Baja California Sur, a major tourist destination and Mexico's second-smallest state by population had the fewest homicides in 2023. (Sectur/Twitter)
Baja California Sur, Mexico City and Quintana Roo were the largest recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico’s tourism sector in the first quarter of 2023, Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco reported Monday.
Countrywide tourism-related FDI totaled US $326.9 million between January and March, Torruco said in a statement.
Areas of Mexico City popular with expats and remote workers, such as Condesa, have seen heavy investment so far this year. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)
The figure is equivalent to about 1.8% of total first quarter FDI in Mexico, which was just over $18.6 billion.
Just over three-quarters of tourism sector FDI in the first three months of the year was in furnished apartments and houses with hospitality services ($241.7 million) as well as hotels “with other integrated services” ($5.1 million), Torruco said.
The remaining 24.5% tourism-related FDI went to the management of airports and heliports, the tourism minister said.
Foreigners, especially United States citizens and companies, are snapping up holiday properties in locations such as Los Cabos, Mexico City and Cancún, data suggests.
This map shows the top five Mexican states in amount of FDI received in the first quarter of 2023. (Sectur)
Baja California Sur, home to popular tourist destinations such as Cabo San Lucas, San José del Cabo and La Paz, received $81.9 million in FDI between January and March, an amount equivalent to 25% of the first quarter total.
Just under a quarter of the tourism sector FDI – $80.3 million – flowed into Mexico City, where neighborhoods such as Condesa, Roma and Polanco are particularly popular with foreigners, while $69.4 million went to Quintana Roo, where tourism hotspots such as Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum are located.
Torruco said that the fourth and fifth biggest recipients of tourism sector FDI in the first quarter were Jalisco ($31.5 million) and Nayarit ($22.4 million).
Just over half of tourism sector FDI – $168.3 million – came from the United States, while investors from Denmark injected $80.1 million into the tourism sector between January and March, a figure equivalent to 24.5% of the total.
Countrywide tourism-related FDI totaled US $326.9 million between January and March, much of it going to destinations like Cancún, Quintana Roo. (Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
Denmark’s position as the second largest investor in Mexico’s tourism sector in early 2023 is somewhat surprising as the country wasn’t among the leading investors in the sector last year. Torruco didn’t comment on the country’s sudden rise in the rankings.
Just under 12% of first quarter tourism sector FDI – $38.5 million – came from Canada, while Spain and the United Kingdom ranked as the fourth and fifth largest investors with outflows of $5.4 million and $4.6 million, respectively.
Extremely strong tourism sector FDI inflows will be needed in the second, third and fourth quarters to get close to that figure this year as the January-March total is equivalent to less than 10% of the 2022 result.
Torruco highlighted that Mexico’s tourism sector received just under $28.33 billion in FDI between 1999 and the first quarter of 2023, an amount he said represented 4.1% of foreign investment in the period.
Ternium's industrial center in Pesquería, Nuevo León is located on 437 hectares. Operations began at the plant in 2013. (Ternium México)
Steel manufacturer Ternium announced Tuesday that it will invest US $3.2 billion to build a new steelworks and cold rolling facility in Nuevo León.
The plant will be located on the company’s existing site in Pesquería, a municipality in the metropolitan area of Monterrey. The multi-furnace facility will allow Ternium to increase its steel production capacity and meet strong international demand for the alloy.
Ternium México CEO Máximo Vedoya (right) gave federal Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro (left) a tour of the plant this week. (Máximo Vedoya/Twitter)
CEO Máximo Vedoya described the investment as the largest in Ternium’s history. A video he posted to his personal Twitter account said the new facility will be “the most modern and sustainable steelworks” in the Americas.
It will have its own carbon capture capacity and will use treated wastewater in the steel production process.
Vedoya told a press conference in Nuevo León that the company’s board decided to build a new steel mill in the USMCA area – the United States, Mexico and Canada – but noted that there was a lot of internal debate about exactly where it should be located.
A site in Texas was initially considered but the company ultimately opted for Nuevo León due to the investment it has already made in the state, he said.
Dignitaries attended the new facility’s “inauguration” in Pesqueria, Nuevo Leon, including from left to right: Ternium México President César Jiménez, Ternium CEO Máximo Vedoya, Nuevo León Governor Samuel García and state Economy Minister Iván Rivas. (Ternium)
Construction is expected to commence in December, while the steelworks is slated to begin operations in the first half of 2026.
