In brief: Thai protesters camp in streets

BANGKOK – Anti-government protesters who blocked off intersections across Thailand’s capital began marching toward several government ministries today on the second day of a renewed push to derail elections next month and unseat the prime minister.

The protesters had planned to “shut down” the city of 12 million people, but life continued normally in most places, with school classes restarting, commuters heading to work and most businesses remaining open.

Protest leaders pledged the demonstrators will stay camped out in the streets until an unelected “people’s council” replaces Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration, which they accuse of corruption and misrule.

Feds to patrol Mexico state

APATZINGAN, Mexico – Federal forces will take over security in a large swath of a western Mexico state where firefights between vigilante groups and drug traffickers erupted over the weekend, a top Mexican official announced Monday.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said federal forces with support from Michoacan state police will patrol an area in the state known as Tierra Caliente, the home base of the Knights Templar drug cartel.

The federal attorney general’s office said later in a statement it had sent 11 helicopters and 70 federal investigators and officers to help return law and order to the state.