All stories in El Jalapeño are satire and not real news.
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE — Expressing deep concern for the town’s shifting character, recently arrived San Miguel de Allende residents said this week that rampant gentrification has made it “nearly impossible” to find a tasteful colonial estate for under US $2 million.
“I just wanted something authentically local — maybe a centuries-old home with hand-painted tiles, rooftop terrace, infinity pool, and private chef — but locals have completely priced us out,” lamented newcomer Karen Fitzpatrick, sipping a lavender cortado in what used to be a neighborhood hardware store. “How can anyone live like this? It’s tragic what’s happening to real people like us.”
This is too far away from centro. We might as well be in Honduras. (Unsplash / Daniels Joffe)
Many residents blame the sudden wave of remote-working expats for driving prices sky-high. “When I first got here last year, you could get a three-bedroom villa in Centro for a mere $1.6 million,” said part-time novelist and full-time resident expat Brian Ellison. “Now? Forget it. You have to go way out to the edge of town — sometimes as far as a 10-minute golf-cart ride.”
Local community members say they’re torn between amusement and disbelief. “It’s touching to see people who earn Silicon Valley salaries concerned about affordability,” said lifelong San Miguel resident Alejandra Juárez. “They keep asking how to support the local economy, but then drive out all the Mexicans.”
At press time, distraught newcomers were reportedly gathering at the farmers’ market to organize a protest against rising property costs — right after their $150 organic brunch reservation.
The Great Comet of 1882 passes by Earth. An even greater one would pass by the following year, largely unnoticed. (Public Domain)
The internet is alive with UFO reports at the moment, the excitement sparked by a comet identified as 3I/ATLAS. Comets are not uncommon visitors to our solar system, but this is a rare type. Its speed, its path and its composition identify it as an object that is not circling within our solar system, but racing through it.
It is only the third such object ever observed and is believed to have originated from close to the galactic center of the Milky Way. When the first photographs arrived, its unusual cigar-like shape threw UFO believers into a frenzy, convinced that this was a spaceship and that we are just a few months away from making contact with an alien civilization.
Early photos of astronomical phenomena
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre’s “daguerreotype” of the moon in 1839 was one of the first celestial photographs ever taken. (X, formerly Twitter)
People might be surprised to learn that the first photograph of a comet was probably taken here in Mexico, a remarkable feat completed by José Árbol y Bonilla.
Born in Zacatecas in February 1853, Árbol studied topographical engineering and was sent on a scholarship to the Escuela de Minas in Mexico City. A bright young man, he completed the three-year course in one year and then returned home to become a teacher at the García Literary Institute, where he continued his own studies.
After developing an interest in photography, he moved to Paris in 1879, taking the opportunity to study the new skill of celestial photography, the photography of astronomical objects, celestial events or areas of the night sky.
The first attempts at celestial photography are credited to Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, a French scientist, artist and photographer recognized today for his invention of the daguerreotype photographic process. This involved polishing a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish, then treating it with fumes that made its surface light-sensitive.
Evolution of photographic techniques
Taking photos in this way required a long exposure, so while a skilled artist with a patient model could produce impressive portraits, any attempt to capture the sky in a photo was limited to the brightest of objects — the moon or the sun. Even then, the results were hardly impressive.
The invention of the gelatin silver “dry plate” process, attributed to Richard Leach Maddox, improved photography considerably, making it more accessible and far more versatile. In 1880, Henry Draper used this new process with a refracting telescope to picture the Orion Nebula. This required a 51-minute exposure and was a significant breakthrough. Within three years, amateur astronomer Andrew Ainslie Common recorded images of the Orion Nebula that were so clear that they revealed new stars too faint to be seen by the human eye. This was the exciting world that Bonilla entered.
Astronomical observations and photography in Mexico
Cerro de la Bufa, the point from which Bonilla made his observations in Zacatecas in 1883. (JavierDo/Wikimedia Commons)
After Paris, Bonilla returned to Mexico, and when, in December 1882, the State of Zacatecas opened an astronomical observatory, he was the obvious candidate to become its first director. Indeed, it is uncertain — but seems quite likely — that Bonilla had been one of the voices calling for its creation.
The following year, Bonilla was in the observatory for a routine observation session when he noticed unidentified objects passing across the sun. He telegraphed the observatories in Mexico City and Puebla so that they could also observe this strange event. Working through two days in August, Bonilla counted 447 such objects. He also used the skills he had acquired in Paris to capture several photographs of the event.
Bonilla sees and photographs mysterious objects in the night sky
Bonilla could tell simply by focusing his telescope that these mysterious objects were passing close to Earth, for when he focused on the sun, they blurred, and when he focused on the moon, they became sharper. To his surprise, the other observatories in Mexico had been unable to see them. This might suggest that there was some fault with his telescope, but it could also be another indication that the objects were very close to the Earth: An airplane just taking off is only visible to people close to the runway, but a plane at 30,000 feet can be seen by the entire city.
Bonilla struggled to find a publisher to report his observations, but after two and a half years, Camille Flammarion, whom Bonilla knew from his time in Paris, published an account in the highly prestigious French magazine “L’Astronomie.”
Flammarion was a strange combination of scientist and conspiracy theorist, a man who firmly believed, for example, that there was life on Mars. Even Monsieur Flammarion could not come to any conclusion as to what Bonilla had observed, but he was not particularly supportive, suggesting Bonilla had photographed birds or insects, or that there had been dust on his telescope.
