Venezuela booked their place in the quarter-finals of the Copa America on Wednesday with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Mexico that ensured Jamaica’s elimination from the tournament. Mexico-based veteran striker Salomon Rondon stroked in the only goal from the penalty spot to seal all three points for Venezuela, who are top of Group B with six points from two games. Mexico, meanwhile, can still qualify for the knockout rounds with a victory over Ecuador in their final group game on Sunday.

But the Mexicans will be left kicking themselves at their failure to take at least a point from Wednesday’s clash with Venezuela at a packed SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.

Mexico’s Orbelin Pineda missed an 87th-minute spot kick that would have made it 1-1, his effort parried away by Venezuela goalkeeper Rafael Romo.

Earlier, Rondon had fired Venezuela into the lead in the 57th minute from the penalty spot after Mexico’s Julian Quinones brought down Venezuela’s Jon Aramburu with a clumsy challenge in the area.

Venezuela’s win confirmed Jamaica’s exit from the tournament following their 3-1 loss to Ecuador in Las Vegas earlier on Wednesday.

Ecuador, beaten by Venezuela in their opening match on Saturday, held off a spirited second-half rally by the Reggae Boyz to claim a vital three points at the Allegiant Stadium.

The South Americans looked to be cruising to victory after taking a 2-0 lead following a Kasey Palmer own goal and a penalty from Chelsea-bound teenager Kendry Paez.

However, Jamaica pulled a goal back from veteran striker Michail Antonio early in the second half, and then had strong claims for a penalty rejected 15 minutes before full-time.

Ecuador, however, made the game safe in stoppage time with a breakaway goal from Alan Minda as Jamaica pressed forward for an equaliser. 

Ecuador opened the scoring with a freakish own goal in the 13th minute, Pierre Hincapie’s cross from the left taking a wicked deflection off Palmer and looping into the Jamaica net.

Ecuador doubled their lead from the penalty spot on the stroke of half-time.

Defender Greg Leigh instinctively blocked a header with his upper arm and after a lengthy VAR review, Chilean referee Cristian Garay pointed to the spot.

The 17-year-old Paez — who will join Premier League giants Chelsea in July 2025 when he turns 18 — stepped up to calmly stroke the spot-kick into the bottom corner.

A rejuvenated Jamaica pulled one back early in the second half with Antonio jabbing home a low shot on 54 minutes after Ecuador failed to clear a corner.

Jamaica thought they had been thrown a lifeline with 15 minutes to go after a VAR penalty check triggered when Ecuador’s Alan Franco appeared to handle inside the area.

But despite being called to the monitor to take a look at the incident, referee Garay decided there had been no handball and waved play on, before Minda’s late goal sealed Ecuador’s win.

Mexico City:

Mexico’s election is now the bloodiest in its modern history after a candidate running for local office in central Puebla state was murdered on Friday at a political rally, taking the number of assassinated candidates to 37 ahead of Sunday’s vote.

Jorge Huerta Cabrera, a candidate who was running for a council seat in the town of Izucar de Matamoros, was gunned down in the attack, according to the state prosecutor’s office.

The killing takes the number of assassinated candidates in the 2024 election season to 37, one more than during the 2021 midterm election when 36 candidates were killed, according to data from security consultancy Integralia.

The issue of violent crime has emerged as one of the top issues in this year’s presidential contest, in which the ruling party of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been forced to defend a persistently high murder rate, as the opposition has sought to use the bloodshed to argue for change.

Ruling party hopeful Claudia Sheinbaum is widely expected to win Sunday’s vote and become Mexico’s first female president.

“It’s possible that violence is being used as a means to define the election in advance, particularly when certain interests are perceived to be at risk in the event that a particular political project triumphs,” said Armando Vargas, an Integralia researcher.

The consultancy has also counted 828 non-lethal attacks on candidates during the current election season, up from 749 since just Monday.

Analysts point to Mexico’s mix of powerful drug cartels and often corrupt local governments as contributing to the dangers faced by candidates.

Earlier this week, a local mayoral candidate in southern Guerrero state was gunned down at point-blank range during a campaign rally.

He was among 560 candidates and election officials who have been given security guards by the government due to persistent threats.

Friday’s grisly assassination was captured on video, with mayhem erupting at the rally after the shots rang out.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

El Bosque, Mexico:

Waves wash over abandoned homes in a Mexican village slowly being swallowed by the sea — a symbol of the climate change effects being felt by the major fossil fuel producer.

