Nepali pilot and five Mexican passengers killed after aircraft crashes soon after takeoff near Lukla
All six people onboard a tourist helicopter in Nepal have been killed after it crashed soon after takeoff in the Everest region.
The Manang Air flight was heading for the capital, Kathmandu, from near Lukla, a gateway for climbing expeditions to the world’s highest peak, with five Mexican tourists – two men and three women – and a Nepali pilot onboard.
Continue reading...La Jornada said the body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of Tepic, capital of the coastal state
A journalist from Mexican national newspaper La Jornada has been found dead in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, the publication has said.
La Jornada reported on Saturday the body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of the state capital, Tepic.
Continue reading...Captain of tourist boat from Baja California, Mexico, says grey whales return repeatedly for ‘grooming’
Grey whales have learned to approach whale-watching boats to have parasites removed by human beings, it has been claimed.
Video footage documenting the behaviour in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, shows a grey whale having whale lice picked off its head by the captain of a small boat. “I have done it repeatedly with the same whale and others,” Paco Jimenez Franco told a US news site. “It is very exciting for me.”
Continue reading...The majority of the extremely powerful illegal opioid entering the US is manufactured in Mexico using Chinese precursors
Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Anne Milgram has called for further cooperation from China and Mexico in the fight against the US’s fentanyl crisis.
In an interview with Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, on Sunday, Milgram said that despite the DEA standing “ready to work with anyone who will work with us”, the US has “not had the cooperation that we want to have” from China, adding that the Mexican government also “needs to do more”.
Continue reading...Drought in Mexico and depleting water supply in the Colorado River has led to a scarcity in red jalapeños, the key ingredient
Sriracha lovers everywhere are feeling the not so pleasant sting of the beloved hot sauce shortage, now in its second year. Drought in Mexico has resulted in a scarcity of chilli peppers – in particular, red jalapeños, the raw material of sriracha – leading Huy Fong Foods, the California-based maker of the iconic condiment, to scale back production.
“It is a challenging crop to grow,” said Stephanie Walker, a plant scientist at the New Mexico State University, who serves on the advisory board of the Chile Pepper Institute. “Jalapeños are really labor intensive, requiring people to de-stem them by hand before they go for processing.”
Continue reading...Border agents promise better chance of asylum for those agreeing to go to Mexico and apply there, then strands them with no access
Border agents are promising some Venezuelan asylum seekers a greater chance to stay in the US if they agree to first return to Mexico and make appointments to re-enter from there – or otherwise be deported – but then the migrants are flown to the Mexican interior and stranded there without any way to access the US asylum system, immigration advocates have warned.
People report being pressured by American federal agents into signing up for the arrangement, called “voluntary return” which involves a choice between going back across the US-Mexico border or to the countries they originally fled, with the US government employing a kind of stick and carrot approach, as they seek to deal with fewer people in the US immigration system. The “stick” is being threatened with deportation and related consequences such as a five-year ban on returning to the US, unless they agree to leave – before they go through the interview that screens for a credible fear of going home. And the “carrot” is asylum seekers being told they will have a better chance of being granted refuge if they try again through a specific Biden administration-approved process from another country.
Continue reading...One of the leaders of the violence-scarred country’s ‘self-defense’ movement was cut down in rural Michoacán
One of the founders of Mexico’s “self-defense” movement, the lime farmer turned vigilante crusader Hipólito Mora, has been murdered in an ambush – the latest macabre chapter in the country’s unabating crime conflict.
Guillermo Valencia, a politician from the violence-stricken state of Michoacán, where Mora helped launch a rural revolt against narco-traffickers 10 years ago, announced the news on Twitter.
Continue reading...Climate change has made high temperatures more common in the country, which has already surpassed peak energy demand of 2022
When Raquel Rubio’s 13-month baby developed a 102F fever last week, she rushed to the doctor. Her son, Liam, had been in Rubio’s apartment without air conditioning for several hours; Nuevo León, the Mexican state where she lives, had reached 109F that day.
The doctor confirmed Rubio’s suspicions that the heat was driving her son’s temperature, and instructed her to bathe Liam and keep him hydrated. But Rubio couldn’t go back home; she had been dealing with power shortages for the past two weeks and didn’t want to take her son back into the blistering heat.
Continue reading...Assailants threw explosives at police station in state of Chiapas, following abduction of employees at gunpoint on highway
Assailants have thrown explosives at a police station in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, as a massive search continued on Wednesday for 14 police employees abducted at gunpoint on a local highway.
The attacks highlight a new turf battle between cartels for control of drug and immigrant trafficking in the state, which borders Guatemala.
Continue reading...Latest ‘heat dome’ event over Texas and Louisiana, plus much of Mexico, driven by human-cause climate change, scientists find
The record heatwave roiling parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mexico was made at least five times more likely due to human-caused climate change, scientists have found, marking the latest in a series of recent extreme “heat dome” events that have scorched various parts of the world.
A stubborn ridge of high pressure has settled over Mexico and a broad swath of the southern US over the past three weeks, pushing the heat index, a combination of temperature and humidity, to above 48C (120F) in some places.