Bonilla’s life afterward
The story slipped from public view, and Bonilla went on to have a successful career — and, we can only hope, a happy life. He toured the United States, England and Northern Europe to visit observatories. At home, he wrote the first modern cosmography text for Mexicans schools, and he located a rare meteorite that had been seen falling to the earth. He supported the local children’s hospice and, in 1911, became director of the National School of Arts and Crafts in Mexico City. He married, had two children, and died in 1920 at the age of 66.
Camille Flammarion was the only one to publish an account of Bonilla’s observations in his French magazine “L’Astronomie,” and he thought they were insignificant. (Public Domain)
Bonilla’s observations returned to the news in 2011. Along with his photographs, Bonilla had left descriptions of the mysterious objects as “fuzzy” or “misty” in nature. He also referred to them as having “dark tails,” and this caught the attention of Hector Manterola at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Bonilla’s mysterious objects are tentatively identified
Manterola and his team argued for a new possibility: Bonilla had photographed neither a UFO nor geese. What he had seen was the remains of a massive comet that had broken up and fragmented.
The team started with a hypothesis: “Our working hypothesis is that what Bonilla observed in 1883 was a highly fragmented comet, in an approach almost flush to the Earth’s surface.”
Having raised this possibility, the team started their calculations. Although Bonilla’s photographs had done a great deal to draw attention to the sightings, they did not prove particularly useful in the investigation. We are actually uncertain how many plates Bonilla made. He spoke of “several,” and there were at least three. One might have been sent to Paris to be used for the illustrations in “L’Astronomie.” However, it is just as likely that Bonilla sent a high-quality facsimile.
In 1919, Charles Fort, that great collector of weird and wonderful science stories, suggested there was one plate at the Zacatecas University — one with the Zacatecas School of Engineering, and possibly others in Bonilla’s files at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas.
A massive comet and thousands of fragments pass by
Since then, they all seem to have disappeared, and Manterola’s team only had a digitally enhanced copy of the illustration that had appeared in the scientific journal, “L’Astronomie.” This did give some supporting evidence as to the size of the objects captured in this one photo, but mostly, the team worked with Bonilla’s notes and observations. The advantage they had over Bonilla himself was that science now had a much better idea of how a fragmented comet should behave.
One of the hundreds of comets seen by Bonilla in 1883, and a rare photograph of one outlined against the moon. (Public Domain)
As a starting point, they had the important fact that astronomers at observatories in Mexico City and Puebla had not seen the objects. As mentioned above, for the objects to have been visible from Zacatecas but not from other Mexican observatories, they would have had to be very close to the Earth. The team could now put a number to that, calculating a rough distance of 80,000 km, which is much closer than the moon.
Bonilla had also recorded the time each fragment had taken to pass across the sun. Unfortunately, we don’t know what instruments Bonilla used to make these timings. Therefore, we don’t know how accurate they are. However, this data, if accurate, brought the objects to within 600 to 8,000 kilometers of the Earth’s surface.
Terrifying calculations revealed
This, in turn, allowed a calculation to be made for the size of each individual chunk of rock, which the team suggested ranged between 50 and 800 meters wide, very similar in size to the comet that struck at Tunguska in 1908. Bonilla had not spotted one comet but a shower of 447 objects over a period of three hours and 25 minutes. Presuming this rate continued for the whole time the objects were passing, it can be estimated that 3,275 large fragments of rock had rushed past the Earth over 25 hours.
This raised another question. If these had been visible against the sun during the day, they should have put on a dramatic meteorite show during the night. So why didn’t they? One answer to this was that the fragments had passed over an area that was largely ocean or desert and might not have attracted any attention.
With so little data to work with, the team probably never expected to reach a definitive conclusion. What they hoped was that the evidence would support the possibilitythat Bonilla had seen a fragmented comet. This was indeed the scenario they put forward.
Scientists on the other side of the argument have pointed out that the tightly focused stream of objects is not quite what you might expect — that the lack of sightings of any meteorites that night is not fully explained, and that there is a lack of a candidate comet.
Extinction spared
The Tunguska impact was the largest ever measured from a comet, knocking down trees over hundreds of square miles in Russia in 1908. One of the comets Bonilla spotted was even larger, eight times the size of Halley’s Comet. (Public Domain)
However, if the National Autonomous University team is correct in their interpretations, then the Earth had a very near miss. Had this debris passed a fraction closer, we might have been bombarded by a string of Tunguska-like events for two days, bringing untold destruction. Ours would be a very different planet today.
There was also the question of the “mother” comet. The speed of the fragments suggests it had only recently broken up. Two comets spotted in 1883 are possible candidates, although it is just as likely that the original comet went unnoticed. It was, however, a giant, an extinction-threatening piece of rock 8.18 times the mass of Halley’s comet.
In 1883, the British were fighting wars in Egypt, and the French in Vietnam. Later in the year, Krakatoa would explode, striking Southeast Asia with a massive tsunami. It is possible that a far greater danger to mankind went completely unnoticed.
Bob Patemanis a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.
The Temple of the Great Jaguar in Tikal, which at at its height boasted a population of perhaps 150,000 people. (Mundo Maya/Wikimedia Commons)
As part of an exploration into Mexico’s long and rich history, Mexico News Daily has teamed up with one of the country’s top Maya experts to examine the ancient world that flourished across Mesoamerica.This is Part 3 in a series of articles on the ancient Maya. Follow the links to read Part 1 and Part 2.
Traditionally, the Classic period has been considered to end in approximately A.D. 1000, with A.D. 550 marking the beginning of the period known as the Late Classic. But it’s worth noting that academics still debate these dates.
