The Marant cape at left and a Purépecha cape at right. The first retails for 14,251 pesos, the second for 1,500.
A fashion designer has once again raised concerns over the plagiarism of indigenous designs.
Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto has written to French designer Isabel Marant to question her use of indigenous Mexican patterns in her latest fall-winter collection.
Frausto told Marant that she has used designs from the Purépecha communities of Michoacán as well as those of indigenous people in México state, Tlaxcala, San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca.
“In the 2020-21 Etoilé winter-fall collection designs that belong to the Purépecha culture of Michoacán appear. Some symbols that you took have a profound meaning for this culture. … These symbols are very old and have been conserved thanks to the memory of the artisans,” she wrote.
The minister made specific reference to a cape in Marant’s collection, saying it “imitates the geometry and proportions of Mexican sarapes and jorongos,” which are long, blanket-like shawls.
“I ask you, Ms. Isabel Marant, to publicly explain on what grounds you privatize a collective property, making use of cultural elements whose origin is fully documented,” Frausto wrote.
She also asked the designer to explain how her use of traditional Mexican designs benefits the communities that first created them. Protecting the rights of people who have historically been “made invisible” is an “urgent issue” that must be publicly discussed around the world, Frausto said.
“From the Culture Ministry of Mexico we invite you to carry out respectful work with the indigenous communities within an ethical framework that doesn’t undermine the identity and economy of the people,” the minister told Marant.
The news agency Reuters said that Marant didn’t immediately respond to its request for comment on the issue but noted that her company’s website says that it is committed to ethical and responsible behavior.
Frausto’s letter to the designer comes after a group of senators accused her of plagiarizing indigenous designs.
At a press conference in late August, ruling party Senator Susana Harp said it was the second time that Marant has appropriated Mexican designs, recalling that she was accused in 2015 of copying a blouse designed in Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca.
The senator called on Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard to forge an agreement against cultural appropriation with France, which she described as “the country that has plagiarized us the most.”
Frausto has previously called out Venezuelan-born designer Carolina Herrera and French fashion and luxury goods company Louis Vuitton for appropriating traditional Mexican designs without acknowledging their creators or passing on any benefits to indigenous communities.
She sent letters to both last year, asking for explanations and calling on them to work with the indigenous communities whose work they have appropriated.
Several other designers and fashion labels including Michael Kors, Zara and Mango have also been accused of copying Mexican designs.
Family members at the scene of last year's massacre.
A year after nine members of his family were murdered by a heavily armed gang that attacked their convoy outside La Mora, Sonora, Adrian LeBaron is questioning Mexican authorities’ commitment to investigating the attack.
The high-profile murder of members of the extended family of fundamentalist Mormons with dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship drew international attention to violence in Mexico. The ambush killed three mothers and six children, including LeBaron’s daughter and four grandchildren.
Since the killings, the family has met with President López Obrador on four occasions to discuss the case.
But it’s all been for nothing, Le Baron said. “There has been no progress in the case for six months.”
In an interview with the newspaper Reforma Tuesday, LeBaron blamed corruption in the government.
Adrian LeBaron: ‘I smell a lot of corruption.’
He lamented that after a year only one person has been charged with the murder of his daughter and grandchildren, even though several people have been arrested by the government in connection with the case as recently as January of this year, including a police chief in Janos, Chihuahua, located near where the killings occurred.
(The federal government announced today that an arrest had been made in the case. The suspect is believed to be a member of the gang known as La Línea.)
“The investigator that did the most work on the case, José Alberto Mancilla Copado, the one that detained everyone [in the case], his contract as an investigator for the federal Attorney General’s Office was not renewed,” LeBaron said. “And since his contract was not renewed, nothing has happened, and I smell a lot of corruption in this department.”
Last month, LeBaron appealed to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights to investigate his family’s case, claiming that the Mexican government is not doing its due diligence.
Although 12 people in total were initially detained by authorities in connection with the attack, only one of them was actually charged in connection with the killings.
Remittances from Mexicans abroad continue to rise.
September was another good month for remittances sent home by Mexicans working abroad.
The Bank of México reported that remittances totaled US $3.56 billion in September, the highest amount ever recorded for that month and the third highest for any month since records began in 1995.
The only months during which Mexicans working abroad, mainly migrants in the United States, sent more money home were March and August of this year when remittances totaled $4.02 billion and $3.57 billion, respectively.
With the three best months ever for remittances occurring in 2020, it’s no surprise that the influx of such money was the highest ever for a January to September period.
