In Mexico City, more than 1,000 schools welcomed students back on Monday, but 12 other states have decided against reopening until the next school year.
Twelve states have decided not to reopen schools until the 2021–2022 school year due to the ongoing coronavirus risk, federal Education Minister Delfina Gómez said Tuesday.
Schools across Mexico closed in March last year due to the pandemic but are now open in 15 states, Gómez told reporters at President López Obrador’s morning news conference.
However, the education minister said that authorities in Baja California Sur, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, Sonora, Tabasco, Tlaxcala and Yucatán have decided not to reopen schools until the new school year begins in August.
Schools in those states will continue to offer online learning during the remainder of the current academic year, which officially concludes on July 9.
According to federal government guidelines, schools can reopen once a state reaches the green light level on the stoplight map.
As of Monday, there are 19 green states in Mexico, a figure that includes seven states — Guerrero, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro and Tlaxcala — that have decided not to reopen schools this academic year.
Although those green-light states won’t reopen schools for at least another two months, Gómez highlighted that more than 24,000 schools in 730 municipalities across Mexico are already open.
Among them are more than 1,000 schools in Mexico City that welcomed back students on Monday, the day the capital switched to green on the stoplight map.
All of Mexico’s teachers have been given the opportunity to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Alfonso Cepeda, head of the SNTE teachers union, said teachers will ensure that virus prevention measures are followed in schools and called for more of them to reopen.
“The time has come to gradually return to classes. The time has come to return to our schools to resume together the path of education, learning, harmonious coexistence and enhancement of our nation,” Cepeda said in a video message.
“… [But] we can’t drop our guard,” he also said. “The teachers will not only look after their health but will be attentive to the health of the students. We’re returning [to school] safely, voluntarily, with a green stoplight, with teachers vaccinated. Together we have to build … a V for victory in the education of Mexico.”
“The vaccination of teachers will provide tranquility to teaching staff, mothers and fathers and students. We’ll be the first to ensure that the [health] protocols are met,” he said.
Mexico's Ministry of Finance, or SHCP, may include the tax in next year's budget.
Mexico has come out in support of the Group of Seven’s (G7) plan for a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15%.
It will join other G20 members next month in Venice to discuss a broader accord.
The historic agreement was made on the weekend to squeeze more money out of multinational companies by reducing the prevalence of offshore tax havens.
Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio said the administration would look to include the framework in the 2022 September budget if the deal holds.
“We’re going to see if we can have an early definition of how this tax would work operationally … if we have time, we would include it in the 2022 budget plan,” he said.
“We are pleased with the initiative because it facilitates a global agreement and avoids competition to lower rates,” he added.
The Group of Seven is an informal club of wealthy democracies consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The G20 incorporates 20 of the world’s most powerful economies, including the G7 countries, Russia, China and Mexico.
Morena politician Indira Vizcaíno will be Colima's first non-Institutional Revolutionary Party governor in 72 years and the state's second female governor.
More than 70 years of uninterrupted Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) power in the small Pacific coast state of Colima will come to an end later this year after a Morena party candidate triumphed at Sunday’s election for governor.
The PRI, which ruled Mexico for much of the 20th century in what Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa described as a “perfect dictatorship,” has been in office in Colima since 1949.
But its candidate for governor, Mely Romero Celis, who ran on a ticket supported by the National Action Party and the Democratic Revolution Party, was defeated in Sunday’s election by Morena-New Alliance aspirant Indira Vizcaíno Silva, who attracted about 33% of the vote, according to preliminary results.
Vizcaíno, a lawyer, former federal government delegate and ex-federal deputy, will take office on November 1, becoming Colima’s second female governor after Griselda Álvarez, who governed between 1979 and 1985 as Mexico’s first female governor.
So what went wrong for the PRI after 72 years in power? Its failure to contain violence.
Colima is Mexico’s fourth smallest state.
Colima has been one of the most violent states in Mexico in recent years, regularly ranking first among the 32 states for its per capita homicide rate. The state is home to Mexico’s most important port, Manzanillo, which attracts cartels that use the facility to import narcotics and other illicit goods, including precursor chemicals from Asia that are used to manufacture synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine.
