Protesters in Guadalajara, Mexico, were seen climbing on the windows of Jalisco’s state government building on Sunday, spray painting it with graffiti. It was the second protest by residents demanding clean tap water.
Published On 19 Oct 202619 Oct 2026
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Victims’ groups, however, have denounced the ruling as ‘selective’ justice that exonerates a former government head.
Published On 15 Oct 202615 Oct 2026
A Mexican judge has closed the case against Francisco Garduno, former head of the country’s immigration agency, for crimes related to the 2023 fire at a Ciudad Juarez detention centre that killed 40 migrants and injured 30 others.
The incident was the deadliest event ever to occur at a Mexican immigration centre, and critics said it exposed the shortcomings and irregularities in the country’s detention system.
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Garduno faced trial for the crimes of abuse of public office and dereliction of duty after footage from the fire showed guards had failed to respond to cries for help.
On Tuesday, Judge Victor Manlio Hernandez Calderon ruled that Garduno had fulfilled the court-mandated measures required to address the damage. But victims rejected that decision and announced they would appeal.
“Yesterday, corruption and the impunity of politicians protected by power won again,” the Foundation for Justice, one of the NGOs representing some of the victims, wrote on social media on Wednesday.
The victims have also compared the judge’s decision to close the criminal case to a de facto exoneration for Garduno.
In their view, the ruling “confirms that justice in Mexico is selective” and denies the victims “full reparations” and concrete guarantees that such an event will not be repeated.
Miguel Zenteno, one of the foundation’s lawyers, noted that the ruling is not yet final because it will be appealed and because another injunction is pending against the court-mandated reparations, which critics say failed to meet the standards for serious events.
On March 27, 2023, some 70 men were crammed into a locked dormitory with no ventilation and barely any water at the Ciudad Juarez immigration detention centre, on the border with El Paso, Texas.
As night fell, a small group set fire to some mattresses in protest, and within seconds, smoke engulfed the entire area.
Security cameras recorded the guards leaving the area despite cries for help. They made no attempt to open the gates of the dormitory. Only the women, held in another cell, were released. Most of the victims were Central Americans and Venezuelans.
Garduno, a former prison guard and current official at the Ministry of Education, led the National Migration Institute (INM) starting in 2019 and continued in the role until 2025 despite the fire.
The judge had previously ordered Garduno to compensate the families, provide them with free specialised medical care, issue a public apology, provide human rights training to migration personnel and guarantee that the events would not be repeated.
Zenteno acknowledged that the measures were implemented only partially because Garduno did not pay the damages as stipulated by the legal process.
Instead, Zenteno pointed out that the funds came from the INM, and the payments did not fully compensate the families. Furthermore, he added, the victims were not even informed how to access free medical services, and the apology “was a mere formality, not substantive”.
In addition to Garduno, prosecutors accused another former director of the institute of the same crimes.
Six immigration agents – including a military officer and a private security guard – and the two migrants accused of starting the fire are charged with homicide and assault. Most of the officials remain free pending trial.
The Mexican community of Cabo Corrientes faces the risk of a direct hit as the Category 4 storm churns off Jalisco.
By Reuters and The Associated Press
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has urged residents along the Pacific Ocean to stay indoors as Hurricane Simon’s powerful winds and heavy rains pound coastal communities.
As of Sunday, the hurricane’s eye was moving offshore of Mexico’s Jalisco state, with winds of at least 240km/h (150mph).
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Torrential rain has already battered residents living between the Sierra Madre mountain range and the ocean. Communities in hilly and mountainous areas have been warned to brace for mudslides.
Simon reached Category 4 strength, on a scale of five, on Saturday, as part of an unusually active Pacific hurricane season.
“With the approaching impact of Category 4 Hurricane Simon, we urge residents of coastal municipalities in Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Michoacan to remain sheltered until authorities officially declare that the danger has passed,” Sheinbaum wrote in a post on the social media platform X on Sunday.
In a midday advisory, the United States’ National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that Simon could produce “additional rainfall totals of 8 to 16 inches (20 to 41 cm) over portions of southwestern Mexico”.
Precipitation totals as high as 76 cm (30 inches) were possible in areas of Michoacan, Colima, and Jalisco until Monday.
It’s not clear whether the storm will make landfall. But the greatest risk of a direct hit lies at the moment with Cabo Corrientes, a town that sits on a cape in Jalisco, jutting into the Pacific Ocean.
Mexico’s National Civil Protection Coordination (CNPC) placed 28 municipalities in Jalisco and Colima under its highest cyclone alert level, while another 93 municipalities were under a high alert level, according to civil protection bulletins.
