Gunmen stormed into a nightclub Feb. 6 in the Mexican beach resort of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, and opened fire on the crowded dance floor, leaving three dead—two waiters and a patron. They shot down three more at the door as they fled, killing a total of six. (Reuters, Feb. 6) That previous day in Apatzingán, Michoacán, police found the decapitated bodies of six men with their severed heads inside an SUV. (AP, Feb. 5)

Bolivian President Evo Morales was sworn in for a second five-year term on Jan. 22, pledging to open a new era for indigenous peoples in his nation. The formal swearing-in at the capital La Paz was preceded a day earlier by a traditional indigenous ceremony at the ancient Kalasasaya temple in the ruined pre-Inca city of Tiwanaku. (RIA-Novosti, Jan. 22)

The Native Alaskan coastal village of Kivalina, its lands rapidly eroding, is appealing a lawsuit against oil, power and coal companies, charging that climate change endangers their community. The town of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, filed the case in federal court in San Francisco in 2008, but it was dismissed in October. The appeal has been filed with the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. ExxonMobil and BP are among two dozen defendants named in the suit.

Sea ice in Canada's Arctic is melting faster than previously expected, the lead investigator in Ottawa's largest climate-change study yet said Feb. 5—raising a worst-case scenario of an ice-free Arctic by 2013. University of Manitoba professor David Barber, leader of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study, said "It's happening much faster than our most pessimistic models suggested."

This week the Barack Obama administration's Defense Department released its first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a congressionally mandated planning and strategy document that every four years provides a framework for the military's structure and budgets. The 2010 QDR abandons the Bush administration's "Long War" doctrine. Significantly, the report states that the US will no longer prepare to fight two major wars at the same.

On Feb. 4, US District Judge Kenneth Marra in West Palm Beach, Fla., ruled that a lawsuit against banana giant Chiquita Brands brought by the families of North American missionaries kidnapped and killed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) will not be dismissed.

On Feb. 1, the White House solicited Congress for the allocation of $410 million to Mexico and Central America for fiscal year 2011, starting Oct. 1. The money would be used to support counternarcotics efforts under the Merida Initiative. Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew said in a press conference that Mexico would receive $310 million dollars and Central America the rest. "We are working very closely with the Mexican government," he said, while also emphasizing efforts to strengthen the rule of law and human rights. The Merida Initiative's limited human rights conditions have been a controversial aspect of the program.

Sharp debate over the direction of Mexico's narco war has broken out in the wake of twin massacres in northern Mexico last weekend. As the death toll from the narco violence punctures past records, some political leaders propose drastic responses that could curb civil liberties.