TikTok images of Uziel Martínez, who is now short one kidney.
How far would you go for love? In a new trend on the video-sharing platform TikTok, some users have shared their most disastrous stories of love gone wrong.
And while tales of heartbreak abound, a Baja California man took the cake and went viral for his unmatched misfortune.
Teacher Uziel Martínez shared the news that he donated a kidney to his girlfriend’s mother. But within a month the woman left him and married someone else.
In follow-up videos, Martínez responded to comments on his viral post, providing more details of the incident.
“Don’t look so sad, she lost a great gentleman,” one viewer wrote. “Keep moving forward and find the perfect woman, [someone] who appreciates you.”
Martínez responded that in fact, he was doing well. He was healthy, despite only having one kidney, and did not hold a grudge against his ex.
“I don’t have anything against her … we’re not friends but we don’t hate each other. I only made [the video] for TikTok, I didn’t think it would get out of control,” he said, referring to the video’s wild popularity.
Another comment begged Martínez not to make the same mistake again, to which he patiently explained that such an error would be impossible: he only had one kidney left, and he planned to keep using it.
The traffic cops alleged to have attempted to shake down a motorist.
Transit police officers in the México state municipality of Coalcalco were caught on camera in what would appear to be an attempt to extort a motorist.
According to witnesses, officers stopped a car, presumably for having committed an infraction. After a routine inspection, the officers demanded 500 pesos (US $25) to let the driver go without a ticket, and even escorted the victim to a nearby ATM to withdraw the money.
The victim reported that the officers initially just asked to check her license. When they couldn’t find a legitimate reason to give a ticket, they made one up, saying that her window shades were illegal, she said.
But the attempted extortion was interrupted by good samaritans passing by. Outraged witnesses confronted the officers and began to record the incident on cell phones.
“You already brought her to the ATM, you thief … stop there, son!” exclaimed one driver, who got out of his car and tried to block the officers from fleeing. “Look at them, look at them! Damned thief,” he continued, adding a string of creative expletives.
An angry witness expresses his outrage against corrupt cops.
Facing an angry public, the officers gave up on their attempt to extract a bribe. One got out of the passenger seat and tried to direct traffic so the patrol car could leave the area. Another woman who saw what was happening stood in front of the car and tried to block it from leaving, but after various maneuvers the officers managed to drive away in the wrong direction, escaping into oncoming traffic.
Local authorities announced that an investigation has been opened into the incident.
“We’re following up with the facts, along with Mayor David Sánchez, to investigate and sanction whoever is responsible for this abuse of authority,” promised local councilor Benjamín Alfaro.
Travelers in one of the vans detained Tuesday evening filmed a bilingual video pleading for help from the government. Screenshot
Tourists traveling in at least four vans were detained by protesters in Chiapas for more than seven hours on Tuesday night.
Vans transporting foreign and national travelers to San Cristóbal de las Casas were stopped in the municipality of Oxchuc at approximately 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
According to media reports, those responsible for impeding the vehicles are supporters of Hugo Gómez Sántiz, a candidate in an election last month to elect a new mayor to head the Oxchuc municipal council.
Gómez claims he won, but the election was in fact suspended due to violence that left one person dead. One of his rivals was subsequently named mayor. Gómez’s supporters have been blocking an entrance to the municipal seat of Oxchuc in recent weeks to protest the appointment.
The occupants of one of the detained vans recorded a video to ask authorities for help. “We’re asking the government to intercede and reach an agreement with the people who have detained us here,” said one woman.
“We need help, we need to go to San Cristóbal,” one foreign tourist said in English. “Please can you send help for us so we can go to San Cristóbal,” said another foreign woman.
It was truck drivers rather than authorities who eventually came to the stranded tourists’ aid, the news website La Silla Rota reported. At approximately 4:00 a.m. Wednesday the tourists left the vans and were taken to accommodation in Oxchuc. They resumed their journey to San Cristóbal at midday Wednesday, according to local media.
The incident occurred a week after a Russian woman was attacked by protesters on the Ocosingo-San Cristóbal de las Casas highway in Oxchuc because she refused to pay them a toll. The Chiapas Attorney General’s Office is investigating the crime.
Patients and families with children wait outside Mexico City's La Raza public hospital, one of the facilities where all COVID beds are currently full.
The federal Health Ministry reported a new daily record of 44,187 confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, while the number of estimated active cases hit an all-time high of 222,221.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 4.21 million, while an additional 190 COVID-19 fatalities lifted the official death toll to 300,764.
The number of estimated active cases increased 20% in the space of a single day as the highly contagious omicron variant continues to spread rapidly. The total has risen 412% this year after ending 2021 at 43,360.
