Hundreds of teachers who object to recently imposed educational reforms are staging protest marches Saturday in several Mexican cities, while the Public Education Secretariat, or SEP, is evaluating thousands more for the acceptance and promotion of teaching staff.

The biggest mobilization is taking place in the Mexican capital, where professors from Mexico state are marching from the Angel of Independence monument to the Los Pinos presidential residence, where they will demand a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto or with some representative.

In a statement to local media, Victor Rodriguez, a member of Section 36 of the SNTE teachers union, said they reject the "punitive evaluation" and "the application of modifications to constitutional articles 3 and 73, because they violate our labor rights and the guarantee of a real quality education for everyone."

Marches are also underway in Guadalajara, capital of Jalisco state, and in the Acapulco municipality in the state of Guerrero, among others.

On July 4, 5 and 6, a total of 46,783 teachers will take exams that include tests of knowledge, teaching and writing skills, and class planning.

The exams are required in 30 states of the country to compete for acceptance and promotion to fill 6,487 positions that entail direction, supervision and technical counseling in secondary education.

The SEP announced Friday that it was suspending the evaluation of high school teachers in the states of Oaxaca, Michoacan and part of Chiapas because the conditions for its application there are lacking.

The first teacher evaluation, a result of the educational reform enacted in 2013, was applied last June 20, 21 and 22 to elementary school teachers in 30 states not including Oaxaca and Michoacan, where it was suspended following threats of a boycott by the CNTE

Jacobo Zabludovsky, a journalist who for decades was seen as a symbol of the tight links between Mexico's government and press, died Thursday at the age of 87.
    
Zabludovsky anchored Mexico's most-viewed evening news program for almost three decades, until 1998, covering the nation's tragedies but also reflecting a solidly pro-government political line while working for a the dominant Televisa network.
    
It all made him the face of the news, but also the face of a system that many considered repressive, though he later adopted a more independent stance in his second career as host of a radio news program.
    
"He will be more remembered for the stage when he was a virtual spokesman for (governmental) power," wrote Julio Hernandez Lopez, a columnist for the newspaper La Jornada.
    
The news manager for Zabludovsky's radio program on Grupo Radio Centro, Arturo Corona, confirmed the death. Televisa said in a tweet that he died of a stroke.
    
The rail-thin, energetic anchor spent some seven decades in broadcast and print journalism, interviewing figures such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in his youth.
    
He was perhaps best known for his coverage of the country's 1985 earthquake, which killed 9,500 people.
    
Equipped with an early version of a mobile phone, Zabludovsky gave viewers a tour of the stunning damage in the city's center.
    
But he was widely reviled, along with most of the rest of the country's press, for downplaying the 1968 army massacre of students in Mexico City's Tlatelolco square.
    
One of the darkest chapters of his professional history came in the 1988 presidential elections, which pitted leftist upstart Cuauhtemoc Cardenas against Carlos Salinas of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI. Salinas eked out a narrow victory many claimed was the result of fraud.
    
Zabludovsky's program, "24 Horas," gave Salinas 141 minutes of total coverage over a two and a half month period; the program gave Cardenas about nine minutes.
    
President Enrique Pena Nieto, who returned the PRI to power in 2012 elections, wrote in a tweet that "I regret the death of the lawyer, chronicler and journalist, Jacobo Zabludovsky."
    
In interviews in later years, Zabludovsky acknowledged the government had pressured journalists earlier in his career.
    
He revived his reputation among many with a brisk, folksy daily radio news broadcast in which he gave significant space to anti-government figures, and as a campaigner for cleaning up the historic center of Mexico City where he was born.
    
Zabludovsky was to be buried at Mexico City's Jewish cemetery. He is survived by three children and his wife. His brother, noted architect Abraham Zabludovsky, died in 2003.

A man in Tamaulipas, Mexico claimed that his wife disrespected him after he asked her to do the laundry — and had her put in jail for “causing a disturbance.”

Truck driver Edgar Ivan Perez Alvarado, 26, claimed that his wife, Dulce Requena Garcia, 21, would not iron his clothes because she believed he was going to meet a mistress.

Resentful of her accusation, the Puebla en Linea reported that Alvarado contacted the local authorities to have her arrested. He also told the officers his wife spends her time avoiding chores and indulging in television.

Garcia was unable to pay the disturbance fine of 400 pesos, an equivalent of $25. The husband also refused to pay the fine, according to the publication, and instead she was ordered a 12-hour sentence.

The couple has three small children.

Requena Garcia said her husband is never home and accused him of having another woman.

