Monica Ortiz Uribe

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, life changed along U.S.-Mexico border towns as border security became a top priority. There's been a thaw, and runners again ran a 10K between El Paso and Juarez.

In Texas, an El Paso-based gang has spread across the U.S., and has also sent some members to Mexico for training with the Zetas. They became a transnational gang due to the drug trafficking industry.

Mexico and the United States are supposed to share water according to a 70-year-old treaty that aims to protect each nation's needs. But prolonged drought is testing that relationship. Mexico is behind by 38 percent on its deliveries.

At a new school for midwives, students learn old arts, like massaging bellies, while also studying gynecology, obstetrics and nursing. Officials hope a new generation of professional midwives will help reduce the pressures on Mexican hospitals overwhelmed by births that, in the past, would have taken place at home.

Narcotraffickers battling over turf in northern Mexico's border town of Nuevo Laredo have left a trail of bodies and a populace afraid to speak. Last week, nine corpses were dumped near the outskirts of the city. Making matters worse, 131 inmates escaped from a prison in about two hours outside Nuevo Laredo.

Mexican and U.S. leaders have vowed to track down the gunmen who killed three people, including two U.S. citizens, with ties to the U.S. Consulate in the border town of Juarez. Mexican authorities say they believe the killings are linked to the country's raging drug war.