Category: News

The Mexican military killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on Sunday in a raid in western Mexico, setting off a wave of violence that prompted governments in Jalisco and several neighboring states — as well as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries — to issue shelter-in-place orders and travel warnings.

Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was wounded during a military operation in the town of Tapalpa, in Jalisco state, and died while being airlifted to Mexico City. He had been one of the world’s most-wanted drug traffickers, with a U.S. bounty of up to $15 million on his head.

The operation was carried out by the Mexican Army, National Guard, and Air Force, with intelligence support from U.S. agencies. Six other cartel members were killed, and two were arrested. Three soldiers were wounded. Authorities seized armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and other weapons.

The cartel’s response was swift. Gunmen torched buses, cars, and businesses, blocking highways across nearly a dozen states. Guadalajara, Jalisco’s capital and a city slated to host matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, emptied out as residents stayed indoors. Smoke was visible rising over Puerto Vallarta, the popular Pacific coast resort city. Delta, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and Air Canada all canceled flights to Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara.

Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus declared a Code Red and suspended public transportation. He urged residents to remain at home until further notice. The governor of neighboring Nayarit, Miguel Ángel Navarro, issued a similar warning. Governors of Michoacán, Colima, and Tamaulipas also reported blockades and arson but stopped short of shelter-in-place orders, instead asking residents to monitor official channels. By early afternoon Sunday, Guanajuato reported its blockades had been cleared.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico told citizens via social media to shelter in place in Jalisco — including Puerto Vallarta, Chapala, and Guadalajara — as well as in parts of Tamaulipas, Michoacán, Guerrero, and Nuevo León. Canada told its citizens in Jalisco to “keep a low profile” and follow local authorities. The U.K. Embassy updated its Mexico travel guidance, warning against all but essential travel to parts of southern Jalisco and 11 municipalities in the north of the state. Australia and India also issued security alerts to their nationals in Mexico.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau welcomed the operation, calling Oseguera “one of the bloodiest and most ruthless drug kingpins” and saying the killing was “a great development for Mexico, the U.S., Latin America, and the world.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum praised Mexican security forces and called for calm. She has faced sustained pressure from the Trump administration to show results against drug trafficking since Trump took office last year. In February, the Trump administration formally designated the CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization.

The CJNG was co-founded by Oseguera around 2007 and grew into what the FBI and DEA consider Mexico’s most powerful trafficking organization, with a presence in all 50 U.S. states. The cartel is responsible for moving large quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl into the United States. It is known for particularly aggressive tactics, including attacks on military helicopters and the use of explosive-laden drones.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Mexico City noted that there is “no obvious successor” to Oseguera, a situation that could trigger internal power struggles within the cartel. The Yucatán Peninsula, while largely insulated from CJNG activity, has not been entirely immune to the broader expansion of organized crime in Mexico — as recent incidents in eastern Yucatán have illustrated.

As of Sunday evening, the situation in several states remained fluid.

What you need to know

• El Mencho, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), was killed Feb. 22 in a Mexican Army operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco
• The U.S. had offered a $15 million bounty for information leading to his arrest
• Cartel reprisals triggered road blockades, arson, and unrest across nearly a dozen Mexican states
• The U.S. Embassy issued shelter-in-place orders for Americans in Jalisco, Tamaulipas, parts of Michoacán, Guerrero, and Nuevo León
• Canada, the U.K., Australia, and India also issued security alerts for their nationals
• Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus declared a Code Red and suspended public transportation
• Multiple airlines, including Delta, American, Alaska, and Air Canada, canceled flights to Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta
• The CJNG was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. in February 2026
• No obvious successor to Oseguera has been named, raising the possibility of further instability within the cartel

A false report that Elena Poniatowska — Mexico’s most celebrated living writer — had died spread rapidly across social media on Wednesday, alarming readers, journalists, and public figures across Latin America before being quickly and firmly denied.