The high homicide rate in Colima is largely attributed to the presence of cartels, who fight each other for control of a small but lucrative state that is wedged between two other notoriously violent states, Michoacán and Jalisco. The PRI state government’s inability, or unwillingness, to crush the cartels and consequently reduce the high levels of violence was likely a key reason for many voters’ rejection of the party in Sunday’s election.
Two high-profile cases last year serve as compelling evidence of just how bad things have become in Colima, once considered one of Mexico’s safest holiday destinations.
In early June 2020, the body of Francis Anel Bueno Sánchez, a 38-year-old Morena party legislator, was found days after she was abducted, while about two weeks later, a judge and his wife were murdered in front of their children in their Colima city home. Uriel Villegas Ortiz handled drug trafficking and other organized crime cases, delivering judgments in several cases involving senior Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel leaders.
That voters would be fed up with the rampant violence in their state and dissatisfied with the PRI for failing to combat it is not surprising.
But whether Morena — which as Mexico’s ruling party since 2018 has been unable to reduce the nation’s sky-high homicide numbers — can bring the change to Colima that voters are looking for remains to be seen.
A National Guardsman in front of the stolen bus Monday in Tlaxcala.
Human traffickers chose a bright purple bus to steal near Mexico City in order to transport migrants toward the U.S. border but they didn’t get far.
The bus was stopped on a highway in Calpulalpan, Tlaxcala, on Monday by the National Guard after they identified it from a stolen vehicle report.
At least 57 migrants, 16 of whom were minors, from Haiti, Chile, Brazil and Honduras were found on the bus, traveling in the direction of Hidalgo toward Monterrey, Nuevo León.
Passengers told officers that they had paid for the trip to Monterrey and planned to travel to the U.S. border from there.
The migrants were taken to the offices of the National Guard in Calpulalpan and then transferred to the Tlaxcala immigration office. Unaccompanied minors were handed over to child welfare authorities and the driver was detained.
Migration is the central topic of today’s meeting between President López Obrador and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
So far this year, Mexican authorities have detained 90,850 migrants, mainly from Central America, and deported 42,000 of them. About half of the total were from Honduras, followed by Guatemala and El Salvador. Twenty percent of all the migrants detained were under 18.
Voting in the troubled municipality of Aguililla progressed without incident Sunday, although that was not the case in other parts of Michoacán.
Organized crime groups directly intervened in the elections in several municipalities in Michoacán in favor of Mexico’s ruling Morena party, according to opposition party leaders.
Citizens and local officials with the National Electoral Institute (INE) also reported that armed individuals turned up at some Michoacán polling stations and forced election officials and citizens to cast votes in favor of the Morena-Labor Party (PT) alliance.
Many incidents occurred in the notoriously violent and lawless Tierra Caliente region, but there were also reports of criminal interference in elections in central Michoacán, in municipalities such as Salvador Escalante and Tacámbaro, and in the state’s east.
“The link between the official party [Morena] and organized crime on election day in Michoacán is clear and alarming to us,” said Víctor Manuel Manríquez González, a leader of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), which allied itself with the National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to contest elections in Michoacán and other states.
“It’s even more serious that the president, in his morning press conference today [Monday], acknowledged and thanked organized crime for behaving well on election day,” he told a press conference in Morelia at which other PAN-PRI-PRD leaders also denounced criminal interference.
“There is evidence of threats toward voters by the powers that be,” Manríquez said.
In Múgica, a Tierra Caliente municipality, PAN-PRI-PRD representatives were forced by criminal suspects to abandon a polling station, he said.
In Turicato, another Tierra Caliente municipality, “an armed group threatened and intimidated polling station representatives,” the PRD official said. “… Armed people were [subsequently] identified filling out ballots in favor of Morena,” he added.
“… In Apatzingán, people arrived at two polling stations and stole ballot boxes,” Manríquez said.
