‘Your wife wants to see you’: 18th-century Spanish letters seized at sea by British published online

Correspondence taken from 130 captured ships reveal details of the stories of seafarers and their families in the 1700s

A letter from a reproachful wife to the husband who seemingly abandoned her after travelling to the Americas, which remained unopened for nearly 300 years, is among thousands of papers from 18th-century Spanish ships captured by the British that are now being made available online.

Francisca Muñoz in Seville wrote to her husband, Miguel Atocha, in Mexico on 22 January 1747. The letter was among 100 others from Spanish women to their husbands detailing the emotional and economic challenges faced in their partners’ absences, and found on La Ninfa, a registered ship trading between Cádiz and Veracruz, Mexico that was captured by the notorious British privateer squadron known as the “Royal Family”.

Continue reading...

Cheap over-the-counter nail drug found to work on crippling flesh-eating disease

‘Momentous’ breakthrough as trial finds treatment for nail infections to be highly effective for neglected tropical disease

A cheap and easily taken drug used to treat fungal nail infections has been found to work against a devastating flesh and bone-eating disease found across Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Researchers say the breakthrough offers hope to thousands of patients who have suffered decades of neglect and can face amputations if the disease is left untreated.

Continue reading...

Activist who documented murders in one of Mexico’s deadliest cities killed

Adolfo Enríquez shot dead in Guanajuato city of León, which has third highest number of homicides in Mexico

An activist who documented murders in one of Mexico’s deadliest cities has himself been shot dead.

Adolfo Enríquez was killed in the city of León, in north-central Guanajuato state. The city has the third-highest number of homicides in Mexico, trailing only the border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez.

Continue reading...

Photographer shot dead in fifth journalist killing in Mexico in 2023

Body of Ismael Villagómez found in a car as the Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the killing to be investigated

A photographer for a newspaper in the notoriously violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez was found shot dead in the driver’s seat of a car, prosecutors said, in the fifth killing of a journalist in the country so far in 2023.

The body of Ismael Villagómez was found just after midnight Thursday. The newspaper he worked for, the Heraldo de Juarez, said the news photographer was found dead in a car that he had registered to use for work for a ride-hailing app. In Mexico, many journalists take work outside the profession to pay the bills.

Continue reading...

Mexican president’s popularity soars even as country faces persistent turmoil

Amlo’s pension program helped boost his approval rating, but critics point to his various shortcomings as his term nears its end

Life isn’t easy for Teodila Faustino, who shares a cinder-block home with her husband, five children and several grandchildren on the outskirts of Mexico City. At 69, she has retired from the restaurant where she made about $50 (£46) a week, and her employer left her no pension.

Other than selling tacos occasionally on the street, Faustino’s only lifeline is a state pension through which she receives about $280 (£224) every two months. This, in part, explains her undying gratitude to the man who launched the program: Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Continue reading...

‘A painful loss for our community’: Mexico’s queer population demands answers in magistrate death

Queer activists protest after first non-binary magistrate in nation Jesús Ociel Baena and partner found dead in home

Against the bland, beige backdrop of Mexico’s electoral courtrooms, Jesús Ociel Baena was radiant. The non-binary magistrate paired a shirt and tie with colorful skirts, high heels and bright red lipstick. In the heat of Aguascalientes state, Baena, who used they/their pronouns, would theatrically brandish a rainbow fan to cool down.

Proudly out in the courtroom, the classroom and on social media, Baena was a beacon for Mexico’s queer population, and their death this week has sent shock waves through an embattled community.

Continue reading...

Mexico’s first openly non-binary magistrate found dead at home

Authorities look into Jesús Ociel Baena’s cause of death as activists urge full investigation into gender identity-related threats

Mexico’s first openly non-binary magistrate and a prominent LGBTQ+ activist has been found dead at home in the central state of Aguascalientes.

Jesús Ociel Baena, who used they/them pronouns, was celebrated across Latin America for their work to advance the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

Continue reading...

Netflix’s movie Hurricane Season stirs debate over violent depiction of Mexico

Based on the prize-winning book by Fernanda Melchor, film depicts brutality stemming from ‘war on drugs’ that began in 2006

A group of children find a body in the river: the village witch, her throat slit, writhing with snakes.

The opening scene of Hurricane Season, a new Netflix movie based on Mexican novelist Fernanda Melchor’s book, plunges the viewer straight into a tropical, lawless, superstitious version of rural Veracruz, Melchor’s home state.

Continue reading...

On mute: Tijuana passes law banning ballads praising Mexican drug trade

Politicians have long sought to silence the genre, but previous clampdowns have only boosted its popularity

A typical song by Peso Pluma, one of Mexico’s most popular singers, might start with a guitar and a trumpet, sounding like something for the older crowd – but then come the lyrics telling of drug shipments, stacks of cash and diamond-encrusted pistols.

Peso Pluma has produced some of the most notorious recent examples of narcocorridos – ballads celebrating the exploits of the Mexican underworld that are hugely popular not just at home but across Latin America and the US.

Continue reading...

Mexico authorities find 123 people trapped in locked trailer

Majority of migrants rescued in Matehuala were from Central and South America and included 34 children

Authorities have found 123 people from Central and South America trapped in a trailer in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, the country’s immigration agency said on Thursday.

Officials from the state attorney general’s office found the people in Matehuala, a city on the border of Nuevo Leon, on Wednesday after a local reported hearing cries for help from a locked trailer box.

Continue reading...