“The new state-of-the-art installation will complement the company’s new hot rolling mill in Pesquería, which began operations in the middle of 2021,” Vedoya said.
“… This decision is a significant milestone for our company … at a time when we’re consolidating our position as a leading player in the USMCA region,” he said.
Total investment by Ternium – formed in 2005 by the merger of Mexican, Argentine and Venezuelan firms – at its Pesquería site will now increase to some $6.8 billion. “It’s gigantic for us,” Vedoya said.
Governor Samuel García, who appeared alongside Vedoya at the press conference, said on Twitter that “Nuevo León’s moment is now.”
“With Ternium’s mega-investment we will now build the steel for the mobility of the future,” he added.
Inside Ternium’s current facilities in Pesqueria. (Ternium)
García told the press conference that a new 18-kilometer highway will be built to link Ternium’s Pesquería site to the ring road in the neighboring municipality of Juárez. The state government will contribute 1 billion pesos (US $58.1 million) to the project, he said.
Nuevo León has attracted significant investment from foreign companies amid the growing nearshoring phenomenon in which manufacturers seek to take advantage of Mexico’s proximity to the United States and other benefits such as competitive labor costs and the presence of a specialized workforce.
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla announced in March that it would build a new “gigafactory” near Monterrey, a decision that will spur additional investment in Nuevo León.
García asserted in February that the state will receive over $12 billion in foreign investment this year, which would be roughly double the figure achieved in 2022.
San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca, alebrije artist Juventino Melchor Ángeles’ most popular figures are animal figures who are musicians. (Joseph Sorrentino)
Alebrijes began as someone’s dream.
In 1936, Pedro Linares López, a master cartonero in Mexico City’s La Merced neighborhood who made piñatas, masks and other items out of papier-mache became seriously ill. At one point, he lost consciousness.
While passed out, he dreamed of strange animals including winged burros and horned chickens, all of whom he remembered to be shouting “Alebrijes! Alebrijes!”
When he awoke, recovered, he remembered his dream and decided to bring those creatures to life, naming them for the nonsense word they had shouted.
Linares made his new sculptures out of paper layered over a wire frame and painted them with bright colors. The technique continues to this day, and in 2019, the Mexico City government officially designated alebrijes as an example of cultural heritage of the capital.
However, alebrijes did not stay an art form exclusive to Mexico City. They also became an art form in some Oaxaca towns after residents there saw Linares’ creations. But unlike his pieces, they made theirs from copal wood.
Pedro Linares López, the inventor of the alebrije. (alebrijes.net)
I decided to visit alejbrije artists in San Martín Tilcajete to learn how they make these unusual, beautiful figures that have captivated people around the world. Martín Melchor Ángeles and his wife Hermelinda Ortega Ramirez, alebrije artists and natives of San Martín, talked with me about their craft as they sat in front of their home.
“Here in the town, we started making alebrijes at the beginning of the 1960s,” Melchor said. “Parents were already making toys for their children using copal. In the beginning, the figures weren’t painted; they were white.”
Melchor worked in the fields and in construction before turning his attention to alebrijes, which he has made now for 36 years.
“I learned from an uncle, who was one of the founders,” he said. “From him, the desire to make alebrijes was born in me.”
Copal is the wood of choice in the town because, as Melchor told me, it’s easy to work with, and doesn’t absorb paint. He selected a small piece of wood from a pile that sat under a tree.
Hermelinda and Martín posing with finished pieces.
“I look at a piece of wood and I think, ‘I can make an animal out of that,’” he explained.
The piece he chose on this day was L-shaped precisely because he knew it would be right for turning into a crocodile. Placing it on an old tree trunk, he cut away expertly at it with a machete, chatting amicably as he carved. Melchor is an expert who can use the same machete blade to cut large, thick pieces of wood as well as paper-thin slices.
“I make everything without a guide,” he said. “My mind has the figure engraved in it.”
The most he’ll do on occasion is draw a thin line with a pencil.
“I have a design that’s different from other artisans,” he continued. “I make little figures on bicycles and animals and bike-taxis. I work differently because I like to and because it’s something that I can sell more of.”
I mentioned that carving a figure looked very complicated.
San Martin Tilcajete, Oaxaca. (Rey Perezoso/Flickr)
“In the beginning, yes, it was difficult to make figures,” he told me, “but now, after 30 years, everything is easy.”
