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The prime minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, formally signed his resignation letter on Wednesday, paving the way for a new government and bringing a measure of political stability to a nation mired in gang violence and an unfolding humanitarian crisis. With the sound of gunshots as a backdrop, the nine members of a transitional council took the oath of office early on Thursday in the National Palace. “We have served the nation in difficult times,” wrote Mr. Henry, whose resignation letter bore a Los Angeles address. “I sympathize with the losses and suffering endured by our compatriots during this period.”Mr. Henry, who has been unable to return to the country because of security concerns, had said in March that he would step down once the transitional council was established.

Persons: Ariel Henry, ”, Henry, Mr Locations: Haiti, “, Los Angeles

Jesus Campos said he worked at Brawner Builders alongside the men missing after a bridge collapse in Baltimore. “We’re low-income families,” said Jesus Campos, who has worked at the construction company, Brawner Builders, for about eight months. The executive, Jeffrey Pritzker, and the Coast Guard said that all of the missing workers were presumed dead, given how long it had been since the collapse. Embassies for the other two countries mentioned by Mr. Campos did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Officials said that in addition to the six missing workers, two people had been rescued from the water.

Persons: Jesus Campos, “, ”, Jeffrey Pritzker, Mr, Pritzker, “ It’s, Campos, Francis Scott Key, Miguel Luna, Luna, Gustavo Torres, Jacey Fortin, Miriam Jordan, Patricia Mazzei, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Kirsten Noyes Organizations: Brawner Builders, Brawner, Coast Guard, Baltimore Banner Locations: Baltimore, Baltimore County, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Maryland, Petén, Mexican, Washington, Brawner

☆ Haiti’s Leader, Under Growing Pressure, Says He Will Resign
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Haiti’s prime minister, who has come under growing pressure to resign as gangs have overrun the country, said late Monday that he would step down once a transitional council had been established, to pave the way for the election of a new president and help restore stability. “The government that I lead will withdraw immediately after the installation of this council,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said in a speech posted on social media. The government that I lead cannot remain insensitive to this situation.”But it was far from clear when Mr. Henry, who had been under growing pressure to step down both in Haiti and abroad, would actually do so. Leaders from Caribbean nations, who have led the push to create a transitional council, met for discussions in Jamaica on Monday but said no plan had been finalized. Guyana’s president, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, who leads Caricom, a union of 15 Caribbean countries, said that “we still have a long way to go.”

Persons: Haiti’s, Ariel Henry, Henry, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, ” Organizations: ”, Caricom Locations: Haiti, Caribbean, Jamaica

Gangs attacked two prisons in Haiti, including the country’s largest penitentiary, and allowed prisoners to escape on Saturday night, according to Haitian officials, the latest instance of escalating violence and disorder in the country’s capital, which has been ravaged by gang violence for more than two years. While details of the attack remained murky, the government of Haiti released a statement Sunday saying that police officers were unable to prevent gang members from releasing “a large number of prisoners,” adding that several inmates and prison staff were injured. Haiti’s national penitentiary held nearly 4,000 inmates at the time of the attack and the other facility, the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison, held roughly 1,400, according to local human rights groups. At least two of the country’s police unions went on social media on Saturday requesting that all police officers report to the national prison in Port-au-Prince, the capital, to help control the situation and prevent the inmates from fleeing.

Locations: Haiti, Port

☆ Mexico’s Presidential Race Is Shaping Up to Be a Blowout
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Simon Romero | Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

With Mexico’s presidential election just three months away, one thing is clear: The candidate for the governing party appears to be running away with it. Claudia Sheinbaum, a physicist and protégée of the current president, holds a commanding lead of about 30 percentage points in the polls over the opposition’s Xóchitl Gálvez, a tech entrepreneur, as campaigning officially starts on Friday. Playing it safe at a time when the departing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, remains broadly popular, Ms. Sheinbaum has kept so closely to his policies and persona that she not only vows to adopt his priorities, she also sometimes imitates his slow-paced way of talking in appearances across the country. But while Ms. Sheinbaum’s exceptionally disciplined campaign has cemented her front-runner status, the candidate who could be Mexico’s first female president remains something of an enigma to many Mexicans.