Classes were suspended in the affected areas, and efforts to evacuate residents were under way.
Businesses in popular tourist destinations like Puerto Vallarta boarded up windows and placed sandbags at entrances as the storm approached.
Jalisco’s Governor Pablo Navarro warned that the high-powered hurricane was creating “high-risk marine conditions” along the coast of his state, with waves reaching as high as eight metres (26 feet).
On Sunday, he also shared video on social media of the storm surge crashing onto sidewalks and flooding waterways.
“Here is the current state of Jalisco’s beaches this morning — from Barra de Navidad to Puerto Vallarta — as Hurricane Simon passes through,” he wrote in the video’s caption.
“I ask everyone to heed official instructions, take precautions and avoid putting themselves at risk. The safety of Jalisco’s families is the top priority.”
Pualani Olotoa-Le’au, a 15-year-old sophomore at Carson High, has become a major contributor in flag football and softball for the Colts.
She’s the starting safety and linebacker for the flag football team. She’s also a catcher for the softball team.
She’s excelling off the field by being a dual enrolled student, taking classes at L.A. Harbor College and Carson.
She’s part Samoan, Filipino, Mexican, Japanese and Native American.
Carson is 11-4 overall and 4-1 in the Marine League for flag football.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
YOU SAY Oxford Circus, you think crowded streets and busy shops – but there is a whole other side to it you might not have known about.
So we’ve taken it on in two different way – as a busy mum looking to keep her kid busy, to a girly weekend in the city without going to the shops.
Kara Godfrey, Deputy Travel Editor, explores the busy centre on a girly weekend wanting some pampering.
Growing up in the countryside, my first impression of London was the hubbub of Soho, with bustling streets full of eager shoppers elbowing each other out of the way.
Yet 20 years later, having since moved to (and left) the crazy capital, I know there is more to the iconic city centre than its shops.
And with the announcement that it is about to become pedestrianized, it’s about to become an attraction in its own right.
If you want to explore the centre of London without actually dipping into the shops, it also makes for the perfect girly day out either with your best mate or your mum – if you know where to go as a local.
It is a fantastic destination for a pamper, with affordable nail salons and hairdressers – and did you know one of London’s most famed blow dry bars is found at the bottom of the John Lewis department store?
Having first launched in Chelsea back in 2014 (becoming a fave with the Made in Chelsea stars), Duck & Dry has become an institution for the place to go before a big event.
I sank into the plush chairs, laidback music overheard while I chatted to my hairdresser as my hair was massaged and washed.
As a woman in my mid-30s, I’ve realised that it’s the little luxuries that make life worth it and a person kneading all of my worries away is one of them.
Just 30 minutes later, I left a new woman with a fresh new do so gorgeous, I even bought a blow dry brush on my way out to try and replicate it at home.
(Don’t stop there though, one of my favourite nails bars, Cona, is just around the corner, with the hidden salon tucked behind the bold oranged painted cafe front).
Hair done, nailed fixed – we needed something to line our stomach and gone are the days of our 20s where we opted for a bottomless brunch.
Being more afternoon tea gals, one of the more unique ones is found in the Treehouse Hotel just off the main high street.
This isn’t your usual afternoon tea, however, (although you will still find a scone or two on top) – it’s called the Afternoon Te-Quila, so expect a Mexican fusion.
Starting with a freshly made margharita, we gorged on fresh fish tacos, pumpkin pies and even a unique chocolate taco, pumped full of decadent chocolate mousse.
The views are just as amazing, looking out over London from the top floor, but as I sat under a ceiling of green hanging plants, I was transported to somewhere much more tropical.
There is so much to do outside of this as well that doesn’t require you to lug shopping bags around town.
Or how about catching a West End show? The Palladium has some fantastic shows coming up including Delta Goodrem, Michael Ball and of course the Christmas panto.
(While I might have said there is so much to do along the high street without the shops, I would still recommend popping into the new M&S flagship, with four entire floors of homeware, clothes and a Food Hall. I may have left with both new linen trousers and some Percy Pigs…)
Don’t think I forgot about dinner, because London isn’t one of the world’s best food capitals for no reason.
And with more than 600 restaurants to choose from, according to OpenTable, where do you even start?
Well I’ve found just the place, if you want somewhere slightly quieter away from the crowds, but with fantastic service, a low-key atmosphere and hearty, Italian portions.
Enter Lavo at the BoTree.
Start at the bar for a cocktail – while the menu might sound confusing, it explains which cocktail they are similar to, so I had their version of a negroni.
