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.”

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.)

A handout picture released by the press office of the Mexican Congress shows the bodies of two extraterrestrials being exhibited at the Mexican Congress in Mexico City. The alleged bodies of two extraterrestrial beings were exhibited during a public hearing in the Mexican Congress, which for the first time officially addressed the issue in the country.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A UFO hearing in Mexico’s congress that featured the presentation of alleged remains of non-human beings faced swift international backlash on Thursday, with critics labeling it a “stunt,” and questions from officials in Peru, where the apparent specimens first emerged.

Mexican journalist and long-time UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan showed politicians at the hearing on Tuesday two tiny “bodies” displayed in cases, with three fingers on each hand and elongated heads. He claimed they were found in Peru in 2017 and were not related to any life on Earth.

The images from the congressional hearing, the first of its kind in Mexico, sparked international curiosity as well as substantial scorn.

Former U.S. Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who also attended the hearing to share his personal experience with sightings of “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP, heaped criticism on the presentation.

“Yesterday’s demonstration was a huge step backwards for this issue,” Mr. Graves said on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. “I am deeply disappointed by this unsubstantiated stunt.”

Mr. Graves participated in U.S. Congressional hearings on UAP in July, when he said that airspace sightings of unexplained phenomena were “grossly under-reported.”

Mr. Maussan said in the presentation that the specimens were recovered near Peru’s ancient Nazca Lines and had been carbon-dated by Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) and concluded to be about 1,000 years old. He claimed they were not related to any species on Earth.

Similar such finds in the past have turned out to be the remains of mummified children.

Peru’s Culture Minister Leslie Urteaga said no scientific institution in the South American country had identified the remains as non-human and questioned how the specimens had left Peru.

“There is a criminal complaint from the Ministry of Culture against some people who had a relationship with these gentlemen,” Ms. Urteaga told journalists late on Wednesday in reference to Maussan and his associates.

“I am going to ask for information to see what has happened … about the removal of pre-Hispanic objects, because I understand they are part of pre-Hispanic bone remains,” she added.

Mr. Maussan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UNAM, in a statement republished Wednesday which it first issued in 2017, said the work by its National Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry with Accelerators (LEMA) was only intended to determine the age of the samples. UNAM declined a request by Reuters to see the full study results or interview researchers who participated. It also declined to say how old its study had found the samples to be.

In a press conference on Thursday, NASA officials fielded questions about the Mexican presentation as they released their own report on recommendations for helping the Pentagon detect and examine UAP.

David Spergel, former head of Princeton University’s astrophysics department and chair of the report, said he did not know the nature of the samples but urged transparency.

“If you have something strange, make samples available to the world’s scientific community, and we’ll see what’s there,” he said.

Mexico City:

Mexican lawmakers heard testimony that “we are not alone” in the universe and saw the alleged remains of non-human beings in an extraordinary hearing marking the Latin American country’s first congressional event on UFOs.

In the hearing on Tuesday on FANI, the Spanish acronym for what are usually now termed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), politicians were shown two artifacts that Mexican journalist and long-time UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan claimed were the corpses of extraterrestrials.

The specimens were not related to any life on Earth, Maussan said.

The two tiny “bodies,” displayed in cases, have three fingers on each hand and elongated heads. Maussan said they were recovered in Peru near the ancient Nazca Lines in 2017. He said that they were about 1,000 years old, analyzed through a carbon dating process by Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM).

Similar such finds in the past have turned out to be the remains of mummified children.

Maussan said it was the first time such evidence had been presented.

“I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are not related to any other species in our world and that all possibilities are open for any scientific institution… to investigate it,” Maussan said.

“We are not alone,” he added.

Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, Director of the Scientific Institute for Health of the Mexican navy, said X-rays, 3-D reconstruction and DNA analysis had been carried out on the remains.

“I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings,” he said.

UNAM on Thursday republished a statement first issued in 2017, saying the work by its National Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry with Accelerators (LEMA) was only intended to determine the age of the samples.

“In no case do we make conclusions about the origin of said samples,” the statement said.

Lawmakers also heard from former U.S. Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who has participated in U.S. Congressional hearings about his personal experience with UAP and the stigma around reporting such sightings.

Congressman Sergio Gutierrez, from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s ruling Morena party, said he hoped the hearing would be the first of other similar events in Mexico.

“We are left with reflections, with concerns and with the path to continue talking about this,” Gutierrez said.

In recent years, the U.S. government has done an about-face on public information on UAP after decades of stonewalling and deflecting. The Pentagon has been actively investigating reported sightings in recent years by military aviators, while an independent NASA panel studying UFOs is the first of its kind by the space agency.

NASA is set to discuss findings from the study on Thursday.

Maussan faced swift backlash and criticism from skeptics on Wednesday who questioned the authenticity of his presentation.

“This could really hurt efforts to take the issue seriously,” said a user of X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. “Why didn’t they wait until a scientific paper was ready to publish it?”

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