Persons: Claudia Sheinbaum, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum

Only a few torn pieces of the crime scene tape around Lorenza Cano’s house are left. All that remains is the hope that Ms. Cano will be found. The 55-year-old activist is one of hundreds of women in Mexico who became advocates for the country’s disappeared population after their own loved ones went missing. Ms. Cano’s brother, José Francisco, was abducted in 2018 and never found. The abduction has highlighted one of Mexico’s most haunting national tragedies: a crisis of disappearances.

Persons: Cano, Cano’s, José Francisco Locations: Mexico, Salamanca, Mexico’s, Guanajuato

First the trucks arrived, carrying armed men toward the mist-shrouded mountaintop. Then the flames appeared, sweeping across a forest of towering pines and oaks. After the fire laid waste to the forest last year, the trucks returned. This time, they carried the avocado plants taking root in the orchards scattered across the once tree-covered summit where townspeople used to forage for mushrooms. “We never witnessed a blaze on this scale before,” said Maricela Baca Yépez, 46, a municipal official and lifelong resident of Patuán, a town nestled in the volcanic plateaus where Mexico’s Purépecha people have lived for centuries.

Persons: ”, Maricela Baca Yépez Locations: Patuán

Below the shattered windows of the high-rise hotels in downtown Acapulco, people walk alongside towering hills of garbage bags filled with rotting food and debris, from mattresses to Christmas decorations. Volunteer firefighters from distant states clear the waste, wiping away swarms of cockroaches from their arms. Miles from the coastal beachside resorts, Elizabeth Del Valle, 43, listened as her teenage daughter Constanza Sotelo, described the “mountains of trash” still blocking many streets surrounding their home. “We have no way to find face masks to keep ourselves healthy,” said Ms. Del Valle. “We expect that we’re going to get an infection from the smell, from the garbage.”Weeks after Hurricane Otis shocked forecasters and government officials by intensifying rapidly into the strongest storm to hit Mexico’s Pacific Coast and devastate much of Acapulco, residents say they now face an unfolding public health disaster.

Persons: Miles, Elizabeth Del Valle, Constanza Sotelo, ”, Del, “, Hurricane Otis Locations: Acapulco, Del Valle, Coast

On the night Hurricane Otis barreled into Acapulco, Mexico, Saúl Parra Morales received a video that only hours before would have seemed unbelievable. For days, forecasters had predicted little more than a tropical storm. But Mr. Parra Morales watched in horror as his brother filmed the deafening gusts of wind and waves cracking against the deck of the Litos, the yacht where he worked and that proved no match for what became the most powerful storm to hit Mexico’s Pacific Coast. “This is getting more intense,” Mr. Parra Morales’s brother, Fernando Esteban Parra Morales, said in the video. “We are nervous, but we are safe.”

Persons: Saúl Parra Morales, Parra Morales, Mr, Parra Morales’s, Fernando Esteban Parra Morales Locations: Acapulco, Mexico, Coast

☆ Las tripulaciones de los yates de Acapulco se hundieron con sus barcos
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Zolan Kanno-Youngs | Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Damaged boats washed onto the shore this month in Acapulco, Mexico. Credit... Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

Persons: Jose Luis Gonzalez Organizations: Reuters Locations: Acapulco, Mexico

Jesús Ociel Baena made history a year ago when they were sworn in as the first openly nonbinary person to assume a judicial post in Mexico. Baena, who used they/them pronouns, and their partner were found dead inside their home, stirring calls from Mexico’s L.G.B.T.Q. community to determine if the magistrate had been targeted for promoting the rights of nonbinary people. Baena, 38, was a magistrate on the electoral court, have said that their 37-year-old partner, Dorian Herrera, appeared to have killed them with a razor blade before dying by suicide. leaders in Mexico are questioning whether such a swift assessment fits what they say is a pattern by the authorities of effectively dismissing grisly killings involving L.G.B.T.Q.

