The Tlallipan Floating Garden is the latest city government project aimed at making Mexico City's historic principal north-south route more accesible to cyclists, pedestrians and vendors. (Gobierno de la Ciudad de México/Cuartosuro)
On Sunday, Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada inaugurated the Tlallipan Floating Garden, a 1.8-kilometer-long verdant pedestrian walkway that, despite the flotante in its Spanish name, is actually propped above the traffic-heavy Calzada de Tlalpan thoroughfare (the tlallipan variation indicating roughly “above the land”).
The 15,400-square-meter walkway, which follows Metro Line 2, connecting the Pino Suárez and Chabacano Metro stations, is expected to help transform one of the city’s busiest roads into a multimodal route for cars, cyclists and pedestrians.
The designers emphasized native species in selecting the trees, shrubs and plants to adorn the walkway. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
During the opening ceremony, Mayor Brugada emphasized the importance of transforming the car-dominated route into a green oasis for pedestrians, family gatherings and sustainable mobility.
“On its first day, the Tlallipan Floating Garden welcomed thousands of visitors who enjoyed a new and beautiful public space for gathering, culture and community,” Brugada wrote on X on Sunday.
Tlallipan was designed with 6,200 square meters of green space, including 176 trees, 2,000 shrubs, and over 8,000 plants. Project developers prioritized endemic species and pollinating plants such as the Mexican cord tree, tlacote, flame tree and peninsular myrtle.
As part of the “From the Countryside to the City” program, farmers from chinampa and rural areas of Mexico City will be permitted to sell local products along the walkway.
The corridor is divided into seven sections, with each named after a species endemic to the Valley of Mexico — the axolotl, the xoloitzcuintle (Mexican hairless dog), the hummingbird, the volcano rabbit, the ring-tailed cat, the blackbird and the Tláloc frog.
Tlallipan connects other pedestrian walkways, public transportation stations, the Gran Tenochtitlán bike path and the Camina Libre, Camina Segura (Walk Freely, Walk Safely) trail, which extends 34 kilometers from the Historic Center to the Periférico ring road in the south. The project is part of the city’s Safe and Free Women’s Paths model, which includes 900 lights and emergency alarm buttons.
There are seven pergolas and eight shade structures for recreational activities, 64 rest areas, 18 sculptures, nine fountains with illuminated water jets and a giant screen for film screenings along the walkway. Digital totems with interactive screens allow users to access information about Mexico City.
The project also incorporates several community facilities, such as health clinics, community kitchens, free laundromats and animal welfare services.
The walkway is free and can be accessed via two staircases, located at either end of the corridor, open daily during the Metro’s opening hours, from 5 a.m. to midnight.
Over the weekend, the Guadalajara Zoo countered with a far softer model: Elephants, gorillas, giraffes, capybaras and even a puma and a macaw making their own World Cup predictions in front of gaggles of curious visitors.
A puma named Muluk sniffed objects and moved a ball to predict South Korea beating Czechia in this Thursday’s matchup. (Fernando Carranza García/Cuartoscuro)
The animals picked winners — mostly for the four matches scheduled at Guadalajara Stadium — by choosing between food, shirts, boxes and soccer balls linked to the different teams.
The exercise was meant as a playful, not a serious forecast.
Meanwhile, a puma named Muluk sniffed objects and moved a ball to predict South Korea beating Czechia in this Thursday’s only other game: 8 p.m. in Zapopan, Jalisco, a municipality of about 1.4 million in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
The same site will also host Mexico vs. South Korea on Thursday, June 18, but the capybaras charged with making a prediction just couldn’t do it. They ended up eating pretty equally from two bins crafted as soccer balls for each team.
The third of four matches at Guadalajara Stadium will be Colombia vs. the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, June 23. Six giraffes, including 10-year-old Juana and 5-month-old Joel, tended to interact with objects representing the DRC — despite Colombia being No. 13 in the latest FIFA world rankings compared to No. 45 for the DRC.
Gorillas Chenchi and Faustina picked another upset in favoring Uruguay over Spain on Friday, June 26. Uruguay is a respectable No. 16 in the world, but Spain is No. 2 and favored by many to lift the 2026 trophy.
Danae Vazquez, head of communications at Guadalajara Zoo, said the animals freely chose the winners, including a macaw who flew down and took a peanut from the “Mexico” side of a mini soccer field.
“It was very exciting,” she said. “We had a lot of fun.”
The predictions are the latest in a string of high-profile animal stories at the Guadalajara Zoo.
PAN supporters and members of the public gathered outside the offices of the Attorney General’s Office in Ciudad Juárez on May 27 to show their support for Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos, who was there to answer questions about a recent operation involving CIA agents. (Manuel Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
The National Action Party (PAN) has filed a complaint against Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) with the International Criminal Court (ICC), alleging that the former president forged pacts with criminal groups during his 2018-24 presidency.