Academics still argue over dates, but the important sites for the classic and post-classic Maya are well-established. (Kmusser – Foster, Lynn (2002)/Wikimedia Commons)
Some scholars have questioned the A.D. 550 to 909 timeframe for the Late Classic period — A.D. 909 being the last date recorded in the Long Count calendar system on monuments in cities like Toniná or Calakmul. Other scholars have proposed subperiods, designated as the Epiclassic or Terminal Classic, extending from A.D. 800 to 1000. These debates remain open.
The increasing complexity of the Maya world in the Late Classic period
No matter the academic disagreements about time, what is indisputable is that the Late Classic period is characterized by a process of increasing complexity at all levels in the Maya world.
Governmental structure was now configured around the figure of the k’uhul ajaw, the “sacred ruler” of the chiefdom. The structure under the k’uhul ajaw included various entities that accompanied and complemented the ruler’s authority. Thus, in hieroglyphic records found in various artifacts — such as ceramic vessels, stelae and murals we find references to these power groups forming a “courtly elite,” with different titles, positions and privileges.
For example, Panel 3, from the city of Piedras Negras (Figure 1) in Guatemala, allows us to observe an everyday courtly scene. The ruler of the site is depicted in the center, seated on his large throne and resting on a cushion covered with jaguar skin, a symbol of authority.
Seated before the ruler, at a lower level that emphasizes their secondary status are a series of individuals whose names and titles we know thanks to the accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions. Advances in deciphering Maya hieroglyphic writing have allowed researchers to discover the existence of priestly titles such as ajk’uhun, military titles such as yajawte’, political titles such as baahkab, administrative titles such as yebet, honorary titles such as itz’aat, and so on, demonstrating a social organization far more complex than previously assumed in 20th-century studies. Likewise, the iconographic study of various archaeological materials reveals the great diversity of professions and individuals who lived in the Classic Maya courts, highlighting the presence of artists, musicians, contortionists, people with achondroplasia and others who accompanied the k’uhul ajaw (Figure 2).
Sacred rulers and the vertical authority model
The sacred ruler and his blood relatives formed the apex of the chiefdom’s vertical authority. Indeed, the k’uhul ajaw was the earthly embodiment of the gods — patron deities and dynastic ancestors who conferred upon him the legitimacy to rule. However, the k’uhul ajaw also needed the support of various corporate entities to help him maintain power and control of the sociopolitical structure he ruled over.
Figure 1, a court scene from Piedras Negras, with the ruler in the center. (Mesoweb.com)
Although hereditary succession from father to son was the most common practice, there are also known cases where the rule of the chiefdom fell to women who exercised their authority with an iron fist. Such is the case of the woman known as “Six Heaven,” ruler of the city of Naranjo in Guatemala in the eighth century. She was instrumental in the territorial expansion controlled by this political dynasty.
Marriage between elite members of different cities was a recurring strategy among ruling lineages to forge intricate political alliances during the Late Classic period. For example, we know that Lady Six Sky of Naranjo (Figure 3) — a city in the Peten area of Guatemala — was the daughter of B’ajlaj Chan K’awiil, the ruler of the city of Dos Pilas, also in the Peten area. Lady Six Sky’s father was allied with the rulers of the Kanu’l dynasty, based in the great city of Calakmul, approximately 200 kilometers away in what is now Campeche, Mexico.
The Kanu’l dynasty
It’s not surprising that this alliance existed. The Kanu’l dynasty dominated the geopolitical landscape of the Late Classic period. In a shrewd political move, Calakmul’s rulers pressured their allies in Dos Pilas to establish this marriage of convenience in Naranjo in order to control this important strategic enclave near their great rival city: Tikal. In this way, Naranjo and Dos Pilas would fall under the network of strategic allies of the Kanu’l dynasty, along with the Belizean city of Caracol, against the latent Tikal threat.
During this historical period, cities increased their architectural spaces to house the elite. These residential units were typically restricted spaces characterized by a large number of rooms connected by courtyards where the elite could gather, work and hold social events. Thanks to bioarchaeological studies, we can also infer the culinary preferences of these groups, in particular maize and squash, but also other protein-rich foods such as venison and fish, among others. Ceramic archaeological remains found both in these areas and in burial sites have revealed the use of plates, vessels and cups, particularly those intended for cacao and maize beverages mixed with different flavorings, which were the most sought after by these elite.
Population and construction booms
The significant population growth of this period was accompanied by an increase in cities’ urban spaces, and, consequently, in the size of the cities’ civic-ceremonial structures. For example, in the Campeche city of Calakmul’s great pyramid, also known as Structure II, the site eventually reached approximately 55 meters in height after having been renovated during seven construction stages since its initial construction in the Preclassic period.
This construction boom was accompanied by a considerable increase in the number of stone monuments, altars, stelae and so on, which bore hieroglyphic and iconographic inscriptions due to the great development, refinement and specialization of writing and art. The artists of cities like Palenque deserve special mention for the skill of their master scribes and carvers, who depicted the dynastic, mythological and political histories of their ruling lineages in spectacular works such as the polychrome ceramics known as “dynastic vessels” or panels carved and painted in vibrant colors.
Figure 2, from a polychrome vase showing the diversity of court life in the Late Classic Maya period. (Mayavase.com)
Researchers have estimated that large cities like Calakmul and Tikal at their peak may have housed around 150,000 inhabitants. This intense population pressure that began at the beginning of the seventh century also meant that these cities’ agricultural systems had to be intensified to support these large populations. It also motivated the strongest political entities to expand their territory in order to dominate trade routes that facilitated their access to both essential goods and the luxury goods that the elite demanded.