In La Huacana, PAN-PRI-PRD representatives were threatened, he said.
According to security reports cited by the newspaper El Universal, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) forced citizens in La Huacana to vote in favor of Morena. The CJNG also clashed with the Cárteles Unidos in the hours before polling stations opened and cut off one of the entry points to the troubled municipality of Aguililla, El Universal said.
Police reports also said that armed men forced voters to cast ballots in favor of Morena and PT candidates in Gabriel Zamora, which borders La Huacana to the north.
“In San Lucas, armed men stole two ballot boxes, and there were gunshots right there. In Tacámbaro, … [there were] armed people threatening citizens and in Cojumatlán, … ballot boxes were stolen,” Manríquez said.
The PRD official also said that there was criminal interference in elections in Juárez, a municipality in eastern Michoacán, and in the Tierra Caliente municipalities of Tumbiscatío and Buenavista.
A polling station chief in Santa Clara del Cobre, the municipal seat of Salvador Escalante, was detained by a criminal group and forced to fill out ballots in favor of Morena, El Universal reported.
Francisco Javier Rincón García, an INE official in Michoacán, confirmed that there were incidents in which armed individuals coerced voters and election officials.
Teresita Herrera Maldonado, leader of the PAN in Michoacán, claimed Monday that there were more invalid votes than the number of votes that separated apparently triumphant Morena gubernatorial candidate Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla from PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Carlos Herrera Tello.
“The number of invalid votes at this time is above 55,000 while the difference between the candidates is 40,000. Other things that need to be investigated are the number of polling stations that opened late and the absence of a high percentage of polling station officials,” she said.
The hole has been an attraction since it first appeared. This photo was taken last week before it began encroaching on the nearby house.
A sinkhole that appeared in a Puebla field late last month has continued to expand, eating its way into the perimeter wall of a house and forcing authorities to widen a security perimeter around it.
The big hole in Santa María Zacatepec, about 20 kilometers northwest of Puebla city, had grown another 13 meters as of Monday, measuring 110 meters across at its widest point. Its total area is 11,000 square meters.
The nine-meter-deep sinkhole has already destroyed a bedroom and part of a wall of a house that sits on the edge.
Among the possible causes are a geological fault or variations in the soil’s water content, according to scientists and authorities. Some locals believe that it’s related to the overexploitation of groundwater reserves.
One architect has speculated there could be an underground river at the base of the sinkhole after evaluating photos taken by a drone.
Socavón de Puebla crece de tamaño y sufre deslaves al interior: Segob
Interior Minister Ana Lucía Hill Mayoral said that over the weekend authorities carried out geophysical, hydrological and chemical studies to ascertain the cause, and that conclusions will be drawn in the coming days.
Magdalena Xalamihua, who lived with her husband and two children in the endangered home, said that they noticed a sulfur smell three days before the sinkhole appeared.
Nicasio Torres, 62, who has lived in Zacatepec all his life, echoed the fears of his neighbors. “We worry that it will continue to get bigger,” he said after arriving at the sinkhole on a bicycle. “What is going to happen to us? Are they going to evacuate us? We don’t have anywhere to go,” he added.
The sinkhole measured only 10 meters across when it appeared May 29.
It has become an attraction for Puebla residents and local police have taken action to prevent traffic on ground that has already proven itself to be fragile.
Five of the six people killed were members of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), according to Ángel Ávila, who represents the PRD at the National Electoral Institute (INE).
According to a report by the newspaper Reforma, five PRD members and another person who was driving the car in which they were traveling were shot dead in an ambush staged by armed men in another vehicle. The murders occurred in Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacán, located in a mountainous region of Chiapas near the border with Tabasco.
Among the slain PRD members were four members of the same family: Bernardino Sánchez López, his son, his daughter and his son-in-law.
The attack occurred as Sánchez was being taken to hospital. The family, who was transporting electoral material for use at a polling booth in Pueblo Nuevo, had been targeted in an earlier ambush on Saturday in which Sánchez was wounded. He was to have worked at a polling station on Sunday.