The PAN — Mexico’s main opposition party — announced in a statement on Sunday that it filed a complaint with the Hague-based court “against the ex-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and various criminal organizations so that possible individual criminal responsibilities derived from criminal-political pacts are investigated.”
The PAN said that its complaint sets out “possible crimes against humanity” allegedly committed by AMLO. (Lopezobrador.org.mx)
“In the territories under their control, these organizations have carried out, against specific civilian populations, a systematic pattern of conduct that includes murder, enforced disappearances, torture, forced displacement, forced recruitment and trafficking, as well as persecution of identifiable groups and other inhumane acts as defined in Article 7(1) ofthe [Rome] Statute,” states the complaint.
“… Elected political authorities and public officials of the Mexican state have engaged, in a systematic and deliberate manner, in acquiescence, tolerance, and, in numerous cases, both active and passive complicity with the perpetrating criminal organizations,” it says.
In its statement, the PAN said that its complaint sets out “possible crimes against humanity” allegedly committed by AMLO and others, “reflected in more than 200,000 homicides, over 150,000 missing persons, the forced recruitment of young people, the displacement of entire communities, and large regions of the country under the control of drug cartels.”
The party, which was last in government at a federal level during Felipe Calderón’s 2006-12 presidency, said that its complaint argues that Mexico’s current insecurity “is not the result of chance or isolated criminal developments.”
Rather, it is the result of “deliberate, calculated, and systematic permissive collaboration by the Mexican state, which allowed — or even invited — the establishment and hyper-empowerment of organized crime in Mexico,” the PAN said.
The party alleged that “different Morena [party] governments (mainly the 2018-24 federal government)” established a “political pact” with organized crime.
“The complaint also maintains that between 2018 and 2024, a deliberate policy of cession of sovereignty to organized crime was implemented, with emblematic cases in Sinaloa” — where one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons was released shortly after he was arrested in 2019 — “Tamaulipas and Michoacán, among other states,” the PAN said in its statement.
“The narco-pact known as ‘hugs, not bullets‘ — the nickname of AMLO’s security strategy — “allowed criminal groups to expand their territorial, economic and political power, while the state relinquished full exercise of its authority,” the party said.
“The advancement of organized crime was not only tolerated, but it was allowed to replace the state in large areas of the country,” the PAN asserted.
Presentamos ante la Corte Penal Internacional una denuncia para que se investiguen las posibles responsabilidades de Andrés Manuel López Obrador por presuntos Crímenes de Lesa Humanidad.
Compartimos el boletín, la denuncia y el acuse de recibido. 📄
In its statement, the party also mentioned “allegations and investigations about presumed ties between Morena actors and criminal organizations in entities such as Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas.”
“For that reason, we turned to the International Criminal Court, in the face of national institutions that are increasingly less capable of guaranteeing independent investigations,” it said.
The PAN concluded its statement by pledging to “continue denouncing everything that has to be denounced.”
“We are and we always will be the voice of millions of people who clamor for justice for their loved ones and who know that a supposed transformation [promised by Morena] betrayed them. The victims deserve truth, justice and accountability. And sooner or later justice will catch up with the criminals,” the party said.
On its website, the PAN published a document confirming that its complaint had been received by the ICC. It would appear unlikely that the ICC would promptly launch, or launch at all, an investigation into AMLO’s alleged wrongdoings.
The National Action Party’s accusations against López Obrador and Morena are essentially the same allegations AMLO (and current President Claudia Sheinbaum) have made against the PAN and former president Calderón. López Obrador claimed that Mexico was a “narco-state” during Calderón’s presidency, pointing to accusations, and subsequently a conviction, against former Security Minister Genaro García Luna, who in February 2023 was found guilty of colluding with the Sinaloa Cartel.
AMLO also asserted that the militarized “war” against drug cartels launched by Calderón shortly after he took office in late 2006 was the main cause of the high levels of violence in Mexico that persisted during his six-year term in government.
Boris was already unleashing rainfall in and around Acapulco by Monday morning, but the precipitation will increase in intensity once the tropical storm makes landfall later in the day. (Carlos Alberto Carbajal/Cuartoscuro)
Tropical Storm Boris is bearing down on Mexico’s Pacific coast, where it is due to make landfall on Monday evening and is forecast to bring heavy rain, flooding and possible mudslides to coastal areas of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.
The National Meteorological Service (SMN) issued an alert for torrential rains and President Claudia Sheinbaum activated civil protection plans that will be carried out by the Navy and the Defense Ministry.
In a map from Mexico’s National Meteorological Service (SMN), the red outlines indicate where Boris and another storm now off the coast of Central America are expected to be by Tuesday. (SMN-Conagua/Gobierno de México)
As of 7:30 a.m. Monday, Boris was located about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Acapulco and 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Punta Maldonado, according to the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center.
