But here’s what the article says: “A California man died after being shot during a clash between Mexican soldiers and armed assailants in San José del Cabo.” That gives a whole different impression, doesn’t it.
It also says that “Four civilians and two soldiers were wounded, including a 14-year-old boy and a 65-year-old woman with serious injuries.”
Los Cabos is located in the peninsula of Baja California, in the state of Baja California Sur. The Los Cabos municipality include the cities of San Jose del Caba and Cabo San Lucas.
Left: Baja California Sur state in red. Source: TUBS Right: Los Cabos municipality in black. Source: Battroid
Here is a report on the story from the Ackerman Group: “A 31-year-old man from California was killed just after midnight on Sunday [May 31] after being caught in the crossfire between soldiers and cartel gunmen in the popular beach resort city of San Jose del Cabo at the southernmost end of the northwestern state of Baja California Sur.”
“The shootout erupted after a military patrol observed a group of heavily armed gunmen in several vehicles on the La Paz-San Jose del Cabo highway (Federal Highway 1) in the Las Veredas neighborhood in northern San Jose del Cabo. Las Veredas is a lower-income residential area located on the opposite side of the highway from Los Cabos International Airport.”
“Two soldiers and five other bystanders were also wounded in the gunfire.”
“The American was transported to a local hospital where he died a few hours later.”
“It would appear the American and the five wounded bystanders were traveling on the highway and became inadvertently caught up in the shootout. The gunmen managed to flee the scene.”
“The authorities seized four long guns, two tactical vests, a radio and over a dozen metallic tire spikes, which are routinely used by fleeing cartel operatives to prevent pursuit by military and police.”
At the bottom of that page it says U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico and if you click that you go to a page which actually has links to information pages about the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and the 9 U.S. consulates on Mexican soil.
Now, back to the Mexico advisory page here. It has general information and also breaks Mexico down into four categories: Level: 4 – Do not travel (six states) Level: 3 – Reconsider travel (six states) Level: 2 – Exercise increased caution (16 states and Mexico City) Level: 1 – Exercise normal precautions (2 states)
There’s also a color-coded map that accompanies it.
If you are planning to travel in Mexico, or even considering it, I recommend you look over the State Department’s material.
Sheinbaum spoke to a live audience of 130,000 (plus many others throughout Mexico watching live). You can read the speech in Spanish here. The pictures portray a festive occasion.
The speech is valuable because it tells us much about how she views her presidency and what is important to her.
Sheinbaum’s speech was a defense of her presidency and the Fourth Transformation movement.
The idea of the Fourth Transformation is that there were 3 previous transformations in Mexican history: 1) Independence (1810-1821), 2) The Reform Wars (1857-1861), 3) The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Beginning with President AMLO (2018-2024) and now with President Sheinbaum is the Fourth Transformation.
Here’s how she began the speech: “Female Mexicans and Male and Generic Mexicans, Two years ago, nearly 36 million female Mexicans and male/generic Mexicans deposited in the ballot boxes their hope, their confidence and their decision to continue advancing by the way of the Transformation begun by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. With this backing, I assumed the honor and the enormous responsibility of heading up the continuity of the Fourth Transformation of the Public Life. A mandate, born of the popular will, of the conviction of millions of female Mexicans and male/generic Mexicans who said with clarity that ‘we should not return to the past of privileges, corruption, decadence and the abandonment of the fatherland and of the people’. And that day an accomplishment occurred which will be left engraved forever in the memory of our nation: for the first time, a woman arrived to the presidency of the Republic. It is the victory of the women of Mexico, but, most importantly, the victory of a people who decided to continue making history. Two years after that magnificent and historic triumph of the people, I appear again to give an account, as I have done, in front of the people and in the public plaza.”
President Sheinbaum proceeded to lay out a long list of accomplishments of her 20 months as president.
She spoke of government being conducted honorably, without salary increases for high-ranking government officials, reduction of the budget and increase in tax collection without a tax increase.
She spoke of her communication with the people: “I travel in the country three times a week to give an account, to listen and to directly attend to the people.” She mentioned her 409 morning press conferences and said that the government hadn’t acquired “fancy vehicles or eccentricities for the government”.
She said that “Here there is no space for corruption, nor privileges, nor excesses that for decades offended the people of Mexico.”
Sheinbaum said of her and her government “we walk with the people, we listen to the people, we give account to the people and we govern obeying the people. We do not arrive to the government to serve ourselves, we arrive to put power to the service of the people and of the nation.”