Forensic experts examine a polling station in Tijuana into which a man threw a human head Sunday before fleeing.
The murders are believed to be related to a dispute with the Social Encounter Party.
The 2020–2021 electoral period was marred by violence that spilled over into election day itself. Here’s a brief summary of some of the other incidents of election-related violence that occurred in recent days.
A candidate for mayor in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, was targeted in an attack by two men on motorcycles early on Saturday morning. A vehicle in which Fuerza por México candidate Rubero Suárez was traveling was hit by at least four bullets and veered off the road before hitting a tree. Suárez was uninjured but two of his team members were wounded, requiring hospital treatment, according to the newspaper El Financiero.
An INE official was shot dead in El Carmen Tequexquitla, Tlaxcala, on Friday night while traveling in a vehicle emblazoned with the INE initials. Armed men traveling on motorcycles reportedly carried out the attack and attempted to steal electoral material such as ballots. Other INE personnel traveling in the vehicle were not harmed in the incident, which occurred on the Mexico City-Veracruz highway.
New Alliance party candidate for mayor in Miahuátlan de Porfirio Díaz, Oaxaca, César Figueroa Jiménez, was also attacked by armed men on motorcycles while traveling on Saturday. Police traveling with the candidate returned fire, and the three aggressors were arrested, according to Oaxaca Security Minister Heliodoro Díaz Escárraga. No injuries were reported.
In Tijuana, Baja California, authorities reported that a man threw a decapitated human head into a polling station on Sunday. The man then fled, and authorities didn’t reveal whether he was later taken into custody. Plastic bags filled with human remains, including severed hands, were also found in the area.
In Naucalpan, México state — where a group of former military personnel was running on a joint ticket — someone threw a smoke bomb into a polling station Sunday. One person told the news agency Reuters that crowds of voters dispersed but soon returned to cast their ballots. “People said that they would vote and that they would not be intimidated,” the voter said. “It was ugly.”
Erick Ulises Ramírez, a Citizens Movement party candidate in Guerrero who survived an attempt on his life last month, said that two of his allies were abducted and beaten before being released on election day.
The Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office reported that armed men stole voting materials from polling stations in the northern state.
A group of troublemakers attacked voters and tried to steal election materials in Metepec, México state. The National Guard and state police intervened and arrested at least 15 people.
The violence in the final days leading up to the election added to almost 800 acts of election-related aggression that were recorded between last September, when the campaign period began, and the end of May. Among the incidents were the murders of at least 35 candidates and more than 50 other politicians, according to Etellekt, a risk analysis firm that tracks political violence. The majority of the attacks targeted municipal-level candidates and politicians.
Despite the rampant violence leading up to them, Sunday’s elections — the largest in Mexico’s history — ran smoothly, according to the INE, and were peaceful, with the exception of isolated incidents. The INE reported that it installed more than 99% of the polling booths it planned to set up, but violence did prevent people from voting in small pockets of some states, including Puebla, Michoacán and Oaxaca.
While classic lemonade is great, there are so many other possibilities out there.
One of my favorite memories is about helping my kids set up a lemonade stand at the entrance to the beach down the street where we lived in California. This particular beach was a favorite for runners, with a long, flat stretch of sand and a steep set of stairs for an added workout.
For a restaurant to succeed, they say “location, location, location” is one of the most important factors. In this case, we were right on point. On Saturday mornings, droves of weekend warriors would run (or stagger) up the 100-and-something stairs at the end of their beach run and encounter a trio of cute tow-headed kids selling fresh-squeezed lemonade from a little red wagon. It was win-win for everyone.
Fast forward to my life now, living in a tropical climate, and lemonade — or more often limeade — is a regular part of my diet. I almost always have a pitcher of it in the fridge, sometimes made into a “citrus-ade,” with orange, grapefruit and lime juices mixed together with a little sugar. (We grown-ups also add other things to our lemonade, things like fruit and fruit syrups, fresh herbs, chia seeds and of course, alcohol, to create (ahem) special “adult beverages.”)