The storm had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and was expected to veer away from its northeast track and move steadily north at about 2 mph (3 kph).
Upon making landfall, Boris is forecast to dump 4 to 10 inches of rain along the coast, prompting a Tropical Storm Warning for the coastal strip between Lagunas de Chacahua, Oaxaca, and Tecpan, Guerrero.
This area of the coast is likely to be hardest hit, potentially receiving up to 15 inches of precipitation. The SMN said Guerrero, which averages 300 to 400 milliliters (11 to 15 inches) of rain throughout June, could surpass that during two days “of extraordinary rainfall.”
Acapulco is also in the storm’s path and Michoacán farther north is expected to receive up to 6 inches of rain.
Residents of the states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit have been asked to stay informed through official channels.
Boris will lose wind intensity as it tracks northwest over land nearly parallel to the coast through Tuesday, with rainfall amounts of 1-2 inches expected to accumulate from southwestern Oaxaca through Jalisco and southern Guanajuato.
The first named storm of the year, Tropical Storm Amanda, formed on Wednesday before dissipating Sunday night. Boris and a tropical rainstorm near Central America are expected to impact parts of the Central American and Mexican coasts this week.
“Sea-surface temperatures near the coasts of southwestern Mexico and Central America are well into the 80s Fahrenheit, which will support further development,” an AccuWeather hurricane expert said.
The rainstorm off the coast of Central America is forecast to move inland across southern Mexico late this week. Accuweather said that if the storm “remains offshore longer and with warm ocean water and relatively low wind shear, it could intensify into a hurricane.”
Guerrero could receive an additional 1 to 2 inches of rain from this second storm.
The background of the scene with Sheinbaum shows images similar to the interior of the Sanborns House of Tiles restaurant in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico. (Screenshot)
U.S. President Donald Trump commemorated his birthday a few days early by releasing an AI-generated video that included images of him eating tacos alongside President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Trump, who turns 80 on June 14, posted the 60-second clip to his Truth Social account on Sunday.
🔴 Donald Trump publica un video con IA… comiendo tacos junto a Claudia Sheinbaum.
En su red social, el presidente de #EEUU compartió un video donde aparece con diversos mandatarios, entre ellos @Claudiashein, con una canción que dice “todos aman a Donald Trump”.
— Luis Alberto Medina (@elalbertomedina) June 7, 2026
The video shows a sequence of images simulating a trip by the U.S. president through different regions of the world, including Mexico, Italy, China and even outer space. The images are accompanied by chanted lyrics with the repetitive refrain: “Everywhere I go, they love Donald Donald Trump.”
In a brief fragment near the beginning of the video, Trump can be seen standing next to people identified as Mexicans. Next, Sheinbaum briefly appears wearing the presidential sash and a white dress like the one she wore during her Oct. 1, 2024, Inauguration ceremony. The camera then pans to Trump sitting next to her chowing down on a taco.
The background of the scene with Sheinbaum shows images similar to the interior of the Sanborns House of Tiles restaurant in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico. The plates also seem comparable to Sanborn’s iconic white porcelain dishes with blue accents.
Although the video is not about the Mexico-U.S. relationship — Trump is seen riding a camel in the desert, aboard a motorcycle in India — its release coincides with escalating bilateral tensions.
Sheinbaum gave the Olinia 1 a test drive at its presentation on Sunday. (Hazel Cárdenas/Presidencia)
A prototype of Olinia 1, Mexico’s first proprietary electric vehicle, made its debut on Sunday.
“Today we are showcasing innovation in electromobility and related fields,” Sheinbaum said after driving an Olinia herself onto a stage in the Mexican Air Force hangar north of Mexico City. The Mexican government plans to begin producing and selling the EV in 2027.
The Olinia 1 will have a starting price of 150,000 pesos (US $8,590). (José Luis Conde/Presidencia)
With a starting price of 150,000 pesos (US $8,590), the Olinia was designed for short distances and intensive daily use (8 to 12 hours of driving), with an estimated range of approximately 50 kilometers per hour.
The project has been presented as a cheaper alternative to a conventional car, and a safer choice than motor taxis.
Named after the Nahuatl word olinia, which means “mobility,” the EV has been highlighted for its efficiency. According to the engineers behind the project, Olinia 1 achieves an operating cost of 4.9 cents per kilometer and can save up to 50,000 pesos (US $2,869) a year just on fuel.
“This vehicle will eventually be paid for with the savings it generates,” Imelda Vega, a researcher for the project, said, adding that it costs five times less than a traditional petrol vehicle and less than half that of a motorcycle.
According to Capuano, the Mexican government expects to install 2,000 charging stations across Mexico City, México state and Puebla between 2026 and 2027, with “tens of thousands of more stations across Mexico” in the pipeline. Olinia 1’s charging mechanism is compatible with the NACS (North American Charging Standard), the same charger used by Teslas.