She said that the essence of the Fourth Transformation is “to end a regime that governed for the elite, for the oligarchy, and consolidate a government of the people.”
She was very hard on pre-MORENA governments in what she calls the “neoliberal” period. According to Sheinbaum, the neoliberal governments lasted 36 years, which would be 1976-2018, the latter year being the year AMLO became president.
She specifically criticized Presidents Zedillo (1994-2000) of the PRI and Fox (2000-2006) and Calderon (2006-2012) of the PAN.
Sheinbaum slammed conservatism and quoted Carlos Monsivais, who said that “the true doctrine of conservatism is the hypocrisy“. “And, in effect“, said Sheinbaum, “they are hypocrites“.
She criticized U.S. interference during the neoliberal period. Now however, said Sheinbaum, “In Mexico the people govern.”
And now, said Sheinbaum, “in contrast with the past…the power of the state is not used against the people...”
“The model of Mexican Humanism and the Moral Economy strengthen the distribution of wealth and the development of the economy from below. We do not leave everything to the market, nor do we trust that the benefits arrive by themselves to the people. We promote a State that boosts development, guarantees social rights, promotes strategic sectors and puts the well-beging of the majorities at the center of the public decisions.”
She said that “Even with the difficult international circumstances, marked by the change in U.S. tariff policy and the war in Iran, the Mexican economy remains stable and advanced.”
She boasted of growth in foreign investment, low unemployment, job creation, lowering inflation, low interest rates, stable fuel prices, lowering grocery prices, a strong peso, decrease in the debt in relation to GDP, growth in exports and sales, and a 10.2% increase in tourism.
She spoke of various pensions that Mexicans receive, agricultural subsidies, educational scholarships, teacher raises, 29 new hospitals, free medicines and the government’s objective to construct a universal system of free health care in 2027.
President Sheinbaum said they are “recovering the energy sovereignty of the nation” by rescuing PEMEX (government oil company) and the Federal Electricity Commission which are now “true public businesses in the service of the people of Mexico“.
The government she said is working on Mexican highways and bridges and reviving passenger train service.
And there was more, a long list of accomplishments.
But despite all these acomplishments Sheinbaum warned that Mexico is under attack. By whom?
Here’s what she said: “For several month we have been the object of a media offensive and of millionaire campaigns on social media. It is no coincidence. It is no coincidence. Behind them are the conservative national and international sectors who will never accept that Mexico recover its dignity and decide to fully exercise its independence.”
So, once again, it’s the conservatives!
“We understand that today the forms of destabilization promoted by the International Right-Wing Groups have changed a little, but not in the purpose. Now they do not always impose by the force, as in the past. Today they can express themselves through digital campaigns, disinformation operations which seek to erode governments and movements. They can operate from global platforms, where the flow of information is concentrated in very few hands, with the capacity to influence through algorithms unprecedented in the history of humanity.”
How do these right-wingers operate?
“Through means of paid accounts and bots, they articulate the interests of the foreign and national conservative sectors who seek to recover lost privileges or stop the Transformation…”
She spoke about the deaths of two American agents in Mexico and that foreign agents can’t be doing unathorized work in the country.
Then she got into the Sinaloa Ten (3 of whom are already in U.S. custody): “A few days later, something even more grave occurred: an office of the U.S. Department of Justice urgently requested the detention for extradition of 10 Mexican citizens, – among them a governor, a mayor and a sitting senator – without presenting public proofs that back up this request. …And thus we must ask, the legitimate question emerges, Is it really a legitimate interest, genuinely to help Mexico? Is it really a legitimate interest to fight organized crime? Or maybe we are seeing how sectors of the American far right utilizes our country to position itself for the elections of 2026? Or are they attempting to influence the elections of 2027 in our country. These are not rhetorical questions. Mexico is nobody’s pinata !”
“Therefore, I call the people of Mexico to attention. When from abroad it is declaredwho is guilty and who is not, when they seek to pressure our institutions from abroad, when it is normalized the idea ‘that another country can intervene in affairs that can only correspond to Mexicans’ we are now not talking about cooperation but we are talking about interference.”
To summarize, President Sheinbaum set forth a long list of accomplishments, warned of US intervention (including extradition requests for Mexican politicians) and warned several times of conservatives, both foreign and domestic.
The 2026 World Cup is almost upon us. It’s scheduled to begin on June 11th and end on July 19th.
The World Cup is the international soccer championship in which national teams compete. It’s held every 4 years.
