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Sheinbaum’s approval ratings drop seven points after Sinaloa and Chihuahua crises

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is going through her most delicate moment just as she reaches a year and a half in office. Faced with multiple open fronts, the president is showing signs of wear, with a seven-point drop in approval since last March. It is the steepest fall so far in her term, although approval ratings remain high at 68%, according to an Enkoll poll conducted for EL PAÍS and W Radio. To the crisis triggered by the indictment of the governor of Sinaloa, along with nine other senior officials accused by a New York prosecutor of collaborating with drug traffickers, is added a worrying economic weakness that threatens the viability of social policies—a flagship of the leftist Morena government. Insecurity, corruption and the economy are the president’s main shortcomings and the principal concern of Mexicans, with rates slightly up since the last poll in early March.

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May 16 to 19, 2026.

1,207 interviews with men and women aged 18 and over, with valid voter ID and resident in Mexico.

© Quetzalli Nicte-Ha (REUTERS)

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum speaks during her daily conference on May 26, 2026.
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Cuba, in Trump’s hands: ‘The worst thing is trusting a messiah from the outside because we are incapable of saving ourselves’

A horse-drawn carriage in Pinar del Río, Cuba, 2026.

When she first saw the news on Facebook, she thought it had to be one of those hoaxes that circulate on social media. It was too implausible, an absurdity. But shortly afterward the principal of the school where she works forwarded to the teachers’ group chat a message that opened with the classic tone of a war dispatch: Information from the Revolutionary Government. Then she had no doubts. The information was real. The CIA director had just met in Havana with the senior leadership of the Cuban security and intelligence apparatus.

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A line outside a bank in Pinar del Río, 2026.Apagón en el municipio Centro Habana, La Habana, Cuba, en 2026.
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The dilemmas over Cuba’s future: Regime change or negotiated transition

Between grandstanding, contradictory statements, and secret meetings, something is happening in Cuba. A path has opened that is still full of unknowns, but one that now seems hard to reverse. In recent days, events have accelerated with the unusual visit by the CIA chief to Havana, the U.S. indictment of Raúl Castro — the Cuban Revolution’s last great symbol — and the deployment of an aircraft carrier in Caribbean waters near the island.

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© Ramon Espinosa (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Portraits of Miguel Díaz-Canel, Raúl and Fidel Castro at Havana’s Capitol, May 20.
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Specter of US intervention runs through Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia

The “total endorsement” that Donald Trump recently gave to Abelardo de la Espriella — who, in addition to being a far-right presidential hopeful in Colombia, has been a U.S. citizen since 2023 — was denounced by his left-wing rival, Iván Cepeda, as “the intervention of a foreign government” in an election campaign that will be decided on June 21.

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© Sergio Acero (REUTERS)

Supporters of Abelardo De La Espriella after election day in Barranquilla (Colombia), May 31.
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