Free Republic

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — Gunmen sprayed bullets at a restaurant Tuesday where the mayor of a Texas border town was eating with a Mexican state attorney general and other officials, police said. A woman leaving the building was killed. Coahuila state Attorney General Jesus Torres and Chad Foster, mayor of Eagle Pass across the border from Piedras Negras, were unharmed, according to police officers at the scene.

AUSTIN -- A coalition of municipal and county officials along Texas' 1,200-mile-long border is challenging Gov. Rick Perry's statements that property owners and local law enforcement are being overwhelmed by smugglers and gangs from Mexico. "Your remarks, if accurately reported, create a public impression of lawless hordes overrunning the border region and do not reflect our collective experience," Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, said in a letter to Perry. "While each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overwhelmed by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them." Foster made the...