Warfare and major rivalries
Not surprisingly, this resulted in increased warfare throughout the Maya world, with ruling dynasties clashing in bloody wars. Toniná, located in modern-day Chiapas, for example, engaged in protracted conflicts with the rulers of Palenque, and its victories and captives were depicted on many of the city’s stone monuments.
In the Usumacinta River basin, the cities of Yaxchilán and Piedras Negras, in Chiapas and Guatemala, respectively, engaged in a major rivalry as they vied for control of the river route and regional hegemony. In the Petexbatún region, in southwestern Petén, Guatemala, the battles surrounding control of the Pasión River were significant. This crucial river route connected the southern territories — from which many of the jade, obsidian, and quetzal feather cores originated — with the central Petén region. In this area, the major competitors included Dos Pilas, Ceibal and Tamarindito, among others, not to mention the great Early Classic power: Tikal.
The clashes between Tikal and Calakmul
Following the boost Tikal had received by the arrival of foreigners from the immense city-state of Teotihuacán in the fourth century, Tikal became the dominant power in the southern Maya Lowlands until the early seventh century, controlling the region’s main trade routes. However, in A.D. 562, the geopolitical reality of the Maya Lowlands was shaken by a crucial event.
Altar 21 from the city of Caracol in Belize — about 75 kilometers east of Tikal — allows us to understand the regional political configuration at the beginning of the sixth century, in which Tikal and Caracol were allies. A few years later, however, the alliance broke down with the start of a conflict involving a powerful group from a city located far to the north, in Quintana Roo, Mexico. This was the city of Dzibanché, ruled by the Kanu’l dynasty.
In A.D. 562, the Kanu’l dynasty — whose emblem was the serpent-head glyph — allied with Caracol and went to war together against the leaders of the city of Tikal, marking a turning point in the sociopolitical history of the Maya Lowlands.
Figure 3, a stela of Lady Six Sky in the ancient Maya city of Naranjo. (Guatemala.com)
With its defeat, Tikal entered a period of decline, and the Kanu’l rulers cemented their presence in the territory, establishing their new capital in the great city of Calakmul, becoming the dominant power and a bitter enemy of Tikal and its allies.
Pablo Mumary holds a doctorate in Mesoamerican studies from UNAM and currently works at the Center for Maya Studies at IIFL-UNAM as a full-time associate researcher. He specializes in the study of the lordships of the Maya Lowlands of the Classic period.
President Sheinbaum led a ceremony in honor of Constitution Day on Thursday at Querétaro's Theater of the Republic. The week also featured another major holiday: On Monday, Catholics around the country gathered to celebrate Candlemas. (Presidencia)
High-stakes diplomacy, security operations and mixed economic news marked the first week of February in Mexico. Diplomatic tensions with Washington reached new heights as President Donald Trump celebrated the 1847 U.S. invasion of Mexico as a “legendary victory” and challenged Mexico’s Cuba policy, which Sheinbaum countered with defiant assertions of sovereignty.
Didn’t have time to catch the top stories of the week? Here’s what you missed.
Strained Mexico-US relations
Monday brought the week’s most inflammatory moment when President Donald Trump released a White House message celebrating the 1847 U.S. invasion of Mexico, describing it as a “legendary victory” that expanded American territory. The statement, marking the 178th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — which forced Mexico to cede 55% of its territory — drew sharp rebuke from Sheinbaum, who declared, “We’re not Santa Anna.” Former ambassador Arturo Sarukhan called it an “in your face F… You” to Mexico.
Cuba policy tensions also intensified. Trump claimed Saturday that Sheinbaum had agreed to stop oil shipments to Cuba, an assertion the Mexican president flatly denied Sunday. Instead, she announced Mexico would send food and essential supplies via the Navy, carefully avoiding petroleum to prevent potential U.S. tariffs.
At Monday’s press conference, Sheinbaum revealed Trump had invited Mexico to join his Board of Peace initiative. At Tuesday’s press conference, she backed former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet for UN secretary-general, declaring “it’s time for a woman” to lead the organization.
Despite the tension, the countries continue to work together on bilateral issues. On Wednesday, Mexico and the U.S. announced a plan to secure critical mineral supply chains for lithium, cobalt and copper, while Mexico committed to yearly Rio Grande water deliveries to avoid new deficits under the 1944 Water Treaty — though the U.S. reserved the right to impose tariffs for future non-compliance.
Remittances dropped 4.6% in 2025, the steepest decline in 16 years, falling to $61.8 billion as Trump’s deportation policies, a weakening U.S. labor market and stronger peso affected millions of Mexican families.
But environmental news provided hope: Mexico started 2026 with its lowest drought levels in six years, with only 7.4% experiencing water shortage — down from 76% at 2024’s crisis point. After several tough drought years, a year of abundance could help agriculture recovery and take the pressure off water-intensive industries.
An infrastructure milestone
Monday brought the completion of the Toluca-Mexico City El Insurgente train line, connecting the cities in 45 minutes for 90 pesos. The 58-kilometer line took nearly 12 years and 141 billion pesos — more than four times the initial estimate — but officials framed it as transformative for metropolitan mobility.
The completed line runs from Zinacantepec (west of Toluca) to the Observatorio station in Mexico City, stopping at downtown Toluca, Metepec, Lerma, Santa Fe and Vasco de Quiroga along the way. (José Luis Conde/Presidencia)
Security crises and enforcement
Sinaloa remained a focal point as federal forces intensified the search for 10 kidnapped mine workers from the Vizsla Silver project in Concordia. The government deployed 1,190 additional personnel including Army troops, Special Forces and armed helicopters. Authorities also detained suspected Sinaloa Cartel operator Jesús Emir “N” connected to the shooting of two legislators, part of Monday operations that arrested 16 organized crime suspects and dismantled four meth labs.
