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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Monkey shot dead as Mexican cartels’ passion for exotic pets leaves bloody toll

Spider monkey dressed up as gang mascot killed in shootout, and man dies in Michoacán after trying to pet captive tiger

Mexican narcos’ fascination with exotic animals has been on display this week after a spider monkey dressed up as a drug gang mascot was killed in a shootout, a 200kg tiger wandered the streets in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, and a man died after trying to pet a captive tiger in a cartel-dominated area of western Michoacán state.

Eleven suspected gang members died in the shootout on Tuesday in the state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital. Photos from the scene showed a small monkey dressed in a tiny camouflage jacket and a tiny “bulletproof” vest sprawled across the body of a dead gunman.

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Mexican megachurch leader jailed in US for more than 16 years for child sexual abuse

La Luz del Mundo ‘apostle’ Naasón Joaquín García sentenced after admitting three abuse charges in Californian court

The leader of the Mexican megachurch La Luz del Mundo was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 16 years in a California prison for sexually abusing young female followers.

Naasón Joaquín García, 53, pleaded guilty last week in Los Angeles superior court to three felonies on the eve of a long-awaited trial.

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Dozens tumble as Mexican footbridge collapses during opening ceremony

Mayor of Cuernavaca was inaugurating structure when it gave way, injuring eight people, many with broken bones

The mayor of the Mexican city of Cuernavaca was proudly inaugurating a footbridge over a scenic stream on Tuesday when the bridge collapsed, sending him and about two dozen other people plunging into a gully.

The hanging bridge made of wooden boards and metal chains had recently been remodeled. Video of the collapse suggested the boards separated from the chains supporting them.

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Up to 15,000 people expected to walk length of Mexico in giant caravan to US

Largest ever migrant caravan, huddled together for protection, moves north as global leaders gather for Biden’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles

Liozanys Comeja credits her survival to her teacup chihuahua, Mia. Originally from Venezuela, Comeja moved to Colombia five years ago, but decided to leave her new life behind this month due to the rising cost of living. She crossed the Darien Gap, a notorious stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, with Mia tucked in her backpack, eventually making her way across eight countries. Now, Comeja is hoping the dog will help her make it through the grueling final leg of their journey.

Comeja has joined about 11,000 others who on Monday will leave Tapachula, a sweltering city on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and head north for the United States. It will depart as leaders from across the hemisphere gather in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas.

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Mexico police arrest alleged serial killer who lured women with job offers

At least seven young women believed to have been killed after responding to ads on Facebook

Authorities in Mexico have arrested a suspected serial killer accused of luring at least seven young women on Facebook with false job offers.

Surveillance camera footage from two states showed the man meeting with the victims in public places, and in one case driving a victim away on a motorbike, officials said.

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Deaths amid flooding and mudslides as Hurricane Agatha hits Mexico

Oaxaca state counts cost of strongest hurricane ever to come ashore in May during eastern Pacific hurricane season

Hurricane Agatha caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 10 people and left 20 missing, the governor of the southern state of Oaxaca said on Tuesday.

Alejando Murat said rivers overflowed their banks and swept away people in homes, while other victims were buried under mud and rocks.

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First hurricane of 2022 season makes landfall in Mexico

Analysis: Hurricane Agatha kicks off what is forecast to be another busy period of Atlantic storms

The first hurricane of 2022 for the eastern Pacific has made landfall in southern Mexico. Agatha has been slowly moving north towards the Mexican Pacific coast, strengthening before making landfall late on Monday. The storm has produced damaging tropical-force winds and heavy rain.

Winds are easing but heavy rain will continue through Tuesday as the storm moves inland. It is forecast to cause flash flooding and mudslides that could pose a threat to life.

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Archaeologists discover ancient Mayan city at Mexico construction site

Researchers estimate the city, which features the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, to have been occupied from AD600 to 900

Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city filled with palaces, pyramids and plazas on a construction site of what will become an industrial park near Mérida, on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.

The site, called Xiol, has features of the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, archaeologists said, which is common in the southern Yucatán peninsula but rare near Mérida.

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World’s most violent cities: Medellín crime surge helps Latin America top list

Region has two-thirds of world’s most dangerous cities, with Bogotá, Rio, Mexico City and San Salvador also named in study

When police found the body of Marcela Graciano, a 31-year-old Colombian DJ, last Thursday, the brutality of the crime shocked even them. Her body, found in a house in a suburb of Medellín – Colombia’s second city – revealed signs of torture and her hands had been tied behind her back.

“The body was in an advanced state of decomposition,” the local police chief, Col Rolfy Mauricio Jiménez, said. The Valle de Aburrá municipality has had 11 murders this year, authorities said.

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Monarch butterflies bounce back in Mexico wintering grounds

Experts say 35% rise in acreage covered by migratory insects my reflect adaptation to changing climate

Mexican experts have said that 35% more monarch
butterflies arrived this year to spend the winter in mountaintop forests, compared with the previous season.

Experts say the rise may reflect the butterflies’ ability to adapt to more extreme bouts of heat or drought by varying the date when they leave Mexico.

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Mexico’s migrant checks on buses and highways ruled racist and illegal

Landmark ruling follows case of three young Indigenous Mexicans detained and abused on suspicion of being Guatemalan migrants

Mexican immigration agents can no longer conduct stop and search operations on buses and highways after the country’s supreme court ruled that such checks are racist, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.

The landmark ruling, handed down in Mexico City on Wednesday, found in favour of three young Indigenous Mexicans who were detained and abused by immigration (INM) officials in 2015 during a US-backed crackdown.

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