A total of $29.96 billion flowed into Mexico in remittances up until September 30 despite the negative impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on the economy and employment. The amount is 10% higher than the total sent to Mexico in the same period last year.
Gian María Milesi-Ferretti, a deputy director at the International Monetary Fund, described the record remittances as a “ray of sunshine” amid the pandemic gloom.
He said that it showed that migrants always do their best to send money back to their loved ones no matter the circumstances they face.
“Migrants always make a significant effort to help their countries of origin when they are going through difficult episodes. … People sacrifice a lot to keep sending money,” Milesi-Ferretti said.
According to the Bank of México, the average remittance sent home by Mexicans abroad last month was $346, the highest level since October 2008.
Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs, said the high average remittance and the exchange rate resulted in recipients getting 22% more in pesos in September than in the same month last year.
The peso fell 9.3% against the US dollar in September.
Some 1.8 million families in Mexico regularly receive remittances from abroad and much of the money is promptly injected into the local economy.
“Remittance flows have been adding support to the current account and to private consumption, particularly for low-income families, who have a high propensity to consume and are the overwhelming recipients of such transfers,” Ramos said.
President López Obrador has described Mexican migrants as “heroes” and praised them in his second annual report for increasing their transfer of money to family members during the difficult economic times.
The Mexican economy has been hit hard by the pandemic and associated restrictions, contracting sharply in both the second and third quarters compared to the same periods last year.
However, there are early signs of recovery – GDP increased 8.6% between July and September compared to the previous three months, according to preliminary data published last Friday.
Joseph Sorrentino agreed to help pick flowers for a Día de Muertos altar in hopes of some good photos.
I started out so excited. I was going with Alberto to collect flores de muertos in the nearby hills.
I was staying with Alberto and Anna in San Augustin Etla, a village outside of Oaxaca. I was there to photograph Day of the Dead. Although Alberto had promised me there wouldn’t be any problems with my doing this, the locals were initially skeptical about my presence.
Day of the Dead celebrations in this and neighboring pueblos feature elaborate costumes, dancing and skits. The skits are kept secret — rehearsals were literally behind locked doors — and people apparently believed that I’d steal the skits and tell neighboring pueblos about them. It didn’t occur to anyone that my Spanish wasn’t good enough to do that.
But during an evening of beer and mezcal, everyone loosened up and welcomed me. That evening, Alberto turned to me.
“Would you like to come with us tomorrow morning to cut flores de muertos?” he asked in a low voice, lending it such an air of mystery that I immediately said yes.
“We leave at five,” he said.
Flores de muertos are flowers cut for Day of the Dead — brilliant yellow and deep red ones. I was going along to photograph and help cut the flowers.
When I awoke at just past six, I decided to mosey on downstairs and see what was shaking. Alberto and Cristina, another friend, were sipping coffee at the kitchen table.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Are we going to cut flowers?”
“We’re waiting for the truck,” said Alberto. “Have some coffee.”
We sat around for several minutes, sipping coffee and making small talk. I was glad we were delayed. The light would be so much better for taking photographs. After maybe 10 minutes, Alberto got up and walked outside but quickly returned.
“We have to go,” he said. “The truck is here, and we have to meet the second truck.”
We clambered into the truck and were soon hurtling up the road to the mountain, Alberto’s trusty dog Washi running alongside. I didn’t see a second truck.
We pulled off on what had now turned into a dirt road. Alberto shut the engine and got out. Cristina and I followed. After a few minutes, I asked what was up.
“We have to wait for the key,” said Alberto.
There was a chain across the road, blocking access. I leaned casually against the truck, hoping I didn’t look too annoyed. Washi had caught up to us and was curled on the ground, asleep. I watched a Volkswagen Beetle with four large men in it make its way around the gate and up the mountain.
“We have a truck,” I thought, “Why aren’t we doing that?”
The Day of the Dead flowers that proved elusive.
Half an hour later, the second truck pulled up and the gate was quickly unlocked. Cristina, apparently sensing what this trip was going to be like, headed home, but not me. I was headed up a rutted mountain road to photograph people cutting flores de muertos.
The hard-packed dirt road turned into soft soil, and although Alberto’s truck was often spinning its wheels, we still made progress. The second truck soon left us behind.
Alberto, refusing to believe that his truck couldn’t make it up that mountain, simply kept the gas pedal on the floor every time the truck got stuck and smiled at me broadly every time we got unstuck. Washi trotted along a little behind us. The first time the road forked, Alberto slowed a bit, looked at both roads and muttered something in Spanish. He shrugged, muttered some more and then pressed on the gas, heading up the right fork.
