XINHUA Leticia Robles makes a meager living by selling artisan soaps made of aromatic essential oils. At least, she did until the covid-19 pandemic dried up tourism in Huichapan, a small village in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo. Designated a “Magic Town” by Mexico’s Tourism Secretariat, Huichapan was until the covid-19 outbreak in February 2020 a tourist magnet known
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By KELIN DILLON The official campaigns for Mexico’s upcoming June 2021 midterm elections kicked off in the wee hours of Sunday, April 4, as 21,000 official government seats are up for the vote. Due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, the electoral process has looked a little different this year, with many candidates opting to hold virtual rallies to maintain social
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Salgado Macedonia Keeps Going and Going and Going It seems that wannabe Guerrero governor Félix Salgado Macedonio just can’t take “no” for an answer. Despite the fact that both the National Electoral Institute (INE) and the Guerrero Electoral Institute approved the cancelation of his candidacy for Mexico’s June 6 elections on grounds that he did not fully report
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Just in case you are wondering why Monday, March 15, is an official holiday here in Mexico, it is in observation of the 1807 birthday of five-time president Benito Juárez, a national hero who helped chase the French out of the country, overthrew the Hapsburg-imposed empire of Maximillian I, and restored the republic under a liberal regime
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By KELIN DILLON Mexico’s National Action Governors Association (GOAN), which is made up of National Action Party (PAN) governors from the Mexican states of Aguascalientes, Tamaulipas, Quintana Roo, Durango, Yucatán, Querétaro and Sonora, announced its intention to contract 20 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which would arrive in periods from April to December of this
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By KELIN DILLON Mexico’s National Energy Control Center (Cenace) has been planning strategically timed blackouts across the country to help reduce energy consumption following a low supply of natural gas, which have now been affecting parts of Mexico that were never planned to lose power. Northern Mexico mainly uses gas to generate its energy, and the Texas pipeline that brings
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Outages Set Off Political Sparks The electricity outages on Monday, Feb. 15, in six northern Mexican states may have been caused by the freezing temperatures affecting Texas, but they set off a new round of heated debates at Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies over President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO’s) Electricity Bill. Beyond Texas’ pumped gas shortage,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Gags on Twitter and Facebook? A bill to “regulate the performance of social networks” in Mexico is due to be introduced in Congress this week by Senator Ricardo Monreal. The proposed bill would regulate social network companies like Twitter and Facebook on a national scale and would prevent them from censuring accounts of people or entities that
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Back to the Salt Mines Both houses of the Mexican Congress kicked off activities Monday, Feb. 1, after the Christmas sabbatical with an array of very important issues under discussion for voting as soon as legislators feel the bills are ready. It came as no surprise that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Friday, Jan.
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Today, Monday, Feb. 1, is an official holiday in Mexico. It commemorates (four days early this year) the Feb. 5, 1917, proclamation of the country’s Magna Carta. And whether you see the Monday holiday as a chance to get out of town for a long weekend (hard to do in the times of covid-19) or just a
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