The school where Adrian Perez used to attend classes in the community of El Bosque in the southern state of Tabasco now stands in ruins.

Each time he passes it going fishing, he is reminded of what has been lost to the sea.

“It’s hard. I studied there and look at what it became,” the 24-year-old said.

“The climate’s destroying us,” he added.

This year, heat waves have sent temperatures soaring in Tabasco and much of Mexico, stoking the climate change debate as the country prepares for a June 2 presidential election.

According to environmental group Greenpeace, El Bosque is the first community in Mexico to be officially recognized as displaced by climate change.

In February, the Tabasco state congress approved its relocation.

“We hear about climate change all the time but we never thought that it would come to us,” said 34-year-old Cristy Echeverria, who lost her home.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, ocean warming as well as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets caused the global sea level to reach its highest point on record last year.

Around 700 people once lived in El Bosque, which sits on a small peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico and exposed to Atlantic storms and hurricanes.

In the waters offshore, rigs extract the oil and gas on which Latin America’s second-largest economy so heavily depends.

Down the coast, the government of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has built a major new oil refinery in Tabasco, his home state — part of his efforts to achieve energy self-sufficiency.

– Records melt –

Tabasco is one of the areas of Mexico hit hardest by this year’s heat waves, with temperatures in the state reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

Since March, 48 heat-related death have been registered across the country, according to the government.

Even Mexico City — whose altitude has traditionally given it a temperate climate — recorded its highest-ever temperature of 34.7 degrees Celsius on Saturday.

The heat and below-normal rainfall last year have stirred fears of worsening water shortages.

The average annual availability of water per capita in Mexico has already fallen by 68 percent since 1960, according to the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness.

Despite international pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Lopez Obrador has promoted fossil fuel production during his six-year term in a bid to ensure energy independence.

The government says it is offsetting the impact by planting one million hectares of trees, which Lopez Obrador has called “the world’s most important reforestation program.”

Pablo Ramirez, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace Mexico, warned that there was “no public policy that can address the serious impacts that climate change is having and that are going to get worse.”

– Clean energy plans –

Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling party candidate leading the race to replace Lopez Obrador, has promised to invest billions of dollars in clean energy while also supporting state oil company Pemex.

“We’re going to promote the energy transition,” said Sheinbaum, a scientist by training who was a contributing author for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Sheinbaum would take a different approach to Lopez Obrador on energy, according to Pamela Starr, a professor at the University of Southern California.

“She’s going to encourage much more active investment in clean energy,” Starr told AFP.

Opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez has said that Mexico needs “to end our addiction to fossil fuels” and proposed to close some refineries.

The campaign promises give little comfort to Echeverria.

“We’re not responsible for everything that’s happening, but we’re paying for it,” she said.

“We’re not going to be the only ones.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees.

At least 138 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco since May 16, according to the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group. Others were rescued by residents, including five that were rushed to a local veterinarian who battled to save them.

“They arrived in critical condition, with dehydration and fever,” said Dr. Sergio Valenzuela. “They were as limp as rags. It was heatstroke.”

While Mexico’s brutal heat wave has been linked to the deaths of at least 26 people since March, veterinarians and rescuers say it has killed dozens and perhaps hundreds of howler monkeys. Around a third of the country saw highs of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.

In the town of Tecolutilla, Tabasco, the dead monkeys started appearing on Friday, when a local volunteer fire-and-rescue squad showed up with five of the creatures in the bed of a truck.

Normally quite intimidating, howler monkeys are muscular and some can be as tall as 90 centimeters (3 feet), with tails just as long. Some males weigh more than 13.5 kilograms (30 pounds) and can live up to 20 years. They are equipped with big jaws and a fearsome set of teeth and fangs. But mostly they’re know for their lion-like roars, which bely their size.

“They (the volunteers) asked for help, they asked if I could examine some of the animals they had in their truck,” Dr. Valenzuela said Monday. “They said they didn’t have any money, and asked if I could do it for free.”

The veterinarian put ice on their limp little hands and feet, and hooked them up to IV drips with electrolytes.

So far, the monkeys appear to be on the mend. Once listless and easily handled, they are now in cages at Valenzuela’s office. “They’re recovering. They’re aggressive … they’re biting again,” he said, noting that’s a healthy sign for the usually furtive creatures.

