study in Addiction finds teenage and young adult users triple their risk for death soon after taking up the habit.
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"You can only buy and sell them with cash. When money is being carried around you need to have protection, so guns became instrumental in protecting and in threatening people."  The 11-year-old's murder may have been linked to the fatal shooting of a gang leader a year earlier AT ABOUT 8pm on Wednesday August 23 last year, Liam Smith, a teenager with short cropped hair and piercing ... via Times Online
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil  - A Brazilian presidential   candidate's campaign rally bumped into a harsh reality on   Wednesday in the form of armed gang members in a Rio de Janeiro   slum who ordered them to take a detour.
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NEW YORK  - Children exposed to cocaine in the womb exhibit behavior problems up to at least 7 years of age, according to a long-term study that enrolled 1,388 children between 1993 and 1995 at four centers.
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NOGALES, Mexico  - They are young, male and so  lean they often have just 3 percent body fat. They speed long  distances by foot over deserts and rugged mountain trails on  the U.S.-Mexico border with heavy drug loads strapped to their  backs.
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NEW YORK  - People with alcohol problems   who remain abstinent within a year of first seeking treatment   are more likely to be alive fifteen years later than those who   don't fare as well early in treatment, a new study shows.
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RIO DE JANEIRO -- At mid-morning last Sunday, a group of neighbors met at a corner bar in one of Rio's southern, middle-class neighborhoods. They drank beer and watched newcomers arrive steadily until the group, some two hours later, numbered more than 6,000.
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Rock stars -- notorious for their "crash and burn" lifestyles -- really are more likely than other people to die before reaching old age. A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population.
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MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's drug cartels are killing record numbers of people with unprecedented brutality. Federal security forces are bogged down in a violent political conflict in the southern city of Oaxaca. Years of sluggish economic growth cannot meet the needs of a country where over half the population lives in poverty.
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BARRANQUILLA, Colombia -- In a cramped, hospital-white laboratory in this coastal Caribbean city, 200 neatly numbered boxes of human remains lie stacked to the ceiling, waiting for a lone forensic anthropologist to extract the secrets of their violent deaths.
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LOS ANGELES -- In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing" their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race, an investigation has found.
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BOGOT&#xC1; -- The Colombian government, the recipient of billions of dollars in US aid to fight drugs and a leftist insurgency, is under siege as evidence mounts of links between right-wing death squads and dozens of officials loyal to President &#xC1;lvaro Uribe.