Once the figure is carved — a process that takes a couple of hours and involves as many as six different tools — it’s put in the sun to dry. After that, it’s bathed in gasoline to prevent moths from burrowing into the wood and then placed in a freezer to kill any weevils that may have entered it. Finally, the figure is ready to be painted, which takes another three to four hours.
Melchor and his wife — who helps paint his figures and also makes her own alebrijes — don’t have a studio. They sell their alebrijes out of their home at Andrés Portillo #2 street and to clients who sell them in stores in Mexico and the United States.
Melchor’s figures tend to be small, between 18 and 20 centimeters, and sell for anywhere between 50–60 pesos for small figures and 1,500 pesos for more elaborate pieces, like the beautiful snake alebrije he showed me.
Not all alebrijes are as small or inexpensive: just down the street, Arturo Aguilar Melchor has a 7-foot tall figure called The Martian guarding the front of his studio.
“This took me three days to make with a machete,” said Aguilar. “This figure is in a style called rustic.”
Arturo Aguilar Melchor posing with The Martian.
It sells for 20,000 pesos (US $1,160).
Across from Aguilar’s studio, Juventino Melchor Ángeles, Martín’s younger brother, was painting a figure of an animal that will form part of a band.
“My whole family works in this craft. My children paint and I make the figures,” he said. “The most popular figures are ‘La Banda’— animals who are playing instruments.”
About 80% of the 4,000 or so residents of San Martín make their living as artists, according to Martín Melchor. That means the streets are lined with studios and stores selling alebrijes. On weekends, a small number of artists set up tables in the park in front of the church.
“We are here Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 6,” said Plácido Melchor, sanding the figure of a rabbit. “Or until the last client leaves.”
Although the majority of the town’s artists focus on making alebrijes, some, like Criselda Velazco Sosa, make other items out of wood. Velazco makes small, intricately decorated mirror boxes made of pine that she paints freehand using a tiny brush and without any guides.
“It takes about eight hours to paint each piece,” she told me.
There aren’t a lot of places to eat in the town. There’s one family restaurant that sells quesadillas, gorditas and tacos. Los Girasoles, San Martín’s only full-scale eatery, is located just behind the town hall.
There are more restaurants and lots of food stands on Route 175, which is the main road leading to San Martín, so you can make a day of it.
Although there are only a handful of artisans in the park most weekends, there will be 80 during Oaxaca’s Guelaguetza, the city’s huge annual dance festival, which will take place this year July 17–24. Plácido said that the artists will be in San Martín’s park from July 14 to Aug. 1.
The wheel manufacturer, who works with a number of high-end automotive companies, is opening a new facility in Apaseo el Grande, Guanajuato. (Twitter)
South Korean car wheel manufacturer HiHo Wheel will invest US $100 million in a new plant in Apaseo El Grande, Guanajuato, that is expected to create 600 jobs.
HiHo is a global distributor of non-ferrous metals with around 2,500 employees worldwide. It is involved in the mining, smelting and processing of aluminum and supplies wheels to leading car brands, including Nissan, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz and BMW.
There has recently been a push to attract South Korean manufacturers to Mexico. Here, Governor of Nuevo León Samuel Garcia meets the Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Park Jin in Seoul. (Samuel García/Twitter)
The new Guanajuato plant was announced during an investment tour of South Korea by Guanajuato governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez.
“Many thanks to HiHo for trusting Guanajuato,” Rodríguez said. “They are in a great place because in our state, we have the most dynamic automotive cluster in Latin America and we are the ideal platform for the entire North American market.”
HiHo’s investment is the latest sign that Guanajuato is capitalizing on the nearshoring trend, in which companies have relocated production processes from Asia to Mexico and the Caribbean to be closer to U.S. markets.
Earlier this month, Rodríguez visited Japan, where he confirmed thatToyota would invest US $328 million to adapt its plant in Apaseo El Grande to produce hybrid vehicles for the North American market. He also met with Honda executives to discuss expansion of their plant in his state’s city of Celaya.
During his tour of South Korea, Guanajuato’s Governor Diego Sinhue confirmed a US $26.3 million investment from medical supplies company AB Medical in order to open a plant in the state. (Twitter)
Auto manufacturers are not the only companies keen on investing in Guanajuato. During his current tour of South Korea, Rodríguez confirmed a US $26.3 million investment from medical supplies company AB Medical in order to open a new plant for blood collection tubes in the state.
