Mexico City's former mayor dies

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, an emblematic figure of Mexican socialism and former mayor of Mexico City, died there at the age of 92 on 28 October. Cárdenas, son of President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, became the capital's first elected mayor in 1997, La Jornada reported. Initially a member of the longtime ruling party the PRI, Cárdenas left in 1987 a party seen by then to be corrupt and authoritarian to found the PRD, meant to reflect more closely the social ideals of the 1910 Mexican revolution. He tried and failed twice, in 1994 and 2000, to win the presidency and was in recent years more a respected public figure than a politician with clout. Tributes poured in from inside and outside Mexico as President Claudia Sheinbaum described him as a "man of firm principles who changed our country's political life" and her predecessor as president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, termed him a "precursor of the democratic movement" in modern Mexico. Cárdenas had with his late wife, Celeste Batel, three children including Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, currently serving as Sheinbaum's chief of staff.

Venezuelan parliament seeks candidates for a new supreme court

Venezuela's socialist-dominated parliament opened on 28 October an application process to renew membership of the country's supreme court, as part of a process overseen by the United States to depoliticize key institutions before a general election. State institutions including parliament were currently filled with regime loyalists though government and opposition politicians recently discussed the mechanics of revamping the supreme court and the national electoral body, to ensure future elections were fair. A selection committee of 12 opposition-aligned or civilian figures and 11 lawmakers would choose nine of all those applying to become magistrates, Infobae reported on 28 October. Applications could be made from 28 October to 11 November, with the committee set to make its choices by 11 December, the website added. Applicants were expected to be Venezuelan nationals with a technical profile and no close family ties or associations with regime officials. A body of seven jurists, four of whom were described as opposition-aligned, would supervise the process. Separately on 27 October, the prominent regime opponent María Corina Machado met with relatives of political detainees and members of opposition parties other than her own, Vente Venezuela, Colombia's NTN24 reported. This was her first public engagement since returning from exile.

Brazilian presidential candidate flees to the United States

Brazil's defeated presidential candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, fled the country with his family in the night of 26-27 October, ahead of a travel ban and the prospect of prosecution on money laundering charges. Furtively crossing the Brazilian-Argentine frontier into Iguazú, he later took a private flight for the United States with a stopover in Ecuador, the website Infobae reported. The Bolsonaros appeared to have crossed the frontier without checks, according to Spain's ABC newspaper and regional media. Brazilian justice, which had ordered Bolsonaro to hand in his passport by 27 October, was separately to investigate suspected irregularities in his recent campaign, the paper stated. The United States agreed to let in the family as it did earlier Bolsonaro's brother, the former senator Eduardo Bolsonaro, now living in Florida. Their father the former president Jair Bolsonaro, was in jail in Brazil, convicted of plotting a revolt against his presidential successor Lula da Silva in January 2023.

State Secretary says U.S. assured Venezuelan opponent's safe return

The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told local media on 26 October that the administration of President Donald J. Trump won pledges "weeks before" from Venezuela's socialist regime that the exiled opponent María Corina Machado could safely return home. She reentered Venezuela to popular acclaim on 25 October. He told a conference call it wasn't the United States but other countries that had previously stopped Machado flying home from their territories, to avoid offending Venezuela, the Madrid newspaper ABC reported citing agencies. The United States, Rubio said, was working with the regime and opposition to set up the "electoral infrastructure" to assure proper elections as Venezuelans were demanding, though he gave no date for them. But he stressed these should be held not in "10, five or two years" but before, suggesting before the Trump presidency ends. The Miami Herald elaborated on 26 October on changes the opposition and regime were negotiating, specifically an overhaul of two key bodies, the Venezuelan supreme court and its national electoral body.