On weekends there is also a live DJ who toes the line of great, lo-fi music without being so loud you can’t hear each other.
Slightly woozy at this point, my direction to my table was welcome before gorging on towering piles of tuna tartare and large bowls of penne a la vodka.
Our extremely funny server even tempted us into sharing what is now going down as one of the best tiramasus we’ve ever eaten.
And when you need to rest your weary feet from a day of pounding the pavements, you can’t get much more central than the Radisson Blu Bond Street.
Currently undergoing a renovation, it is just steps from the main road, with some of the best views of the high street from my room overlooking the shops.
With Oxford Circus not having many late night openings, don’t worry about not getting any sleep, as it was super quiet once everything had closed.
The cosy restaurant – with that brand new smell – also had a fantastic breakfast spread to refuel, from pancakes and avocado toast to all of the pastries and trimming of a Full English.
So while Oxford Circus will always be known at the shopping high street, there is so much more to it to bring your out of town friend, siblings or parents to without having to step into a shop.
Unless you get a Percy Pig craving, that is.
Caroline McGuire, Head of Travel (Digital), explores as a mum with a seven-year-old to keep occupied
As a London mum, I regularly take my seven year old into the city centre for theatre, museums, parks and all the other awesome attractions it has to offer kids.
But Oxford Street? Are you mad? It’s somewhere I’d actively avoided, assuming it was the worst place for a very active kid who loves running around and touching everything in sight.
How wrong I was. Because we recently spent an overnight stay on Europe’s most famous high street… and it was one of our best 24 hours in the capital.
Oxford Street has changed a lot since I was a kid, coming up from the home counties to spend my Christmas money at Topshop.
In some ways for the bad (those many American candy stores), but in many other ways for the good.
As some of the big chain stores have departed, enterprising new ventures have opened up that are perfect for a family day out.
Take for instance, the Twist Museum. A brilliantly fun illusion museum – even though the grumpy middle aged woman in me still insists it’s not a museum.
We had such a great time exploring all of the mind-bending activities, our favourites being the 3D hologram creator, the mirror room and the ‘big and small room’.
It was so cool that I now have three pictures from there alone on my fridge at home – high praise.
Equally fun was Swingers Golf and Carnival Games, which I’d always written off as an adults-only venue for big kids at heart to have fun with a beer.
Not so, as during the day in the school holidays it was packed with families enjoying easily the best crazy golf I’ve ever done in my life.
Then you get a half-hour pass to play as many games as you can in a retro-style arcade.
As a parent who’s forked out more pound coins than I care to remember at amusement arcades, it was a total joy to do it all for free… and with a time limit. Plus, I got to sip on an extremely good frozen marg while I did it.
If the kids are feeling hungry, their food offering is a godsend. Several high-end food trucks like Patty and Bun burgers and Breddos tacos mean you can all pick what you want to eat.
If you’re looking for something every so slightly more highbrow, we ended our day at Frameless – the very cool digital art experience where you’re put inside famous paintings, as they surround you on huge screens and come to life.
It was really surprising to see how much my son engaged with such old paintings, which he may have dismissed as stuffy in a gallery, by bringing them to life.
Of course after pounding the streets for so long, we were in need of some refreshments, so we headed to Market Halls, which has every food any foodie or fussy kid would want.
I dined on Malaysian Nasi Goreng and Thai soup, while my son had savoury crepes for main… and Nutella crepes for pudding.
Thankfully, with our extremely full stomachs we didn’t have far to go to lay our heads, as we were booked into the Treehouse Hotel, an achingly cool and modern property on Langham Place, with some of the best views of London I’ve ever seen.
Our room was very Scandi-style, with a lovely window seat so we could look out over the city.
The next morning, we managed to find space in our stomachs for brekkie, at the Mexican inspired Madera restaurant, where I had a bagel topped with scramble tofu, vegan cheese and jalapeno pickled red onions, while my son opted for the waffles with whipped cream and berries.
We lingered far too long over breakfast, sad to tear ourselves away from the stunning views from our table.
All that fun of museums, art exhibitions, golf, arcades, and some fantastic food and drink, without stepping foot into a shop?
Teenage me would never believe it.
The New West End Company represents 100 streets in the district including Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street.
They explain: “New West End Company is solely focused on representing and keeping the West End thriving. Established more than two decades ago, today our 800+ membership includes the most respected names in global retail, leisure, hospitality, real estate and business.
“We keep our West End streets clean and safe, promote world-class experiences, provide trusted data and insight, and make the case for policies that support growth. Between 2026-2031, we are investing £60 million to make the district stronger, safer and even more competitive.