The plant will supply AB Medical’s clients in both North and South America and is expected to generate 250 jobs in Guanajuato.
Orthopedic company Corentec also expressed interest in Guanajuato as a potential site for a new Americas plant, although no investment has been finalized at present.
Of all Mexico’s federative entities, Guanajuato was Mexico’s largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Asia in 2022, with US $832.8 million of new projects announced.
Despite the fact that the state is too far south to be optimally positioned to take advantage of nearshoring opportunities, its highly skilled workforce with years of experience in the automotive industry makes it attractive to foreign investors.
The Chichinautzin volcanic field begins at the southern tip of Mexico City, and extends across much of the surrounding area. Scientists believe it will be at least 800 years until the potential birth of a new volcano in the area. (Luis Carbayo/Cuartoscuro)
After media coverage about the birth of a new volcano outside Mexico City went viral on social media this week, scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) have clarified that the event is unlikely to happen for nearly another millennium.
“Due to the repetition of journalistic stories claiming that researchers foresee the birth of a volcano in Mexico City, the UNAM clarifies… [that] this could happen in 800 or 1,200 years,” the university said in a statement.
The southern edge of Mexico City is ringed by a monogenetic volcano field. The volcanic cones and vents erupt only once in their lifetime. (Instagram)
The news stories spread after a hasty interpretation of a scientific paper published in 2008 in the Specialized Journal of Chemical-Biological Sciences.
“It is a fact that one day a new volcano will be born south of Mexico City, but it depends on the way we say it if we generate uncertainty, fear or calm,” volcanologist Hugo Delgado Granados, one of the scientific paper’s authors, told El País newspaper.
Delgado has dedicated much of his professional career to studying the Chichinautzin volcanic field located south of the capital, which has at least 220 monogenetic volcanoes, a class of low-altitude volcanic cones or vents formed through successive eruptions.
“Monogenetic volcanic fields are areas where a magmatic event takes place through the rise of magma,” Delgado explained. “Instead of the magma coming out of the same crater, each eruption creates a new volcano.”
Nearby Popocatepétl is a significantly more active volcano and one of the most monitored in the world. (Mireya Novo/Cuartoscuro)
Unlike large and visible volcanoes like Popocatépetl (one of the most-monitored volcanoes in the world) or Pico de Orizaba, eruptions of monogenetic volcanoes can be difficult to predict.
“Monogenetic volcanic fields like Chichinautzin raise three questions: where, how and when [a new volcano will arise],” Delgado said.
The Chichinautzin field, which lies beneath densely populated areas in Mexico City, Morelos and México state, stretches from the extreme south of the capital, on the border of Xochimilco, Tlalpan and Milpa Alta, to the Cuernavaca Valley in Morelos. From east to west, it ranges from the foot of Popocatépetl to the outskirts of Toluca, some 90 miles away.
The last known volcano to erupt in the field was Xitle, some 2,000 years ago. Its eruption caused lava flows that extended for more than 300 square kilometers and buried the ancient city of Cuicuilco, the most important urban center in the Valley of Mexico at the time.
“All we know is that south of the city is an active monogenetic volcanic field and that there is a probability that in the future — we do not know when — a volcano could rise,” Delgado concluded.
The online alarm surrounding the potential birth of a volcano came up following Popocatépetl’s intense volcanic activity in May, which put Mexico City and surrounding states on high alert. The volcano’s has since diminished.
Aptiv is already highly active in Mexico, exporting 11.7 billion automotive parts from the country per year. (Gob. de Jalisco/Flickr)
Irish automotive technology supplier Aptiv will invest US $40 million in a new factory in El Salto, Jalisco, 29 kilometers from Guadalajara.
The new plant will expand Aptiv’s existing operations in Mexico, where the company is already active in 8 other states. It will be their first factory in Jalisco, and will be dedicated to manufacturing parts for electric vehicles.
Aptiv is targeting the recruitment of women for its new Jalisco plant. (Gob. de Jalisco/Flickr)
“Jalisco is on course,” Jalisco governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez said in June 13 press conference. “Jalisco has the confidence of the private sector to continue investing and we appreciate that […] it represents a commitment to not slow down.”