Most aren’t so lucky. Wildlife biologist Gilberto Pozo counted about 138 of the animals dead or dying on the ground under trees. The die-off started around May 5 and hit its peak over the weekend.

“They were falling out of the trees like apples,” Mr. Pozo said. “They were in a state of severe dehydration, and they died within a matter of minutes.” Already weakened, Mr. Pozo says, the falls from dozens of yards (meters) up inflict additional damage that often finishes the monkeys off.

Mr. Pozo attributes the deaths to a “synergy” of factors, including high heat, drought, forest fires and logging that deprives the monkeys of water, shade and the fruit they eat, while noting that a pathogen, disease or other factor can’t yet be ruled out.

For people in the steamy, swampy, jungle-covered state of Tabasco, the howler monkey is a cherished, emblematic species; local people say the monkeys tell them the time of day by howling at dawn and dusk.

Mr. Pozo said the local people — who he knows through his work with the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group — have tried to help the monkeys they see around their farms. But he notes that could be a double-edged sword.

“They were falling out of the trees, and the people were moved, and they went to help the animals, they set out water and fruit for them,” Mr. Pozo said. “They want to care for them, mainly the baby monkeys, adopt them.”

“But no, the truth is that babies are very delicate, they can’t be in a house where there are dogs or cats, because they have pathogens that can potentially be fatal for howler monkeys,” he said, stressing they must be rehabilitated and released into the wild.

Mr. Pozo’s group has set up a special recovery stations for monkeys — it currently holds five monkeys, but birds and reptiles have also been affected — and is trying to organise a team of specialised veterinarians to give the primates the care they need.

Belatedly, the federal government acknowledged the problem on Monday, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador saying he had heard about it on social media. He congratulated Dr. Valenzuela on his efforts and said the government would seek to support the work.

Mr. López Obrador acknowledged the heat problem — “I have never felt it as bad as this” — but he has a lot of human problems to deal with as well.

By May 9, at least nine cities in Mexico had set temperature records, with Ciudad Victoria in the border state of Tamaulipas clocking a broiling 47 C (117 F).

With below-average rainfall throughout almost all the country so far this year, lakes and dams are drying up, and water supplies are running out. Authorities have had to truck in water for everything from hospitals to fire-fighting teams. Low levels at hydroelectric dams have contributed to power blackouts in some parts of the country.

Consumers are feeling the heat as well. On Monday, the nationwide chain of OXXO convenience stores — the nation’s largest — said it was limiting purchases of ice to just two or three bags per customer in some places.

“In a period of high temperatures, OXXO is taking measures to ensure supplies of products for our customers,” parent company FEMSA said in a statement. “Limits on the sale of bagged ice seek to ensure that a larger number of customers can buy this product.”

But for the monkeys, it’s not a question of comfort, but of life or death.

“This is a sentinel species,” Mr. Pozo said, referring to the canary-in-a-coal-mine effect where one species can say a lot about an ecosystem. “It is telling us something about what is happening with climate change.”

The story so far: A political and diplomatic chasm has split Latin America. The epicentre of the crisis is Ecuador’s capital Quito; the immediate trigger was a police raid on the Mexican Embassy to arrest a political opponent convicted of corruption. President Daniel Noboa, in an unprecedented move, ordered raids on the embassy to arrest Jorge David Glas, a former Vice-President in the administration of leftist former President Rafael Correa. Mr. Glas had sought shelter at the Embassy since December, a month after Mr. Noboa came to power, and was later given political asylum by Mexico. The raid was an “exceptional decision,” taken “to protect national security, the rule of law and the dignity of a population that rejects any type of impunity for criminals, corrupt people or narco-terrorists,” Mr. Noboa said.

Critics say the raids are partly designed to boost Mr. Noboa’s image and yield short-term political gains. The young President is facing criticism for being unable to control crime, and has rallied support for a military crackdown on gang violence, the fate of which will be decided through a referendum on April 21.

The raids, however, have earned Mr. Noboa international opprobrium for violating international laws. Mexico has broken diplomatic relations with the South American nation and plans to appeal at the International Court of Justice that Ecuador be suspended from the United Nations — unless it extends an apology. 

What is the political context?