He followed the same ritual at the next fork. Washi the wonder dog was nowhere in sight, but Alberto was untroubled.
“She loves to run,” he said proudly. “She will find us,” he said. “I hope.”
An hour later, we found the second truck. The men were all combing the hills for flores de muertos, but there were hardly any. The fields of yellow and red I’d been promised were nowhere in sight.
“There are no flowers,” Alberto said.
I had already figured this out. We walked around for a few minutes, picking the occasional flower. It was clear the photographs were going to be pretty damn boring. Washi, who had indeed found us, was lying on the ground, panting heavily.
“We have to go to another place,” said Alberto.
We climbed back into the trucks and headed down the mountain, Washi again trotting slowly behind. Alberto stopped the truck after a few minutes and opened the back door to let in Washi, who had fallen far behind, her love of running apparently sated for the day.
“Last year,” Alberto explained, “the fields were covered with flowers up here. Well, maybe there will be many down below.”
I didn’t bother to mention we hadn’t seen any fields bursting with yellow and red flowers on the way up.
We found the other truck pulled off by the side of the road. The men were sitting around, looking bored. Alberto parked, got out and also proceeded to look bored. I trotted out, trying to not look pissed. It was almost nine o’clock, and we’d only collected a handful of flowers.
I sidled up to Alberto and asked why we were waiting.
“Gordito,” he said.
“Gordito?” I asked.
“He is back there,” he explained, “cutting flowers.”
I decided not to point out that we had just been back there and that there were no flowers to cut.
Someone pulled out a radio. After fiddling with the dials and antenna for a minute, he settled on a station that was mostly static. He then turned up the volume as loud as possible and sat with the rest of the men in a small hut.
We waited. We ate some tortillas and cheese and waited some more. Finally, an hour later, Gordito showed up with a fistful of yellow flowers.
“Let’s go,” Alberto said.
We drove down the mountain, faithful Washi lying down in the back. We arrived at the house, five hours after we’d left, with a couple of bunches of flowers.
Later that afternoon, we constructed the tapeta for Day of the Dead, a structure placed with the altar that bears flowers topping an image of the maker’s choice. To make this item, a drawing was first made on a large sheet of plastic. Chicken wire was placed above that, and flowers were placed in the chicken wire.
We had a large drawing of a skull, and it was clear that there weren’t nearly enough flowers. A couple of the young men helping with the tapeta drove off in a truck and returned a half-hour later.
And, of course, the back of their truck was crammed full with flores de muertos.
Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Grieving mourner Katleen Chávez won first place in the annual contest.
There is plenty to cry about in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on Mexico and many other countries around the world.
Accordingly it’s perhaps not surprising that an annual Day of the Dead mourning contest in Querétaro attracted double its usual number of participants this year.
Held virtually due to the risk of coronavirus transmission, the San Juan del Río Concurso de Plañideras (Mourners Contest) received video entries from 27 contestants.
First held 14 years ago, the contest, which is sponsored by a local funeral home, was created to pay tribute to women known as plañideras who were once hired by well-off families to cry at the burials of loved ones.
The San Juan Tourism Bureau announced last month that it would accept entries by email this year and soon after the tears started flowing and the videos flooded in.
The quality of entries was high, leaving the panel of judges with a difficult job to select a winner but they eventually settled on Princesa Katleen Chávez Arce of La Paz, Baja California.
Chávez, who won a prize of 3,500 pesos (US $167), submitted a slickly produced video which shows her clad in black and sobbing while lying beside a dead man’s tomb.
“But to forget you? Never, never, never, never,” she says before breaking down.
Chávez, an actor who moved home after the pandemic affected her work opportunities in Mexico City, said that she had never cried professionally before but admitted she shed a lot of tears after returning to La Paz in September.
“The crisis hit me,” she said. “So yes, I cried, and for about a week I did absolutely nothing,” she said.
The second place winner was María Silveria Balderas Rubio of Tequisquiapan, Querétaro.
According to the New York Times, Balderas’ daughters heard about the mourning contest and convinced their mom to enter. The 58-year-old runner-up said that she took inspiration for her performance from inconsolable mourners she has seen at funerals.
Balderas’ entry was shot on a cellphone in a single take, the Times said, adding that although there is no coffin in the footage, her “anguished weeping, hyperventilated breathing and insistence that she ‘just saw him yesterday’ seem startlingly real.