Environmental enforcement also advanced: Authorities fined Zinc Nacional 83.2 million pesos after finding dangerous heavy metal contamination near its Monterrey plant.
Political reforms and pushback
Sheinbaum announced electoral reform measures to block organized crime funding, though opposition critics warned of “formalizing narco-politics.” When a BBC correspondent pressed her about Sinaloa violence — “Murders, assassinations, terrible mutilations. What’s it going to take?” — Sheinbaum defended her security strategy.
The week’s viral moment came when Sheinbaum publicly scolded Morena lawmakers in San Quintín after they requested a photo op following complaints from impoverished agricultural workers about infrastructure failures.
Cultural highlights
Despite serious challenges, not all was doom and gloom in early February. The country remains a powerhouse of culture and innovation as Art Week kicked off in Mexico City and cities prepare for Carnival 2026. Here are a few of the highlights:
The honeymoon phase of Sheinbaum’s term appears to be winding down, as she finds herself under more pressure at home and abroad. Domestic security and US relations remain top challenges for Mexico, with Trump’s provocations signal confrontation extending beyond policy into cultural antagonism. The infrastructure plan’s success depends on securing private capital amid declining business confidence, and persistent cartel violence continues to test security coordination and political alliances. How Sheinbaum navigates Washington’s aggressive stance while pursuing development and maintaining sovereignty will define her administration’s 2026 trajectory.
This story contains summaries of original Mexico News Daily articles. The summaries were generated by Claude, then revised and fact-checked by a Mexico News Daily staff editor.
As social media and AI ramp up the pressure on the media industry, publications' survival is in the hands of their readers. (Shutterstock)
The past few weeks have brought more troubling news across the news media landscape. To name a few:
1. The Washington Post, a top-five circulation newspaper in the United States and in publication since 1877, announced significant cuts this week. The company fired over a third of its journalists, more than 300 people out of a total of 800.
2. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette, the largest newspaper serving Pittsburg and in business since 1786, shut down last month after 240 years in business. That’s 240 years of community journalism — gone!
3. “60 Minutes” — once one of the most respected news shows on TV for decades — has seen an erosion of trust from its viewers as the program has been seen as increasingly politically biased. In late 2025, it faced a scandal related to what was deemed favorable editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. Now again in 2026, under new leadership, it faces accusations of favoritism towards the Trump administration. What was once a rock steady pillar of unbiased journalism now has a serious credibility and reputation problem from both sides of the political aisle.
5. Versant Media Group — the owners of the business news network CNBC and other outlets like MS NOW and the USA Network — had its IPO in early January and has since seen its stock drop by a third in just one month!
This is scary stuff if you own an online newspaper like my wife and I do. But the real question is: What does this mean for all of us?
For publishers:
1. “Being political” or picking sides in today’s political climate is a very risky business.
2. It’s nearly impossible to outrun a legacy print media business model as the “innovators dilemma” slows the transition to digital.
3. A polarizing leader, such as Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post or Bari Weiss of CBS News, makes for an easy target for readers/viewers.
4. The ad-based revenue model that sustained the media industry for decades simply doesn’t work anymore for most companies.
5. Big tech companies and their AI models are truly an existential threat to the entire news media industry.
Big tech companies and AI have contributed to the crash of the news industry — though some publications still manage to defy the odds. (Unsplash)
For consumers of news:
1. Understand that although much of the pain being experienced by the industry is self-inflicted, much of it is not. The news industry has faced massive threats and challenges over recent years. From a shift of print to digital to a massive decline in ad revenues, to the rise of social media, to now the threat of AI. This has been exceptionally difficult to navigate and very few companies have been successful in managing it.
2. Social media is not a “like for like” replacement of the traditional news media. It is less transparent, it is not fact-checked and it is easy to hide the author’s identify. It is also fraught with misleading or downright fake news, and it is increasingly filled with AI-created content that is completely false and misleading. Although traditional news media is far from perfect, social media news, relatively speaking, is a cesspool.
3. Most importantly — it’s critical for you to support the media sources that you value. Put simply, if you don’t, they will disappear. It’s not hyperbole to imagine a world where unbiased, fact-checked news sources no longer exist — in fact, it’s happening before our very eyes at the rate of two newspapers per week!
Imagine a world where all news reporting is just opinions — we are racing towards that world. Although there are some great opinion perspectives out there, we cannot lose the agency to make up our own minds based on our own review of the facts. We cannot outsource thinking and opinion-forming to the loudest (or most well-funded) voices.
Once we reach that world, how do we ever go back? How do we ensure our children and grandchildren become trained, active, curious seekers of knowledge and truth? Very serious questions for very serious times.
Our commitment — and our ask
The team at Mexico News Daily will continue to provide you, day in and day out, with fact-based, objective reporting on Mexico and Mexico’s relationship with the world. We will continue to do so without advertising, in order to give you the best reading experience possible. And we will continue to invest in our business to increase our impact, with initiatives like our new MND Kids platform now being used in schools in both the U.S. and Mexico.
This is not an easy business and my wife and I still have not taken one peso of salary in the nearly 3.5 years since we have purchased MND. That’s not right. That’s not fair. But it’s the reality we have chosen as we have eliminated advertising, built up and invested in our team, and added new platforms like MND Kids and MND TV on YouTube.
