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After newly elected mayor is beheaded in Mexico, others ask federal authorities for protection
Four mayors in Mexico have asked federal authorities for protection after a colleague was beheaded last week in the southern state of Guerrero, officials said Tuesday.
Mayor Alejandro Arcos had been sworn into office less than a week before he was murdered.
Federal Public Safety Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch said four mayors requested protection on Monday, a day after Arcos’ remains were found. The requests came from Guerrero and another violence-plagued state, Guanajuato.
The situation in Guanajuato is so bad that ahead of the country’s June elections, at least four mayoral candidates were killed.
Garcia Harfuch did not say why the mayors asked for protection. He also didn’t give much detail on the investigations into Arcos’ killing, saying only that the mayor had left his staff behind to attend a private meeting just before his death.
Alejandro Arcos via Facebook via Reuters
Arcos had told local media he needed more protection, but Garcia Harfuch said no formal request had been received. State and federal governments can offer mayors bulletproof vehicles, additional bodyguards and emergency alert systems.
Arcos’ murder came days after the killing of another city official, Francisco Tapia, according to Institutional Revolutionary Party president Alejandro Moreno.
“They had been in office for less than a week. Young and honest officials who sought progress for their community,” Moreno said on X.
JESUS GUERRERO/AFP via Getty Images
The state capital, Chilpancingo, is dominated by two warring drug gangs, the Ardillos and the Tlacos. One staged a demonstration of hundreds of people, hijacked a government armored car, blocked a major highway and took police hostage in 2023 to win the release of arrested suspects.
Gangs and drug cartels in Mexico frequently target mayors and other local officials to press demands for extortion payments, government contracts and the appointment of henchmen to municipal police forces.
At least 24 politicians were murdered during a particularly violent electoral process leading up to the June election that the key ruling party figure won by a landslide, according to official figures.
In June, at least three politicians in Guerrero were killed. Acacio Flores, who represents Malinaltepec, was killed just days after the killing of Salvador Villalba Flores, another mayor from Guerrero state elected in June 2 polls. Earlier in the month, a local councilwoman was gunned down as she was leaving her home in Guerrero.
Her murder came a few days after the mayor of a town in western Mexico and her bodyguard were killed outside of a gym, just hours after Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidency.
Mexico president rules out new “war on drugs”
Sheinbaum on Tuesday ruled out launching a new war against drug cartels, as she presented a national security plan aimed at reducing raging criminal violence.
Sheinbaum, the first woman to lead the Latin American nation, said her government would prioritize tackling the root causes of crime, as well as making better use of intelligence.
“The war on drugs will not return,” the leftist president told a news conference, referring to an offensive launched in 2006 involving the military and supported by the United States.
Henry Romero / REUTERS
Since then, a spiral of criminal violence has left more than 450,000 people dead and tens of thousands missing.
Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor who was sworn in on October 1, pledged to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to address the causes of crime.
“We are not looking for extrajudicial executions, which is what was happening before. What are we going to use? Prevention, attention to the causes, intelligence and presence” of authorities, she said.
While Lopez Obrador prioritized prevention over force, he controversially put the National Guard under the control of the armed forces.
Critics said the move marked another step toward the militarization of the country — a claim that both Lopez Obrador and his ally Sheinbaum have denied.
“There are families that today do not have access to reliable municipal police or to a fully strengthened state police force. That’s where the National Guard will play an important role,” Sheinbaum’s public security minister, Omar Garcia Harfuch, said.
AFP contributed to this report.
Deer Park, Texas — At least two workers at a Houston-area oil refinery were killed Thursday when hydrogen sulfide leaked at the plant, setting off urgent warnings for nearby residents to stay indoors before authorities later determined that the public wasn’t in danger.
Nearly three dozen other people were either transported to hospitals or treated at the scene, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. Hours after the leak began, Gonzalez said the area was still unsafe for investigators to enter and that officials may not be able to get inside until Friday.
The plant is operated by Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, and located in the suburb of Deer Park.
Adrees Latif / REUTERS
Gonzalez said the gas release happened during work on a flange at the facility, which is part of a cluster of oil refineries and plants that makes Houston the nation’s petrochemical heartland.
Pemex said in a statement that investigations were underway and that operations had been “proactively halted” at two units with the aim of mitigating the impact.