PUERTO VALLARTA: Mexican writer, translator and editor Hector Carreto has reimagined the lives of Clark Kent and Superman in 67 poems that focus on the duality of identity, the National Culture and Arts Council, or Conaculta, said.

Carreto, who was born in Mexico City in 1953, presents "a Superman who is distressed, enveloped in loneliness and in love with Lois L., and shows the character without a disguise, human, with doubts and needs" in "Testamento de Clark Kent," the arts agency said in a statement.

"The world of comic books gives us Superman as a character who is too serious, straight and without a sense of humor, who never smiles, has no carnal desires and we have no idea what his favorite drinks are," Carreto said.

Carreto's work has been published in foreign magazines and translated into English, French, Italian and Hungarian.

"I thought it would be interesting to see what happened to this superhero if you gave him feelings like ours," Carreto said.

"Testamento de Clark Kent," published by Almadia, shows how the personality of "The Man of Steel" grows.

The Mexican navy's training ship, Cuauhtemoc, set sail from the Pacific port of Acapulco on a cruise that will take it to 14 ports in 13 countries, the Navy Secretariat said.

The ship left on its latest training cruise, "Levante Mediterranean 2015," on Saturday, the secretariat said.

The vessel will visit ports in the United States, Ireland, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Malta, Puerto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala, the secretariat said in a statement.

The ship's mission is to carry "a message of peace and goodwill around the world," the secretariat said.

The Cuauhtemoc is carrying a crew of 204, including 39 officers and 42 cadets from the naval academy.

The ship was constructed by the Astilleros de Celaya S.A. shipyard in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao between July 24, 1981, and July 29, 1982.

The Cuauhtemoc has won numerous commendations from the Mexican navy and the navies of other countries during its more than 30 years of service

In the bowels of Teotihuacan, a mysterious, ancient Mexican city whose history has eluded experts for more than a century, an archaeologist made a toxic and potentially tremendous discovery: liquid mercury.

Project leader Sergio Gomez came upon “large amounts” of the silvery stuff in an underground chamber beneath the Quetzalcoatl Temple, one of several sacred pyramids at the site 30 miles from Mexico City.

Though the site has been excavated since the 19th century, little is understood about its leaders and inhabitants. No royal tombs have been found there, and until this month, neither had mercury — a chemical whose presence at a few other ancient sites usually indicated that the place had religious or royal significance.

Visitors look on at the archaeological area of the Quetzalcoatl Temple near the Pyramid of the Sun at the Teotihuacan archaeological site. (Henry Romero/Reuters)

The mercury “completely surprised us,” Gomez told Reuters, and it’s still not clear why the chemical was put in the chamber. Rare, difficult to mine and dangerous to handle, he knows that liquid mercury was prized for its reflective properties — perhaps it was supposed to represent a river or lake to the underworld.

Gomez has been excavating the 1,800-year-old Teotihuacan tunnel for nearly six years in search of a royal tomb. Last fall his team uncovered three previously unexplored chambers nearly 60 feet below ground — in them, he hoped to find human remains that could offer some clues about the ancient city.

“If they are there, they must be from someone very, very important,” Gomez told the Associated Press in October.

The discovery of mercury this month makes it even more likely that the chambers house something — or someone — significant. Gomez hopes to finish excavating them by October, he told Reuters.

If he finds what he has been looking for, Gomez will resolve one of the central mysteries of Teotihuacan: how it was governed.

Developed around 100 A.D. by a still-unnamed civilization, the city’s influence extended as far as Guatemala until it collapsed midway through the 7th century, according to UNESCO. Like so much else about the city, the cause of its downfall remains uncertain. The Aztecsrediscovered the abandoned site when they swept through Mexico half a millennium later — awed by what they saw, they named it “Teotihuacan,” or  “abode of the gods.”

Until 1400, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, home to as many as 200,000 people and pyramids that rivaled those in Egypt. But the 14-square-mile site lacks fortifications and military structures — unusual for a city of its size and significance. It also contains little evidence of its rulers — no palace, no pictures of a powerful king — leaving scholars speculating about who ran the city and how it was able to persist for nearly 600 years.

Mexican archaeologist Linda Manzanilla told Reuters she believes that the city was ruled by a council of four lords, and that Gomez will find the remains of one of them in his chambers.

The discovery of a royal tomb would be a remarkable way for Gomez to cap off his 6-year study, which has yielded thousands of relics ranging from centuries-old seeds to strange yellow spheres made of glittering pyrite.

