Mexican mayor charged in disappearance of 43 missing students

The former mayor of the Mexican city of Iguala has been charged with the kidnapping of 43 students feared murdered last year, a step toward justice in the highly publicized case that sparked violent demonstrations across the country last year. + Tomas Zeron, director of criminal investigations at the federal attorney general's office, told Reuters that prosecutors had obtained an arrest warrant for former Mayor José Luis Abarca and 44 others on charges of kidnapping the students. + Abarca's wife, María de los Angeles Pineda, was "jailed indefinitely" last week on charges that she and Abarca masterminded the abductions, Al-Jazeera reported last week. + "Since the students disappeared in September, 19 mass graves in the area have been uncovered and over 26,000 people remain missing," Mic's Becca Stanek wrote after Pineda's arrest. "Mexico's war on drugs has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives since 2006, which marks the launch the government's campaign against narcotics traffickers. But the students' disappearance signals that, in spite of the reform efforts that have been made, change has largely failed."