I am often asked “How can I support the great work MND does?” The answer is simple and urgent:
Subscribe. Encourage others to subscribe. Share our content with people who value complete, fact-based reporting on Mexico and its place in the world.
We will soon be adding a new feature on our website that allows paid subscribers to “gift” several free MND articles to friends each month — helping us reach future subscribers.
Here’s one last thing that you need to know: Just reading our free newsletter or following us on social media generates zero revenue for us. I can’t tell you how many times I hear, “I love you guys, I follow you on social media” or “I love you guys, I get your free newsletter.” To which I am forced to say, “Thank you, but that isn’t really supporting us. If you truly value our work, we need you to become a paid subscriber.”
The business model is simple: Paid subscribers fund independent journalism. No subscribers means no journalism. We are asking you to choose which world you want to live in and which world do you want to leave behind for your children and grandchildren to live in.
Thank you for taking the time to read my perspective today and for supporting our work and our team.
Part of the Mexico News Daily team at a recent meet-up in Mexico City. (Travis Bembenek)
Travis Bembenek is the CEO ofMexico News Daily and has been living, working or playing in Mexico for nearly 30 years.
Catch up on Mexico Super Bowl LX news with this recap of our recent stories on Super Bowl-related topics, including avocados, Super Bowl ads and Mexicans who played — and won — Super Bowls of yore. (NFL.com)
The big day is almost here: Super Bowl LX. Are you excited?
Well, before you settle in for the clash between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks — and all the associated hoopla — catch up with our recent Super Bowl-related coverage that puts a distinctly Mexican twist on the big game!
In a departure from traditional high-stakes Super Bowl advertising, the Mexican industry organization Avocados From Mexico (AFM) has again traded its iconic 30-second Super Bowl LX television spot for an interactive digital experience for fans.
This year, rather than spending US $8 million on a fleeting TV commercial, the organization is doubling down on the “second-screen” habits of modern fans with the launch of the “Prediction Pit” — an online platform for Super Bowl LX that offers interactive digital activities and features a hyper-realistic AI avatar of Rob Riggle calling itself the “Guac Guru,” which offers live football predictions using real-time data from SportsDataIO.
Need to know more about the Super Bowl’s halftime headliner, Bad Bunny? Check out coverage of his wildly popular show in December.
Despite criticism by members of the Trump Administration over his selection for the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, the NFL has stood by Bad Bunny, says ESPN, because he’s part of their master plan to win over more Spanish-speaking fans in Latin America.
How popular is the Puerto Rican superstar among Mexicans? Our article talks about how his show at the GNP Seguros Stadium was one of Mexico City’s most-sought-after tickets in recent memory. It actually boosted CDMX’s local economy.
Bad Bunny is, in fact, so popular in Mexico that we couldn’t resist taking a humorous jab at how much Mexicans love him.
For a satirical take on Bad Bunny’s popularity in Mexico, check out our El Jalapeño piece, with its tongue firmly in cheek, reporting on the Puerto Rican superstar becoming a nighttime taco vendor on Mexico City’s streets in order to make ends meet.
Mexican avocados are, of course, super important to the Super Bowl every year. If you’ve ever wondered just how many Mexico imports to the U.S. each year — spoiler alert: it’s almost certainly going to be another record-breaker this year — check out American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico CEO Pedro Casas Alatriste’s opinion piece on how Mexico could make America great again through the Mexico-U.S. agricultural relationship.
The NFL is making efforts to increase its Latino fanbase — read about that here — but one of the things working against the U.S. professional football league is the NFL’s relative lack of Latino players.
But of the ones who have made it into the NFL, many have been notable, especially those from Mexico: MND writer Alan Chazaro has done some digging through history and recently told our readers about the great Mexican-born and Mexican American players who each helped take their NFL teams to at least one Super Bowl — not to mention some actual Vince Lombardi trophies.
And if you’re wondering where born-and-raised Mexican football players came from in a country that’s been in unabashed love with the other fútbol for a century, in 2024, Leigh Thelmadatter talked to Mexicans from Mexico City to Tijuana about how they found their love for American football and how the NFL began more seriously scouting for players in Mexico in 2017.
Do street vendors really make more than college graduates in Mexico? (Keizers/Wikimedia Commons)
As a longtime writer here at Mexico News Daily, I’ve often been contacted by readers interested in Xalapa. Sometimes they make trips here and want to talk. I like meeting new people, so I usually oblige.
During the pandemic, I met with a family that came from one of those Nordic countries. I don’t remember which, but you know the type — generous welfare state, police that don’t carry guns, no-nonsense sex education that starts in kindergarten.
Waiters, like this one taking a break in Campeche, rarely make much money in Mexico. (Adam Jones/Wikimedia Commons)
At one point, we began discussing wages in Mexico.
“What?” the wife asked incredulously when I told her how much waiters make (and how ungenerous most tips were). “But people can’t live like that, it makes them depressed!”
I often think about that conversation because of her choice of words: “It makes them depressed.” As if that were reason enough to renounce an entire system.
However, I really think we’re in a bit of a sad loop when it comes to the school-job pipeline.
Job posting for work at the Veracruz tax office. (Facebook)
It’s not simply an issue of schools not being good enough. Take, for example, this advertisement for civil service workers at the Veracruz tax office, known in Mexico as the Hacienda, that appeared on Facebook recently.
It’s for open positions as civil servants. If you live in Xalapa or the other cities in Veracruz mentioned in the ad, any hires for these positions will be processing your tax documents. The educational requirement is a college degree in administration, finance or something similar. The salary they’re offering for this full-time job?
Between 10,000 pesos (US $580) and 13,600 pesos (US $788) a month.
