Hurricane Alex made landfall in northeastern Mexico about 10 pm EDT Wednesday night. The storm is far from the Gulf oil spill, but cleanup vessels were sidelined by the hurricane's ripple effects. Six-foot waves churned up by the hurricane splattered beaches in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida with oil and tar balls.

"For 100 years, Mexico City has flushed its wastewater north to irrigate the farmland of Hidalgo State. This foul cascade, which the farmers call 'the black waters,' flows through a latticework of canals and then trickles over the fields. So when word got out that the government was finally going to build a giant wastewater treatment plant, one might have expected the farmers around here to be excited. Instead, they were suspicious."

"MEXICO CITY -- This megalopolis once had the world's worst air, with skies so poisonous that birds dropped dead in flight. Today, efforts to clean the smog are showing visible progress, revealing stunning views of snow-capped volcanoes -- and offering a model for the developing world."

They call it "wolf jail." Efforts to reintroduce the Mexican gray wolf to a New Mexico border area depend on whether the wolves play by the rules.

"The national oil company created after the 1938 seizure, Pemex, is entering a period of turmoil. Oil production in its aging fields is sagging so rapidly that Mexico, long one of the world's top oil-exporting countries, could begin importing oil within the decade."

"Activists in Mexico complain that the deforestation threatening the environmental health of Mexico has been accentuated by the granting of public areas to private companies."