Local officials issued a shelter-in-place order but lifted it hours later after air monitoring showed no risk to the surrounding community, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton said.
The chief meteorologist at CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV, David Paul, said the wind was calm Thursday night.
Hydrogen sulfide is a foul-smelling gas that can be toxic at high levels.
“Other than the smell, we have not had any verifiable air monitoring to support that anything got outside the facility,” Mouton said.
Television news crews showed multiple ambulances and emergency vehicles at the scene. Gonzalez had originally posted on the social platform X that one person was transported to a hospital by helicopter, but officials later said at a news conference that no one was airlifted.
The leak caused the second shelter-in-place orders in Deer Park in the span of weeks. Last month, a pipeline fire that burned for four days forced surrounding neighborhoods to evacuate.
Los Angeles — Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, though fans of the electric vehicle maker will have to wait until at least 2026 before it’s available.
CEO Elon Musk pulled up to a stage at the Warner Bros. studio lot in one of the company’s “Cybercabs,” telling the crowd the sleek, AI-powered vehicles don’t have steering wheels or pedals. He also expressed confidence in the progress the company has made on autonomous driving technology that makes it possible for vehicles to drive without human intervention.
Tesla / Handout via REUTERS
Tesla began selling the software, which is called “Full Self-Driving,” nine years ago. But there are doubts about its reliability.
“We’ll move from supervised Full Self-Driving to unsupervised Full Self-Driving, where you can fall asleep and wake up at your destination,” he said. “It’s going to be a glorious future.”
Tesla expects the Cybercabs to cost under $30,000, Musk said. He estimated that the vehicles would become available in 2026, then added “before 2027.”
The company also expects to make the Full Self-Driving technology available on its popular Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in Texas and California next year.
“If they’re going to eventually get to robotaxis, they first need to have success with the unsupervised FSD at the current lineup,” said Seth Goldstein, equity strategist at Morningstar Research. “Tonight’s event showed that they’re ready to take that step forward.”
Tesla had 20 or so Cybercabs on hand and offered event attendees the opportunity to take rides inside the movie studio lot – not on Los Angeles’ roads.
At the presentation, which was dubbed “We, Robot” and was streamed live on Tesla’s website and X, Musk also revealed a sleek minibus-looking vehicle that, like the Cybercab, would be self-driving and can carry up to 20 passengers.
The company also trotted out several of its black and white Optimus humanoid robots, which walked a few feet from the attendees before showing off dance moves in a futuristic-looking gazebo.
Tesla / Handout via REUTERS
Musk estimated that the robots would cost between $28,000-$30,000 and would be able to babysit, mow lawns and fetch groceries, among other tasks.
“Whatever you can think of, it will do,” he said.
The unveiling of the Cybercab comes as Musk tries to persuade investors that his company is more about artificial intelligence and robotics as it struggles to sell its core products, an aging lineup of electric vehicles.
Tesla’s model lineup is struggling and isn’t likely to be refreshed until late next year at the earliest, TD Cowen analyst Jeff Osborne wrote in a research note last week.
Osborne also noted that, in TD Cowen’s view, the “politicization of Elon” is tarnishing the Tesla brand among Democratic buyers in the U.S.
Musk has endorsed former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and has pushed many conservative causes. Last weekend, he joined Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
Musk has been saying for more than five years that a fleet of robotaxis is near, enabling Tesla owners to make money by having their cars carry passengers while they’re not being used by their owners.
But he’s acknowledged that past predictions for the use of autonomous driving proved too optimistic. In 2019, he promised the fleet of autonomous vehicles by the end of 2020.
The announcement comes as U.S. safety regulators are investigating Full Self Driving and Autopilot based on evidence that it has a weak system for making sure human drivers pay attention.
In addition, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration forced Tesla to recall Full Self-Driving in February because it enabled speeding and violated other traffic laws, especially near intersections. Tesla was to fix the problems with an online software update.
Last April in Snohomish County, Washington, near Seattle, a Tesla using Full Self-Driving hit and killed a motorcyclist, authorities said. The Tesla driver told authorities he was using the system while looking at his phone when the car rear-ended the motorcyclist. The motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
NHTSA says it’s evaluating information on the fatal crash from Tesla and law enforcement officials.
The Justice Department also has sought information from Tesla about Full Self-Driving and Autopilot, as well as other items.
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