By MARK LORENZANA A Bell 206 Jet Ranger model helicopter, which was used to offer air taxi services and air tours in Mexico City, was reportedly stolen from its hangar at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) on Wednesday, Aug. 3. According to authorities investigating the matter, aviation pilot Jesús Silvestre, who was identified as the owner of the aircraft,
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OPINION By MARK LORENZANA The word democracy is a combination of two Greek words: demos, which means “people” and kratos, which means “rule.” The ancient Greeks, after all, are credited with inventing democracy as a form of government. In Mexico, though, “the rule of the people” has been steadily replaced by the rule of one man — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
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OPINION By MARK LORENZANA Veteran Mexican-American journalist Jorge Ramos, in an article for the now-defunct U.S. political and opinion website Splinter, wrote about the curious Mexican political custom of “el dedazo,” which, when translated roughly, means “to point a finger.” “As a young man, I was obsessed with the political phenomenon of ‘el dedazo’ in Mexico. It didn’t make sense
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By MARK LORENZANA The visit of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to the collapsed El Pintabete coal mine in Mexico’s northern state of Coahuila — where, on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 10 miners were trapped by the collapse and flooding of a well, and who are yet to be rescued — has added more despair, instead of comfort, to
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By MARK LORENZANA Luis Oswaldo Espinoza Marín, a lawyer and owner of the real estate agency and law firm Professional Legal Advisors (AJP) in the Mexican central-western state of Jalisco, committed suicide on the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 6, by shooting himself in the head after agents from the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office went to his residence in the municipality of Zapopan. The agents were
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By MARK LORENZANA On Thursday, Aug. 4, WNBA superstar and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner was convicted by a Russian court of “bringing marijuana with criminal intent into Russia” in February of this year and was sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was widely expected by U.S. authorities, to pave the way for negotiations between the two
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By MARK LORENZANA Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) reported on Thursday, Aug. 4, that 30 members of the Immediate Response and Disaster Team, along with six Special Forces divers, were deployed to Sabinas in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, to rescue 10 workers there who were trapped on Wednesday, Aug. 3, in a 60-meter-deep mine after a landslide. Laura Velázquez,
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By MARK LORENZANA Some independent journalists who attend the daily morning press conferences of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) are allegedly paid thousands of pesos by “companies, politicians and unions” to ask planted questions that are “disguised as complaints.” The “Bajo Reserva” column of Mexican daily newspaper El Universal, on Thursday, Aug. 4, reported that YouTube content creator and
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By MARK LORENZANA Javier May, director of Mexico’s National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur), promised residents from the town of Pomuch in the southeast Mexican state of Campeche that the profits from the Tren Maya — one of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) controversial pet megaprojects — will be used to increase pension payments to senior citizens.
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By MARK LORENZANA Full disclosure: Although I’ve read a few of the major works of beloved Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez (“One Hundred Years of Solitude,” “The Autumn of the Patriarch” and “Love in the Time of Cholera”), I have never read his short story collection “Strange Pilgrims.” So when the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Mexico City invited
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