Persons: Jesús, Baena, Mexico’s, Dorian Herrera Locations: Mexico, Aguascalientes

It’s a list that includes powerful members of Mexico’s government. And, court records show, they were all recently under surveillance by the Mexico City attorney general’s office. At least 14 written orders reviewed by The New York Times show that the attorney general directed Mexico’s largest telecommunications company to hand over the phone and text records, as well as location data, of more than a dozen prominent Mexican officials and politicians. Telcel, the telecommunications company, acknowledged in a court filing reviewed by The Times that it had received the orders and handed over the records, which spanned from 2021 until earlier this year. The surveillance included both opponents of the governing Morena party and its allies.

Organizations: The New York Times, The Times, Morena Locations: It’s, Mexico City

☆ Near an Acapulco Beach: Food, Water and Prayer After Hurricane Otis
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-30 | by ( Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | More About Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a large church displaying a big blue cross near the Acapulco beachfront, dozens of people dozed in sleeping bags along the pews, prayed in silence or anxiously discussed their next move. As of Monday morning, 45 people were confirmed dead and 47 were missing, according to the Mexican government’s preliminary numbers. One woman wanted to know whether more water jugs were arriving soon. A man who traveled from Mexico City thanked Mr. Sánchez for finding his missing relatives. An incomplete list put together by local authorities identified 1,656 displaced people set up in hotels, schools and sports complexes.

Persons: Víctor Hugo Sánchez attentively, Sánchez, sobbed, ” Organizations: Mexico City Locations: Acapulco, Mexico, Guerrero

The tourists were bused out of Acapulco to find relief as far away as Mexico’s capital. But thousands of residents were left behind to deal with the chaos and destruction of Hurricane Otis, which had turned their paradise into a wasteland. Three days after the Category 5 storm came ashore in Mexico, residents on Saturday were navigating streets coated in broken glass, uprooted trees and fallen telephone poles. People throughout Acapulco were searching ransacked stores for water and other sustenance. Others were using amateur radio to try to find loved ones.

Persons: Hurricane Otis, “, ”, Roberto Alvarado Locations: Acapulco, Hurricane, Mexico

On Tuesday morning, few meteorologists were talking about Tropical Storm Otis. At that time, forecast computer models didn’t show much to be concerned about. By Sunday evening, the computer forecast models were still not showing much. This is why meteorologists often preach that a computer model isn’t a forecast — forecasters create forecasts, they like to say. On Monday evening, with Otis still a tropical storm, satellite images revealed a little feature that could mean that the storm was about to intensify very quickly.

Persons: Tropical Storm Otis, Otis, Zach Levitt, Tomer, we’re, Eric Blake, Hurricane Otis Organizations: Tropical Storm, National, U.S, National Hurricane Center, Otis, Hurricane Locations: Mexico, Tomer Burg, Florida, @burgwx, Acapulco

An armed group ambushed and killed more than a dozen law enforcement officers in southwestern Mexico on Monday, including a local security secretary and a police chief, adding to a soaring number of deadly attacks against the police in the region. Guerrero is now the second most dangerous state in Mexico for law enforcement officers, with more than 34 killed so far in 2023, according to Common Cause, a Mexico-based organization tracking the killings of police officers in the country. The group said more than 340 police officers had been killed so far this year in the nation, and more than 400 killed last year. Mr. López Obrador has said much of the violence in the nation is because of the United States’ inability to prevent guns from being trafficked south into Mexico. Leaders from both countries discussed the roots of such violence during high-profile meetings in Mexico City this month.

Persons: Coyuca de Benítez, Alfredo Alonso López, Honorio Salinas, Guerrero, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, López Obrador Organizations: United Locations: Mexico, Coyuca de, Mexican, Guerrero, Honorio Salinas Garay, United States, Mexico City

“If you were to throw gasoline on a fire that’s already burning, that fire would grow really rapidly, really quickly. “Being hurricane season prepared also means being compassionate and kind to yourself during times of hardship,” NOLA Ready, the city’s emergency preparedness campaign, advised in a post on Instagram. Ms. Sibley, an administrative assistant and Ms. Ozane’s sister, has tried to save money to help with riding out hurricanes only for other demands to interfere with that. “What am I going to do if a hurricane really comes?” she said. “I pray we don’t have a bad one this year,” Ms. Sibley said.