Baja California Sur continues to lead the country for active cases on a per capita basis with over 900 per 100,000 people.
Mexico City ranks second with just under 600 cases per 100,000 people followed by San Luis Potosí, Quintana Roo and Zacatecas, each of which has more than 300.
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients and deaths have not risen as quickly as case numbers since omicron’s arrival, but general care COVID wards are nevertheless full at 115 public hospitals, federal data shows.
Twenty-three of the hospitals with 100% capacity are in Mexico City. Among them are the Central Military Hospital, the Villa Coapa IMSS hospital, the La Raza IMSS hospital and the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Beds with ventilators are fully occupied at 17 hospitals across Mexico including the Tulancingo General Hospital in Hidalgo; the Regional General Hospital in Culiacán, Sinaloa; the ISSSTE Clinical Hospital in Mérida, Yucatán; and the Delicias Regional Hospital in Chihuahua.
There are just over 4,000 COVID patients in public hospitals. At the state level, Baja California Sur has the highest occupancy rate with 69% of general care COVID beds currently occupied. Four other states have rates above 50%: Chihuahua, 67%; Zacatecas, 65%; Aguascalientes, 55%; and Durango, 52%.
With case numbers surging – more than 234,000 or over 19,500 per day were reported in the first 12 days of January – more than half of Mexico’s 32 states have introduced or announced new measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus, although none has directed citizens to stay at home.
• People wishing to enter establishments such as bars and nightclubs in Jalisco will have to present their vaccination certificate or a negative COVID-19 test result starting Friday.
Tightly packed crowds wait for appointments, paperwork, medical attention, and information about family outside the La Raza IMSS public hospital in Mexico City.
Jalisco authorities also postponed the return to in-person classes after the Christmas-New Year break. Primary and middle school students will return to school next Monday. High school students will return on January 31.
• Since the first week of January, residents of Tlaxcala have had to present proof of vaccination or a negative test result to enter establishments such as shopping centers, supermarkets, department stores, cafes, restaurants and hotels.
The state government ordered bars and nightclubs to close and reduced the maximum permitted capacity levels at a range of commercial establishments and public places.
• Authorities in Tamaulipas have placed a temporary suspension on large events such as weddings and 15th birthday parties. They also reduced capacity levels at establishments including gyms and hotels.
• Authorities in San Luis Potosí have ramped up COVID-19 testing in numerous municipalities. Among those where people can access free rapid testing are Matehuala, Villas de Pozos, Rioverde, Ciudad Valles and Tamazunchale.
• The Nuevo León government reduced the maximum permitted capacity in enclosed commercial establishments to 50%. In open air spaces capacity is capped at 70% of normal levels.
• The Baja California government made presenting a vaccination certificate a prerequisite to entering some commercial establishments but later relaxed the rule, saying that it was only a recommendation that businesses could choose to follow or not.
• In-person classes in Baja California Sur have been suspended and no resumption date has been set. Authorities have also reduced maximum permitted capacity levels at beaches and restaurants.
• Authorities in Aguascalientes reduced capacity levels to 50% in bars and restaurants and ordered them to close by 11:00 p.m.
• People in Ecatepec, México state, who are caught not wearing a face mask in a public place will have to undertake five hours of community service work or complete two to eight hours of jail time.
The municipal government announced the mandatory face mask rule on Wednesday. Mayor Fernando Vilchis Contreras said that the rule was designed to save lives and protect the economy.
• Other states where authorities have announced new measures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus include Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Nayarit, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa and Zacatecas. Schools in several of those states, and some others, didn’t reopen on January 3, despite the federal Ministry of Public Education urging students and teachers across the country to return to the classroom.
• Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this month ruled out the possibility of ordering businesses and schools to close despite the increase in COVID cases.
“… The strategy can no longer be to shut down economic activities … or close schools,” she said January 4. “The strategy has to be to get vaccinated and help each other to look after ourselves.”
CNTE union members took control of vaccination site entrances and allowed their people through first.
Members of the dissident CNTE teachers union seized control of two COVID-19 vaccination centers in Oaxaca city on Wednesday and proceeded to pass their associates to the front of the line.
Union representatives were able to take control of the vaccination centers set up at the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca and the Technical Institute of Oaxaca because they outnumbered federal employees known as servants of the nation, according to a report by the newspaper Reforma.
CNTE members stationed at the entrances ushered their associates into the vaccination centers ahead of members of the rival SNTE union. The SNTE members protested but were unable to put an end to the preferential treatment. Some had to wait more than four hours to get a jab.