At Sunday’s presentation, Olinia’s engineers did a live demonstration of the vehicle’s accessibility features for wheelchair users, as well as its capacity to comfortably seat six passengers and store a spare tire in the back.
Olinia 1 can comfortably seat six passengers and was designed to handle intensive workdays of up to 12 continuous hours. (Hazel Cárdenas/Presidencia)
Furthermore, they noted that Olinia was designed with Mexico’s heavy rainy season in mind.
“We understand that a vehicle for Mexico needs to endure puddles, rain and floods. That’s why the car’s engine and battery have an IP 67 water protection resistance,” Director of Technology for Olinia Rafael Garayoa said.
Capuano said that Olinia’s line of models will continue to expand, with the next reveal featuring a freight transport vehicle, to debut in July after the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Puerto Vallarta is promoting itself as a quieter place to enjoy the World Cup — but not too quiet! It's planning a number of free fan experiences to provide an alternative to businesses offering for-cost watch events around the city. (Unsplash)
Puerto Vallarta and the wider Nayarit region are continuing to see activity across city programs, public events, sports achievements and environmental initiatives.
Recent announcements highlighted developments ranging from municipal tax forgiveness incentives and large-scale community events to international environmental recognition and athletic success on the national level. Plus, the city is staging free World Cup match broadcasts and other fun events that locals, expats and visitors alike can enjoy.
Puerto Vallarta municipal tax forgiveness program offers 90% discounts
(NoticiasPV.com)
Puerto Vallarta residents with outstanding municipal tax debts now have an opportunity to significantly reduce what they owe under a new city incentive program. The initiative offers discounts of up to 90% on surcharges and enforcement-related fees, aiming to help taxpayers regularize their accounts while improving municipal revenue collection.
To participate, residents must either pay their full balance or enter into an installment payment agreement before December 31, 2026.
City officials say the program is designed to ease the financial burden of accumulated penalties and make it more accessible for individuals and businesses to resolve outstanding obligations.
Authorities emphasize that the measure is intended to encourage compliance and provide a practical pathway for residents to get current on their accounts. By reducing additional charges, the city hopes more taxpayers will take advantage of the opportunity to settle their debts and avoid further penalties.
See the 2026 FIFA World Cup matches for free with local fans
(Jalisco Es Mexico)
Although the World Cup is only coming as close to Puerto Vallarta as Guadalajara, the city is nevertheless joining the international football fever with a series of public events and displays designed to bring the tournament excitement to Jalisco’s coast for locals and visitors alike.
From June 11 through July 19, Puerto Vallarta residents and visitors will be able to follow the World Cup matches in open-air settings for free while enjoying the city’s beach, dining and entertainment offerings.
A key feature of these free city events will be a public fan zone located near Puerto Vallarta’s municipal sports and recreation complex, the Unidad Deportiva Agustin Flores Contreras, where large outdoor screens will broadcast live matches throughout the tournament. The space is intended to allow spectators to experience the games collectively in a festive environment. Alongside match screenings, the venue will host live music, cultural activities, family entertainment and food offerings that highlight local cuisine.
Organizers say the goal is to create a welcoming space for both locals and international visitors, turning the city into a gathering point during this global event.
Nayarit leads Mexico in surfing medals at the Olimpiada Nacional
Nayarit cleaned up in the surfing division at Mexico’s most important amateur athlete competition, the Olimpiada Nacional. (Nayarit State Government/Facebook)
Nayarit has achieved first place nationally in surfing at the Olimpiada Nacional CONADE 2026, delivering a strong performance across multiple categories and disciplines. The state team finished with a total of 22 medals in the sport this year: 10 gold, six silver and six bronze, securing the top position in the national standings. This undoubtedly helped Jalisco garner the most medals overall in the Olimpiada Nacional this year, a total of 1,116 of them across 51 sports categories.
CONADE, or the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sport, is the Mexican government agency in charge of the development and support of the nation’s competitive amateur athletes. The Olimpiada Nacional is a major vehicle for discovering promising young athletes to develop to represent Mexico in international competitions and future Olympics.
The surfing competition was held along the beaches of Bahía de Banderas, including Sayulita and Bucerías, which hosted athletes from across Mexico over several days. Events included stand-up paddle, shortboard, longboard and bodyboard competitions across various youth divisions.
Nayarit officials credited the impressive results to the strength of local training programs and the continued development of surfing talent in coastal communities. The achievement reinforces Nayarit’s growing reputation as a leading region for surfing in Mexico and highlights the talent of its young athletes.
Puerto Vallarta again recognized as a Tree City of the World
(Vallarta Hoy)
Puerto Vallarta is yet again a Tree City of the World in 2026. The international recognition is awarded to cities committed to protecting and expanding their urban forest. The program is supported by the Arbor Day Foundation and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The recognition evaluates cities based on their efforts to maintain healthy tree coverage, promote sustainability and integrate green spaces into urban development.