Persons: El Niño, ”, Roishetta Sibley Ozane, Phil Klotzbach, “ There’s, Hurricane Ida, Emily Kask, The New York Times El, El, Eric Blake, Andrew, Craig E, Blake, Michael, Laura, Ian, Clay Tucker, NOLA Ready, Hurricane Laura, Ozane, “ They’re, Lake Charles, Ms, Meoshia Sibley, Sibley, Ozane’s, ” Ms, “ Organizations: Biscayne, El, Colorado State University, ”, National Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration, Atlantic, The New York Times, National Hurricane Center, Experts, Louisiana State University, University of Southern, Delta, of Louisiana Locations: Biscayne Beach, Florida, Westlake, La, Hurricane, Galliano, United States, University of Southern Mississippi, New Orleans, Lake Charles, Louisiana

Mexico warned the western state of Baja California on Saturday to brace for what could be life-threatening rain and floods from Hurricane Hilary, the Pacific storm barreling toward the peninsula and neighboring Southern California. State and federal authorities urged citizens to take precautions ahead of the storm, which was expected to make landfall early Sunday. Although Hilary weakened somewhat on Saturday, officials warned it remained lethally destructive. More than 6,500 soldiers were deployed Friday to the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur to help erect shelters, organize food banks and prepare for possible emergency rescues. Libia González, a meteorologist with Mexico’s national forecasting service, said that the storm would gradually decrease in strength and was expected to become a Category 1 by Sunday morning.

Persons: Hurricane Hilary, Hilary, Libia Organizations: Southern California ., Sunday Locations: Mexico, Baja California, Hurricane, Southern California, Southern California . State, Baja California Sur

In the United States, some truck owners delight in modifying their rigs with oversized wheels, heavy-duty suspension kits and soot-spewing exhaust systems, turning them into the monster trucks that stalk organized events like demolition derbies and mud bogs. In Mexico, drug cartels are taking the monster truck concept to another terrifying level, retrofitting popular pickups with battering rams, four-inch-thick steel plates welded onto their chassis and turrets for firing machine guns. Some of Mexico’s most feared criminal groups, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, are using the vehicles in pitched gun battles with the police. Other organizations, like the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel, use the armored trucks to fight each other. Cartels emblazon the exteriors with their initials or the latest in camouflage patterns, at times making them hard to distinguish from official military vehicles.

Organizations: Jalisco New, Gulf Cartel, Northeast Cartel Locations: United States, Mexico, Jalisco, Mexican

☆ Tide of Terror Shifts in Haiti as U.S. Nurse and Her Child Are Abducted
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-31 | by ( Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | More About Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An American nurse and her daughter have been abducted in Haiti, in the latest kidnapping episode to draw international notice, as a resurgence of violence grips the capital, Port-au-Prince. In a brief statement on Saturday, El Roi Haiti, a faith-focused humanitarian organization, identified the woman as Alix Dorsainvil, the group’s community nurse and the wife of the group’s director. She and her child were taken from El Roi’s campus near the capital on Thursday, according to the statement. Kidnappings in recent years had become a part of daily life in Port-au-Prince, where gangs have taken over many parts of the city. But, recently, the capital experienced a sharp decline in abductions, according to a report in early July from CARDH, a Haitian human rights group.

Persons: Alix Dorsainvil, ” Organizations: U.S . State Department, Haitian Locations: American, Haiti, Port, El Roi Haiti, El Roi’s, U.S, CARDH, Haitian

☆ An Investigation Into Mexico’s 43 Missing Students Ends in ‘Falsehoods and Diversions’
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | More About Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“It’s all lies, one after another,” Carlos Beristain, a Spanish doctor and panel member, told The New York Times on Monday night. “We’re not going to stay if we don’t have a chance to get answers,” he added. More recently, only two members of the panel remained on the committee and its mandate had expired. The technical analysis revealed a constant flow of communications that reached the top levels of the military in the region. Mexican soldiers not only knew about but most likely witnessed the shootings, the detentions and the violence “second by second,” Ángela Buitrago, a Colombian lawyer and another panel investigator, said during the news conference.