Venezuela's chief opponent makes triumphal return from exile

The leading opponent to Venezuela's socialist regime, María Corina Machado, returned home on October 25 after a ten-month absence and several failed attempts to enter Venezuela. She was received by jubilant crowds in Caracas, after making her way there by land from her last base in Panama. Days before, the opposition organized protests demanding both her return and dates for a general election to hasten Venezuela's transition to democracy. Machado's return was seen as a challenge to the interim government led by Delcy Rodríguez and perhaps also the Trump administration in Washington, which promised a transition after toppling President Nicolás Maduro in January but proceeded to do business with the regime. There were speculations President Donald J. Trump had been impeding her return, and his latest response seemed lukewarm. He said "I don't know anything about it but I think she's a very nice woman... I hope she's safe," C-SPAN reported. Still, the return was unlikely without U.S. approval and in part the fruit of lobbying by Machado's allies in Washington including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Republican senators Richard Scott and María Elvira Salazar. Speaking in Florida on 23 October, Salazar said "Delcy can't jail anyone [she's] in communication with the State Department... [and the administration, which] has promised there will be a transition in Venezuela." Machado is winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

Brazil's Lula da Silva wins fourth presidential mandate

Brazil's sitting president, the socialist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, won a fourth term in the second round of the general election held on 25 October, confounding predictions that his right-wing rival would narrowly win. His opponent, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, was refusing to concede defeat in spite of an initial count giving Lula a clear lead. The website Infobae noted that Lula was "until today" the first president to retain office after coming second in the first round of elections, adding that the 64 million votes he won (from a total of just over 128 million votes) was a record beating his 60 million votes of 2022. Regional leaders including conservatives swiftly recognized and congratulated him on his victory. The exception was the U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who had backed Bolsonaro; he appeared to doubt the election's legitimacy, alleging Lula had used "the Biden method" or manual to win, meaning he cheated.

Mexico seminar deplores the proliferation of microplastics

Half the plastic made worldwide today - some 430 million tons in 2024 - is single-use or disposable, while 71% of all plastics end up in the environment, notably as microplastics or tiny particles, a lecture at Mexico's National University revealed. If unchecked, production could reach 1.2 billion tons a year by 2050, researcher Eduardo Tecuapa Flores told a seminar held on 22-23 October by the National (UNAM) and La Salle universities, La Jornada reported. Speakers observed on the ubiquity of plastic and its numerous forms far beyond containers or bags, which have obstructed half-hearted efforts made so far to check its use or reduce exposure to and ingestion of pulverized plastic, the daily stated. In Mexico, several environmental groups including Greenpeace have sought, in vain so far, to legally force a parliamentary debate on banning single-use plastic.

Mexico City home to thousands of working children

Mexico's capital was reported to have almost 113,000 working children and teenagers aged between five and 17 years, with their numbers roughly doubling between 2022 and 2025, La Jornada reported on 21 October citing the statistics agency INEGI. The work in question included unpaid domestic chores, illegal work and manning street stalls, in cases for 12 hours a day, and inevitably entailed disruption or a full interruption of schooling, the daily stated. It observed however that the capital of over nine million residents still had, in proportional terms, fewer working children than most other states of the Mexican republic.

El Salvador sends troops to Haiti, seeking kidnapped agents

El Salvador sent 100 special operations troops into Haiti on 22 October to seek out four technicians thought to have been kidnapped in the capital by one of the island's rampant gangs. The advisers were part of the UN-mandated Gang Suppression Force, working to pacify the island and especially its capital Port-au-Prince since April 2026. They came under fire after leaving a supermarket on 18 October, the Miami Herald reported. The contingent would join a search-and-rescue operation with local forces in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac region that includes the capital. El Salvador's tough-on-crime president, Nayib Bukele, told the gangs a day earlier not to harm their hostages, warning that sending troops was "just the beginning," elsalvador.com reported. Writing online, he said they had seen nothing yet - in so many words - adding, "We've ended the gangs in El Salvador, and can end yours too. We can still avoid that. Give us back our four compatriots alive, without any harm, and everything will be as it was before the kidnapping," EFE agency reported. Conservatives across the continent have feted Bukele's suppression of the Mara gangs and sharp reduction in murders in his country.