The truth is, though, that fresh citrus drinks are almost a necessity for hydration during the hot summer months; we’re sweating and losing nutrients constantly, even when we don’t know it.
With limes and lime juice so prevalent in Mexican cuisine, it should come as no surprise that Mexico has been the world’s biggest lime producer for decades. Those cute little limes, so ubiquitous in the markets, are most commonly the sweet, smooth-skinned Mexican or Key limes, and sometimes Persian limes — more tart and a little bigger with a slightly bumpier skin. Use whichever ones you have on hand, or limones amarillos (yellow lemons), to make any of the lemonades listed below.
Grill lemons with sugar and you’ll get a lovely caramelized sweetness to your lemonade
Ultimate Best Limeade
Macerating the rinds releases their natural oil, creating a more aromatic drink. Be sure to use nonreactive (i.e., not metal) utensils and containers so as not to influence the lime’s flavor.
3 lbs. (1.3kg) limes (12-16)
2 cups sugar
3 cups cold water
Bring limes to room temperature, then roll firmly on the counter to soften. Halve and juice; set juice aside.
Cut rinds into 1-inch chunks. Toss with sugar in a large nonreactive mixing bowl, cover tightly with plastic, and let stand at room temperature, stirring once every 45 minutes or so, until sugar has completely dissolved, about 3 hours.
Add water and ¾ cup of reserved lime juice to rinds. Stir well.
Strain through a plastic fine-mesh strainer or piece of cheesecloth into glass pitcher or jar. (This concentrated limeade can be refrigerated for up to 1 week.)
When ready to serve, pour limeade over ice and adjust to taste with additional water or lime juice, depending on personal preference.
Basic Lemonade / Limeade
1 cup fresh juice (10-12 lemons/12-16 limes)
½ cup sugar
Pinch salt
3 cups cold water
Ice
Combine juice and sugar. Whisk until sugar dissolves, add salt and water.
Pour into pitcher with ice.
Vodka Lemonade
1 cup fresh lemon/lime juice
1 cup sugar
4 cups ice water
12 oz. vodka (1.5 oz. per drink)
For serving: lemon/lime slices, crushed ice
In a large pitcher, add sugar and water to lemon/lime juice. Whisk well to dissolve sugar completely. Add ice to highball glass, then vodka. Pour in lemonade, stir well. Garnish with fresh lemon/lime slice.
Brazilian Lemonade
½ cup fresh lemon/lime juice
¾ cup sweetened condensed milk
Pinch salt
3 cups cold water
1 quart ice
Combine citrus juice, condensed milk, salt and water in a blender. Process until thoroughly mixed and frothy, about 30 seconds. Transfer to pitcher, add ice. Serve immediately.
Honey-Basil Lemonade
1 cup fresh citrus juice (10-12 lemons/12-16 limes)
½ cup honey
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
Pinch salt
3 cups cold water
1 quart ice
Combine juice, honey, basil and salt in a blender. Process on high until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a pitcher. Discard solids. Whisk in the cold water, add ice. Garnish glasses with basil leaves.
Fizzy Ginger Lemonade
Tastes like ginger ale, only better!
2-inch knob ginger, peeled, cut into small chunks
1 cup fresh lime/lemon juice
½ cup sugar
Pinch salt
1 cup cold water
2 cups (1 pint) club soda
1 quart ice
Combine ginger, juice, sugar, salt and water in a blender. Process on high speed for 1 minute. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher. Stir in club soda and ice. Serve immediately in ice-filled glasses.
Got too much watermelon? Cut up some chunks, and with a lemon or lime juice base — voilà, lemonade perfection.
Watermelon Mint Lemonade
2 quarts 1-inch seedless watermelon chunks
1 cup fresh lemon/lime juice
½ cup sugar
Pinch salt
Cold water as needed
1 small bunch fresh mint
1 quart ice
In a blender, process watermelon, juice, sugar and salt on high speed until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into 1-quart liquid measuring cup. Add cold water to equal 1 quart.