‘The children screamed for hours’: horrors of Hurricane Otis leave devastation for Acapulco’s poorest

Mexico’s Pacific coast was battered by 165mph winds and torrential rain on 25 October. Thousands lost their homes and many now have too little food or water to survive

In the small hours of Wednesday 25 October, Josefina Maldonado, a grandmother of two in her 60s who lives in the Renacimiento district of Acapulco, watched as the corrugated metal roof of her home flew into the sky, ripped off by 165mph (270km/h) winds. The family home and everything and everyone in it, including two terrified small children, were prey to the torrential rain and the horrors of the hurricane. Most of the furniture, including the beds, was swept away.

“It wasn’t that the wind or the water was stronger. Both were working together,” Maldonado says. “We were up all night trying to save what we could, and the children screamed and cried for hours.”

Continue reading...

Acapulco: nearly 100 dead and missing after Hurricane Otis, officials say

Governor of Guerrero state says 45 confirmed dead and 47 others missing after ferocious storm hit Mexican city on Wednesday

The number of people dead and missing due to Hurricane Otis, a category 5 storm which hammered the Mexican Pacific resort city of Acapulco last week, has risen to close to 100.

Otis battered Acapulco with winds of 165mph (266km/h) on Wednesday, flooding the city, tearing roofs from homes, hotels and other businesses, submerging vehicles and severing communications as well as road and air connections.

Continue reading...

Acapulco death toll rises to 43 after Hurricane Otis batters resort city

Guerrero state governor says officials assessing damage after unprecedented 165mph storm hit Mexico’s Pacific coast

The death toll from a devastating hurricane that hit the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco last week has risen to 43, the governor of Guerrero state has said.

Evelyn Salgado added that electricity had been restored to 58% of Acapulco and that officials had visited 10,000 families there and the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez for a census to evaluate damages.

Continue reading...

Clean up and damage assessments begin after Hurricane Otis rips through

Category 5 storm struck Acapulco and leveled homes, hotels and cut off communications as military called in to help with aid efforts

At least 27 people were killed and four remain missing after Hurricane Otis ripped through the beach resort city of Acapulco, leveling homes and hotels, submerging cars and cutting off communications.

The extent of the damage from the category 5 storm, which struck Mexico on Thursday with winds of 165mph, has started to become clear as thousands of first responders and military officers began to assess the damages. Nearly 8,400 members of Mexico’s army, air force and national guard were deployed to assist in cleanup efforts, the defense ministry said.

Continue reading...

At least 27 dead after Hurricane Otis smashes into Mexico’s Pacific coast

The resort city of Acapulco was devastated by the category 5 hurricane, with hundreds of windows blown out and electricity cut

At least 27 people died due to Hurricane Otis and four others were still missing, Mexico’s government said after one of the most powerful storms to hit the country smashed into the Pacific resort city of Acapulco a day before.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the government was working to re-establish power and clean up the devastation wrought by the category 5 hurricane that tore through the southern state of Guerrero, and left Acapulco incommunicado.

Continue reading...

Hurricane Otis rips through Acapulco as communications to city severed

Powerful category 5 storm hits Mexico’s coast leaving trail of destruction, though full scale of damage remains unclear

Hurricane Otis has smashed through the Mexican resort city of Acapulco as a category 5 storm, wrecking homes, hotels and hospitals, and leaving a trail of destruction, but with communications to the city still severed the full scale of the devastation remained unclear.

As dawn broke on Wednesday, photos and videos posted online showed wrecked buildings and cars partially submerged in floodwaters as authorities in the southern state of Guerrero attempted to take a measure of the damage.

Continue reading...

Hurricane Otis: storm strengthens to Category 5 in a matter of hours as it nears Mexico

Hurricane Otis is forecast to make landfall near the Mexican resort of Acapulco, with the US National Hurricane Center warning of ‘nightmare scenario’

Hurricane Otis strengthened from a tropical storm to a dangerous Category 5 hurricane in a matter of hours on Tuesday as it approached Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, with the president urging residents to seek shelter.

The storm was forecast to make landfall near the resort of Acapulco early on Wednesday and the US National Hurricane Center warned it will cause catastrophic damage.

Continue reading...

Spain’s World Cup win was part of battle for equality, says Jenni Hermoso

Footballer says becoming champions was ‘the only way that we had left to be heard, respected and valued’

The Spanish footballer Jenni Hermoso has said Spain’s World Cup win was part of a “more human, more transcendent” battle for equality in her first public remarks since her team’s triumph was overshadowed by an unsolicited kiss.

The speech was made as part of an event in Mexico, where Hermoso plays for the football club Pachuca, and which featured a tribute to the world champion. The 33-year-old began by describing her emotions as she lifted the World Cup trophy alongside her teammates.

Continue reading...

Top Mexican court to give new life to controversial Trump-era border policy

‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which forces people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while US claims are processed, set to be revived

The Mexican supreme court is poised to give new life to a controversial US-Mexico border policy at a time when both countries are looking for ways to slow the flow of migrants heading north.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, is a Trump-era policy that forced people seeking asylum in the US to wait out their legal proceedings in Mexico for months or even years. The government of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador accepted the arrangement and allowed thousands of asylum seekers to be sent back to the country from the US.

Continue reading...

US representative files resolution decrying rightwing calls for invasion of Mexico

Joaquin Castro urged fellow House members to reject Republican calls for US military action to stem flow of fentanyl from Mexico

A progressive US congressman from Texas has asked his legislative colleagues to join him in condemning some American conservatives’ calls to invade Mexico – ostensibly to do battle with drug cartels there.

Joaquin Castro says he intends to file a resolution in the US House as soon as Friday reaffirming the federal government’s “commitment to respecting the sovereignty of Mexico and condemning calls for military action without Mexico’s consent and congressional authorization”.

Continue reading...