Kamala Harris questioned over not going to US-Mexico border – video

US vice-president Kamala Harris has brushed off questions about her decision not to go to the US-Mexico border as part of her work to address the spike in migration. Harris, who was asked about the issue during visits to Mexico and Guatemala, said: ‘I’ve been to the border before and I will go again, but when I’m in Guatemala dealing with root causes, I think we should have a conversation about what is going on in Guatemala’, Harris said. Republican lawmakers have criticised her for not prioritising the shared frontier

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British woman in coma after twin fights off crocodile in Mexico

Sister punched crocodile in head after it attacked in a lagoon where they had been swimming

A British woman is in a medically induced coma in Mexico after she was attacked by a crocodile in a lagoon where she and her twin sister had been taken by a tour guide.

Melissa and Georgia Laurie, 28, from Berkshire, had been swimming in the lagoon, about 10 miles from Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, on the south-east coast of the country, when Melissa was attacked.

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Kamala Harris tells migrants ‘do not come’ during talks in Guatemala – video

The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said she had held 'robust' talks with the Guatemalan president, Alejandro Giammattei, as she sought to find ways of deterring undocumented immigration from Central America to the United States. Speaking during a news conference with Giammattei, Harris delivered a blunt message to people thinking of making the dangerous journey north: 'Do not come'

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Mexico elections: President Amlo fails to win super-majority in midterms

But president’s Morena party keeps its majority in the lower house of congress

Mexican voters have denied President Andrés Manuel López Obrador a mega-majority in midterm elections, though his Morena party kept its majority in the lower house of congress with the support of a controversial ally.

Voters also showed little enthusiasm for Mexico’s rightwing opposition, which remains reviled after its decisive 2018 defeat by López Obrador, who swept to power promising to curb corruption and put the poor first.

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‘They stormed the ICU and beat the doctor’: health workers under attack

From Brazil to Myanmar, five doctors and nurses treating coronavirus patients share their experiences

Since the pandemic began, healthcare workers have been venerated for treating patients with Covid-19, but they have also been attacked for doing their job.

Five doctors and nurses treating coronavirus patients, some of whom asked to be kept anonymous, recount their experiences.

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What do you think of it so far? Voters rate Amlo’s Mexico ‘transformation’

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador remains popular but midterm elections may reflect judgments of his handling of the pandemic and endemic violence

Nearly three years have passed since Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president of Mexico and, before a sea of euphoric supporters, promised: “I will not fail you. You will not be disappointed.”

Related: ‘Huge incentives to kill’: Mexico crime groups target election candidates

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Mexico accuses Zara and Anthropologie of cultural appropriation

Ministry of culture claims Zara used a pattern distinctive to the indigenous Mixteca community

Mexico has accused the international fashion brands Zara, Anthropologie and Patowl of cultural appropriation, claiming they used patterns from indigenous groups in their designs without any benefit to the communities.

The culture ministry said in a statement that it had sent letters signed by the culture minister, Alejandra Frausto, to the three companies, asking each for a “public explanation on what basis it could privatise collective property”.

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‘Huge incentives to kill’: Mexico crime groups target election candidates

At least 34 candidates have been murdered since campaigning began in April, with the assassination clear-up rate close to zero

Tuesday started off like any other day on the campaign trail for José Alberto Alonso, a union leader running for mayor in the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco: he kissed his family goodbye, boarded his Nissan Extreme SUV and headed off to start knocking on doors.

But barely 200m from his home, a motorcycle closed in and the pillion passenger pulled a handgun, peppering the car with bullets. Alonso’s bodyguard returned fire, and the attackers fled. The candidate had escaped injury, but was later sent to hospital suffering from stress.

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Is that a surrealist masterpiece by the draining board? Inside Leonora Carrington’s sculpture-filled home

The great British artist’s home in Mexico has been turned into a wonderful museum, full of her sculptures, books, diaries and unsmoked cigarettes. Our writer, Carrington’s cousin, takes an emotional tour

In October 2010, a few months before her death, I said my last goodbye to my cousin Leonora Carrington. As I left her home in Mexico City, she stood waving on the doorstep. Today, I’m back for the first time – to see Leonora’s house recreated as a visitor attraction. It feels surreal, but the surreal has become the everyday since I set off to find Leonora in 2006, almost 70 years after she checked out of our family and Britain. She travelled first to Paris to be with her lover, the German artist Max Ernst, before moving on to Mexico with a diplomat she met after she and Ernst were separated by the second world war.

This house, 194 Calle Chihuahua, is where she was anchored for more than 60 years. Here, she painted some of her best-known works, including The Juggler, which sold at auction in 2005 for £436,000; And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, now at MoMA in New York; and her mural The Magical World of the Mayans, now at the National Anthropological Museum in Mexico City.

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Mexico’s doctors protest as vaccines denied to frontline health workers

Doctors’ pleas receive little sympathy from government as critics say President Amlo favoring teachers – for political reasons

Ana Sofía is radiologist at a state-run hospital in the Mexican city of Monterrey, not far from the Texas border. Her work often brings her into close contact with patients, but says she was denied a coronavirus vaccination as her superiors did not consider her to be a frontline worker.

In despair, she attended a rural vaccination event for the elderly and asked for a leftover dose of the Sinovac jab – but she was again rebuffed, this time by political operatives who told her: “Wait your turn.”