For the first time ever, the World Cup is to be hosted by three countries: the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Mexico has hosted the World Cup twice before (1970 and 1986) and the U.S. once before, in 1994.
In 2002, the World Cup was jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea. Every other previous World Cup was hosted by only one country.
But in 2026 three countries are hosting it.
The games are to be held in 16 cities.
Here is a list of the 16 cities:
U.S.: New York metroplex (East Rutherford, New Jersey); Dallas metro (Arlington); Kansas City, Missouri; Houston; Atlanta; Los Angeles metro (Inglewood); Seattle; San Franciso Bay Area (Santa Clara); Philadelphia; Miami metro (Miami Gardens); Boston metro (Foxborough).
Canada: Vancouver; Toronto.
Mexico: Mexico City; Monterrey metro (Guadalupe); Guadalajara metro (Zapopan).
There are to be 48 national teams competing, an increase from 32 in the last World Cup in 2022. There are 104 games scheduled.
Here’s a map of the 16 venues:
Venues for 2026 World Cup Games. Source: Axios Visuals
There are 104 games to be played, with 48 national teams competing. That’s an increase from 32 in the last World Cup in 2022.
There are three opening ceremonies, one for each of the host countries: 1. Mexico City, Mexico – June 11th 2. Toronto, Canada – June 12th 3. Los Angeles, U.S.A. – June 12th
The international governing body for soccer is FIFA, a French acronym for Fédération Internationale de Football Association. That’s why you may see the tournament referred to as the 2026 FIFA World Cup or as FIFA World Cup 26. In Spanish it’s the Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2026.
Mexico City is one of the venues for the upcoming Soccer World Cup. The opening ceremony is scheduled to be held in the Estadio Azteca/Estadio Banorte/Estadio Ciudad de México.
World Cup games are scheduled to be played in that stadium on June 11th, June 17th, June 24th, June 30th, and July 5th.
On November 7th, 2025, the Jefade Gobierno of Mexico City, Clara Brugada, introduced the axolotl as the Mexico City mascot for the World Cup.
FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, has 3 mascots for the World Cup: Maple the Moose for Canada, Clutch the Bald Eagle for the United States, and Zayu the Jaguar for Mexico.
But the axolotl is only the mascot for Mexico City, sponsored by the government of Mexico City.
Here’s a picture of the axolotl mascot with the kids:
From The Guardian: “The giant purple axolotl peered up at Manuel Martínez from the black bitumen of the street. It was the second such painting of the rare amphibian he had walked past that morning. In recent weeks he had seen axolotl murals pop up in neighbourhoods across Mexico City…The axolotl, a kind of salamander native to the ancient waterways of Mexico City, is the capital’s mascot for this summer’s Fifa World Cup. And these days it is everywhere: painted on walls, plastered on trains, crawling up lamp-posts, swimming across traffic barriers. Following in its trail is an apparent effort to beautify the city before the tournament by painting much of the capital’s infrastructure purple: pedestrian overpasses, building facades, walls, bridges, banisters, footpaths – all of them turned lilac, lavender or plum.”
It’s been called the “axolotlisation” of Mexico City and it’s been criticized: “But many residents are unhappy with what has been called the ‘axolotlisation’ of the metropolis, with some complaining that limited state resources could be better utilised elsewhere, particularly in a city filled with potholes, crooked pavements and flooding streets. ‘In emblematic places like the Zócalo or Azteca Stadium it’s fine but in other places it’s just a waste of resources,’ said 63-year-old Sergio Rivera, standing in front of a giant pink axolotl in the capital’s sprawling central plaza. ‘There are other priorities.’ “
The aforementioned Manuel Martinez [start of first Guardian quotation) had this to say: “It’s a waste of money. You could use that budget for fixing potholes, traffic lights, security cameras. They’re spending on something that doesn’t benefit us at all – it’s just for tourists.”
Mayor Brugada, on the other hand, staunchly defends it. Quoth Brugada, “Some have said, out of prejudice or classism, that we are ‘axolotlising’ the city. If axolotlising means filling what was once grey with colour, transforming public spaces and guaranteeing access to services for the benefit of thousands of people, then yes, we are axolotlising the capital.”
Mayor Brugada said this to reporters, according to The Guardian, “at the reopening of a light rail service (renamed the Axolotl).”
