Murders in Mexico jumped nearly 9 percent last year, their first increase in four years, as President Enrique Pena Nieto struggles to make good on his election pledge to end the country's drug violence.
But other crimes like kidnapping and extortion have fallen, according to government data released late on Wednesday, perhaps pointing to a shift toward more brutal tactics by some of the country's dozens of drug cartels.
Prosecutors from Mexico's 31 states and Mexico City reported 17,013 murders last year, the fifth-highest figure in nearly two decades, Interior Ministry statistics showed. There were . . .