According to local sources cited by Reforma, the CNTE union asked its members to arrive at the vaccination centers at specific times so that they could be escorted in as groups to receive their booster shots.
The federal campaign to administer booster shots to teachers, most of whom were inoculated with the single-shot CanSino last April and May, began Wednesday and will conclude Friday. Almost 2.7 million Moderna shots will be given to teachers and other school employees, Education Minister Delfina Gómez said.
Nineteen vaccination centers were slated to be set up in Oaxaca but only four offered shots to teachers on Wednesday, Reforma said. In addition to the two Oaxaca city centers, shots were administered at facilities in Tuxtepec, the state’s second largest city, and Juchitán, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec hub.
A campaign to administer booster shots to people aged 60 began in December but has not yet concluded. Mexico is currently facing a large omicron-fueled fourth wave of coronavirus infections, with more than 222,000 active cases across the country, according to the latest Health Ministry estimate.
Walker's flag. The two stars represented the Republics of Sonora and the Republic of Lower California.
This month marks the anniversary of William Walker’s ill-fated 19th-century attempt to establish his own country in the northwest of Mexico.
Walker, a United States physician, lawyer and journalist, was also what was then called a “filibuster” — someone looking to conquer lands in the Americas in the years between the Mexican-American War and the Civil War in the United States. At one point, he briefly controlled parts of Sonora and Baja California.
Since many of his ilk were from the U.S. south, it is common to attribute their motives to establishing new slave states. Far more important was the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.
By the time I went to school in the 1970s, this doctrine was explained as being about the United States’ destiny to extend its territory to the Pacific Ocean. But in the mid-19th century, that “destiny” included all of the Americas. There was also an economic incentive to the filibusters’ actions: latecomers to the California Gold Rush who found themselves broke were ripe for adventurism.
Mexico received warnings of filibuster activity from the U.S. government as early as 1851 since it was in violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act. Various filibusters made their way to Mexico, but William Walker was the most “successful.”
William Walker.
Highly intelligent, educated and internationally traveled, he made his way to San Francisco from New Orleans in his early 20s. With the Gold Rush over and dreaming of empire, Walker’s target was Sonora and its mineral deposits.
His first attempt to get a foothold in the area started with a trip to the Sonoran port of Guaymas in early 1852, asking the Mexican government to form a mining settlement. That request was denied.
Walker returned to San Francisco to start his quest in earnest, raising money by selling certificates that would later be redeemable for land in Sonora. He bought arms, other supplies and a ship called TheArrow. However, the U.S. army intervened and confiscated the ship and most of its supplies.
Unwilling to give up, he and 45 men booked passage on another ship, leaving San Francisco in October of 1853. They made it to Guaymas, but Mexican officials there became wary and turned them away.
When the ship stopped for supplies in La Paz, Baja California, Walker and his men decided to take over what was the capital of the peninsula. They caught the territory during a change of power and proclaimed the Republic of Lower California, with Walker as president.
Word of Walker’s takeover of Baja made it to the U.S., where it was very popular. It brought men, but precious little in the way of provisions. Communications with his base in San Francisco were spotty at best, and the organization there disintegrated.
A drawing illustrating Walker’s execution in Honduras in 1860.
But by January of 1854, Walker found himself with about 300 men and supplies taken from local ranches (with IOUs, of course).
He had never forgotten the original plan to invade Sonora, and Baja California had little to offer Walker. So on January 10, 1854, he declared that Baja California was part of the new Republic of Sonora.
He had not stepped foot on the mainland, but he decided to remedy that.
It is not known why Walker decided to march to Sonora instead of commandeering boats to cross the Gulf of California. But march they did, taking a ranch near Todos Santos and renaming it Fort McKibben.
Walker still hoped for shiploads of supplies, but they never came. The filibusters continued northward, sacking anything of value in that impoverished area, which further turned the local populace against them.
Authorities in Mazatlán and Mexico City were aware of the situation but were slow to respond. A contingent of 250 Mexican soldiers did not arrive in La Paz until December 12, 1853, sent by authorities in Sinaloa.
The poster for a film about Walker’s life made in 1987, with Ed Harris playing the notorious filibuster.
Walker made it to Ensenada, then turned east to Sonora. However, he was unable to cross the Colorado River delta. Meanwhile, Mexican soldiers were in pursuit.
Problems of hunger, thirst and battles prompted desertions until by early May of 1854, Walker had fewer than 35 men. He tried to retreat to San Vicente, but the Mexican garrison had captured it, so the ragtag bunch of adventurers had to hightail it to the border. It was far better to turn themselves over to U.S. military authorities than to surrender to the Mexican army.