Mexico-U.S. frontier city leader in nationwide kidnappings

Mexico's northern frontier city of Juárez became its chief hub for kidnappings, mostly for extortion, in the first nine months of 2026, the Diario de Juárez reported on 21 October. An analysis by pollsters Tresearch using statistics compiled by the SESNSP, a police intelligence body, counted 106 kidnappings in the city between January and the end of September, from a total of 116 for the state of Chihuahua where Juárez is located. While statewide kidnappings had dropped 16% when compared to 2025, their numbers were now comparable to the last historical peak in the years 2010-12, the daily stated. Chihuahua, it observed, was now governed by a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), María Eugenia Campos Galván, just as Mexico was then governed by a PAN president who famously declared war on the cartels. From October 2025 to the end of September 2026, Chihuahua registered 164 kidnappings, considerably more than the next two states with most registered kidnappings in that period: Sonora with 37, and Tlaxcala with 16.

U.S. Justice piles murder charges on Cuba's former leader

Courts in the U.S. state of Florida compounded on 19 October homicide charges filed in May 2026 against the former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the 1996 downing of unarmed planes flying from Florida to Cuba. Castro, brother of the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and the country's vice-president and minister of defence at the time, was charged with murder in late May for allegedly ordering shot down two, unarmed planes flying out to aid Cubans trying to flee the communist-run island. The planes, owned by Cuban-American exiles, were downed outside Cuban territorial waters, apparently without any warning, which killed four U.S. citizens on board, according to the Associated Press. The agency reported that Castro would now face the charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder as prosecutors allege Cuban spies working in Florida had informed island authorities of the planes' flight plans. Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the charges a "pathetic Miami circus" meant to ramp up pressures on the regime ahead of possible actions akin to the United States' earlier move to nab Venezuela's last president, Nicolás Maduro.

Mexico City's overcrowded metro sees "two scuffles a day"

The Mexico City subway, serving a city of over nine million residents, reportedly witnessed an average two fights a day between passengers, mostly in the rush hours when trains are filled to the brim. Subway system management found scuffles to be most frequent at 08:30 hours and at two, six and seven in the evening, causing the metro to halt for a total of six days in the past four years, La Jornada reported on 10 February. The daily cited overcrowding and subsequent irritation, and grabbing a seat, as habitual causes of fighting, adding there seemed to be no protocol on handling such incidents. They are often filmed and uploaded online as entertainment.

Rats "freely roam" Mexico City's prestige avenue

Rats recently became an unwelcome sight on Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, the emblematic avenue hosting corporate offices and prestige hotels and flats. In parts of the avenue notably outside the Four Seasons Hotel by the Chapultepec park, this was blamed on unspecified locals leaving food on the pavement or stuck on trees, supposedly for the birds and squirrels, El Sol de México reported on 7 February. "That's what the rats eat," a local resident told the daily. Pockets of greenery, scarce and overflowing bins and the abundance of fast-food chains and eateries were other factors making this a desirable area for the critters. Another paper, Milenio, observed on their strolling about "in full daylight."

Bogotá begins year clearing tonnes of curbside trash..

The Bogotá municipality cleared over 9,100 tonnes of trash, mostly building material, heavy items or broken furniture left on pavements through January 2026, or some 300 tonnes of débris dumped outside every day, the broadcaster Radio Santa Fe reported on 5 February. Over 2,200 tonnes of similar refuse and 500 tyres were separately cleared in the first week of February, the broadcaster reported on 8 February. This was almost as much as the 13,000 tonnes of refuse people deposited with mobile Ecopoints or municipal collection vans (Ecopuntos móviles, run by the UAESP or Special Administrative Unit for Public Services) throughout 2025. The city's 211 collection vans move around with advance notice so people will dispose of unwanted items correctly and prevent the city's notorious trash piles.

Pollsters find Mexico now far more violent than in 2015

Extreme violence increased by 68% in Mexico between 2015 and 2025 in general terms, with criminal killings rising some 30% in that time in spite of a recent dip, Excelsior reported on 10 February, citing a private research firm. Pollsters México Evalúa found a 22% drop in criminal killings over 2024-25, but broadly an increase over a decade, especially in parts of the country, and suspected a redefinition of homicide categories may be behind official claims that murders were down. Its research analysed figures given by the SESNSP, a police coordination agency, and the national registry of missing persons (RNPDNO). It found for example a rise of almost 370% over 10 years in the categories of "other life threatening offences" and almost 213% in missing persons, which includes kidnappings. A record of almost 13,000 people were cited as missing in Mexico in 2024, Excelsior reported, citing México Evalúa.  