Local authorities attributed coordinated planning, ongoing collaboration between government agencies and the community, continued investment in urban sustainability initiatives and long-term environmental management efforts to the city’s achieving the designation for the first time in 2025 and again in 2026.
Puerto Vallarta joins other municipalities in Jalisco being recognized for their environmental efforts, such as Guadalajara, which saw its seventh year as a Tree City of the World in 2026.
Charlotte Smith is a writer and journalist based in Mexico. Her work focuses on travel, politics, and community. You can follow along with her travel stories at www.salsaandserendipity.com.
Also on Monday, President Sheinbaum showed off a fresh new jersey after presenting an initiative to create soccer schools for boys and girls in collaboration with the Mexican Soccer Federation. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
Sheinbaum’s mañanera in 60 seconds
👩🏫💰 Teachers’ salaries recovered under 4T, says Delgado: Education Minister Mario Delgado presented data showing average teacher pay rose from 6,700 pesos/month under Vicente Fox to 20,351 pesos ($1,167) following Sheinbaum’s recently announced 9% increase, framing the trend as wage “recovery” after years of real-term decline under “neoliberal” predecessors.
🏦 Pension overhaul ruled out for now: ISSSTE head Martí Batres acknowledged the 2007 Calderón-era law hurt teachers by replacing a collective fund with individual AFORE accounts, but ruled out repeal. The state cannot absorb existing individual accounts and lacks the 7+ trillion pesos (20% of GDP) needed to rebuild a common fund, he said.
🌍 Sheinbaum guarantees a peaceful World Cup opener: With Thursday’s opening match three days away and protests planned in the capital, Sheinbaum pledged the event will go ahead “in peace and calmly,” warning that some groups — “not necessarily teachers” — are deliberately seeking a government crackdown to generate damaging international headlines before the tournament.
🚫 No repression, no capitulation: The president said the government will wait on the outcomes of dialogue with teachers while refusing to yield to provocations, insisting both a successful World Cup celebration and a no-repression posture are achievable simultaneously.
Why today’s mañanera matters
With teachers protesting and the start of the FIFA men’s World Cup just three days away, the federal government on Monday sought to demonstrate that wages, benefits and conditions for the nation’s teachers have improved significantly since former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) took office in late 2018. At President Claudia Sheinbaum’s first press conference of the week, the government was determined to show that it is not like its pre-2018 predecessors, and has put teachers’ best interests at the center of its education policies.
The Monday morning affirmation of this comes as the government seeks to reach an agreement with protesting CNTE-affiliated teachers that leads to those teachers ending their demonstrations and returning to classrooms. The government wants to avoid potential disruptions to the World Cup, especially in Mexico City, where the CNTE teacher union protest is centered, and where the first match of the quadrennial FIFA tournament will be played this Thursday. As things stand, CNTE-affiliated teachers — and other disgruntled groups — look set to continue protesting, including on Thursday. Protests planned for Thursday could cause problems for people traveling to Mexico City Stadium on the capital’s southside.
On Monday morning, Education Minister Mario Delgado — the official who last month announced a 40-calendar-day reduction to the current school year before backtracking days later — was at Sheinbaum’s mañanera, where he sought to show that teachers have benefited from government policies in a range of ways in recent years, including due to significant salary increases.
He and other officials also highlighted recent changes to teachers’ pensions that they say will improve teachers’ lot in retirement.
However, Martí Batres, head of the State Workers Social Security Institute (ISSSTE), said that it is not possible to abrogate the 2007 ISSSTE law, which eliminated a previous pension system for teachers and leaves them — they say — significantly worse off in retirement.
A 100% pay increase and the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE law are key demands of protesting teachers, a large number of whom are currently camping out in the historic center of Mexico City near the Zócalo, the capital’s main square and soon-to-be host of FIFA’s World Cup Fan Festival.
Delgado highlights ‘recovery’ of teachers’ salaries under 4T governments
Delgado presented data that showed that teachers’ salaries, on average, increased from around 6,700 pesos per month when Vicente Fox was president between 2000 and 2006 to just under 9,600 pesos per month when Felipe Calderón was in office between 2006 and 2012. Salaries rose to just under 12,000 pesos per month during Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012-18 presidency before increasing to 17,635 pesos when AMLO was in office between 2018 and 2024. With the 9% pay rise announced by Sheinbaum last month, teachers’ salaries will increase, on average, to 20,351 pesos (US $1,167), Delgado said.
Education Minister Mario Delgado joined President Sheinbaum’s press conference on Monday to clear the air about teachers’ current earnings ahead of what will likely be a protest-heavy World Cup opener on June 11. (Juan Carlos Ramos Mamahua/Presidencia)
After AMLO became president, “wage policy” for teachers “completely changed,” the education minister said.