The politics of Ecuador is tied to the security and safety of Ecuadorians. The once-peaceful Andean nation of 18 million people has seen crime and gang violence explode since 2016. Ecuador, because of its geography and permeable borders, sits as a transit hub for drugs moving from Colombia and Peru. In 2009, a policy by the then-Correa Government expelled the U.S. forces from its territory, weakening Ecuador’s ability to stave off entry and deter distribution of drugs within the country. The operation of drug cartels has boomed: Ecuador was by 2019 among the top exporters of cocaine to the world, and within its borders, sheltered at least three major international crime groups. According to government estimates, almost 40,000 drug gang members operate in the country, equal to the number of soldiers in Ecuador’s army. The drug trafficking industry, mixed with an overcrowded and corrupt penal system, has sparked a crime wave: rampant prison riots, prison breaks, loot, kidnapping, cocaine trafficking, murders and political assassinations. Journalist and Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated on the campaign trail in August last year; mayor Jorge Maldonado, who was shot dead on April 19, was the fifth Ecuadorian mayor to be assassinated in the last year.

The government on its part has largely failed to make dents in or address the structural roots of the violence, analyst Carla Álvarez at the Institute for Advanced National Studies told The New York Times last year. The Correa Government’s reputation had been sullied due to a growing number of corruption and graft charges. Mr. Glas, who was in power from 2013 to 2017, was previously convicted of taking bribes in a scandal involving the construction giant Odebrecht; he also faces legal proceedings for alleged embezzlement in reconstruction projects after the 2016 earthquake. Mr. Glas is a “symbol of corruption in Ecuador,” scholar Esteban Nicholls told AFP.

Daniel Noboa in his presidential bid in 2023 pledged to weed out drugs, gang violence and corruption from the land. This promise resonated in a nation where homicide rates have almost tripled from 13.7 per 100,000 people in 2021 to 45 in 2023, making Ecuador one of the top three most violent nations in Latin America.

What about the timing of the raids?

Mr. Noboa last year stood as a credible outsider presenting the vision of a safer Ecuador, one leading a revolt against narco-terrorism and avowing to undo the “old paradigms” plaguing the country. “We will not negotiate with terrorists and we will not rest until we have returned peace to Ecuadorians,” Mr. Noboa said in January. The 36-year-old’s hard-line policies — such as building high-security prisons and a 90-day state of emergency in January — haven’t emerged as permanent solutions. The emergency was imposed after Los Choneros gang leader Aldolfo Macias (or ‘Fito’), among Ecuador’s most dangerous criminals, escaped from his cell. Mr. Noboa also signed a declaration of “internal armed conflict”, a decree naming 22 criminal gangs as terrorist organisations. “We are at war,” he told a radio station. The decree allowed the government to employ the military as a pacification tactic: the government deployed soldiers in public spaces and moved to reestablish control in prisons.

Murder rates dipped initially but boomeranged soon after. The coastal city of Guayaquil was overrun by gangs as recently as January; there was a surge of violence over the April Easter weekend with more than 100 deaths in a mere three days. The escape and failed capture of Fito further emboldened Mr. Noboa’s detractors. The President appears to be failing on the litmus test of crime rates, corruption and narco-terrorism policies, jeopardising his popularity and approval ratings.

The police raids also hint at growing fraught relations with Mexico. A conflict has emerged between the 70-year-old Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the 36-year-old Mr. Noboa, currently the world’s youngest democratically elected serving state leader. On April 3, Mr. Obradar questioned the result of the 2023 elections in which Mr. Noboa won; Mr. Noboa responded by declaring Mr. Obrador persona non grata and expelled the Mexican ambassador. Mexico, two days later, announced political asylum to Mr. Glas. Mr. Orabadar called the subsequent raids an “authoritarian action,” taken only when “weak governments that do not have popular support or capacity” come to power.

According to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, embassies are protected, “inviolable” spaces — not technically “foreign soil,” but territories that enjoy immunity when carrying out the sovereign functions in the country where they are located. “The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission,” the Convention states. The “rule of inviolability,” however, may mean that political opponents may avoid arrest by taking shelter in foreign embassies. “Some government use their embassy as a facade of political refuge, but it’s actually to save criminals from their sentence,” Mr. Noboa said in an interview. He also said that Mr. Glas posed an “imminent” flight risk, the government was aware of “a plan to escape” and the raids are part of his “fight against impunity.”

Last year, Ecuador’s transport minister Maria de los Angeles Duarte, sentenced to eight years imprisonment for a bribery charge, escaped to Venezuela after living in the Argentine embassy in Quito. A diplomatic row soon emerged between Ecuador and Argentina.

Is there international backlash?