On May 8, they finally crossed the border, where U.S. soldiers were waiting for them along with a bunch of curious onlookers.
Walker’s invasion and “republics” lasted only eight months, but they took a toll on Mexico-U.S. relations and the political and economic situation on the Baja borderlands. Although the United States government never sanctioned Walker’s activities and even warned Mexico about them, the incursions started when the U.S. was negotiating the Gadsden Purchase. The Mexican government was worried about the Americans’ intentions toward the Baja Peninsula in general.
The Baja California border area was sparsely populated to begin with, but over a third of that population left for safety reasons during and after the invasion. It forced the Mexican government to militarize the area.
After surrendering to the U.S. military, Walker was taken to San Francisco to stand trial for violating the Neutrality Act. However, because of the popularity of what he did, the jury acquitted him in just eight minutes.
A free man again, he would then try his luck in Nicaragua, becoming “president” of that country for 10 months before being kicked out. His last filibuster was in Honduras in 1860, but the British did not take kindly to such activity in their backyard and so captured him and turned him over to Honduran authorities. He was executed that year at the age of 36.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
The president takes his temperature while suffering from covidcito.
President López Obrador asserted this week that the omicron variant of the coronavirus only causes mild disease in vaccinated people and described the highly contagious strain as “un covidcito” or “a little COVID.”
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus czar, compared the new strain to the common cold.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) and its affiliate, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), take a considerably different view.
“While omicron causes less severe disease than delta, it remains a dangerous virus, particularly for those who are unvaccinated,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing on Wednesday.
“Almost 50,000 deaths a week is 50,000 deaths too many,” he said, referring to global fatalities.
The deputy health minister likened the effects of omicron to a common cold.
“Learning to live with this virus does not mean we can, or should, accept this number of deaths. We must not allow this virus a free ride or wave the white flag, especially when so many people around the world remain unvaccinated.”
Sylvain Aldighieri, a COVID-19 incident manager for PAHO, rejected the idea that omicron is comparable to a common cold, especially when a lot of people are not fully vaccinated and others live with health conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID-19 complications.
“An omicron infection can become serious or very serious and therefore we shouldn’t relax at this time. .. We must maintain all the control and distancing measures,” he said.
According to a Mexican Health Ministry analysis, Aldighieri noted, Mexico’s fourth omicron-fueled wave of infections is predicted to be larger than the third delta-fueled one.
“… In Mexico we’re seeing a curve of exponential growth in cases,” the PAHO official said, noting that a new daily record of more than 33,000 cases – almost certainly a vast undercount due to a low testing rate – was set Tuesday.
Via its stoplight system, the federal government this week raised the coronavirus risk level in several states, but none is at the red-light maximum risk level and there is little or no appetite for heavy-handed restrictions at both the federal and state level.
Authorities appear resigned to omicron spreading unabated in the coming weeks, and apparently expect – or at least hope – that the country’s relatively high vaccination rate will prevent the health system from being overwhelmed and stop COVID deaths from spiraling.
Mexico’s official death toll is already above 300,000 – the fifth highest total in the world – and continues to climb, albeit at a significantly slower rate than that seen earlier in the pandemic. But hospitalizations and fatalities typically increase weeks after surges in case numbers, meaning that the second half of January and February will likely reveal whether the optimism of federal officials such as the president is misguided or not.
López Obrador, currently isolating after testing positive for COVID for a second time on Monday, downplayed the threat of the coronavirus at the start of the pandemic and is now minimizing the danger posed by omicron, even as Mexico continues to record hundreds of pandemic deaths per day.
“… Let’s not be scared. Fortunately, this is a variant that doesn’t have the level of danger of the delta variant,” he said during an appearance via video link at his regular news conference on Tuesday.
“… Fortunately, I believe that we [people infected with omicron] won’t need to be admitted to hospital nor are we going to suffer the loss of human lives. This [variant] is different, this virus is on its way out… and things will normalize very soon. We have to keep doing our activities, taking care of ourselves, of course, but let’s not be alarmed.”
More security forces will be stationed in the Guerrero destination.
Security forces are to be reinforced in Acapulco, Guerrero, amid a wave of violence in the tourist destination.
More than 600 additional military personnel will be stationed in the beach city to combat the high incidence of homicides, kidnappings and extortion.
Three-hundred-and-twenty of the new personnel are National Guardsmen and 290 are soldiers. Increased security presence is also expected in the cities of Iguala and Chilpancingo.
Small business owners in Acapulco have been afflicted by the violence in recent months. Since October, 2021 eight transport workers were killed in the city, and three service workers were murdered on the beach. On Sunday, the owner of a chain of 14 pharmacies was found dead on a highway in a likely extortion case.