Police drone 'catches' drug peddlers in Bogotá

Police arrested five suspected drug dealers after a drone caught them in the act of dealing on a street in southern Bogotá, the broadcaster Radio Santa Fe reported on 6 February. The drone, used as part of a wider operation in the area, led to policemen rushing to the spot, where they confiscated cash, 109 doses of marijuana and 149 doses of cocaine base or paste, all equivalent to 400 doses of drugs to be sold on the street. Earlier, neighbors or informants called police to report a jewelry heist in the district of Restrepo, leading to the arrest of five suspects who tried to escape running over adjacent roofs, Radio Santa Fe reported on 5 February.

Venezuelan assembly approves amnesty bill in principle

Venezuela's National Assembly, a body of legislators loyal to the country's socialist regime, voted unanimously on 5 February to approve in principle a political amnesty bill proposed days earlier by the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez. The bill, touted as a gesture of national reconciliation but likely the fruit of pressure from U.S. authorities now involved in running the country, was conditional and had yet to become a law, CNN reported. It was firstly subject to a process of "public consultation" to determine who would be amnestied, before returning to parliament for a second debate. It excluded various offences like "grave human rights violations," murder or drug trafficking. A parliamentary committee of 19 legislators including Nicolás Maduro Guerra, son of the Venezuelan leader currently facing drug charges in the United States, was to prepare the consultation process. Parliamentary Speaker Jorge Rodríguez told its chairman, Jorge Arreaza, to ensure a rigorous consultation process but also move fast, as "we haven't much time." The bill was proposed on 30 January as an Amnesty Law for Democratic Cohabitation (Ley de amnistía para la convivencia democrática), and applicable to the period since 1999 or entire span of of socialist or Chavista rule, CNN reported.

Woman held in Bogotá trying to smuggle drugs into police station

A 61-year-old woman was arrested in Usme south of Bogotá, after she tried to smuggle marijuana hidden in eggs into the local police station, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 31 January. The woman was visiting an inmate being held at the station, but guards inspecting food she had brought him noticed certain eggs with her were not intact. Bogotá police colonel Norberto Caro said they were found to have "a substance with characteristics similar to marijuana." The woman was held for questioning.

Colombian, U.S. presidents hold "surprisingly friendly" meeting

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, a former Marxist, met with the Republican U.S. President Donald J. Trump in the White House on 3 February, in a cordial meeting that seemed to dissipate months of mutual animosity. CNN listed a history of spats and incidents in the first year of the second Trump presidency, including Trump calling Petro sick, a thug and a "bad guy," having his U.S. visa revoked and threatening to move against Colombia as the United States did with Venezuela in January. Colombia was for decades a key strategic ally of the United States, until Petro and Trump coincided as leaders. Trump has repeatedly accused Colombia - and Mexico - of making paltry efforts to fight drug trafficking into the United States. Drugs were one issue discussed at the private meeting, attended by senior officials of both countries, with Petro observing that key drug kingpins were not in Colombia but abroad, in places like Madrid or Dubai where they should be sought. Petro presented some highlights of what his country had done in this field between 2022 and 2026, Colombia's Blu Radio reported on 4 February. This included confiscating over 3,100 tonnes of cocaine in various forms to deprive the cartels of U.S. $92 billion's worth of revenues, destroying over 18,500 drug laboratories and numerous police and military operations against criminal targets. The cost to law enforcement included 360 Colombian agents being injured or killed in those years. Trump now said Petro was terrific.

Mexican agents rescue dog from a ravine: he'd been chasing a squirrel

Up to seven Mexican Civil Protection agents rescued a pitbull from a ravine in Coyoacán in southern Mexico City, after it accidentally jumped in while chasing a squirrel, Excelsior reported on 3 February. The daily displayed the rescued dog, his delighted owner Brayan and the agents involved in the 20-minute operation. Brayan commented he had assumed his dog, named Jack, must have died, having fallen 25 metres, but called for help after he peered over the ravine and saw it waiting quietly. "He's usually very quiet but he does chase after squirrels," Brayan said.