Alfaro said that the new plant will create 2,200 jobs. Operations are expected to start in September and they are ready to start hiring, he added.
The plant is expected to produce an annual average of 10 million parts for the North American market, which will be assembled in at least 464,000 electric cars each year.
“We are very happy with the opening of this plant in El Salto, Jalisco,” Aptiv Latin America president Arturo Álvarez said to reporters. “Without a doubt, this will be a world-class plant.”
The investment was announced by Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez and executives from Aptiv. (Gob. de Jalisco/Flickr)
He added that the factory will manufacture products for customers in Mexico and abroad, and will establish Jalisco as a leader in the electric car industry.
In Mexico, the Irish company develops and manufactures technologies for signal and power distribution, advanced electronics, and active safety. They also develop and manufacture leading infotainment and in-cabin user-experience platforms, as well as electronic control units.
According to Aptiv’s website its Mexican operations – which employ over 72,000 people – carry out more than 300 new product launches per year, and ship 11.7 billion parts across the world.
After supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have relocated their operations to Mexico from Asia. The trend, known as nearshoring, has already led to an upswing in industrial investment across the country.
The third annual heat wave has been prolonged, and the high temperatures may continue in July. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)
Mexico continues to swelter on Tuesday, with temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in nine states: Campeche, Coahuila, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Yucatán.
TheNational Meteorological Service (SNM) also predicts temperatures of 40 to 45 C in Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Colima, Durango, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla and Sinaloa; from 35 to 40 C in Aguascalientes, Baja California, México State, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Quintana Roo and Zacatecas; and 30 to 35C in Mexico City and Tlaxcala.
Low levels of rainfall across Mexico have caused drought in many states, including in Campeche (seen here). Rain is finally in the forecast for some parts of the country this week. (Michael Balam/Cuartoscuro)
People are urged to take precautions in the extreme heat, including avoiding sun exposure, hydrating properly, and looking out for children, the elderly and the chronically ill.
The Health Ministryreported eight deaths nationwide in relation to extreme temperatures as of last Friday, however, Health Minister Jorge Alcocer said on Tuesday at the President López Obrador’s morning press conference that deaths associated with the heat wave have not been confirmed.
This is the third heat wave to hit Mexico so far this year which scientists attribute to “El Niño”, a cyclical climate phenomenon that can cause extreme weather around the world. Researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) have warned thata fourth wave could hit as early as July 1.
Mexico has also experiencedhistorically low rainfall during the year so far, sparking severe droughts and depleting the water supply in the country’s system of reservoirs.
However, the SNM does forecast heavy rains and winds in some states this week, caused by a channel of low pressure across the interior of the country.
The heaviest rains are predicted in Chiapas (75 to 150mm) and Oaxaca (50 to 75mm), with lighter showers in other regions. The rains could be accompanied by lightning and hail in the southwest, including the Yucatán Peninsula.
An oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana owned by Woodside Energy, who will partner with Pemex to exploit the Trion deepwater oil field in the Gulf in Mexico. (Woodside)
The Australian firm Woodside Energy Group announced Tuesday that it had approved a multibillion-dollar investment to develop a large Gulf of Mexico oil field it jointly owns with Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex.
Woodside, which has a 60% stake in the Trion oil field, said it would contribute US $4.8 billion to the project. The company said that the forecast total capital expenditure to develop the ultra deepwater field is $7.2 billion.
The Trion deepwater oil and gas field is located in Mexican waters about 30 km south of the Mexico-U.S maritime border (BHP)
“The expected returns from the development exceed Woodside’s capital allocation framework targets and deliver enduring shareholder value. First oil is targeted for 2028,” Woodside said in a statement.
“The development is subject to joint venture approval and regulatory approval of the field development plan, expected in the fourth quarter of 2023.”
Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, also said that development is expected to deliver “economic and social benefits to Mexico.”
The company said it is “aligned” with Mexico’s ambition to increase oil production and that over US $10 billion in cumulative taxes and royalties would flow into Mexican government coffers. Its investment “is expected to deliver an internal rate of return greater than 16% with a payback period of less than four years,” it said.
A diagram of how a floating production and storage unit — the setup Woodside and Pemex will use to drill and store oil from Trion — functions. (Wikimedia Commons)
Trion, discovered by Pemex in 2012, contains an estimated 479 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. It is located at a depth of 2,500 meters about 180 kilometers off the Gulf of Mexico coast and 30 kilometers south of the Mexico-United States maritime border.