Mr. Noboa has also set himself against the diplomatic order for now. All Latin American countries, with the exception of El Salvador, have condemned Ecuador’s raids on the Mexico Embassy. The break was “unwarranted and unjustified,” the Organisation of American States said; the European Union condemned it as a violation of the Vienna Convention in force for six decades. Ally U.S. has not entirely condemned Ecuador but ambiguously reiterated the “obligation of host countries under international law to respect the inviolability of diplomatic missions.” Mexico, for now, has broken diplomatic relations with Ecuador and approached the United Nations.

The diplomatic rupture between Mexico and Ecuador has put regional security under the radar. The raids “could set a very dangerous precedent, and that’s very concerning for the stability of diplomatic relations in the region,” wrote scholars Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón and Maria Gabriela Palacio in a Conversation article. Without any reconciliation, the spat could prove counterproductive to Ecuador’s narcoterrorism pursuits, and further jeopardise migrant safety. Ecuador is a point of transit for migrants attempting to reach Mexico and cross into North America; the provocation poses “serious risks in a region where illicit economies, violence and forced migration are spiralling out of control,” the scholars noted.

There are also trade and geopolitical variables on the line. The two countries have modest trade relations: Ecuador contributes only 0.038% to Mexico’s imports and its share of Mexico’s exports was just 0.1%, according to official figures. The diplomatic tiff could still fuel commercial instability. Mexico has put on hold its negotiations with Ecuador on a free trade deal that would have allowed the latter to join the Pacific Alliance trade bloc.

Ecuador maintains that Mexico’s political asylum is a violation of laws in the first place. “No nation can give political asylum to someone [an ordinary prisoner] if they have a sentence”, Mr. Noboa said in an interview with SBS News, saying that this amounts to getting involved in the sovereignty and judicial systems of different nations.

Why is the April 21 referendum important?

Mr. Noboa entered office as a political outsider, taking over the Presidency after a snap election was called in November 2023. The leader is up for re-election in May 2025. The display of force, through raids, may hurt Mr. Noboa’s international repute but reinforces his standing on the domestic political stage, according to analysts. The raids could “bolster his domestic credibility”, strengthen his “appeal to voters looking for strong leadership and a new direction for the country,” placing him favourably for next year, wrote analyst Sebastian Hurtado in Americas Quarterly.

Ecuador on April 21 voted in a referendum to decide if the government can further increase security tactics to fight gang violence. The proposed measures include formally authorising military presence on the streets and including harsher prison sentences for gang-related crimes. The referendum is the first political test of Mr. Noboa’s popularity, and of his declaration of an ‘uncompromising’ war on crime and impunity.

The local reaction is cleaved along political lines: one side sees value in Mr. Noboa’s message of fighting crime with force, while the other worries about the authoritarian undertones driving these actions. The raids, even if a gamble, may buoy support for the referendum, boost Mr. Noboa’s image as an ‘action man’ and find appeal among Ecuadorians disillusioned with a status quo paralysing their way of life. “The priority is to clean, sanitize, continue with a process as important as President Noboa’s to put the house in order,” college professor Gabriela Sandoval told AP, calling the raids a “courageous act.” Observers are drawing parallels between Mr. Noboa and El Salvador’s president Nayib Buklee who, through similar hard-line tactics against drug and gang violence, won a second mandate in power. The incident had no international “upside,” Mr. Hurtado told FT, but “shows of force and radical action have served the president before”, especially at a time when there is a growing public desire for justice and safety.

At the same time, Mr. Noboa’s referendum served a dual political purpose: to deepen militarisation and block public dissent, wrote Mr. Pabón and Ms. Palacio. The reform wants to fight “terrorists” and “narco-terrorism” but its content is “ambiguous.”

“It is feared the government could use it to suppress protest, for example, when it comes to opposition to the government’s extractive policy,” they write. Put differently, a government that feels emboldened to violate international law would have a similar disregard for domestic laws. Moreover, “going rogue inside the embassy of a neighbouring country in the name of fighting corruption” is not going to aid Ecuador in tackling its complicated challenges, The Hindu’s editorial noted.

Mr. Noboa has discounted the “strongman” label in favour of being seen as “someone who is fair,” he told SBS News. “If he would have escaped, I would have been too weak in front of everyone. Now that I have caught the guy, I’m too strong. It’s difficult to please everyone,” he said.

