According to the report, a Grupo Modelo spokesperson stated that, “Modelo is deeply sorry for this accident and will support the affected families permanently.”

Grupo Modelo is the maker of beer that included Modelo, Pacífico, and Corona. Corona is the best-selling beer from Mexico, and the top imported beer in the U.S. Last summer, Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) announced that it would fully acquire Modelo for just over $20 billion. ABI is the maker of the best-selling U.S. beer, Bud Light.

In January 2013, the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block the merger. The Justice Department claims that the U.S. beer market is highly concentrated, with 39% of beer sales in 2012 going to ABI, and another 7% going to Modelo. There is worry that ABI, which is a price leader for the U.S. beer industry, is seeking to eliminate competition from Modelo, which “aggressively” prices its imports.

Reuters is reporting that two gunman entered a bar on the outskirts of Cancun on March 14, opening fire and killing six people. The gunmen were reported to be carrying a handgun and a “machine gun,” according to Reuters. Five other people were also wounded in the shooting.

Cancun is located in souteastern Mexico, and is known primarily for being a tourist destination. The city’s beaches, its blue Caribbean water, and its constantly tropical weather bring tourists from all over the world. In addition to its beachside attractions, Cancun is located near many Maya ruins such as Chichen Itza and the city itself even contains maya ruins.

Outside of Cancun, the Mexican government has been fighting a drug war against cartels within the country. Estimates show that drug war murders in Mexico have increased significantly in the past decade. The group Reforma Ejecutometro estimating over 12,000 drug war-related murders took place in 2011.

(Image via Safa in la/Wikimedia Commons)

A 65-year-old woman was killed by the freak wave, while a 70-year-old man is now in serious condition. The wave struck near the famous El Arco natural arch at the resort community, located at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

The AP report quotes state police as saying the man and woman were walking along the beach to their hotel when the incident occurred. The Navy was dispatched to recuse them, but the woman later died.

Officials have not released the names of either of the victims, though authorities told the AP that the woman was carrying a driver’s license from Wisconsin, while the man was carrying one from Nebraska.

Cabo San Lucas is a popular tourist destination for its beaches. Tourists and cruise ships come to the beach resorts there to scuba dive, watch the abundant marine life, and surf the waves.

Bravo is credited (Wikipedia) as Mexico’s first principal artistic photographer and as the most important figure in 20th century Latin American photography. He was born on this day in 1902, and lived to be 100. He died in October of 2002.

This is one of at least four doodles Google is running throughout the world today. In Canada, Google has one honoring the last day of the Canadian penny. In Sri Lanka, Google has one for Sri Lanka Independence Day. In the Czech Republic, Google is honoring Josef Kajetán Tyl, who wrote the country’s national anthem.

More Google Doodles here.

The company is making it clear that the judgment is not final, and that it believes the plaintiff’s claims are without merit.

Yahoo issued the following statement late on Friday:

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today reported that the 49th Civil Court of the Federal District of Mexico City has entered a non-final judgment of U.S. $2.7 billion against Yahoo! Inc. and Yahoo de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. in a lawsuit brought by plaintiffs Worldwide Directories S.A. de C.V. and Ideas Interactivas, S.A. de C.V. Yahoo! believes the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit and will vigorously pursue all appeals. The plaintiffs alleged claims of breach of contract, breach of promise, and lost profits arising from contracts related to a yellow pages listings service.

Little more is known about the case, but TechCrunch provides some background about the companies’ relationship, which began nearly a decade ago:

Yahoo de Mexico struck a deal with Ideas Interactivas that was announced in 2003 to create “Yahoo! Páginas Útiles” which would help people find contact info for local businesses. As of now, though, the www.paginasutiles.com.mx domain is parked and doesn’t offer any Yahoo content.

The idea was to augment its online local business search with printed book. Yahoo hoped that the two-pronged strategy would let it compete with Google. The books would include maps, business and landmark listings, and a catalogue of offers and discounts. There would be flexible, low-cost advertising options in Yahoo! Páginas Útiles, which was slated for an initial circulation of 800,000 free copies followed by a second print run of 1.7 million units according to a April 2003 article from Mexican website Noticias Dot.

Yahoo’s revenue for its last quarter was just $1.2 billion, so, this is certainly a substantial amount of money for the company.

A court in Mexico City handed down a judgment last week that sees Apple lose an injunction that would have allowed the company to keep selling iPhone-branded products in the country. The court said that iPhone was too phonetically similar to iFone. The ruling means that Apple will no longer be allowed to sell iPhones with the iPhone name in Mexico.

It was pretty much a given that Apple was going to lose this one. iFone has been around since 2003, a full four years before Apple ever showed off its iPhone. It seems like a strange oversight by Apple, however, as the company claims to have paid for the iPad name in Asia during its legal dispute with Proview. Why didn’t Apple just work out a deal with iFone before threatening legal action against a brand that preceded its own?