Continue reading...Record temperatures will continue to put stress on power grids with blackouts reported in some areas
Extreme and prolonged heat looks set to continue across the southern states of the US and Mexico through this week. This heatwave, which has already brought record temperatures across Texas through the past two weeks, will extend into states such as Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana over the coming days.
At least 50 million people have been placed under extreme heat advisories as temperatures are forecast to soar at least 5-10C above the climatological average, with daily maximum temperatures reaching 40-45C (104-113F). San Angelo airport in Texas has already recorded two consecutive days where the temperature hit 45.6C (114F), which surpasses its highest ever temperature by three degrees.
Continue reading...Tianjin reports all-time record of 41.4C, while Texas and Mexico break numerous temperature records
Parts of north-east China are in the grip of a historic heatwave, with hundreds of weather stations reporting record highs for the month of June. On 22 June the capital Beijing observed a temperature of 41.1C (106F), a record high for the month, and the first time a temperature higher than 40C had been observed since 2014. On the same date, the city of Tianjin reported 41.4C, a new all-time record for any month. Additionally, Dagang had its hottest day on record, with a temperature of 41.8C.
The national weather bureau in China issued an alert for heatstroke last week, almost two weeks earlier than is typical from previous years. Authorities have advised people to suspend outdoor work during the middle part of the day, when the temperatures are at their highest. The high temperatures have also led to increased pressure on the power grid, with a more than 20% increase in demand reported in Tianjin on 15 June compared with last year. Temperatures in north-east China will remain on the extreme side over the coming week, with highs of 40-42C forecast each day in places. The all-time Beijing temperature of 41.9C could be seriously under threat.
Continue reading...Workers at luxury hotel where John Heathco and Abby Lutz died report managers had disabled carbon monoxide alarms
Two Americans whose bodies were found in their room at a resort in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur on 13 June died from inhaling toxic gas, according to officials’ preliminary findings.
The couple – identified as 41-year-old John Heathco and 28-year-old Abby Lutz, of California – had reportedly been dead between 10 and 11 hours before being discovered in their room at the oceanfront Hyatt Rancho Pescadero Hotel in El Pescadero, Mexico. The cause of death was ruled as intoxication of an unspecified gas substance that local officials as of Saturday were still working to determine.
Continue reading...Move follows reports of extortion by Mexican officials in Nuevo Laredo who threaten migrants with missing asylum appointments
The Biden administration has stopped taking mobile phone app appointments to admit asylum seekers at a Texas border crossing that connects to a notoriously dangerous Mexican city after advocates warned US authorities that migrants were being targeted there for extortion.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) gave no explanation for its decision to stop scheduling new appointments via the CBP One app for the crossing in Laredo, Texas.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum will seek ruling party’s nomination to succeed Andrés Manuel López Obrador in election next year
Mexico City’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has announced that she will step down this Friday to seek the ruling party’s presidential nomination, bidding to become the country’s first female leader in an election due to be held next year.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) said on Sunday it would on6 September announce the winning candidate from its internal selection process. Sheinbaum is one of the favorites.
Continue reading...The PRI – once the overwhelmingly dominant party of Mexico in the 20th century – is now a weak and also-ran political force
Mexico’s oldest party has lost control of the country’s most populous and influential state, in an election result that could signal the end of a powerful network that has dominated politics in the region for almost a century.
Alejandra del Moral Vela – the candidate for the incumbent Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which has governed the state of Mexico (Edomex) uninterrupted since 1929 – was beaten by eight points on Sunday, despite claiming victory during the vote count.
Continue reading...Family says Lauren Brooke Robinson, who reportedly contracted fungal meningitis, began to feel ill months after February surgery
A Texas woman has died after contracting fungal meningitis in an outbreak that has been linked to a cosmetic procedure performed in Mexico.
Lauren Brooke Robinson, 29, died on Wednesday from a fungal meningitis infection after receiving cosmetic surgery in Mexico, the local TV news station KBMT reported.
Continue reading...The latest transit system mishap comes after a series of incidents that city officials have claimed were sabotage
Service was temporarily halted on one of Mexico City’s metro system this week after a chicken got loose on the tracks.
Video posted by the Metro on Tuesday showed maintenance personnel and civil defense officers in hard hats chasing the errant fowl around the tracks with brooms, gloves and a trash bag.
Continue reading...US homeland security secretary defended strict new immigration measures as volunteers pitched in to help migrants stuck at border
Crossings at the US border with Mexico have dropped 50% after Title 42 restrictions ended at the end of Thursday and the Biden White House implemented an arguably tougher immigration policy, US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden on Sunday told White House pool reporters that the border situation immediately after Title 42’s elimination was “much better than you all expected”. The president said he did not plan to visit the border “in the near term” because to do so at this stage “would just be disruptive”.
Continue reading...John Kennedy’s comments about Mexicans ‘eating cat food’ came as he urged the US military to enter country to ‘stop the cartels’
Mexicans “would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback” Steakhouse restaurant if it were not for their nation’s proximity to the US, and their country should be invaded because of the presence of drug cartels there, the US senator John Neely Kennedy said.
The Louisiana Republican’s racist remarks drew a strong condemnation from Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, who called Kennedy “a profoundly ignorant man”. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, meanwhile, urged the 37 million Americans of Mexican descent – along with other Latinos in the US – “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future.
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