But with three whole chambers and six months left to explore, U.S. archaeologist George Cowgill, who has spent more than four decades excavating Teotihuacan, said that the odds of finding a tomb are still “very uncertain.”

“That is what keeps everybody in suspense,” he told Reuters.

National Institute of Anthropology and History archaeologists work at a tunnel that may lead to a royal tombs. (Reuters)

Sarah Kaplan is a reporter for Morning Mix.

NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE

Air Canada Vacations is taking up to $500 per person off the cost of select Mediterranean cruise packages this summer.

Take up to $500 off on vacations that include Croatia, Greece and Turkey

You can sail the Mediterranean this summer and save up to $500 per person while you’re at it thanks to a new offer from Air Canada Vacations. The company’s “Europe Cruise Special” applies to select seven-night cruise departures out of Venice.

On Norwegian Jade, the June 6 sailing is sale priced at $1,579 per person. Ports of call include Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia, Athens, Greece and Kusadasi, Turkey.

On MSC Lirica, the discounted price tag is $1,959 per person for the July 18 sailing. The MSC Lirica also sails to Split and Dubrovnik, as well as Santorini and Mykonos, Greece and Ancona, Italy.

All prices include round trip airfare with Air Canada. See the “Europe Cruise Special” link under “Promos” at aircanadavacations.com.
Harry Potter package at Universal Orlando
Universal Orlando Resort in Florida has a new package for Harry Potter fans. Prices start at $145 (all prices U.S.) per adult, per night and include four nights’ accommodation at the on-site Cabana Bay Beach Resort and three day Park-to-Park tickets for admission to both Universal Studios Florida and Universal’s Islands of Adventure.

Here visitors will find The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and its attractions, shops and dining venues. Packages also include one breakfast per person at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and early admission to one of the parks, up to one hour before regular opening hours.

The lead-in $145 per adult, per night package rate applies to travel now through June 30. Prices increase to $155 for travel July 1 to Dec. 31. Hotel upgrades are available, at a higher rate. Bookings must be made by Dec. 17. See the “Vacation Packages” link at universalorlando.com.

Second night special at La Playa Carmel

California’s upscale La Playa Carmel is celebrating its 110th anniversary with a special deal. Through the end of the year guests booking their first night at the hotel’s regular rack rate get a second night’s stay at a discounted rate of $110 (U.S.). The promotion is subject to availability and some black-out dates apply. See laplayahotel.com/110laplayacarmel .

Best buy of the week

Whether it’s a trip on the Staten Island Ferry or a walk along the High Line park, there are plenty of free activities in New York City. You just have to know where to look. See the new “Free in NYC” listings at NYC & Company’s nycgo.com/free .

Picks of the week

Kathryn Folliott is a Toronto-based freelance writer. Prices quoted are subject to change and availability. Follow @KathrynFolliott.

Sunquest: Nassau, air & hotel, $1,747 (May 28), Atlantis Paradise Island.

Air Canada Vacations: Three-night Las Vegas, air & hotel, $509 (June 2), Flamingo Las Vegas.

Nolitours: Cayo Santa Maria, air & hotel, $785 (May 15), Hotel Eurostars Cayo Santa Maria.

Signature Vacations: Riviera Maya, air & hotel, $1,557 (May 26), Azul Beach Hotel.

Hola Sun: Cayo Coco, air & hotel, $838 (May 8), Iberostar Mojito.

BelAir Travel: Dublin, air & hotel, $1,112 (May 25), Jurys Inn Parnell Street.

Sunwing Vacations: Puerto Vallarta, air & hotel, $1,207 (June 1), Golden Crown Paradise.

SellOff Vacations: Puerto Rico, air & hotel, $962 (May 30), Gran Melia Puerto Rico.

itravel2000: Panama, air & hotel, $920 (June 5), Hotel El Panama.

Intrepid Travel: 10-day Ladakh Explorer: India, accommodation, some meals, excursions, $2,070 (Aug. 1).

Trafalgar: Eight-day Northern California, accommodation, some meals, sightseeing, $2,925 (May 16 & 30).

All Picks of the Week prices include taxes and fees. Prices accurate as of April 21, 2015.

John Wayne Airport reported boosts in passenger traffic and flights for March.

It was the second-straight month of increases in both categories, and the rate of the gains in March exceeded February’s growth.

The airport handled 832,000 passengers last month compared with the same period last year, an increase of 7%. Passenger traffic increased 5.5% in February.

Commercial flights grew 2% to about 3,300 in March. That followed a gain of about 1% in February.

