The race to become Mexico's next president has closed slightly, but former Mexico City mayor and ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum still has double the support of her main opposition rival, an opinion poll showed on Monday. A Nov. 17-22 survey of 1,000 Mexicans by pollster Buendia & Marquez for newspaper El Universal gave Sheinbaum, who represents the leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), 48% support, with her rival Xochitl Galvez back on 24%. Galvez represents a three-way alliance of parties ranging from the center-left to the center-right.
Costa Rican prosecutors said on Wednesday they were investigating allegations made in a Mexican newspaper that the government and drug traffickers had held talks last year in an effort to curb a spike in murders. Prosecutors will probe a potential "breach of duties," the attorney general's office said in a statement hours after El Universal published the expose, which President Rodrigo Chaves rejected as "absurd." The statement said prosecutors were investigating an international media report but did not name any targets of the investigation.
The five Mexican men who went missing and were forced to kill one another on camera were lured into the cartel's captivity through a fake job offer, according to a report.