A security plan called Refuerzo 2021 (Reinforcement 2021) was announced on November 8. The plan coordinates federal, state and municipal security forces to enable more patrols and establish road checkpoints in high-crime areas, but business owners and the head of the Acapulco federation of chambers of commerce have labeled it ineffective.
The head of the ninth military regiment of Guerrero, General Celestino Ávila, said Acapulco was one of 50 municipalities considered a priority for the government due to its high homicide rate.
From January through November, there were 1,260 homicides in Guerrero, of which 418 occurred in Acapulco, according to data from the National Public Security System (SENSP).
Passengers aboard the Seven Seas Mariner in the port of Acapulco.
On Tuesday, Acapulco saw its first cruise ship arrival since the pandemic began.
The Seven Seas Mariner sailed more than 1,000 kilometers from Puerto Quetzal on the Pacific coast of Guatemala to the Guerrero tourist city, making it the first cruise ship to dock there in almost two years. The vessel was carrying 460 passengers and 445 crew.
They were welcomed to the city with regional music and dances while authorities handed out leaflets to instruct them that face masks were obligatory during their visit.
The mayor, Abelina López Rodríguez, said the value of cruise ship tourism had been missed during the pandemic. “Today is a promise fulfilled … this is the path that Acapulco has to continue down because it is the way we will be able to reactivate the economy,” she said.
López added she hoped that 90 transatlantic ships would dock in Acapulco in 2021.
Guerrero Tourism Minister Santos Ramírez Cuevas celebrated the boat’s arrival on Twitter and promised there would be more cruise ships coming to the port city in 2022, although he predicted a more modest number.
“After almost two years since seeing the last cruise … we are receiving the first cruise in the month of January, and 14 will arrive during the year,” he said.
An image from footage of an alleged Jalisco New Generation Cartel drone bombing of civilians Monday.
A video that shows explosives being dropped on a civilian encampment in a forest in Michoacán has been posted to social media, one of multiple attacks on civilians in the Tierra Caliente municipality of Tepalcatepec on Monday.
The footage was filmed by a drone from which the explosives were believed dropped by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), who were allegedly operating the unmanned aerial vehicle.
The attack was carried out against an encampment of displaced people from the violence-plagued community of El Bejuco, said the newspaper El Universal.
The footage shows people running for their lives after the first explosion. Three more explosives are dropped from the drone, sparking fires in the forest. At least one person was injured, the newspaper said.
About halfway through the video, the pictures begin spinning wildly – a blurry, vertigo-inducing phenomenon that continues until the footage concludes. The cause: the drone was brought down by the camp dwellers and local authorities, El Universal said.
Difunden video de bombardeo desde drones en Tepalcatepec
They were able to seize the drone’s footage, which later made its way to social media.
The CJNG is accused of perpetrating other attacks in Tepalcatepec on Monday, including one in El Bejuco. Another video posted to social media shows two heavily armed residents – members of a local self-defense group, according to the newspaper El País – hiding behind trees as a CJNG commando fires in their direction. Apparently knowing that they were outgunned, the residents fled.
The ensuing footage, which shows the two men making their escape through a forest, was described by El País as an “adrenaline rush” with “distorted and rapid images of branches and dry leaves” accompanied by a soundtrack of “omnipresent” gunfire.
Tepalcatepec is one of several municipalities in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán where the CJNG is engaged in a turf war with rival group Cárteles Unidos.
According to InSight Crime – a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime – Cárteles Unidos is a criminal organization born out of an alliance between the Cartel de Tepalcatepec, Los Viagras and other groups intent on combating the advances made by the CJNG in Michoacán.
Tepalcatepec Mayor Martha Laura Mendoza last week appealed to federal and state authorities for help to combat insecurity.
Tepalcatepec residents who fled cartel violence in September and had to take shelter in a local open-air sports facility. file photo
“… We’ve now had four months of insecurity, [but] nobody turns around to see [what’s happening]. … This is the only municipality where there are more than 3,000 displaced people,” she said. “Four months and … nobody provides a solution.”
The CJNG has carried out numerous recent attacks in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán, including other offensives in which they have used drones equipped with explosives.
Authorities have been accused of doing little to combat the high levels of violence in the region, and residents protested last September to demand military intervention to combat organized crime.
In terms of total homicides, Michoacán was the third most violent state in the first 11 months of last year with more than 2,200 victims. The only states with more murders were Guanajuato and Baja California. The CJNG, generally considered Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization, also operates in those states as well as many others across the country.