“The subsurface has been extensively appraised, with six well penetrations undertaken across the field, informing Woodside’s understanding of this large, high-quality conventional resource,” Woodside said.
“The resource will be developed through a floating production unit (FPU) with an oil production capacity of 100,000 barrels per day. The FPU will be connected to a floating storage and offloading vessel with a capacity of 950,000 barrels of oil.”
Woodside’s $4.8 billion outlay is the company’s first major investment since its merger last year with the petroleum division of the Melbourne-based company BHP Group, from which it inherited the majority interest in Trion. BHP acquired the 60% stake in Trion in 2017 during former president Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration.
Woodside, which has been a frequent target of criticism from environmental activists, said that its “greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets remain unchanged by the decision to approve investment in Trion.”
CEO Meg O’Neil said that the company has “considered a range of oil demand forecasts and believe Trion can help satisfy the world’s energy requirements.”
Former president Enrique Peña Nieto oversaw the signing of the contract between Pemex and former partners BHP Petroleum, which was bought out this month by Woodside. (Diego Simón Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
“Two-thirds of the Trion resource is expected to be produced within the first 10 years after start-up. We are developing Trion because we believe it will deliver value for Woodside shareholders and benefit for Mexico, including generation of jobs, taxation revenue and social benefit.
“We value the ongoing relationship with Pemex and the support of the Mexican Government and regulators,” she said.
Another major Gulf of Mexico oil field to be jointly developed by Pemex is the Zama field, which is believed to hold some 700 million barrels of oil.
Also participating in the Zama project — in which oil production is not expected before 2026 — are United States company Talos Energy, Germany’s Wintershall DEA, United Kingdom firm Harbour Energy and Mexico’s Grupo Carso, the latter of which announced it was on track to acquire nearly a 49.9% stake in Talos México.
Marath Bolaños López will continue in his current role as head of the Labor Ministry. (Marath Bolaños/Twitter)
President López Obrador announced Tuesday that Marath Bolaños López will replace Luisa María Alcalde Luján as labor minister.
Bolaños is currently deputy labor minister for employment and labor productivity, and previously served as an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The deputy labor minister (left) will replace Luisa María Alcalde (right), who was named as the new interior minister on Monday. (Marath Bolaños/Twitter)
López Obrador said Monday that Alcalde would become interior minister following the resignation of Adán Augusto López Hernández, who is seeking the ruling Morena party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election.
Marcelo Ebrard also resigned last week to pursue Morena’s candidacy, prompting the president to appoint Ambassador to Chile and former United Nations official Alicia Bárcena as foreign affairs minister.
López Obrador noted at his Tuesday morning news conference that Bolaños has been responsible for the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme in his role as deputy labor minister.
Among his challenges as labor minister will be dealing with labor issues related to the USMCA free trade pact. Last Friday, the United States requested a labor rights review at a Grupo México-owned mine in Zacatecas in light of allegations that the company violated workers’ rights.
López Obrador also observed that Bolaños is young and therefore would further contribute to “generational change” in his government.
“I believe he is the same age as Luisa María [35]. Tomorrow we’ll announce another change,” he said without offering further details.
John Heathco and Abby Lutz, both reportedly from Newport Beach, California, were found dead in their hotel room in El Pescadero, Baja California Sur. There were no signs of violence, authorities said. (Internet)
Gas poisoning appears the most likely cause in the deaths of two Americans whose bodies were found at a luxury hotel in Baja California Sur last week.
John Heathco, 41, and Abby Lutz, 28, were found Tuesday night inside their room at Rancho Pescadero, a US $600-a-night boutique hotel owned by Hyatt in the coastal village of El Pescadero, located about 70 kilometers north of Cabo San Lucas.
Both victims — who prosecutors said had been dead for 11 to 12 hours when their bodies were discovered — reportedly lived in Newport Beach, California.
The Baja California Sur Attorney General’s Office (PGJE) said last Thursday that autopsies suggested that Heathco and Lutz died of “intoxication by an undetermined substance.”
The PGJE said that no signs of violence were found on the victims’ bodies. Local police previously said that the suspected cause of death was gas inhalation.
The PGJE didn’t specify what steps were being taken to establish the exact cause of death.