Persons: “, ” Carlos Beristain, “ We’re, ”, Enrique Peña Nieto, Beristain, Ángela Organizations: New York Times Locations: Spanish, Mexico, Colombian

Guatemala’s presidential election was thrown into turmoil Wednesday night after a top prosecutor moved to suspend the party of a surging anticorruption candidate, threatening his bid to take part in a runoff and potentially dealing a severe blow to the country’s already fraying democracy. The move could prevent Bernardo Arévalo, a lawmaker who jolted Guatemala’s political class in June with a surprise showing propelling him in the Aug. 20 runoff, from competing against Sandra Torres, a former first lady. Rafael Curruchiche, the prosecutor who mounted the case to suspend the party, has himself been listed among corrupt Central American officials by the United States for obstructing corruption inquiries. The development places even greater stress on Guatemala’s political system, after the barring of several top presidential candidates who were viewed as threatening to the political and economic establishment, assaults on press freedom and the forced exile of dozens of prosecutors and judges focused on curbing corruption.

Persons: Bernardo Arévalo, jolted, Sandra Torres, Rafael Curruchiche Organizations: Central Locations: United States

Migrant shelters with plenty of empty beds. Soldiers patrolling intersections where migrant families once begged for spare change. In Ciudad Juárez and in other Mexican cities along the border, the story is much the same: Instead of surging as elected officials and immigration advocates had warned, the number of migrants trying to enter the United States has plummeted following the expiration in May of a pandemic-era border restriction. The unusual scenes of relative calm flow from a flurry of actions the Biden administration has taken, such as imposing stiffer penalties for illegal border crossings, to try to reverse an enormous jump in migrants trying to reach the United States. But it is also the result of tough steps Mexico has taken to discourage migrants from massing along the border, including transporting them to places deep in the country’s interior.

Persons: Biden Organizations: Ciudad Juárez Locations: United States, Mexico

☆ 41 Dead After Riot Erupts in Honduran Women’s Prison
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | Joan Suazo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

At least 41 inmates were killed on Tuesday morning in central Honduras after a riot broke out at the country’s only prison for women, one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence in the country’s long-troubled prison system. Most of the victims had been burned, while others had been shot, said Yuri Mora, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office, who added that the death toll was expected to rise as investigators combed through the detention facility in Támara, near Tegucigalpa, the capital. While the cause of the violence was not clear, the prison has been the scene of ongoing conflict between feuding gangs. “We are dismayed by the loss of human lives,” Julissa Villanueva, vice minister of security and head of the Honduran penitentiary system, said in a news conference. The country’s penal system, she said, had been “hijacked” by organized crime.

Persons: Yuri Mora, ” Julissa Villanueva Locations: Honduras, Támara, Tegucigalpa, Honduran

☆ He Exposed Corruption in Guatemala. Now He’s Been Sentenced to Prison.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | Jody García | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One of Guatemala’s most high-profile journalists was convicted on Wednesday of money laundering and sentenced to up to six years in prison, in a trial denounced by human rights and free speech advocates as another sign of the deteriorating rule of law. The journalist, José Rubén Zamora, was tried on charges of financial wrongdoing that prosecutors say focused on his business dealing, not his journalism. He was acquitted of blackmail and influence peddling, and fined about $40,000. Mr. Zamora was the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that regularly investigated government corruption, including accusations involving the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, and the attorney general, María Consuelo Porras. For activists defending press freedom and civil rights in Guatemala, Wednesday’s verdict and sentencing, delivered by a panel of judges, was another blow to the country’s wobbly democratic health, as the government and its allies have taken repeated aim at key institutions and independent news outlets.

Persons: José Rubén Zamora, Zamora, Alejandro Giammattei, María Consuelo Porras Locations: Guatemala

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