The rumor originated on X, formerly Twitter, where a recently created account impersonating a publishing house posted a notice claiming the 93-year-old author had died. The post spread fast. Well-known writers and journalists shared condolences. Argentine author Martín Caparrós posted a farewell tribute, then had to delete it after learning the news was fake.

The Fundación Elena Poniatowska Amor A.C. (Elena Poniatowska Amor Foundation) moved quickly to set the record straight. “Good morning, everyone — false information is circulating about Elena; she is perfectly fine and in excellent health,” she said.

The false report even reached Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum during her morning news conference, known as La Mañanera del Pueblo (The People’s Morning Conference). “¡Ay, no! Vamos a averiguar bien,” she said — something like “Oh no! Let’s find out properly.” Minutes later, after her staff confirmed the truth with the foundation, Sheinbaum was direct: “No es cierto. No asusten. Nuestro cariño a Elenita.” Translation: “It’s not true. Don’t scare people. Our love to little Elena.”

The incident is part of a broader pattern of fake celebrity death announcements on social media. Italian prankster Tommaso Debenedetti has been linked to similar hoaxes in the past targeting prominent public figures. In recent months, false death reports have also circulated about other well-known personalities, including singer José Luis Perales and actor Damián Alcázar.

Who is Elena Poniatowska?

Poniatowska is a towering figure in Mexico — the kind of writer whose work helped shape how an entire nation understood itself. Born in Paris on May 19, 1932, she moved to Mexico at age 10 to escape World War II. Her father was of Polish nobility and her mother came from a prominent Mexican family that had fled the country during the Revolution.

She started writing for the newspaper Excélsior at 18 and never really stopped. Over seven decades, she produced novels, essays, oral histories, and biography — more than 40 books in all, translated into over 20 languages. She was one of the founders of the newspaper La Jornada, now one of Mexico’s most-read dailies.

Her most famous work, La noche de Tlatelolco (published in English as Massacre in Mexico), documents the 1968 massacre of student protesters by government forces — an event the Mexican government tried for years to suppress. The book is built almost entirely from testimonies, recorded and woven together by Poniatowska herself. It remains essential reading for anyone trying to understand modern Mexico.

In 2013, she became the fourth woman to win the Premio Cervantes (Cervantes Prize), the most prestigious award in Spanish-language literature. She was also the first woman to receive Mexico’s National Journalism Prize, back in 1979.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, who publicly defended Poniatowska on Wednesday, has long held the author in high regard. The two women are part of a left-leaning intellectual tradition that has shaped Mexican culture for generations.

Despite her age, Poniatowska remains active. She still writes. She still gives interviews. The foundation that bears her name — and that issued Wednesday’s denial — recently launched a fiction writing competition.

The fake account that sparked Wednesday’s panic was created less than a month before the incident. Experts who track disinformation say this is a common tactic: new accounts with credible-sounding names post alarming content designed to spread before anyone thinks to verify it. The speed of X’s retweet culture does the rest.

For those who want to follow Poniatowska’s actual work and news, La Jornada — the newspaper she helped found — remains a reliable source.

Quick Facts: Elena Poniatowska

• Born May 19, 1932, in Paris, France; moved to Mexico in 1942
• Began her journalism career in 1953 at the newspaper Excélsior
• Author of more than 40 books, including novels, oral histories, and biography
• Best known for La noche de Tlatelolco (1971), published in English as Massacre in Mexico
• First woman to receive Mexico’s National Journalism Prize (1979)
• Won the Premio Cervantes in 2013, the highest honor in Spanish-language literature
• Co-founder of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada
• Trilingual in Spanish, French, and English
• Still active as a writer and public intellectual at age 93

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Wednesday that she will send a constitutional reform to Congress to eliminate what her government calls an entrenched system of excessive retirement payouts for former high-ranking officials at state-owned enterprises — some of whom collect more each month than the president herself earns.