Rancho Pescadero is a boutique luxury hotel owned by Hyatt. (Rancho El Pescadero)
Current and former Rancho Pescadero employees who spoke with The Los Angeles Times said that managers ignored repeated signs of a gas leak at the hotel and deactivated carbon monoxide detectors so that their alarms wouldn’t disturb guests.
“They knew there were problems with gas leaks,” said Ricardo Carbajal, a former night manager at the resort, which reopened about a year ago after undergoing major renovations.
He told the Times that carbon monoxide detectors went off frequently during a period of about three months in late 2022, possibly due to the presence of several outdoor fire pits.
Carbajal, who left his job at Rancho Pescadero in March due to a pay dispute, said that managers disabled the detectors in January after repeated complaints from guests about the loud alarms.
Three current employees who spoke with the Times on condition of anonymity also said the carbon monoxide detectors were deactivated. However, one said they believed that only the detectors’ alarms were disabled and that security guards at the hotel still received alerts when gas was detected.
A total of four current employees told the Times that hotel managers, over a period of months, ignored complaints from both guests and workers about strong gas odors.
Former staff at the hotel have told the media that managers ignored what appeared to be a gas leak problem for months. (Rancho El Pescador)
“Housekeepers reported gas leaks, security reported gas leaks, maintenance workers reported gas leaks,” one employee said, adding that a housekeeper became sick due to suspected gas poisoning just a dew days before Heathco and Lutz were found dead.
Another employee said workers were concerned that an explosion could occur due to the presumed presence of gas.
“We are indignant that we reported this and this tragedy still happened,” the employee told the Times.
The Los Angeles Times also reported that “new accounts from two paramedics who responded to the deaths lend credence to the theory that gas poisoning was likely to blame.”
Fernando Valencia Sotelo and Grisel Valencia Sotelo, siblings who work for the local firefighters and paramedics service, fell ill immediately after going into the room where the two Americans died, according to a GoFundMe page set up to raise funds to cover their medical expenses.
“They were able to exit the room just in time before Grisel collapsed to the ground. Fernando was able to get himself and Grisel back to their ambulance and administer oxygen to himself and to her. They were then rushed to the hospital by other team members,” the page says.
According to Abby Lutz’s family, the couple checked themselves into a hospital overnight on June 11 because they believed they had food poisoning. They received intravenous fluids and were discharged, according to Lutz’s stepmother. (Facebook)
“… Our chief, Griselda Lorena Sotelo Amaya, is the first female fire chief of Mexico and the loving mother of Fernando and Grisel. As we grieve for the families of Abby and John, we are overcome with emotion that our chief almost lost two of her own children on this terrible night.”
The siblings are very tired but “on the mend,” according to an update posted to the GoFundMe page on Friday.
Lutz’s stepmother told the “Good Morning America” program that her stepdaughter had informed her family that she and Heathco spent the night of June 11 in hospital because they were unwell and believed they had food poisoning.
Raquel Lutz said her stepdaughter explained that they were given fluids intravenously and they subsequently started to feel better.
Chad Richeson, an uncle of Abby Lutz, said that his niece, in conversations with her family, didn’t mention any unusual or powerful odors at the hotel.
Carbon monoxide (CO), which can leak from gas water heaters, stoves and other faulty equipment, is odorless. Inhalation can cause headaches, dizziness, confusion and death.
It is possible that CO was among a mix of gases leaking at Rancho Pescadero.
The Times reported that Hyatt officials initially said they didn’t believe the deaths were connected to a gas leak or another problem with hotel infrastructure.
The hotel chain issued a statement on Friday, saying that it was “deeply troubled by the recent allegations and speculation about the tragic isolated incident at Rancho Pescadero.”
“Authorities have not yet released the cause of this incident, and the hotel continues to cooperate on their investigation to understand a cause,” Hyatt said.
“We understand authorities immediately tested the air quality in the room after responding to the situation, and at the time, did not report any findings of gas or carbon monoxide and advised that the hotel was cleared to continue normal operations. The hotel continues to monitor air quality.”
United States Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said that U.S. authorities are “closely monitoring the investigation into the cause of death and we stand ready to provide any appropriate consular assistance.”
There have been other cases in which foreign tourists died in Mexico due to apparent gas poisoning.
The most recent case before this suspected one involved three U.S. citizens who were found dead last October in a Mexico City apartment they rented through Airbnb.