It’s already pretty bad that Apple lost the right to use the iPhone name in Mexico, but it could get much worse. iFone sued Apple for damages which could result in 40 percent of all iPhone sales revenue in Mexico going to the telecom.

Electronista reports that the top two Mexican carriers were scheduled to start selling the iPhone 5 today. It’s unknown if the court order will delay the launch, or outright ban the iPhone 5 from sale in Mexico until Apple can either change the name or come to an agreement with iFone. My bets are on the latter as Apple probably wouldn’t change the name of its flagship device for just one country.

[h/t: El Universal]

The committee, which is made up of Republican legislators, county sheriffs, and state department officials, was created by the Arizona legislature in 2010. The goal of the committee was to make recommendations to the governor about border security, but it has not yet provided any recommendations. It has been fundraising for the border fence project, though, and it has raised over $273,000. The committee is speaking with construction companies about beginning the project and possibly using inmate labor.

Though the committee has not made any recommendations, it does hear testimony from border security experts and has visited the border twice, according to the Republic. The committee has also set up a rudimentary website that has a presentation on the proposed border fence, as well as a page where donations can be made. Al Melvin, Arizona state senator and co-chair of the committee, also stars in a YouTube video introduction for the committee, in which he asks for donations to the border fence fund:

This week’s update is an archaeology fan’s dream as Street View explores the ancient pyramids of Mexico. It also adds more Street View data from Brazil for good measure. Both locations have some impressive sites to show off to the world.

Here’s a particularly lovely part of Rio where you can see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue on top of the mountain to the North. It’s unfortunate that Google doesn’t have Street View imagery from on top of the mountain with the statue yet, but it will get there someday.

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More impressive, however, is the Street View data from 30 archaeological sites in Mexico. The Mayans were behind some really impressive architecture. You can see it up close thanks to the efforts of the Street View team. Check it out:

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Like with all Street View updates, it’s tantalizing to think what might come up next. Personally, I think Google needs to take Street View to space. It would be awesome to get some good color photos from the surface of the Moon. With Larry Page investing in space ventures, it may only be a matter of time before Google realizes my dream of comprehensive moon coverage.

As you can see in the lead image of this article, if you live in America or Europe, Google Maps is more than likely going to have your traffic conditions covered. Today’s additions include some more European areas but then also expand to a couple of places beyond that continent: Minsk, Belarus; Riga, Latvia; Tallin, Estonia; Mexico City, Mexico; Lima, Peru; Bucharest, Romania; and Johannesburg, South Africa.

Given I’ve always heard so many astonishing things about the smog in Mexico City, I imagined that the traffic there must perpetually feel like one of the nightmarish puzzles you have to solve in those Saw movies. Checking in this morning with the city’s traffic, it does not look like some place I would like to navigate through today:

Look at those congested red and black snakes of traffic. Sheesh.

In addition to launching traffic coverage for the above cities, Google Maps has also expanded its coverage in 19 countries that already had the gift of grim traffic foresight: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the U.K.

The new traffic data is available both on Google Maps website as well as multiple mobile devices.

According to Reuters, the G-20 Summit will be meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico to discuss the current economic crisis in Europe. It’s unfortunate as well since it looks like leaders will not make any progress on preventing the problems that caused the economic collapse in the first place. When it comes to problems like this, the first step is to fix the problem and then fix what caused it. Unfortunately, fixing this particular problem will probably be harder than anything that has come before it.

Besides a potential collapse of the Eurozone, the countries contained within it are causing problems among themselves by pointing fingers and yelling at each other. It was reported that Germany and France are now fighting each other over how to fix the economic crisis with Germany pushing for austerity measures while France pushes for economic growth. At this moment, both options seem a little far fetched and can only go so far.

Fortunately, there’s another meeting coming up soon that may yield better results than the expected turnout next week. The European Union will hold a summit later this month where the leaders within the EU will discuss how to contain the debt crisis. The talk going around the members of the G-20 seem to indicate next week’s meeting will only be used to set up discussions at the EU summit later this month according to aides speaking to Reuters.

It should be noted that Americans have a lot at stake in these talks as well. It would be in the citizen’s best interest to pay attention to the G-20 Summit next week and see what comes out of it. Whatever happens in Europe will indirectly affect us here in the U.S. including our beloved tech economy. If you thought the Facebook IPO, just wait to see as everybody’s market value gets kicked in the teeth if the Eurozone were to collapse.

We all have a stake in this, including those of us in tech, so we’ll continue to watch this story as it develops. It will be interesting to see how Greece votes on Sunday. It could set Europe on the road to recovery or send it spiraling even more downward.