Wal-Mart de México's stocks fell by a total of 15.46% on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV, the Mexico City stock market) from April 23 through April 24 following a report in the New York Times that the company's US-based owner, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., had covered up a major bribery scandal in 2005. The Mexican branch of the giant retailer is the largest private employer in the country, with 2,138 outlets: 1,250 stores under the Aurrerá name, 214 Wal-Mart stores, 127 Sam's Clubs, 88 Superamas, 94 Suburbias and 365 restaurants. (La Jornada, Mexico, April 24: LJ, April 25)

An unknown assailant killed retired Mexican general Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro Escapite with three shots to the head on the evening of April 20 at an auto shop in the Anáhuac section of Mexico City; the general had just brought his car there for repairs. The killer and an accomplice escaped on a motorcycle. This was the second attack against the general in two years; he was shot in the abdomen in Mexico City on May 18, 2010, in a supposed robbery attempt.

Eight indigenous Purépecha were shot dead the morning of April 18 near the autonomous community of Cherán in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Two of the victims were from Cherán, which has been engaged in a year-long struggle to protect local forests from illegal loggers; six of the people killed were from the town of Casimiro Leco, better known as El Cerecito, where many of the loggers live.

After 15 days on hunger strike, on April 10 Antonia López Cruz sewed her lips together and had herself tied to the fence outside the federal Senate building in Mexico City in a mock crucifixion to demand the return of her six-year-old daughter, Concepción ("Cuco") Antonia Fernández López. Puebla state Public Ministry coordinator Leticia Villaraldo took the child from her parents on March 21 and turned her over to the state Integral Family Development (DIF) service, claiming she was an abuse victim because of an injury to her arm.

A study published in the March issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health finds that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may be partly responsible for the sharp increase in obesity among Mexicans since the accord took effect in January 1994. Entitled "Exporting Obesity: US farm and trade policy and the transformation of the Mexican consumer food environment," the study indicates that by opening Mexico up to investment and food imports from the US, NAFTA altered Mexicans' eating habits in a way that has affected their health.

José Antonio Acosta Hernández AKA "El Diego"—purported leader of La Linea criminal organization, who has been linked to some 1,500 homicides in Mexico—was sentenced to 10 life terms April 5 in El Paso after pleading guilty to the slayings of three people tied to the US Consulate in Ciudad Juárez. Acosta also admitted ordering the massacre of 15 young people in the Mexican border city's Villas de Salvarcar neighborhood, and a car bombing in downtown Juárez. Acosta also pleaded guilty to racketeering, narcotics trafficking, and money laundering charges. US District Judge Kathleen Cardone sentenced him to seven concurrent life terms, three additional consecutive life terms, and 20 years in federal prison.

On March 27 Mexico's governmental National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued recommendations strongly condemning state and federal officials and police agents for their actions in a Dec. 12 confrontation between the police and student protesters in the southwestern state of Guerrero that left three people dead. The recommendations called for compensation to be paid to the people injured and for officials to apologize to the victims and their relatives in a public ceremony in Guerrero. CNDH president Raúl Plascencia Villanueva said the commission was also planning to file a criminal complaint with the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) against 184 officials and police agents.

According to figures released by the Mexican government March 28, drug-related violence claimed 12,903 lives in the country in 2011—down from the record-breaking 15,273 claimed for 2010. In releasing the new figures, the administration of President Felipe Calderón attempted to down-play the number, asserting that drug-related violence throughout the hemisphere last year claimed 150,000 lives. This caused some confusion in the Mexican press, as two days earlier, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had used the 150,000 figure to refer to the total number killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006, when Calderón took office and began using the armed forces aggressively against the cartels. Panetta's comment itself caused controversy, since the more common estimate for drug-related deaths in Mexico since 2006 is 50,000. Panetta presumably misspoke—or intentionally exaggerated the scope of the crisis.