President Claudia Sheinbaum, herself a previous Mexico City Mayor, weighed in on the issue: “All governments paint pedestrian bridges, all of them. Clara decided that to beautify the city she was going to use the colour lilac. And now there’s a lot of criticism. I don’t see why. Besides, the bridges look very pretty.”
I think President Sheinbaum has a valid point. Capital cities ought to look good. Why not have special decorations for the World Cup?
More recently, a rumor emerged that FIFA (soccer’s international governing body) rejected the use of the axolotl as a Mexico City World Cup mascot, was fining Mexico City for it, and ordering the city to remove this axolotl from in front of the Estadio Azteca/Banorte, to be replaced by Zayu the Jaguar.
But it turned out that wasn’t true, and the Axolotl is still the mascot of Mexico City. As for the statue in front of the stadium it was moved temporarily and is being returned.
I close with this happy photo of Mayor Clara Brugada and the Axolotl Mascot of Mexico City:
On May 28th the opposition PAN party pulled off a stunt in the Mexican Senate which brought together two ongoing issues relating to crime and security.
Left: Maru Campos, Governor of Chihuahua, Source: flickr.com Right: Ruben Rocha, Governor of Sinaloa (on leave). Source: Presidency of Mexico
On the 28th of May, in the Mexican Senate, 22 senators of the PAN party wore t-shirts reading “Yo con Maru”, meaning “I support Maru” (governor of Chihuahua). They came to the podium, also bringing 67 t-shirts in the color of the ruling MORENA party, which read “Yo con Rocha” meaning “I support Ruben Rocha” (the most prominent indictee).
PAN Senator and coordinator Ricardo Anaya (at the podium) asked “Who would come up here and put on a ‘Yo Con Rocha’ t-shirt?'” and “Seriously, nobody? No senator of MORENA wants to put on the ‘Yo Con Rocha’ t-shirt?” Only two MORENA senators accepted a Rocha t-shirt but nobody put one on.
Did you know that Lupita Nyong’o was actually born in Mexico, and has Mexican citizenship? I guess the name “Lupita” should have tipped us off, right?
Lupita Nyong’o was born in 1983 in Mexico City. Her father, Anyang’ Nyong’o, was a politician from Kenya and at the time a visiting professor in Mexico. Her mother is Dorothy Ogada Buyu. Both her parents were of the Luo ethnicity, and so was Barack Obama Sr., father of U.S. President Barack Obama Jr. (Small world, isn’t it?)
Lupita Amondi Nyong’o Buyu is the way to write her name in Spanish style, with the two surnames.
The future actress was named “Lupita” because they were living in Mexico, though they soon moved back to Kenya. However, when Lupita was 16, she was sent back to Mexico for 7 months (to Taxco, Guerrero), to learn Spanish.
Lupita Nyong’o identifies as Kenyan-Mexican. In 2024 she also became a U.S. citizen, just in time to vote for Kamala Harris.
So she is a citizen of Kenya, Mexico and the United States.
Countries in red are countries in which Lupita Nyong’o is a citizen: U.S., Mexico, Kenya Source: mapchart.net
In the Odyssey movie, Lupita Nyong’o is portraying both Helen of Troy and Helen’s half-sister Clytemnestra.
In an interview with Elle magazine, the actress said that when she accepted the role of Helen of Troy “I really had no idea what The Odyssey was. I was like, ‘Oh, snap, I don’t know the first thing about this.’ So it was a crash course. I picked up the books and read them immediately. I have this film to thank for my Greek mythological education.”
In January of 2017, Joaquin “el Chapo” Guzman, one of the two leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was extradited to the United States, and he’s still there, locked up in the ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado.
El Chapo’s Extradition, January 19th, 2017 Source: Ted Psahos
Drug cartels are family businesses. On May 26th, 2026, Chapo’s nephew was arrested by the Mexican government, and might wind up getting extradited to the United States.
From that article: “Mexican security forces have captured the nephew of imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, delivering another blow to a cartel empire already fracturing from within. The suspect, identified only as Isai ‘N,’ was taken into custody in Sonora, a northern border state that has become a flashpoint in Mexico’s ongoing drug war. U.S. authorities had been seeking him, according to top security official Omar Garcia Harfuch, who announced the arrest on X.”
More from the USA Herald article: “The arrest comes at a turbulent moment for the Sinaloa cartel, once the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. An internal power struggle has erupted between factions loyal to El Chapo’s family and those aligned with co-founder Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, who is himself awaiting trial in the United States. The infighting has turned deadly, spilling violence across border communities on both sides.” [According to the Noroeste newspaper, as of May 25th, 2026, the murder toll in Sinaloa state since the intra-cartel war began Sept. 9th, 2024, is 3,294.] .
