Todays Papers - July 9

Mexico's Ongoing Dirty War
By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009, at 6:54 AM ET

The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with developing nations refusing to sign on to the long-term targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions that were proposed by the Group of 8 industrial nations. President Obama, along with the other G-8 members who are meeting in Italy, proposed broad goals to carry out a 50 percent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with industrial nations making a steeper 80 percent reduction. But the group of leading developing nations, led by China and India, said they can't commit to such long-term goals unless industrial nations go first and agree to midterm targets.

The Washington Post leads with a shocking look at the claims that the Mexican army has been carrying out massive human rights abuses in its fights against drug cartels. Human rights groups and residents of areas where the cartels are particularly active say that the army's tactics are getting increasingly brutal and include torture, illegal detention, and forced disappearances. The government recognizes there have been problems but say these are isolated incidents. USA Today leads with a new Medicare analysis that shows there's a large difference in the death rates as a result of relatively common ailments between hospitals across the country. Patients also frequently end up back in the hospital within 30 days of being treated. Unsurprisingly, a separate analysis carried out by the paper reveals that the hospitals with higher death rates are concentrated in the country's poorest and smallest counties.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2222543?wpisrc=newsletter
Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com.