When “neoliberal governments” were in office, teachers’ salaries increased in accordance with “estimated inflation,” he said. However, in reality, inflation outpaced salary increases, Delgado said.
“A deterioration of real salaries for teachers began,” he said.
Delgado said that a policy of wage “recovery” for teachers was implemented during López Obrador’s presidency and has been maintained by Sheinbaum.
“There is wage recovery for teachers with the governments of the transformation,” he said, referring to the “fourth transformation,” or 4T, political movement previously led by AMLO and now led by Sheinbaum.
Batres: Creation of common pension fund for teachers is unaffordable
Batres said that the 2007 ISSSTE law, “promoted by Felipe Calderón, harmed teachers, state workers and the state itself.”
“It eliminated a [pension] system that was a supportive and inter-generational system of which the state was the owner,” he said.
“They are private retirement funds … and each worker became his or her own saver,” he said.
“This is a significant change,” he said, noting that the “common fund” for teachers was eliminated and each teacher became the “holder” and “owner” of their own account.
Batres said that “despite this whole process of privatization of the pension system, one institution that is 100% public survived.”
“The only institution that survived and which is 100% public is Pensionissste. Pensionissste is completely public and therefore when teachers propose strengthening a public, social, supportive [pension] scheme, we believe that Pensionissste can be a guiding axis of a scheme based on these principles, … an alternative [to individual accounts] that is developed progressively,” he said.
“This is the viable option we have at this time. We can’t say that the system of individual accounts can disappear from one day to the next, that the ISSSTE law can be repealed at this time, because the state cannot take the individual accounts that currently exist because each of those has a holder, an owner,” Batres said.
“On the other hand, the state doesn’t have 20 points of GDP — in other words more than 7 trillion pesos that would be needed to build or establish a new supportive [and common] fund [for teachers],” he said.
Sheinbaum guarantees peaceful start to World Cup
A reporter noted that various protests are planned for this Thursday in Mexico City and asked the president how much “pressure from the CNTE” the government can withstand and whether it would “give in” to the dissident teachers’ union.
“We’re going to wait [to see] what happens these days, today and tomorrow” Sheinbaum responded, referring to dialogue between the Interior Ministry and the Education Ministry on one side and the CNTE on the other.
🗣️ “Hay grupos que nos quieren provocar (…) lo que buscan es que haya represión”
Claudia Sheinbaum advirtió que varias agrupaciones quieren hacer quedar al país como “el gobierno que reprime a los maestros”; afirmó que no caerán en provocaciones y garantiza una “buena”… pic.twitter.com/946iVVrnFZ
“There are groups that want to provoke us and they’re not necessarily groups of teachers,” she added.
“What they’re looking for is repression [from the government], I say that clearly. What they’re seeking is that before the opening of the World Cup, the article in the international media is ‘The Mexican government represses teachers,'” Sheinbaum said.
“That’s what they are seeking [but] they’re not going to have it,” she said.
“And at the same time we’re going to guarantee that the celebration of the opening of the World Cup takes place successfully, in peace and calmly,” Sheinbaum said.
“So we’re going to wait … to see the resolutions” reached in dialogue between the government and teachers, she said.
“… We’re not going to succumb to provocations,” Sheinbaum stressed.
“… And the opening [of the World Cup] will be fine, there is no problem,” she said.
“… There will be a good opening, that’s guaranteed. And there won’t be repression — all at the same time, that’s the way we are,” Sheinbaum said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
Olive Ridley sea turtles at sunset on the Ixtapilla Beach in Michoacan, Mexico. (All photos by Brian Overcast)
In August of 2010, I arrived in Ixtapilla, Michoacán after a curvy three hours on the coastal highway from Zihuatanejo, hoping to see some adult olive ridley sea turtles. Gilberto Reyes, head of the Campamento Tortuguero, walked me down to the beach where baby turtles were being released, an experience that is available to anyone visiting this area from June to October.
“What are my chances of seeing some of the big turtles come ashore?” I asked him.
Hundreds of Olive Ridley sea turtles arrive at dawn to lay eggs on the Ixtapilla Beach in Michoacan, Mexico.
“Hard to tell,” he replied. “I saw some heads bobbing out in the ocean today so we’re expecting an arribada within the next five days.” Arribada, the Spanish for arrival or landing, is a synchronized mass nesting event which makes the olive ridley sea turtle unique. The only other species that nests this way is the closely related Kemp ridley sea turtle. It’s like a turtle convention, but with no set date.
Even though five days was longer than I had, I decided to stay the night nearby and hope for the best. I rented a bungalow in Playa Manzanillera, just ten minutes away, enchanted with the beauty and lack of development of this part of Mexico. By five a.m. the next morning, when awakened by red ants crawling over me, the charm had worn off. Wide awake, I decided to go see if any adult turtles had crawled up on the beach.