When asked if he has regrets, Mr. Noboa said “zero”, because “we’re on the right side of history”. On plans of resolution he said, “I will invite President [Obrador] to have a ceviche. We can probably have some tacos together. And then we can talk…whenever he’s ready.”

A group of mothers from the collective “Guerreros Buscadores” remain in the area where they found two clandestine crematory ovens and 27 bags with human remains during the search for their relatives in El Salto, Jalisco State, Mexico.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A group of relatives searching for some of Mexico’s roughly 100,000 missing persons said it had discovered around two dozen bags containing human remains in a clandestine cemetery.

The bones and other charred remains were found on Sunday at a ranch in El Salto in the western state of Jalisco, according to the Guerreros Buscadores collective.

After arriving at the site accompanied by National Guard personnel, the group discovered a smoking pit oven and noticed a foul stench, according to one of its members, Indira Navarro.

“While exploring, we began to locate bones, skin and burnt human flesh,” she told AFP, adding: “We’re talking about a clandestine cemetery.”

There was no immediate comment from the state prosecutor’s office, which was expected to inspect the site.

Collectives searching for missing persons say that drug trafficking cartels and other organized crime gangs use brick and other ovens to incinerate their victims and leave no trace.

Most of Mexico’s missing persons have vanished since the country launched a major offensive against the cartels in 2006.

Jalisco, which is the scene of turf wars between rival drug gangs, is one of the regions with the most people to have disappeared.

In addition, nearly 450,000 people have been murdered across the country since 2006.

The country’s forensic system is overwhelmed, and tens of thousands of unidentified bodies lie unclaimed in morgues or mass graves.

Jacaranda tree blooms in the Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City, Mexico. February 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Every spring, the streets of Mexico’s capital are painted purple with the flowering of thousands of jacaranda trees. Their spectacular colours not only attract the eyes of residents and tourists but also birds, bees and butterflies that find food and shelter in them.

But this year something changed.

Some jacarandas began blooming in early January when they normally awaken in spring. The early onset bloom has set off alarm bells among residents and scientists in Mexico City, where the trees have become an iconic, photogenic mainstay of city streets.

Local scientists have begun investigating how widespread the early-bloom phenomenon is, but they point to climate change as the first culprit.

“We’ve always seen the jacaranda beginning to bloom towards the end of March, in spring, when we see the flowers change to violet,” said Constantino Gonzalez, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

“They are starting to flower in January, February, which is winter, when it is not yet their time,” said the biologist of 48 years.

Gonzalez explained that in order to draw a correlation between climate change and the early flowering of jacarandas his team needs a representative sample and compare blooms year to year. To do this, he has started to lead a group of young people who are collecting data throughout the city and using satellite imagery.

He noted rising temperatures caused winter in the Mexican capital to end early this year, in mid-January, instead of late March when it is supposed to end.

Adaptation

Enthralled by the Japanese cherry trees that cover Washington, D.C. in pink and white every spring, Mexican President Pascual Ortiz (1930-1932) set out to replicate the same landscape in his nation’s capital.

But Tatsugoro Matsumoto, a Japanese landscape architect who settled in Mexico in the late 19th century, told him they would not survive the city’s temperate climate for long, so he advocated for jacarandas, a tropical tree he had learnt about during a brief stay in Peru.

Since then, the tree has become a staple for Mexico City’s nine million inhabitants.

In January alarm spread when users on social networks started to publish photos of flowering jacarandas and began to wonder about the effects of climate change.

“Like never before (…) people have started to say ‘this is serious, it’s real’ and it’s no longer just a polar bear floating adrift’,” said Cristina Ayala, biologist and doctor in Sustainability Sciences.

“It is very good that people are beginning to become aware of what climate change is going to bring to us as urbanites,” she added.

Although they are not native to Mexico, for Ayala, jacarandas fulfill an important function for the city. They attract more hummingbirds and bees than many native trees, so a change in flowering could lead to a decrease in these populations.

“One would like the jacarandas to bloom all year round, they brighten the city,” said Alex Estrada, a resident of the Mexican capital, while observing a tree that was beginning to turn purple. “But something is not right here: jacarandas in winter?” he wondered.

Acapulco, Mexico:

Two armed attacks on Monday left at least 16 people dead, including a dozen police officers, in regions of Mexico plagued by violence related to drug trafficking, authorities said.

In the southern state of Guerrero, unidentified attackers targeted a security patrol in the municipality of Coyuca de Benitez, prosecutor Alejandro Hernandez said.