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No Man’s Land review – well-meaning drama about US-Mexico relations

This contemporary western about a young Texan fugitive who flees south of the border is handsomely shot but didactic

Just north of the border between the United States and Mexico, the Greer family – patriarch Bill (Frank Grillo), mom Monica (Andie MacDowell), and grown sons Lucas (Alex MacNicoll) and Jackson (Jake Allyn) – work the land as ranchers. They raise cattle, ride horses and, being red-blooded Texan types, play sports – in Jackson’s case well enough that he’s got a chance to go pro as a baseball player. They also spend the odd evening riding the range with a vigilante militia group, rounding up immigrants who may have crossed the border illegally, to “help” the border patrols. On one such night, Jackson joins his dad and big brother, even though they try to keep him out of this sort of thing so he can get out of Dodge and become a sports hero – and what do you know, the dumb lug ends up shooting and killing a boy (Alessio Valentini) just a little younger than himself. In the back no less.

Ashamed, distraught and worried that his father will try to take the rap for him, Jackson confesses to local Texas Ranger Ramirez (venerable character actor George Lopez), but then bolts across the border to Mexico on his trusty horse Sundance. Soon, the fugitive is learning some life lessons and about what Mexico is really like, and he becomes a hired hand for a nice middle-class family. A flirtatious friendship blooms between him and the family’s pretty daughter, Victoria (Esmeralda Pimentel), while he tries not to get caught by the dead kid’s dad Gustavo (Jorge A Jimenez) and a skeevy people-trafficking “coyote” (Andres Delgado), who are out to get him.

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Valeria Luiselli wins €100,000 Dublin literary award for Lost Children Archive

Novel, which weaves together the stories of Mexican migrants with those of a US family on a road trip south, was picked for the prize by a Barcelona library

Earlier this year, a library in Barcelona submitted a nomination for its favourite book of the year: Mexican author Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive. On Thursday, thanks to Biblioteca Vila De Gràcia, Luiselli was named winner of the world’s richest prize for a novel published in English, the €100,000 (£86,000) Dublin literary award.

“It’s a beautiful, relatively small library in Barcelona who nominated me,” said Luiselli. “I’m going to kiss its rocks one day, because I probably won’t be able to kiss its librarians because of Covid.”

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‘We went to the dark side’: horror film shows reality of Mexico’s migrant trail

Mystical realism conveys real-life stories of brutal cartel violence in Fernanda Valadez’s chilling directorial debut

Two teenage boys wave goodbye to their mothers across a field in rural Mexico, leaving home in search of the American dream. The opening moments of the Mexican film-maker Fernanda Valadez’s Identifying Features, available to stream from this week, reflects scenes played out every day across Mexico and Central America, as men, women and children journey north in search of safety and job opportunities.

Valadez, 39, starts her directorial debut film in her home state of Guanajuato – a picturesque, once tranquil state in the centre of the country. In recent years Guanajuato has fallen victim to the evolving geography and relentless nature of Mexico’s humanitarian crisis; it is now one of the most dangerous places in the country for those who live there and for people travelling through on the migrant trail.

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Mexico faces up to uneasy anniversary of Chinese massacre

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will mark the killings of 303 Chinese people during the revolution that the city of Torreón has tried to forget

The first to die were Chinese agricultural workers, who were killed in the orchards and gardens surrounding the Mexican city of Torreón by advancing revolutionary forces in the early hours of 13 May 1911.

After skirmishes at the outskirts of the city, the outnumbered federal garrison abandoned their positions and slipped away under the cover of darkness.

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Violence against women ‘a pandemic’, warns UN envoy

A decade after Istanbul convention was drawn up to end gender-based violence, activists report decline in women’s rights and safety

A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.

This week marked 10 years since the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

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Mexican president accuses US of interference over funding for NGOs

  • Diplomatic note sent ahead of meeting with Kamala Harris
  • Anti-corruption and press freedom groups draw official ire

Mexico’s populist president has accused the United States of undue interference in the country’s internal affairs just before a virtual meeting with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, which was expected to focus on slowing Central American migration.

Related: Amlo calls decision to disqualify candidates ‘a blow to democracy’

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At least 24 dead as Mexico City metro overpass collapses

Officials say at least 65 injured as videos on TV and social media showed the overpass falling on to cars below

A partially collapsed metro overpass has claimed at least 24 lives in Mexico City, where rescuers worked through the night to free trapped passengers and search for victims.

Mexico City’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, said via Twitter that at least 65 people had been taken to hospital after the collapse near the Los Olivos metro station, which occurred at about 10.30pm on Monday.

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Mexico City metro overpass carrying train carriages collapses – video

A rescue operation was under way after a Mexico City metro overpass partially collapsed on Monday night. More than a dozen people died in the incident and about 70 were injured, civil protection authorities in Mexico said.

Videos on Mexican television and social media showed train cars hanging in mid-air as sirens blared nearby after the overpass fell on to cars on a road below. Emergency medical crews and firefighters were at the scene of the accident combing through wreckage looking for survivors

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Mexico expects US to send 5m more Covid vaccine doses, president says

  • Mexican production of AstraZeneca jab suffers setbacks
  • López Obrador: “it’s probable that they’ll help us with a loan’

Mexica’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Friday the US will probably send his country 5m more doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, as the company admitted production in Central and South America had suffered multiple setbacks.

Related: US cites Indian variant in implementing travel ban from Tuesday

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