In Ixtapilla, the full moon was glowing off the Pacific. When I was forty yards from the beach, it hid behind clouds. Inching forward in darkness, only ten yards from the sand, a rock I almost stepped on moved. An adult olive ridley sea turtle lay there half buried in the sand. The turtles had arrived!
Thirty minutes later, the pinkish light of dawn revealed hundreds of large rocklike shells on a stretch of beach less than a mile long. A total of over two thousand turtles had arrived during the night, I was told, the beginning of an arribada that would last two to three days. Looking out to sea, I saw heads of new arrivals seesawing up and down in the surf. When the decision was made to land, many came in tumbling, got tipped over onto their backs, and had to wait for the next powerful wave to flip them right side up. By the time they laid their eggs, they were exhausted, having just finished the animal kingdom’s equivalent of a triathlon: Swim hundreds of miles, haul an 80-pound body meant to be in water 50 yards through the sand, then excavate a two-feet deep hole using only their flippers.
After digging in, a process that reminded me of making angels in the snow as a kid, the female turtle lays 80-110 eggs, each slightly larger than a golf ball with a rubbery shell. Forty-five days later, the baby turtles hatch, all blue and leathery and anxious to get out to sea, not knowing the difficult job of survival that awaits them.
Girls from the village of Ixtapilla release baby Olive Ridley Turtles.
How the village of Ixtapilla saved their turtles
During my first visit to Mexico in the late 80’s, I was offered a delicacy, turtle soup. Although I turned it down, this poaching of the adult sea turtles combined with the sale of their supposedly-aphrodisiacal eggs was what endangered the olive ridleys.
By 1994, the residents of Ixtapilla, an indigenous village on the Michoacan coast, realized their turtles were in danger. Fewer than 500 sea turtles came to lay their eggs that year. The elderly of the village were afraid that their grandchildren would never experience an arribada unless something was done.
If the turnaround were to happen, it had to be in Ixtapilla. The olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) only comes to this beach, even though to the human eye, there are numerous other beaches along the coast which look just as good. But for the turtles, only Ixtapilla would do.
The residents began setting up patrols of the beach to prevent poaching. They relocated eggs to a fenced-in area. All of this was done by volunteers without any support from the government. For fifteen years, the community operated like this, motivated only by the rising numbers of turtles that started to arrive each year.
Eventually, the government started to support the project, as did NGO’s like Costa Salvaje. Tourism increased, and the villagers started charging a small fee to see the turtles. As more turtles came, more people wanted to witness the phenomenon. All of these efforts have been astonishingly successful, over 400,000 sea turtles are expected to nest in Ixtapilla’s sand in 2026.
Wave breaks over an adult Olive Ridley turtle crawling ashore to lay eggs on the beach at Ixtapilla, Michoacan, Mexico.
How to witness an arribada firsthand in 2026
After witnessing my first arribada, the question of how to share the experience with my wife gnawed at me for several years. The problem was not only the unpredictability of the event, but the lack of suitable accommodations nearby. Here’s how we were able to make it happen.
Arribadas normally take place between June and October each year for 3-4 days. We set up a Google Alerts with the key words “ixtapilla arribada” and waited. I told her there would not be much time to pack when we got the notification. It came in mid-August, fortunately we were on summer vacation. We hit the road and were able to see the turtles at sunset.
Another way to find out about an arribada now is to follow “Punta Ixtal-Campamento Tortuguero” on Facebook. Even if you are not fluent in Spanish, this page usually posts photos when an arribada begins.
Not a fan of red ants? No worries, there are now a couple of options available for where to sleep. Only 40 minutes north of Ixtapilla is the town San Juan de Alima, Michoacan which has several hotels. This stretch of highway is much straighter and safer than the road south of Ixtapilla. If you want to be closer to the turtles, check out the cabins at Palma Sola, less than 10 minutes away, which have air conditioning and a stunning beach. That’s where my wife and I stayed with no issues.
Bus transportation to Ixtapilla requires going first to Colima, the state capital, and from there taking a bus to the coast. I’ve always gone by car and now prefer the autopista from Guadalajara to Colima and then on to Ixtapilla which, according to Google Maps, takes five hours.
Clearly, the experience of seeing an arribada requires some effort, first to time your visit and then to get there, but I cannot imagine anyone regretting it.
Brian Overcast has collaborated with Browntrout calendars, Mexico Desconocido and the Volaris inflight magazine since moving to Morelia, Michoacan in 1991. His weekly blog Mexico Life on Substack is aimed at informing foreigners on travel and culture in this fascinating country.
