Corruption | featured news

Federal forces detained 10 mayors and 18 other officials Tuesday for allegedly protecting one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels in an unprecedented anti-corruption sweep in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan.

Soldiers and federal agents fanned out across President Felipe Calderon's native state to carry out the operation, which an expert called a blow to politicians tied to traffickers in Michoacan.

A federal judge in Chicago said today that the Senate ethics committee can review tapes of secretly recorded conversations between Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) and the brother of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D), who was removed from office earlier this year amid a corruption investigation.

A Venezuelan mayor who says President Hugo Chavez is persecuting him on trumped-up corruption charges has gone to Peru, that nation's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Barrett Wissman is the first investment executive to be implicated in an investigation of corruption at the New York state pension fund.

Maxine Waters helped set up a meeting in which the chief executive of a bank with financial ties to her family asked for special bailout funds, officials said.

U.S. District Chief Judge James Holderman has denied a motion by lawyers for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to remove federal prosecutors in Chicago from the ongoing corruption case.

A published report indicates the prosecutor investigating Roland Burris' testimony before an Illinois House impeachment panel is asking federal authorities for any recordings involving the senator.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting in Friday's editions that federal prosecutors are considering the request from Sangamon County State's Attorney John Schmidt.

Gov. Pat Quinn is reviewing how the son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris got a state job as a housing-agency lawyer under ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration, just weeks after he landed in tax and foreclosure trouble.

Federal authorities have interviewed U.S. Senator Roland Burris in a probe into whether former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich tried to sell the Senate seat Burris now occupies, the Chicago Tribune, reported on Sunday.

With drug-fueled violence and corruption escalating, many fear drug cartels are too powerful for Mexico to control. Here's why things are getting worse, and what it means for the U.S.