Juan Carlos Zerecero, a theater teacher and member of the judging panel, noted that “the the video is very homemade, and all she does is cry” but added: “That’s what we’re asking them to do, no? To me, she’s crying in a very truthful way.”
María Ofelia Ramírez Arteaga, a local San Juan del Río woman, took third place for her mock mourning of the death of the local mayor – who is still very much alive.
According to local news outlet Crónica Regional, her performance was filled with comedic and sarcastic elements.
An Aguascalientes woman also put in a comedy-filled performance, bewailing the onset of menopause and addressing her laments to her absent period.
“You were always so punctual and then one day, without saying anything, you never came back,” she bemoaned.
Another entrant was Brenda Anakaren Torres Villarreal, who submitted a video that the Times described as “perhaps the most relatable entry.”
The 31-year-old took inspiration for her mourning from 2020, a year she said left people “depressed, out of work and in quarantine.”
“It is without a doubt one of the worst years that we have ever lived,” Torres said, explaining her inspiration. “If you’re not crying about 2020, you’re not crying about anything.”
She added that the idea wasn’t to dwell on misery but to laugh at it. “Mexicans always have the capacity to find comedy in tragedy – to find the good part of it, even if that doesn’t exist.”
Similarly, the head of the San Juan del Río Tourism Bureau said that “laughing at death is part of Mexican culture.”
“It’s a way of confronting the problem and feeling less vulnerable,” Eduardo Guillén said.
He said that only women have been invited to participate in the mourning contests due to tradition but added that local authorities are open to allowing men to compete in the future.
Any would-be wailers have just about a year to get ready for next year’s event, which will hopefully be held once again in front of a live audience.
With free citizen IDs, local polls, and Sunday voting, are Mexico’s elections run better than in the U.S?
Sitting here on the eve of my own country’s election, I find myself wishing we could be more like Mexico when it comes to voting.
Pretty much anyone will tell you that Mexico is by no means a beacon of democracy (the lack of the rule of law is of particular concern despite the strongest efforts by many).
But take a closer look at the makeup of the government and you’ll see at least an institutional effort at keeping things representative of voters’ wishes. Both Mexican chambers of Congress, for example, reserve a portion of their seats for the party that got the second highest number votes to guard against a “winner-take-all” makeup.
Another striking difference to the US system is that there is no reelection for the president, although as of the 2018 elections, members of the legislature can be reelected.
When it’s time to head to the polls, Mexico also seems to have a much more straightforward process in place. And I won’t lie: I’m a little jealous.
Whereas in the U.S. our main “never-leave-home-without-it” government-issued ID is a driver’s license, in Mexico it’s the INE, Mexico’s National Electoral Institute card, which is essentially a voter ID card. (Note: Many Mexicans still refer to this card out of habit as the IFE, which refers to the INE’s predecessor, the Federal Electoral Institute.) Since this card goes everywhere with everyone, it’s rare that one wouldn’t be able to vote because they didn’t have it … They always have it!
When it’s time to vote, they simply go to their local assigned voting booths, show their IDs — which are checked against the lists of voters the officials have — and then they vote, leaving with ink on their fingers to ensure that they only vote once.
Voting is held on a Sunday, ensuring that as many people as possible can participate. At the end of the day, the results from each voting station are taped up on the outside and left there for a few days for everyone to see. Now that everyone has phones, it’s easy to snap a picture and compare it with the numbers on the INE (Instituto Nacional Electoral) site. All in all, it’s a pretty straightforward process.
The president is elected by a nationwide popular vote: whichever candidate gets the most votes wins, period.
In my own country of the United States, the president is ultimately elected by the Electoral College, a system that no one was ever enthusiastic about but one we can’t seem to shake. To be fair, no country at the time it was created elected their leaders by popular vote, and it was considered too risky to give that much power to everyday people.
And now, well, it’s tradition. It’s also more than evident that the party that’s currently in power would lose over and over again if the president were selected by popular vote. After all, both Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, both Democrats, received the majority of votes cast, but did not wind up being president. In tomorrow’s election, Donald Trump wouldn’t stand a chance if he had to be chosen by popular vote.
While Mexico hasn’t had to deal with a state-by-state system that ultimately has given certain states much more power than others in selecting the president (I sometimes scoff when I remember that Wyoming’s two senators get just as much say in decisions that affect the entire country as Texas’ or California’s), one thing they have had to deal with are too-close races.
