Donald Trump's pursuit of a border wall continued as he spoke at a rally in El Paso, Texas. Banners reading 'Finish the wall' lined the El Paso County Coliseum as the president spoke of how Democrats wanted to propose measures that would 'release of thousands of criminal illegal aliens'
Jury has surprised observers and unnerved prosecutors by asking for transcripts of ‘snitch’ witnesses
Whatever happens in the jury room in Brooklyn this Monday morning, people outside are starting to think the unthinkable: that Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán might get off.
It would be a reckless gambler that would bet on acquittal for the accused Mexican drug lord, but the odds shorten with each day of indecision. This is not the slam-dunk conviction prosecutors – and most of the rest of the world – were expecting.
Continue reading...As the jury begins deliberations, we recap three months of amazing stories and allegations
Until his trial began, much of the public perception of accused Mexican drug lord El Chapo, real name Joaquín Guzmán, had come from rumours and legend. But over the past three months we have heard what the lead prosecutor, Andrea Goldbarg, called “a mountain of evidence” against the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, including allegations of decades of murder, torture, bribery and corruption.
Related: Is Emma Coronel the devoted wife of El Chapo, or is she being used as a prop?
Continue reading...Unsealed documents made public just as jury is about to start deliberations in Joaquín Guzmán’s drug-trafficking case
Unsealed documents about the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán contain claims by witnesses that he had sex with minors he called “vitamins”. The disturbing allegation comes just as a jury is about to start deliberating in the US drug-trafficking case.
Related: Betrayal, torture and a $100m bribe: what the El Chapo trial has revealed
Continue reading...Monarch production will not be replicated next year, experts warn, as above average temperatures will cause problems
The population of monarch butterflies wintering in central Mexico is up 144% over last year, according to new research.
Related: 'It's a sad reality': a troubling trend sees a 97% decline in monarch butterflies
Continue reading...Prosecution case against accused Mexican drug lord had lasted 11 weeks
After a prosecution that spanned 11 weeks and had its share of bombshells, the defense case at the US trial of the alleged Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán clocked in on Tuesday at a mere 30 minutes.
Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman called one witness and entered one document into evidence before resting the defense’s case. The jury was sent home for the day with closing arguments set to begin on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Homicides in Tijuana have skyrocketed recently, returning the city to levels of hyper-violence it last saw a decade ago
This week, the Trump administration pushed ahead with its plan to return asylum seekers to Mexico while their cases are considered, moving the first group through San Diego’s San Ysidro crossing late on Friday.
Related: 'The US can't dump people in Mexico': Trump asylum policy in doubt
Continue reading...Guzmán alleged to have committed three murders, marking first time in three-month trial he has been personally accused
A former bodyguard for the accused Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has told a court that he watched his boss personally carry out three murders, including one in which the victim was buried alive.
The killings described by Isaías Valdéz Ríos in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, were the first in the three-month-old trial to be attributed to Guzmán himself, rather than underlings following his orders.
Continue reading...Dámaso López Núñez told the jury at Guzmán’s trial that Emma Coronel Aispuro ‘was giving us his orders’
The wife of the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán played a key role in his infamous 2015 escape from prison through a tunnel dug into the shower of his cell, one of Guzmán’s top lieutenants told a court in New York.
Dámaso López Núñez told the jury at Guzmán’s trial that Emma Coronel Aispuro helped her husband trade messages with his sons and others who coordinated the breakout at Altiplano prison in central Mexico.
Continue reading...Central American migrants escaping poverty and violence in their hometowns find crossing legally is a slow and difficult process
At the age of 14, Jonathan Levit was given an order by the infamously brutal Mara Salvatrucha gang in his native Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras: to kill a friend he had known throughout childhood – “like a brother, all my life”.
Jonathan had, like almost every child in the city of Tela’s terrifying barrio of Colonia 15 de Septiembre, grown up in the gang’s shadow; there was no avoiding it, especially if you were partial to a smoke, as he was. And now the time had come for him to execute “a mission” for what is also called MS-13 – the gang which, Jonathan says, “doesn’t just run Colonia 15, they almost run Honduras”.
Continue reading...A New York court has heard how the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán eluded capture with his mistress while paying millions to politicians and police
That Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán – on trial in New York for heading the world’s biggest drug cartel – escaped a raid through a tunnel beneath his bath is legend; what is not known is that he did so stark naked with the mistress with whom he was abed when the Mexican marines arrived.
That Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel bribed politicians and senior military officers is presumed by most Mexicans; that he bribed presidents would surprise few – what we had not heard is that he allegedly haggled down a presidential demand for $250m protection money to $100m.
Continue reading...A massive fireball that engulfed people collecting fuel gushing from a pipeline allegedly ruptured by thieves in central Mexico killed at least 66 people and badly burned more than 76
Continue reading...A massive fireball that engulfed people scooping up fuel that was spilling from a pipeline ruptured by thieves in central Mexico has killed at least 66 people and injured 76
Continue reading...Television footage showed the pipeline gushing fuel earlier in the day and people queuing with containers
At least 20 people have been killed and 71 injured in central Mexico when a pipeline ruptured by suspected fuel thieves exploded as people were trying to fill up containers, the government of Hidalgo state said.
Mexican television footage showed flames leaping into the night sky on Friday in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan to the north of Mexico City as people shouted and cried for help.
Continue reading...Alex Cifuentes, a close associate of the cartel chief, testified that he told US authorities about the alleged bribe in 2016
A witness at the US trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has testified that he told US authorities the accused Mexican drug lord once paid a $100m bribe to former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto.
Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of the Sinaloa cartel chief for years, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered: “That’s right.”
Continue reading...The Guardian travelled to five border locations to discover how Trump’s rhetoric jars with the reality on the ground
Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” has become the trademark of his presidency. It is the promise that more than any other has energized his base, and riled his opponents, and his dogged attachment to it has now brought a large part of the US government to a historic 25 days of partial shutdown.
Continue reading...The bodies, some burned, found in the northern border town of Tamaulipas that’s convulsed by fighting to control drug trafficking
Mexican authorities are investigating a battle between two suspected gangs that left at least 20 bodies, 17 of them burned, in a border town near where Donald Trump will visit on Thursday to win support for his plan to build a wall.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily morning news conference that initial information pointed to a “battle between two groups”, and that security officials would later provide further information.
Continue reading...More than 2,600 children were taken from their parents at the US border under the Trump administration's policy of family separation.
Travelling from Guatemala, Tonita and her six-year-old son, Wilson, were separated at the border and Wilson held at a office building in Phoenix, Arizona.
An animated film about the story of this family who was just one of many thousands having to live apart in a foreign and unknown country. As of today, 130 kids are still separated from their parents.
This video is from Reveal and you can find more of their reporting on family separation and immigration here
Continue reading...Guzmán’s electronic life was revealed thanks to evidence from an undercover FBI agent and the IT fixer he recruited
The recorded, wiretapped life of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has dominated this week’s evidence at his trial for allegedly running the world’s biggest narco-traffic organisation.
Related: Behind the El Chapo trial: what's been left unsaid in a New York courtroom
Continue reading...US president Donald Trump uses a primetime address on Tuesday to tell Americans he needs billions of dollars from Congress for his long-promised border wall to keep out drugs, gangs and human traffickers. In an Oval Office address, he says there is a 'growing humanitarian and security crisis' at the US-Mexico border, though crossings have fallen in recent years. He claims the wall will pay for itself via a new trade deal with Mexico and asks: 'How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?'
Continue reading...