A month.
While a few of the comments under the post were by people earnestly interested, most were of ridicule.
“I make more than that selling tamales on the street!” one said.
Selling tamales may be better than civil service when it comes to pay. But it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme either. (Shutterstock)
I don’t think I need to tell you that with today’s current costs, 20,000 pesos is not a lot of money; half of that is especially not a lot of money. And while I applaud the government’s increase of the minimum wage, I would certainly not classify anyone making the340 pesos a day as “middle class.” Yes, they can afford the basic food basket (canasta básica). Does it matter that they likely can’t afford a home in which to prepare the items in that basket?
Mexicans, of course, figure it out — as they always have. They team up, they share resources. They live together. A great number of them work abroad in order to send home remittances.
Remittances from family members working in the U.S. help many families in Mexico sustain themselves. (Shutterstock)
Remittances are how my current partner’s family survived. He and his siblings didn’t grow up in luxury, by any means, but they had their basic needs met and were able to get an education, at least. The price of all that, though, was steep — it’s been over 20 years since my partner has seen his father, who is still working abroad. Because at what point can one say, “Oh, we don’t need to earn money to meet our expenses anymore”?
Does education in Mexico matter?
So when young people — especially those without upper-class connections — are looking around and thinking about what they want to do with their lives, it’s not hard to see how a few might come to a “what for?” type of conclusion when it comes to advanced schooling.
Many have seen family members give it their all: try hard, do well in school and go to college. And then, if they’re lucky, they might get offered a job where half of their take-home pay will go to rent if they want to live alone.
As things are, though, living alone is not a reasonable expectation. Fine, you might say. Who wants to live alone? Aren’t Mexicans all about the family?
Well, yes. But…shouldn’t one be able to live alone if they’re working a full-time job that requires a college degree?
The fact that you can’t count on an employer to pay you enough to live, even after going to the trouble of getting a long education, sureis depressing. What a disconnect between what even professional jobs pay and what things cost.
UNAM in Mexico City is one of the nation’s top universities. But that’s no guarantee when it comes to getting a well-paying job. (Gomnrz/Wikimedia Commons)
Entrepreneurship and starting small businesses
A better bet for many, especially if there’s no family member abroad to supplement one’s income, is to start a small business. Maybe you’ve got a killer tamal or torta recipe. Maybe you’ve got a way to obtain and sell “paca” clothes — those used, imported clothes sold for cheap at a market or tianguis. Maybe you’ve got a taxi, or a motorcycle that you can use to make deliveries — with a major win for workers recently thatbrought them into the formal sector. Alas, things are not easy, especially for small businesses. Unfortunately, the costs of starting a business formally are downright exorbitant for the average Mexican. Many, I’m sure, would love to be part ofthe formal economy that makes up only about half of all jobs in Mexico.
As an example, my partner and I officially “constituted” a business last year — artisanal beer. To officially register the name, it was 5,000 pesos. To get the paperwork done, it was 20,000 pesos. And to open a bank account in the business’ name, we had to maintain a minimum of 30,000 pesos in there for the first three months. Don’t even ask me about interest rates for business loans — you’ll literally make me cry. And hiring employees? Add up all the taxes and holiday pay that’s part of the package, and you’re looking at their base salary plusbetween 35% and 50% per employee.
The conclusion is clear: you can’t start a business without having quite a bit of money to invest already — even if the business is just you.
In my state of Veracruz, the government is trying to make more money from businesses. Especially for restaurants that sell alcohol, pricey certifications galore are now needed. We all also need new license plates this year. The old ones are fine, but the state needs money, apparently.
Now, I don’t think the ruling Morena party is “anti-business,” but I do think it doesn’t have a good grasp of how hard it is to start something around here. Many of the Morena politicians, after all, come from the upper middle classes. And if you’ve never lived paycheck to paycheck, it’s hard to explain what it’s like to not have a pool of savings to pull from.
All that said, the current government seems to think that all businesses, great and small, have gigantic profits they can easily pay lots of taxes from. This is not the case.
“This is a call to everyone (in the ruling Morena party) to be close to the people, especially the humble people, who need us the most,” President Sheinbaum said recently. Maybe Morena should make it easier to start a business. (Saúl Lopez/Cuartoscuro)
The seeds of today
If they really want the economy — and the tax base — to grow, a lot of people need a lot of help. The Chedrauis don’t need help, nor does Liverpool. But our beer business? A new music studio? A café with adorable cats in it? Give them a few years to get off the ground with some tax breaks, Morena. Maybe even some government loans that don’t charge 80% interest.
The seeds you help nurture today will be the money trees of tomorrow.
And maybe those businesses will actually be able to pay decent wages by then.
Alfonso Gutíerrez was part of the San Francisco 49ers squad that reached Super Bowl LVIII against the Kansas City Chiefs. (Alfonso Gutíerrez/Instagram)
Though it might not seem like it, people of Mexican descent have been integral to the National Football League (NFL) since the onset of the league’s existence — and throughout time, the presence of not only Mexican Americans but also Mexicans born and raised in Mexico has been subtly evident on the game’s biggest stage: the Super Bowl.
In fact, before the NFL even established the Super Bowl in 1967, Mexicans were already part of the action. The first known Mexican-born NFL player is Tom Fears, a receiver who signed with the Los Angeles Rams for US $6,000 in 1947.