“Last month, Mexican soldiers, backed by U.S. intelligence, captured three of El Chapo’s brother’s closest allies. That brother, Aureliano Guzman Loera, known as “El Guano,” remains at large with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head.”
“Meanwhile, the man at the center of it all sits locked away nearly 2,000 miles from his homeland. El Chapo, the co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel who twice escaped from Mexican prisons before being extradited to the United States in 2017, is serving a life sentence at the notorious ADX Florence facility in Colorado, widely known as the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies.’ ”
The article doesn’t mention another strike at the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. That’s the U.S. indictment of ten Mexican officials/former officials of the state of Sinaloa. Three are already in U.S. custody. See my recent articles on the topic See here, here, here , here , here , here, here and here.
Mexico City already has plenty of video surveillance cameras, more in fact than any other city in the Western Hemisphere. Mexico City has about 83,000 such cameras, in contrast to 71,000 in New York.
But the new proposal is the use of body cameras for the police.
According to Proceso, on May 5th Mayor Brugada announced that “Very soon…we are going to present a program so that our police of Mexico City wear a camera attached to their uniform, with which we will begin this strategy or this program, with the traffic officers.”
That was on May 5th. Mayor Brugada did not say when this would begin or any other details, but she did say that the objective was that officers would be “transparent”, that it would “increase citizen confidence” and strengthen “the culture of legality. “
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada. (Photo from a different date than her statement in this article) Source: MVS Noticias
Traffic officers in Mexico are notorious for taking small bribes to allow people to get out of traffic fines. A bribe is called a “mordida”, literally a “bite”.
Wouldn’t body cameras, if utilized correctly, cramp the style of both the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker? Or will they find ways to get around it?
The Valley of Mexico is the home of a unique and fascinating creature known as the axolotl. Paradoxically, this animal is critically endangered in its natural habitat but widely common throughout the world.
The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is a type of salamander native to lakes and wetlands in the Mexico City area.
The name “axolotl” derives from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and kindred tribes. It means “water monster”.
The size of a mature axolotl ranges from 6 to 18 inches. A length of 9 inches is the most common. Average weight is about 10 and a half ounces. Its life expectancy is 10-15 years.
The axolotl is a carnivore, consuming worms, water bugs and insect larvae, small fish, other salamanders, arthropods such as crayfish, and mollusks. They smell their prey, snap it then suck it into their stomachs.
The axolotl genome is about 10 times the size of the human genome, although the amount of proteins is not that much greater (23,251 vs. about 20,000).
Unlike most other amphibians, the axolotl does not undergo a metamorphosis, as for example when a tadpole changes into a frog. The axolotl lives in the water its whole life, it can breathe outside of water for only a short time. There are rare exceptions but most axolotls do not undergo metamorphosis.
Mexico City was built on a complex of lakes. Over the centuries the lakes have mostly been filled up by urbanization. Therefore, there aren’t many axolotls left in their native habitat.
Valley of Mexico in 1519. Most of it’s filled in by now. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Besides the loss of their habitat, the axolotl population is also threatened by the presence of invasive fish species (tilapia and carp) which eat young axolotls and compete for the same food. Plus, pollution of the water is a problem.
It’s been estimated that there are somewhere between only 50 and 1000 axolotls left in much-reduced lakes Xochimilco and Chalco in southern Mexico City, also in an artificial lake at Chapultepec Park.
Outside of its native area, however, there are my axolotls all over the world: in aquariums, zoos, laboratories and belonging to private collectors, as it is an exotic pet. The first axolotls exported from Mexico were in 1863, when 34 live specimens were sent to Paris. Since then, genetic differences have developed between the wild and captive axolotls. It’s estimated that there are up to a million captive axolotls.
Axolotls in Vancouver Aquarium. Source: ZeWrestler
One fascinating thing about the axolotl is it can regenerate body parts and tissues. Here’s a photo of an axolotl regrowing a front limb:
Here’s a current Mexican 50-peso bill. The front (left side below) portrays the foundation of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) in 1325. The back (right side) portrays an axolotl in Xochimilco. That bill received the “Bank Note of the Year Award” for 2021 from the International Bank Note Society.
And, the axolotl has been chosen as the mascot for Mexico City during the upcoming World Cup. Here is Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada holding up a stuffed axolotl.
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