Weather tracker: US heatwave breaks September temperature record

New September temperature record reaches 107F or 41.7C in Salt Lake City, Utah

Through this week, the heatwave in the US has been continuing, allowing more September records to fall. Salt Lake City in Utah saw its September temperature record broken, with each day hotter than the last, until the current highest ever September temperature was recorded on Wednesday. The new September record is now 107F or 41.7C, which astonishingly is also tied as the all-time temperature record for Salt Lake City. It is extraordinary to record a tied record high temperature in meteorological autumn.

Farther south earlier this week, the tropical storm off the west coast of Mexico, previously Twelve-E, developed into a category 2 hurricane, bringing sustained winds of 100mph, and was named Hurricane Kay. The hurricane brought intense flooding all the way up the west coast of Mexico, from Oaxaca to Nayarit by Thursday 8 September. In the last 48 hours, Kay has weakened into a tropical storm, but continues to bring extreme rain in its path, across the Baja California Peninsula and up towards the US state of California.

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Fires, heat … a hurricane? California’s ‘most unusual’ week of extreme weather

A record heatwave added stress to the electrical grid and made firefighting difficult. Now a hurricane could bring flash floods

A collision of extreme weather events is bearing down on California as wildfires threaten communities, a record-setting heatwave is adding stress to the electrical grid, and moisture from a hurricane is expected to bring thunderstorms and flash floods.

Hurricane Kay, swirling off the coast of Mexico, is on its way north, bringing with it the chance of strong winds, severe rainstorms, and possibly dry lightning that could increase risks for new fire starts. It also could bring some welcome relief to the week of brutally hot weather.

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Works by Mexican writer Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz recovered from auction

Two books containing 17th-century works by pioneering feminist poet and nun saved from US auction and returned to Spain

Two precious and well-travelled books containing works by the Mexican nun, writer, composer, poet and proto-feminist Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz have been saved from auction in New York and returned to Spain, where they were printed almost three-and-a-half centuries ago.

Sister Juana, who was born in mid-17th century Mexico to a Spanish father and a Mexican mother of Spanish descent, possessed a thirst for knowledge and a mind that would eventually mark her out as one of the greatest figures of the Golden Age of Spanish literature.

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Six of 43 missing Mexican students were kept alive in warehouse for days

Students were then turned over to commander of the local army base who ordered their killings

Six of the 43 Mexican students forcibly disappeared in 2014 were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days, and then turned over to the commander of the local army base who ordered their killings, the Mexican government official leading the Truth Commission said Friday.

The interior undersecretary, Alejandro Encinas, made the revelation with little fanfare during a lengthy defense of the commission’s report, first released a week earlier. At that time, despite declaring the disappearances a “state crime” and saying that the army watched it happen without intervening, Encinas made no mention of six students being turned over to Col José Rodríguez Pérez.

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Mexico: journalist in Guerrero becomes 15th media worker killed in 2022

Fredid Román, who ran an online outlet focused on state-level politics, gunned down in his car in state capital

A local journalist who ran an online news program has been shot to death in southern Mexico, making him the 15th media worker killed so far this year nationwide.

Prosecutors in the southern state of Guerrero said on Monday that Fredid Román was gunned down in the state capital, Chilpancingo.

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Mexico’s ex-attorney general arrested over disappearance of 43 students in 2014

Jesús Murillo held on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in notorious Guerrero case

Mexico’s former attorney general has been arrested in relation to the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, the most prominent individual held so far in the notorious case that has haunted the country ever since.

Jesús Murillo was arrested at his home in Mexico City home on Friday on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in the abduction and disappearance of the student-teachers in the south-western state of Guerrero, now seen as a “state-sponsored crime”.

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Mexico’s citizens caught in crossfire as cartels launch attacks across the country

Brazen strikes by organised crime leaders have left bystanders killed as many question the president’s security policies

For Carlos Holguín it was supposed to be just another day of toil.

After leaving the factory where he works morning shifts in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, the 24-year-old began his nightly routine last Thursday as a food app delivery driver.

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Journalist found dead in northern Mexico in bloody year for media

Body of Juan Arjón López, 14th journalist to be killed in Mexico in 2022, identified by tattoos in border city of San Luis Río Colorado

An independent journalist has been found dead in northern Mexico, bringing to 14 the number of reporters and media workers killed so far this year, which has been one of the deadliest ever for the profession.

Prosecutors in the northern border state of Sonora said on Tuesday that tattoos on a body found in the border city of San Luis Río Colorado matched those of journalist Juan Arjón López.

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US issues western water cuts as drought leaves Colorado River near ‘tipping point’

Arizona, Nevada and Mexico affected as federal government steps in after states failed to reach agreement

After western US states failed to reach agreements to reduce water use from the beleaguered Colorado River, the federal government stepped in on Tuesday, issuing cuts that will affect two states and Mexico.

Officials with the Bureau of Reclamation declared a “tier 2” shortage in the river basin as the drought continues to pummel the American west, pushing its largest reservoirs to new lows. The waning water levels, which have left dramatic bathtub rings in reservoirs and unearthed buried bodies and other artifacts, continue to threaten hydroelectric power production, drinking water, and agricultural production.

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Cuban doctor among three shot dead at hospital in Mexico

Doctor killed along with a nurse and another woman at a hospital in the suburb of Ecatepec, on the outskirts of Mexico City

A Cuban doctor has been shot dead at a hospital in a rough neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City, prosecutors in the state of Mexico confirmed late on Monday.