A Hall of Famer from Guadalajara
Tom Fears wasn’t just an NFL star for the Los Angeles Rams. The Guadalajara native made the Pro Hall of Fame. (NFL.com)
Fears would become the first Mexican to win a championship as a player in 1951, and as a coach in 1962 and again in 1965. Born in Jalisco to a Mexican mother, Fears — whose father was a U.S. citizen working as an engineer in Mexico — famously embraced his Mexican roots, never forgetting his native Spanish and often visiting Mexico. He wound up having a Pro Football Hall of Fame career, becoming one of the earliest NFL players to rack up over 1,000 receiving yards in a season.
In his personal life, Fears opened a small chain of taquerias known as Taco Thoms in Los Angeles, and took his family on trips to cities like Tijuana, Mazatlan and his hometown, Guadalajara. Though Fears never technically appeared in the Super Bowl — since his career preceded the event’s formal inception — he certainly set the stage for Mexicans to compete — and be proudly represented — in the NFL’s biggest moments and championships.
Mexican Super Bowl two-timers
There have been a few notable figures of Mexican nationality Tony who appeared in the Super Bowl. Perhaps none are more revered than Raúl Allegre, a two-time Super Bowl kicker from Torreón, Coahuila.
Allegre originally arrived in the United States in 1977 as a high school foreign-exchange student. Having joined the soccer team, his school’s football coach spotted him at practice and enlisted the Mexican booter to give the American pigskin game a shot.
Allegre proceeded to kick his way into the NFL history books as the only Mexican-born athlete to win two Super Bowls, once in 1987 and again in 1991, both with the New York Giants. Currently, Allegre is a prominent Spanish commentator for ESPN’s NFL coverage in Mexico and Latin America.
Outside of Allegre and Fears, there are others: Tony Casillas, a defensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s — teams famous for triplets Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith — won back-to-back Super Bowl victories in 1993 and 1994.
Defensive lineman Tony Casillas was part of two Super Bowl-winning teams with the Dallas Cowboys. (Facebook)
Although he was born and raised in Oklahoma, Casillas’ Mexican father was born in Acuña, Coahuila, Casillas was a star of his day, spending 12 seasons in the NFL and earning a place in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, as one of only a handful of Mexican Americans to do so.
Manny Fernández and ‘The Perfect Season’
Before Casillas, Manny Fernández of the Miami Dolphins won two Super Bowls as a defensive lineman under the legendary tutelage of head coach Don Shula. A key member of “The Perfect Season,” the 1972-73 Dolphins are enshrined in NFL lore as being the only team ever with an undefeated season to also win the Super Bowl in the same year. In that championship game against the Washington Redskins, Fernández notched 17 tackles and an interception — a dominant performance that many believe should have earned him Most Valuable Player honors.
Fernández and Miami would win back-to-back Super Bowls, defeating the Minnesota Vikings in the following season. Fernández, a Californian Mexican American who didn’t speak Spanish, would claim another Vince Lombardi trophy in 1974. He also appeared in a Super Bowl with the Dolphins during the 1971 season, although they lost to the Dallas Cowboys.
Add Mexico City’s Rafael Septién and Chihuahua’s Frank Corral to the list of Mexican kickers who appeared in the Super Bowl — playing for the Dallas Cowboys in 1979 and the Los Angeles Rams in 1980, respectively. Unfortunately, neither walked away a Super Bowl champion, in both cases defeated by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Guadalajara’s Efrén Herrera, on the other hand, became a Super Bowl champ as the kicker for the Dallas Cowboys in 1978.
Super Bowl bona fides for Tom Flores and Joe Kapp
The most versatile of all Mexican-heritage NFL-ers at the Super Bowl, though? Tom Flores. The Californian Mexican American (a recurring theme on this list, along with kickers, it seems) is the only person in football history besides Mike Ditka to have achieved Super Bowl victories as a player (1969), assistant coach (1977) and head coach (1981, 1984) — all of which he realized with the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders.
The accomplishments for Mexicans in the Super Bowl don’t end there. The first known Latino quarterback to appear in a Super Bowl was Joe Kapp, a New Mexico-born Chicano. In 1970, Kapp was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine with a feature profile titled, “The Toughest Chicano” — the very same year in which the black-haired slinger led the Minnesota Vikings to a Super Bowl appearance.
Joe Kapp, known as “the toughest Chicano,” appeared in a Super Bowl with the Minnesota Vikings. (Vancouver Public Library/Wikimedia Commons)
The late Kapp spent his later years visiting farming communities like Salinas, California, inspiring hope among other community members of Mexican heritage and NFL fans who looked up to Kapp as one of the first, and primary, examples of Latinos in the sport.
Pre-game shows and halftime performances
Off the field, there are further glimpses of Mexico’s relationship with the Super Bowl — particularly with halftime performances.
Rapper Taboo of the band Black Eyed Peas was the first Mexican American artist to grace the halftime stage in 2011, while Mexico City dancer and choreographer Mike Bautista was featured as part of The Weeknd’s Super Bowl entertainment production in 2021. On Spanish-language broadcast stations, Los Tigres del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Gabito Ballesteros have all appeared in Super Bowl pregame shows.
In 59 years of Super Bowl history thus far, Mexicans have left their imprint on the game in more ways than one might assume about the star-spangled sporting event. And as the NFL continues to expand in Spanish-speaking markets — particularly with a massive fandom in Mexico — there will only be more Super Bowl opportunities that unfold across the Mexico-U.S. border.
Alan Chazaro is the author of “This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album,” “Piñata Theory” and “Notes From the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge” (Ghost City Press, 2021). He is a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley and a former Lawrence Ferlinghetti Fellow at the University of San Francisco. His writing can be found in GQ, NPR, The Guardian, L.A. Times and more. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he is currently based in Veracruz.