Some of you might recall the 2006 election in Mexico, in which our current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was neck-and-neck with the man who was ultimately declared the winner, Felipe Calderón. I never heard a great explanation for why they didn’t sit down and recount all those votes, but I sure remember it being a stressful time.
López Obrador set up shop as the “legitimate president” for months in Mexico City’s zócalo, and surely the U.S. would like to avoid precisely that kind of thing happening.
All that said, Mexico’s got the basic idea right: a president is a president for everyone. So it makes sense that everyone votes for the president and that the candidate who gets the most votes wins.
That’s one way I’d love the U.S. to be more like Mexico. Voting on Sundays? Also an excellent idea! Or perhaps we could make election day a national holiday? A paid national holiday?
Just imagine! Making our main IDs voting cards would also be a great step in the right direction, as not everyone has nor can get a driver’s license. Let’s take a cue from Mexico on that one and do the same, making those cards easily accessible and free. Maybe seeing that card every day will remind people to vote when it’s time!
And if we ensure that there are actually enough voting booths to accommodate everyone without making them wait in line for hours, what a step that would be! Surely it can’t be that hard. Mexico might only have a third of the population of the United States, but they’re pretty much rocking it on this front.
All that said, I’m not as naïve as I seem. We don’t do all of this, of course, because one party in particular knows that if everyone who were eligible actually showed up to vote, they’d be toast. Over the past few days, in the face of greater voter turnout than we’ve seen in a very long while, efforts at voter suppression are reaching ridiculous heights: highways are blocked, campaign buses for the other side are run off the road, and vigilantes “patrol” voting spaces at the direction of the president.
Here’s hoping that by the time the U.S. elections roll around again in 2022 and 2024, we’ll have learned a thing or two from Mexico.
Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.
CORRECTION:A previous version of this article stated that no one in the federal legislative branch could run for additional terms. For legislators elected in 2018 and after, this has changed. The previous version also incorrectly referred to Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (INE) by its predecessor’s name, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE). Mexico News Daily regrets the error.
Artisan Obdulia Almazán, whose lacquering technique dates back centuries before the Conquest, is just one stop on a Mexico City artisan bike tour on Saturday.
Interested in a safe way to get some fresh air and see some art — and perhaps help some artisans in need of income? Mexico City nonprofit CDMX Ayuda Mutua can offer all three in its first bike tour of the city’s artisans, taking place on November 7.
The Tour de Artesanos event is meant to benefit Mexico City artisans suffering from the loss of income due to the cancellation of community events during the Covid-19 pandemic. Working with the artisans’ collective Red de Artesanos Anáhuac, the tour takes advantage of the light weekend traffic to explore the oldest parts of the city and meet artisans and look at their works.
There will be three main stops: La Ceiba, Xota Nima and Tekitl, all located in the city’s historic center. These locations are cooperative stores that feature traditional, innovative handcrafts. One of the artisans, Obdulia Almazán, is a master of a lacquering technique that has been practiced in Guerrero and other areas in Mesoamerica for centuries before the Conquest.
Participants will have time to speak with the artisans. Spanish-English translators will be available if needed.
The tour meets up at the Huerto Roma Verde, Jalapa 234, in Colonia Roma Sur at 12:00 p.m. At the end of the tour, the group will gather at Doña Vero restaurant, also in Roma Sur, for drinks and food.
The Tour de Artesanos will visit three artisan cooperatives. Advance online reservations are required.
The use of masks is obligatory for the entire event.
Participation is by reservation and donations are requested. Contact organizers via direct message on Facebook or on Instagram
CDMX Ayuda Mutua is an organization that began in the spring of this year to provide economic assistance to Mexico City’s vulnerable populations during the Covid crisis. Red de Artesanos Anáhuac is a formal nonprofit organization that supports Mexico’s artisans, especially those based in Mexico City.
A woman ventures into a flooded street in Tabasco.
The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will be responsible for any damage caused by an increase in the quantity of water released from a dam in Chiapas, warned Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández on Tuesday.
The governor said he had been notified by the National Water Commission that the National Committee of Large Dams, after being lobbied by the CFE, proposed increasing the quantity of water released from the Peñitas dam to 950 cubic meters per second. Only 600 cubic meters per second have previously been released.
“We urge the CFE and the departments that are members of the National Committee of Large Dams to manage the volumes [of water] in the dam by placing the protection of population centers first,” López said in a Twitter post.
“… The CFE will be responsible for damage and harm that might be caused to the people of Tabasco and their assets,” he wrote.