Airport spokesperson Jenny Wedge attributed the March increases to new activity by Dallas-based Southwest Airlines—which began flying to its home city from John Wayne in November. An increase in passenger totals for Seattle-based Alaska Airlines also contributed to the gain in March, she said.

International passenger counts were down 15% in March.

 Southwest and Alaska are set to increase their numbers in that arena, as well.

 Southwest plans to begin flights from JWA to Puerto Vallarta in June—it now flies to Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City from here.

 Alaska plans to begin flying to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos in October.

 The three busiest operators at John Wayne Airport in March were Southwest, with 365,000 passengers; American, with 113,000; and United, with 111,000 passengers.

 The three combined for 71% of the airport’s total passenger count in March.

PUERTO VALLARTA - Mexico is one of the biggest and most diverse countries around. There really is something for everyone ... lovely, temperate-climate mountain towns, a vibrant Renaissance-like capital city, rainforests and farmlands and yes, those absolutely gorgeous beaches.

Today's Mexico is not only amazingly diverse and exotic, it's also far safer than the media would have you believe. And we won't belabor this point because there is simply no way to convince the naysayers.

The truth is that there are plenty of us who love Mexico. It's a top destination for U.S. and Canadian tourists. Lots of international conferences are held in its many welcoming cities and resort towns.

Mexico has also been a top expat destination for more than 60 years. We've lived here ourselves over the years, in the Lake Chapala, San Miguel de Allende, and Mérida.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Today, more U.S. and Canadian expats live in Mexico than anyplace else in the world -- as many as a million of them, it's said. There are many reasons for that, including the vibrant culture, an affordable cost of living and excellent healthcare.

Expats in Mexico know that this country is an easy place to live. The climate is great, it's close to home (you can easily drive to Mexico from the U.S. and Canada) and it is, simply, convenient. You can get fast Internet and see first-run films in modern cineplexes -- in English. You can shop at big-box stores and eat at chain restaurants like Chili's, Applebee's, Burger King, and McDonald's if you want to.

But with Mexico's culinary reputation, it's doubtful you'll care much about chain restaurants when you live in Mexico, where you'll find some of the world's tastiest and most exotic foods. Chiles, chocolate, vanilla -- all these and more come from Mexico. And you'll find regional cuisines here as varied as the country itself...

Some of the Most Popular Destinations in Mexico for Expat Living

Close to the U.S. border, you'll find many Arizona residents own holiday and retirement homes in the Sea of Cortez seaside town of Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point.

Baja Norte from Tijuana to Ensenada is also very popular. And with new border crossing lanes recently opened at the San Ysidro crossing, getting back and forth to San Diego is now faster and easier than ever before. It's so easy, in fact, that some expats in this area commute daily, working in the U.S. and living in Mexico.

Further south, in Baja Sur, popular destinations include the popular Los Cabos area and the resort town of Cabo San Lucas, as well as La Paz, Todos Santos, Loreto, and more.

La Paz, Mexico

Lake Chapala, in central Mexico, is often called the world's largest foreign retirement community, with up to 16,000 or more U.S. and Canadian retirees in residence, depending on the season.

Lake Chapala, Mexico

The large expat community means you'll have a built-in support network as well as access to all the familiar products and brands from home. The 30-mile long freshwater lake is the largest in Mexico and provides cool breezes for this area, considered by many to have the best weather in the world. Being just an hour south of Mexico's second-largest city of Guadalajara, internationally known for its teaching hospitals, you can also count on world-class healthcare.

Another popular expat destination, San Miguel de Allende is a 500-year-old town of about 140,000 people that sits at an elevation of about 6,000 feet in the Sierra Madre mountains right in the center of Mexico.

Its latitude gives it the perfect climate ... never too hot, never too cold. No heat or air conditioning needed. San Miguel was recently designated as a World Heritage city and Conde Nast recently named it the world's #1 most livable city. It's not hard to understand why. Perfect weather, beauty on every corner, and it's a town that thrives on culture. Art, theater, music, gourmet food, and more ... you'll find it here, as well as a large expat community of as many as 10,000.

About 90 minutes from San Miguel de Allende is the city of Guanajuato, also a World Heritage city and the capital of the state by the same name.

Guanajuato, Mexico

Guanajuato is a university town and has a fun, youthful feel to it. It's known for its cultural activities. Every fall, the International Cervantino Festival is held here and brings performers from around the world. But you can find an abundance of art, theater, live music and more in Guanajuato any day of the week. Still, this city remains largely undiscovered by expats -- only about a thousand or so call Guanajuato home.