The announcement came during Sheinbaum’s morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, where Raquel Buenrostro, head of the Secretariat for Anti-Corruption and Good Governance (Secretaría Anticorrupción y Buen Gobierno), laid out a detailed breakdown of the figures. What she presented was striking.

At the now-defunct power utility Luz y Fuerza del Centro (Light and Power of the Center), more than 14,000 former employees collectively receive 28 billion pesos — about $1.6 billion — per year in pension payments. Nearly 9,500 of them, roughly 67%, take home between 100,000 and one million pesos a month. One individual receives just over one million pesos monthly — about $58,000. The federal government also subsidizes part of their income taxes, adding another 2.4 billion pesos to the annual bill. Buenrostro noted that Luz y Fuerza pensioners receive on average 140 times the national average pension.

At Pemex, Mexico’s state oil company, the picture is similar. Some 22,000 former employees in the management tier (régimen de confianza) receive a combined 24.8 billion pesos a year. Of those, 544 collect more than the president — adding up to 1.8 billion pesos annually above her salary. Pemex pensioners average 39 times the national pension. At the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), more than 2,100 retirees also out-earn Sheinbaum, costing an extra 4.5 billion pesos per year. Buenrostro flagged additional cases at development banks Nafin, Banobras, and Bancomext.

For context, the national average monthly pension in Mexico is around 7,000 pesos — roughly $400.

The reform, which Sheinbaum said she plans to submit to Congress on Feb. 23, would amend Article 127 of the constitution to cap future pensions at half the president’s salary — about 70,000 pesos per month. Payments already being received would not be touched retroactively, but any new or adjusted payouts would fall under the cap going forward. Sheinbaum made clear the measure targets only senior management-level former employees, not unionized workers or those with collective bargaining agreements.

The government expects the reform to free up about 5 billion pesos annually, money Sheinbaum said will be redirected to the Programas del Bienestar (Welfare Programs), the administration’s social safety net. She said details on specific programs that will benefit will be announced on Feb. 23 alongside the legislation.

This isn’t the first time the issue has surfaced. Buenrostro raised similar concerns publicly in August 2025, when the government first revealed the scope of the pension figures and said it was exploring constitutional changes. Critics of the Slim proposal and other pension reform debates have noted that Mexico’s pension policy for rank-and-file workers moves in one direction while executive-tier payouts remain in another category altogether.

The reform effort fits into a broader anti-corruption push by the Sheinbaum administration. The Secretariat for Anti-Corruption and Good Governance has been active in reviewing legacy arrangements from prior administrations, which Sheinbaum’s government frequently refers to as products of the “neoliberal era.” Luz y Fuerza del Centro was shut down by then-President Felipe Calderón in 2009, a move that left many workers without jobs while a subset of high-ranking employees secured lucrative long-term pension arrangements in the liquidation process.

Some pensioners have already organized in anticipation of reform, with groups at Pemex, CFE, and Luz y Fuerza consulting legal teams about possible injunctions. Constitutional amendments in Mexico require a two-thirds majority in Congress, which Sheinbaum’s Morena party and its allies currently hold, making passage likely.

Factbox: Key Numbers in Mexico’s Pension Reform Proposal

• The constitutional reform targets former senior-level (régimen de confianza) employees, not rank-and-file or unionized workers
• Proposed pension cap: 50% of the president’s salary, or about 70,000 pesos per month
• President Sheinbaum’s monthly salary: approximately 133,000 pesos net
• Luz y Fuerza del Centro: over 14,000 pensioners, costing 28 billion pesos per year; top pension exceeds 1 million pesos per month
• Pemex: 22,000-plus management-tier retirees; 544 out-earn the president; annual cost roughly 24.8 billion pesos
• CFE: more than 2,100 retirees earn more than the president; extra cost about 4.5 billion pesos per year
• National average monthly pension in Mexico: roughly 7,000 pesos
• Projected annual savings from the reform: approximately 5 billion pesos
• Savings earmarked for: Programas del Bienestar social welfare programs
• Reform submission to Congress: expected Feb. 23, 2026