“Together with our partners – including Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police, the Mayor of London – we are proud to shape the district our members thrive in.“
Every fall, I teach a Latino History of Orange County course at Chapman University — from the Portola expedition all the way to Huntington Beach’s MAGA Latina councilmember, Gracey Van Der Mark. The lecture last week focused on how anti-Mexican politics have always worked in Orange County and usually go on to be copied nationwide.
I usually, sadly, have to update this lecture every year because the lowlights just keep coming. That’s why this time around, one of my PowerPoint slides ended with “2026: Anaheim?”.
Haven’t you heard? A lawsuit accuses Anaheim mayor Ashleigh Aitken of calling her chief of staff a “dirty Mexican.”
Stay classy, O.C.!
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TimesOC writer (and my fellow Anaheimer) Gabriel San Román first reported on the allegation last month. He revealed that a lawyer for Aitken’s chief of staff Berenice Ballinas was seeking mediation from the city after his client suffered a “sustained pattern of harassment, discriminatory treatment and, most recently, retaliation” while doing her job. A legal claim filed soon after offered pages of alleged incidents detailing what Ballinas claimed she had to deal with when her boss supposedly had too much to drink while on city business.
It’s an ugly read, with incidents at Disneyland’s Club 33, Angel Stadium and other Anaheim landmarks. Yet no passage is more damning — yet more Orange County — than when Ballinas claimed Aitken once called her a “dirty Mexican” in front of then-city attorney Jim Vanderpool and said another time that the mayor didn’t want “a Mexican” like Ballinas to drive her car while Aitken was supposedly what the British satirical magazine Private Eye would call “tired and emotional.”
The mayor, a Democrat who’s running for reelection, has denied the explosive charge in an official statement and during a recent council meeting. And yet the allegation against her now enters Orange County’s long, sad spectrum of anti-Mexican political history.
Just part of the list: Proposition 187. Poll guards. Trying to give local police immigration-enforcement powers. When then-Orange County supervisor Ronald Caspers called a group of Mexican American county employees who demanded promotions “bandidos” during a 1972 supervisors meeting, then suggested the supes move the county seat away from Santa Ana because the city “does not have a normal ethnic balance” — in other words, it was too Mexican.
Or how about when a Newport Beach council member, Dick Nichols, opined during a 2003 council meeting that he opposed expanding the grassy areas of Corona del Mar State Beach because Mexicans “claim it as theirs, and it becomes their personal, private ground all day”? (Asked to apologize, Nichols doubled down by saying, “Where the hell am I in any way discriminating or being a bigot by making a statement that is blatantly true?”)
My hometown is not exempt from this sad parade. Anaheim’s schools, parks and swimming pool were segregated until the 1950s. In 1999, the Anaheim Union High School District board of trustees voted to sue Mexico for $50 million for educating the children of undocumented immigrants (The Times’ write-up was the first time I appeared in the paper, although the writer misspelled my last name).
Why all the O.C. anti-Mexican hate? You’ll have to enroll in my Chapman class for the full explanation. But the main reason is that Mexicans have long functioned as O.C.’s demonized minority. When millions of O.C. residents have grown up believing the powers that be that all Mexicans do is work low-paying jobs and underachieve in life, no wonder politicians bash them again and again — and no wonder many Anaheim residents aren’t giving Aitken the benefit of the doubt.
On Friday, the Anaheim City Council announced after a closed session that it would launch an independent investigation into Ballinas’ allegations. Aitken had an eventful Friday of her own. She admitted on Instagram that she has an “unhealthy relationship” with alcohol and sighed to CBS Los Angeles that Ballinas was “somebody who I thought was my right-hand person.” And while local activists have demanded she resign, O.C.’s ascending liberal machine isn’t asking for her head the way they would’ve if it were a Republican official: Mayor Anaheim gave the opening remarks at the Orange County Labor Federation’s annual Solidarity Awards gala on Friday night to cheers.
Stay classy, O.C.!
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton visits patrons at Victorio’s Ristorante in North Hollywood, where a watch party was held for the CNN governor’s race debate Wednesday night.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Retro candies, zombie-themed chips, ghost-branded coffee and large-scale movie characters can all be found at the Horror Boodega snack shop in Burbank.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
For culinary content producer Owen Han, his nonna’s recipe for meatballs is as classic as they come. She does not brown the meatballs but instead poaches them in the copious tomato sauce (she called it salsa di pomodoro, or sugo, but you might know it as marinara) so they are extra tender.
(Nava Rawls / Los Angeles Times)
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