According to preliminary information, 11 members of the municipal police force were killed, he said, adding that the motive for the massacre was being investigated.

A senior state security official was traveling in the convoy when it was attacked, authorities said, without confirming media reports that he was murdered along with police bodyguards.

Security forces were later seen patrolling the area — where several lifeless bodies lay on the ground — as a police helicopter flew overhead.

The second attack, in the neighboring western state of Michoacan, left five civilians dead and two more injured, authorities said.

A group of gunmen attacked a brother of the mayor of the town of Tacambaro, according to the state prosecutor’s office.

A restaurant worker and a member of the police force were among those killed, while the mayor’s brother was wounded, it said.

In a video posted on social media, gunmen were seen opening fire before fleeing in several vehicles.

Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 420,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in its war on drugs in 2006.

Since then, the country’s murder rate has tripled to 25 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Mexico has also registered more than 110,000 disappearances since 1962, most attributed to criminal organizations.

Guerrero and Michoacan are among the country’s most violent areas, due to confrontations between rival drug traffickers and security forces.

Although it is home to the famed coastal resort of Acapulco, Guerrero is one of Mexico’s poorest states.

Violence — particularly targeting low-level officials — often escalates across the country in the run-up to elections. Presidential and parliamentary polls are set to be held next year.

Since taking office in 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has championed a “hugs not bullets” strategy to tackle violent crime at its roots by fighting poverty and inequality with social programs, rather than with the army.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In a very unusual incident, the police in Mexico arrested a Chucky doll which was being used by its owner to scare people, as per a report in the New York Post. Carlos “N” used Chucky, a doll that local authorities there have dubbed a “demon doll”, to terrorise residents by brandishing an actual size knife to demand money. 

On September 11, the pair was caught in Monclova, a city in the Coahuila state of northern Mexico, for posing threat to the public and disrupting the peace. According to Juan Ral Alcocer, the former head of the Monclova Police, Carlos is believed to have been using drugs while in the city’s main square. “He put the doll in their faces and was scaring people, it is an offense, (and) for this reason he was arrested,” he said, as per the New York Post. 

They were both handcuffed when they arrived at a police station, where their mug shots were also taken. According to the outlet, the knife-wielding doll was propped up against the wall and held by its hair when the picture was being taken. The doll was also wearing its signature denim dungarees.

As per the news agency Reuters, an officer at the police department was seen laughing as she held up the long knife taken from Chucky. She was later reprimanded for not taking her job seriously. The man was later released, however, Chucky doll’s whereabouts are still unknown.

Chucky, the possessed doll, became famous after the release of 1988 horror film ‘Child’s Play’. It was presented as a killer Good Guy doll that had his soul transferred into the doll by using voodoo. Despite the small size, Chucky had the strength of a fully grown man.

Chicago:

Ovidio Guzman, one of the sons of incarcerated Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, pleaded not guilty to U.S. fentanyl trafficking charges on Monday in federal court in Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune, three days after his extradition from Mexico.

Guzman, 33, is one of El Chapo’s four sons, known as “Los Chapitos,” who inherited their father’s trafficking empire after his conviction on U.S. murder and drug charges in 2019. “El Chapo” Guzman is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

U.S. officials said Ovidio Guzman’s arrest and extradition represents a significant victory in the Biden administration’s campaign to stem the deadly flow of fentanyl across the southern border.

Guzman was briefly arrested in Culiacan in the northern state of Sinaloa in 2019. But President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered him released after hundreds of Sinaloa Cartel gunmen overwhelmed security forces in the city.

Guzman was captured again in January after an intense firefight. The U.S. requested his extradition in February.

Fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic opioid, is responsive for nearly 200 American deaths a day, a toll that has strained U.S.-Mexico relations and put domestic pressure on the Biden administration to slow the spread of the deadly drug.

The Sinaloa Cartel is primarily responsible for manufacturing and exporting fentanyl across the border, according to U.S. officials.

In court papers, prosecutors said Ovidio Guzman and his brothers operated a massive international trafficking operation that transported drugs to the U.S. using airplanes, submarines, fishing boats and rail cars and reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

The State Department has offered rewards worth millions of dollars for information leading to the capture of the Guzman brothers.

“El Chapo” Guzman rose to prominence at the helm of the Sinaloa Cartel and added to his infamy by escaping Mexican prisons not once but twice. He was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and convicted in federal court in Brooklyn.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)