The doctor, whose name was not provided, was killed on Friday along with a nurse and another woman at a hospital in the suburb of Ecatepec.

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Mexico prison cartel clash spills on to streets of border city leaving 11 dead

Four radio station employees among dead as alleged gang members rampaged through Ciudad Juárez

A prison confrontation between members of two rival cartels spilled on to the streets of the border city Ciudad Juárez, where alleged gang members have killed nine more people, including four employees of a radio station.

The violence began on Thursday, when Los Chapos, members of the infamous Sinaloa cartel formerly led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, clashed with the local group Los Mexicles, in a Juárez prison, the deputy security minister, Ricardo Mejía, said.

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Border wall that threatened historic US-Mexico Friendship park halted

The Biden administration agreed to pause plans that would have destroyed a 51-year-old oceanfront park

The Biden administration has agreed to pause plans for a double border wall that critics say would effectively destroy a 51-year-old oceanfront park that symbolizes friendship between the United States and Mexico.

Chris Magnus, the US Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said he wanted to hear community concerns before settling on a wall design for Friendship Park, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated in 1971.

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Ancient sculptures found in storage box finally returned to Mexico

Consulate accepts a dozen small artworks amid worldwide movement to repatriate Indigenous items

Small, ancient sculptures that have been gathering dust in an Albuquerque storage box are returning home to Mexico, where they are intertwined with the identity of Indigenous communities.

The Albuquerque Museum Foundation celebrated the repatriation of a dozen sculptures in a ceremony on Wednesday. The local consulate of Mexico accepted Olmec greenstone sculptures, a figure from the city of Zacatecas, bowls that were buried with tombs and other clay figurines that date back thousands of years.

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Diana Kennedy, influential guru of Mexican cuisine, dies at 99

Politicians and chefs pay tribute to the ‘Indiana Jones of food’, who helped preserve and popularise Mexican recipes in the English-speaking world

Diana Kennedy, the British-born food writer who dedicated her career to promoting the richness and diversity of Mexico’s culinary heritage and helped to popularise the national cuisine in the English-speaking world, has died aged 99.

The Mexican culture ministry confirmed Kennedy’s death at her home in Michoacán and paid tribute to her legacy, saying that she, “like few others”, understood that conserving nature and its diversity was crucial to upholding the myriad culinary traditions of Mexico.

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Mexico gives Tesla a dedicated lane at the border to speed up crossing into the US

The exclusive lane, at the remote checkpoint just north of Laredo, Texas, will be for suppliers only, not Tesla owners

Tesla has reportedly gained an exclusive lane at a remote US-Mexico border crossing after Elon Musk recently struck a deal with the “pro-business” state of Nuevo León.

The electric car company’s suppliers traveling from Mexico into Texas can use a dedicated lane to speed up their crossing at the Colombia Solidarity site, Bloomberg reported, a less popular checkpoint just north of Laredo. Tesla relies on at least six suppliers in Nuevo León, which borders the US for about 10 miles and is closer to the car company’s new headquarters in Austin. The lane is for suppliers only, not Tesla owners.

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‘Narco of narcos’: drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero arrested in Mexico

Co-founder of Guadalajara cartel was one of FBI’s most-wanted fugitives after being freed from prison in 2013

Rafael Caro Quintero, a drug lord known as “the narco of narcos” who was behind the killing of a US drug enforcement agent in 1985, has been captured by Mexican forces nearly a decade after walking out of prison, according to the country’s navy.

Caro Quintero was arrested after a search dog named Max found him hiding in brush in the town of San Simon in Sinaloa state during a joint operation by the navy and the attorney general’s office, a navy statement said. The site was in the mountains near Sinaloa’s border with the northern border state of Chihuahua.

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Reporter shot to death in Mexico, the 12th journalist killed there this year

Attacks on the press have increased 85% in the three years since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power

Yet another Mexican reporter has been shot to death, bringing to 12 the number of journalists killed this year in the country, one of the world’s most dangerous for media workers.

Antonio de la Cruz, 47, was shot on Wednesday as he was leaving his house with his 23-year-old daughter, who was seriously injured, according to state prosecutors and the newspaper that employed him.

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Two more migrants dead from Texas trailer, bringing toll to 53

Authorities are struggling to identify victims who have no IDs as families in Central America wait in anguish for news

The number of dead migrants found in a stifling trailer in Texas rose to 53 on Wednesday after two more people died, according to the Bexar county medical examiner’s office.

Forty of the victims were male and 13 were female, it said.

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Two Jesuit priests and man seeking sanctuary killed in Mexican church

Incident occurred in violence-plagued remote mountainous region of Chihuahua, which has strong organized crime presence

Two elderly Jesuit priests have been killed inside a church after a man pursued by gunmen apparently sought refuge in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico.

Javier Campos Morales, 79, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80, were killed on Monday inside the church in Cerocahui, Chihuahua.

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Two Canadians found dead in Playa del Carmen Mexican beach resort

The victims, a man and woman, are the latest in a string of several violent incidents in Quintana Roo state

Two Canadians – one of whom was sought by Interpol – have been found dead of knife wounds in Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen, the state prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Quintana Roo state, also home to resort towns including Cancún and Tulum, said the man and the woman were found dead on Monday at a hotel or condominium in the troubled resort, and a third person was reported injured.

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