Zacatecas is for you if you like: Hiking, architecture, giant statues of Jesus
It probably isn’t the first state that springs to mind when you think of Mexico, but the rugged highland state of Zacatecas is well worth checking out. Built on the back of the silver trade, its eponymous capital is famed for its pink stone colonial buildings. Venture outside the city and you’ll find a land of dramatic canyons and ancient history.
At Mexico News Daily, we’ve spent years covering Zacatecas through the eyes of travelers, expats, and locals who know it best. We’ve gathered our finest travel pieces — hidden towns, cultural landmarks, road trips and a statue of Jesus Christ that looks bizarrely like Phil Collins — into one essential guide for anyone ready to discover this underrated gem.
Think culture in Mexico and most people jump straight to Mexico City or Oaxaca. Think again. In a poll by the popular tourism site México Desconocido Zacatecas landed in first place as the country’s most culturally appealing city, with 26% of respondents choosing it over Mexico City and San Luis Potosí. The highland city, built from rosy pink quarry stone, holds more museums than any Mexican city outside the capital, including the Museo Rafael Coronel, home to the nation’s largest mask collection. Toss in a 300-year-old aqueduct, a UNESCO World Heritage historic center, and the haunted echoes of Pancho Villa’s fiercest Revolutionary battle, and you start to understand why this city captures hearts.
Just 15 minutes outside Zacatecas city, in a dusty community called Tacoaleche, sits one of the most romance-soaked buildings in all of Mexico. The House of 100 Doors — a sprawling two-story adobe hacienda covering a quarter hectare — was reportedly built in the late 19th century by a man desperately in love, on condition that the marriage would follow only once the home boasted 100 doors. It never did. Or maybe it did, and she counted wrong. Or maybe she never intended to marry him at all. The legends multiply.
Today, after a 10 million peso restoration (US $577,000), the building houses the Center for Research and Experimentation in Zacatecas Folk Art, with a permanent collection of over 1,000 handcrafted works. The ghost of the heartbroken builder is said to still roam the halls.
Mexico isn’t short on ancient history, so why should Zacatecas be any different? The remarkable promise of Cerro del Teúl, an archaeological site in the southern Zacatecas town of Teúl de González Ortega, a Pueblo Mágico about 100 kilometers north of Guadalajara. Archaeologists Laura Solar and Peter Jiménez spent 10 years excavating and studying this mountain, which was occupied continuously for 17 to 19 centuries — making it a rare window into the full sweep of northwestern Mexican prehistory.
Along the trail you’ll pass a ball court, an ancient ceremonial plaza, a shelter cave with seats carved into living rock, and a hauntingly preserved shaft tomb. There’s even a free GPS-guided app to accompany you. The well-paved streets of the town below, the stately mountain above — in a country with so many amazing ruins, it’s rare to find one this distinct from the others. Don’t skip it.
The world’s largest baby Jesus statue, a 6.5-meter, 750-kilogram behemoth installed in the Church of the Epiphany in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, caused an immediate uproar on social media when it debuted — with social media users comparing its face to Phil Collins and Nicolas Cage, and editing it into monster-movie clips. Authorities responded by modifying the statue’s face: bangs were added to the forehead and its eyes were changed from blue to brown to give it a more childlike appearance. A bishop, a governor, and a full house of 400 faithful turned out for the re-reveal ceremony.
Pilgrims and curious travelers now make the trip just to see it and you could too.
For anyone whose image of Zacatecas is shaped by its troubled recent past, think again: no other state in Mexico has worked so hard to improve safety.
What it means practically is that a destination with extraordinary things to offer — a UNESCO-listed colonial city, a canyon landscape anchoring the largest Christ statue in Latin America and pre-Hispanic archaeological sites that most foreign visitors have never heard of — is becoming straightforwardly accessible again.
Zacatecas never lacked for reasons to visit. It lacked the safety conditions that made visiting feel sensible. Those conditions have changed significantly, and the travelers who pay attention to that shift, rather than waiting for the broader perception to catch up, tend to be the ones who get a place while it still feels like a discovery.
ZACATECAS YOUTUBE SUBTIS EN INGLÉS
How to get there
By air
Zacatecas International Airport: Though the airport is modest, it offers flights to Los Angeles, San Jose, Dallas and Chicago. Domestically, the airport links to Guadalajara, Mexico City and Tijuana.
Aguascalientes International Airport:A modest 138 km (85 miles) away, Aguascalientes offers the same international flights but a much larger selection of domestic destinations, making it a more attractive proposition for beach getaways.
By road
Mazatlán: 540 km (335 miles), roughly a 7 hour drive.
Guadalajara: 357 km (222 miles), roughly a 5 hour drive.
Puerto Vallarta: 658 km (409 miles), roughly a 9 hour drive.
San Miguel de Allende: 360 km (224 miles), roughly a 4 hour drive.
Eagle Pass, Texas: 810 km (503 miles), roughly a 9 hour drive.