The governor claimed in early October that there was a “mafia” within the state-owned electricity company linked to past “neoliberal” governments that is really managing Mexico’s dams. The mafia’s water management is detrimental to Tabasco and its residents, López charged.
Parts of the Gulf coast state are currently flooded and releasing more water from the Peñitas dam, located in a Chiapas municipality that borders Tabasco, will result in more water reaching rivers that are already overburdened.
Just a few days later heavy rain brought by Tropical Storm Gamma flooded large parts of Tabasco, affecting some 600,000 citizens. Water that was being released from the Peñitas dam at the time only made the flooding worse.
On Tuesday the Tabasco government issued a weather alert, warning Tabasco residents of the risk of more flooding.
It said that rain brought by cold fronts No. 9 and No. 11 and the release of water from the Peñitas dam could cause the Samaria River and its tributaries to burst their banks. As a result, 24 communities in the municipality of Nacajuca are at risk of flooding, the weather alert said.
Some neighborhoods in Villahermosa have been flooded for the past six days due to rain brought by the two cold fronts, the newspaper Milenio said. The army and state Civil Protection personnel helped to evacuate some people from their homes on Tuesday afternoon and night.
Soldiers also built a sandbag wall to protect eastern parts of the capital from a possible overflow of the El Negro Lagoon. Some Villahermosa residents were also working to protect their neighborhoods and homes from possible flooding.
Tropical Storm Eta is expected to dump more water on Tabasco later this week.
Eta, which was 200 kilometers north-northeast of Managua, Nicaragua, at 12:00 p.m. CST, is expected to bring inclement weather to Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca on Thursday and Friday.
Winds clocked at 169 kilometer per hour — equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane — blasted across Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec on Tuesday, causing 18 tractor-trailers traveling on a stretch of the La Venta–La Ventosa highway to roll over.
There were no fatalities or serious injuries in the crashes, state Civil Protection officials said.
The winds also took out trees and billboards as well as roofs off some buildings, authorities said.
State Civil Protection head Antonio Amaro Cancino said the strong winds were the result of a cold front running through the southern and central region of the country.
Emergency officials closed the 15-kilometer stretch of highway to most heavy-cargo traffic following the crashes. As a result, 129 trailers carrying no cargo suspended their travel and waited until the winds died down, Amaro said.
The area is prone to high winds at this time of the year. The name La Ventosa translates to “the windy one.” The area is also host to wind turbines that take advantage of the fact that it is situated near an unusually warm ocean current which, combined with the area’s temperature and its tendency to see rapid air movement from high to low pressure, results in a strong northern wind.
Already, the highway has seen four other tractor-trailers crash due to winds in the last 48 hours. Another 18 trailers have been blown over in the area during this year’s windy season.
Meanwhile, port authorities responded to the hurricane-force winds by closing marine activity between the cities of Pinotepa Nacional and Salina Cruz due to concerns about the winds provoking dangerously high swells.
Deputy Colosio's version of the bill included penalties but they were removed.
The Sonora Congress has approved a law that makes the use of face masks mandatory in public places although it doesn’t establish any penalties against people who fail to do so.
A majority of lawmakers in the northern state’s unicameral Congress passed the law on Tuesday.
The original bill presented by Morena party Deputy Luis Armando Colosio Muñoz proposed sanctions that included fines for people not wearing masks in public places.
The bill that was approved states that face masks are obligatory for all people aged 13 or over when in public and “common use” spaces. They include commercial, service and industrial establishments – namely shops, offices and factories – all other workplaces, shopping malls and public transit. Entry can be denied to anyone not wearing a mask without a valid reason.
People who may have difficulties breathing while using a mask and those who are unable to remove one on their own are exempt from the law. If children younger than 12 wear masks, they must be supervised by adults while doing so.
The law also stipulates that businesses must establish a health checkpoint at their entrances where customers are provided with antibacterial gel and have their temperatures taken. Businesses must also put up signs that indicate that the use of face masks is a condition of entry.
The law will take effect one day after its publication in the state government’s official gazette. That could happen as soon as today.
The accumulated case tally rose to 938,405 on Tuesday with 5,250 new cases reported by the federal Health Ministry. Mexico’s official Covid-19 death toll stands at 92,593 with 493 additional fatalities registered on Tuesday.
Sonora ranks fifth among Mexico’s 32 states for total cases and 10th for deaths. As of Tuesday, it had recorded 38,482 cases and 3,174 deaths, according to federal data.