Place mint in the bottom of a pitcher and muddle lightly with a wooden spoon. Stir in watermelon mixture. Add ice. Serve immediately in ice-filled glasses garnished with mint sprigs.
Grilled Lemonade
Read the instructions all the way through before beginning.
16 lemons or 24 limes, halved
1 cup sugar, plus more as needed
5 cups water, divided
½ cup honey
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
Ice
Preheat grill for 5 minutes; clean and oil grilling grate. Pour sugar onto small baking tray or 8×8 inch pan, then dip each of the lemons or limes, cut side down, into sugar. Cook citrus on grill, cut side down, until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove and set aside.
In the same pan of sugar, add 2 cups of the water, honey and rosemary. Place pan on hot grill and whisk or stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from grill. Discard rosemary.
Squeeze grilled citrus into a large bowl. Pour in the honey and sugar syrup and three additional cups of cold water. Stir to combine. Add additional water or sugar to taste. Transfer to pitcher, add ice and serve.
The new political map of Mexico City. Xochimilco remains a close call. milenio
Voters in Mexico City – a stronghold of Mexico’s ruling Morena party in recent years – have rejected the leftist party founded by President López Obrador in a majority of the capital’s 16 boroughs.
Morena currently governs 11 of the capital’s alcaldías (boroughs or municipalities) as well as Mexico City as a whole but only managed to win seven at elections on Sunday, according to preliminary results.
Eight of the other nine went to a coalition made up of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), while one went to PAN on its own.
Morena held on to the northern borough of Gustavo A. Madero, the eastern alcaldía of Iztacalco, sprawling, densely populated Iztapalapa in the southeast and Tláhuac, the southeastern municipality where a tragic subway accident occurred last month.
It also appeared to win reelection in a close race in Xochimilco, a borough well known for its canals and the colorful boats that take tourists for rides along them.
The Mexico City map as it appeared following the 2018 election. milenio
In addition, Morena triumphed in Venustiano Carranza, where the Mexico City airport is located ,and in Milpa Alta, a largely rural southern municipality. In both cases, it seized control from its political opponents.
The four boroughs Morena lost all went to the the PAN-PRI-PRD alliance. They are Álvaro Obregón, Azcapotzalco, Cuauhtémoc – which includes Mexico City’s historic center – and Magdalena Contreras.
The three-party alliance also won Miguel Hidalgo – home to affluent neighborhoods such as Polanco and Lomas de Chapultepec, Tlalpan, Coyoacán and Cuajimalpa, which borders México state. The PAN retained Benito Juárez, a mainly middle class borough, on its own.
President López Obrador acknowledged Morena’s poor showing in Mexico City at his regular news conference on Monday morning, attributing it to several factors but blaming it largely on the media.
“… We have to take into account that here [in Mexico City] there is more media bombardment; here is where the dirty war is felt more, here is where you can read that magazine from the United Kingdom, The Economist,” he said.
“Everything is here [in Mexico City]. I’ve always said you put the radio on and its against, against, against, against [the government], you change the station and it’s the same. So, it bewilders and confuses [people], it’s propaganda, day and night, against [us],” López Obrador said.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who governs Mexico City for Morena and is a leading contender to succeed the president, made similar remarks.
“In recent months there was a very powerful smear campaign against the [Morena] movement, which had an impact on [some] sectors of the population,” she said.
Mexico broke its own growth record for tomato exports in 2020, and the positive trend continued into the first quarter.
Last year saw a 20.6% increase on the previous year, bringing in US $2.6 billion.
The first three months of 2021 marked 5.1% annual growth, with exports valued at $830 million.
In terms of volume, tomato exports suffered a 1.6% annual contraction in 2020 at 1.82 million tonnes. That rebounded in the first quarter this year with a 9.2% annual increase to 579,000 tonnes.
Mexico specializes in the production of greenhouse tomatoes, which has grown rapidly as an industry in North America over the last two decades.
The growing area of greenhouse tomatoes in Mexico is greater than that of Canada and the United States combined, and it is responsible for 57% of greenhouse vegetable sales on the continent.
