In brief: Mexico intensifies search for drug lord

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s interior ministry says it has distributed 100,000 photographs of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to highway toll booths around the country since his weekend escape from a maximum-security prison.

In a statement Wednesday, the ministry outlined actions taken in search of Guzman:

It said 10,000 agents of various components of the federal police remain on high alert across Mexico, and authorities have established 101 checkpoints on major highways throughout the country

Hospitals, hotels and funeral homes are being checked. Forty-eight canine teams are searching passenger and cargo vehicles. Airports are on alert, closely reviewing passengers on private planes.

Guzman is once again Mexico’s most wanted criminal since he escaped late Saturday through a mile-long tunnel dug to come up under the shower of his prison cell.

Chinese prison won’t release monk’s body

BEIJING – Chinese authorities have refused to release the body of a Tibetan lama who died in a Chinese prison, prompting a sit-in outside the prison by more than 100 Tibetans, a pro-Tibet rights group said Wednesday.

The family was informed Sunday that Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, 65, died 13 years into a life sentence on charges of financing and supporting a series of terrorist bombings and secession activities. His supporters say the charges were trumped up to persecute the man.

The prison has not produced the lama’s body after two days of negotiations between the police and the monk’s immediate family, the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet said Wednesday in a statement.