Mérida, where we lived for four years, is one of our favorite cities in Mexico.

It's a major city of almost a million people, the capital of Mexico's Yucatan state, and is often referred to as the safest city in Mexico. It offers a lively local culture, an interesting and friendly expat community, and plenty of local amenities such as shopping, restaurants, health clinics, and hospitals. The Yucatecan architecture is French, Spanish and Caribbean-influenced, unique and inviting...

Merida, Mexico

If you're looking for convenience, and a quality lifestyle, gorgeous Puerto Vallarta, on the Pacific Coast and the huge Bay of Banderas, is your place. You'll find everything you might want here, including direct flight connections to many destinations in the U.S. and Canada.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

And if you're not a fan of big cities, head north to small idyllic beach towns likeSayulita, where the laid-back lifestyle can't be beat. You'll find a good number of foreign residents all along this coast, called the Costa Nayarit.

Sayulita, Mexico

The Riviera Maya, on Mexico's Caribbean Coast, is very popular -- and the beaches are among the most beautiful in the world.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Cancun is a huge tourist destination. And, increasingly, so are Playa del Carmenand Tulum. But plenty of expats live on the Riviera Maya full-time. Cancun and Playa del Carmen, especially, offer shopping, cinemas, major hospitals, and other amenities. And Cancun has the international airport -- every airline flies to Cancun.

Tulum, Mexico

The truth is that Mexico offers an endless number of places where you might want to live, and we've only scratched the surface here. If you're looking for an overseas retirement destination that's conveniently close to home, and that offers a high quality of life, a rich culture, and a relaxed atmosphere ... put Mexico on your list.

Alondra Luna Nunez's case drew international attention after a video of her being forced into a police vehicle last week appeared online

There was no immediate explanation of why authorities did not confirm her identity before sending her out of the country

The Foreign Ministry said Mexican officials were carrying out a court order to send Alondra to Dorotea Garcia, a Houston woman

This is the horrifying moment a 14-year-old Mexican girl was torn away from her family by federal police and sent to live with a Houston woman who mistakenly thought she was her long-lost daughter.

Alondra Luna Nunez can be seen screaming and fighting with every ounce of her energy as she is dragged out of her school in front of her mother in Guanajuato in central Mexico last week. She pleaded with the officers, who were working for Interpol, not to take her from her parents.

Alondra is now back with her real family after a DNA test proved that she was not the daughter of Houston resident Dorotea Garcia.

'They stole my daughter,' her real mother, Susana Nunez, raged to Milenio Television on Wednesday. 'I didn't know this woman existed.'

Alondra used every ounce of her energy to fight Mexican federal police officers, who were working for Interpol on the orders of a Texas judge.

Garcia says she found Alondra after she traveled to Mexico in search of her daughter who was illegally taken from Texas by her father in 2007 at age four.

Garcia convinced authorities that Alondra was her daughter, despite her family's pleas and the fact that they produced a birth certificate, baptismal documents and family photographs of Alondra as a small child.

Alondra was torn away from her parents and little brother by police who were acting on the orders of a judge from Texas.
She was taken to the neighboring state of Michoacan for a hearing on April 12. A judge there ignored her family's pleas - and the evidence - that Alondra belonged to them and not Garcia from Texas.

In the end, the Mexican judge ruled in Garcia's favor based on a car on the bridge of Alondra's nose. Garcia claimed her daughter had a scar above her eyebrow.

Alondra is seen with her father, little brother and mother after she was reunited with her family when a DNA test proved she was not the daughter of the Houston woman who claimed her

The girl and Garcia went by bus to Houston, where Alondra later recorded a video, posted to social media, in which she looked calm and happy and told her parents in Mexico not to worry as they waited for results of a DNA test there.

'I'm fine. I see that the United States is nice,' she said, adding, 'I don't understand anything they're saying, because everything is in English.'

On Wednesday, after being returned to her parents, Alondra spoke to reporters in her hometown of Guanajuato and said she was happy to be home. She said the video recorded in Houston was intended to assure her parents she was OK, even though she really wasn't.

Telesites, the new telecoms infrastructure firm to be created by Mexican telecoms giant America Movil will have a market share of 43 percent in the local telecommunication towers market, El Economista reports. Rival operator American Towers currently has approximately 34 percent of the market. On 17 April, shareholders of America Movil approved the company's plans to spin off some of its mobile infrastructure in Mexico into the new company Telesites. America Movil said that current shareholders would receive the same number and series of Telesites shares as they had in America Movil. Telesites would be listed separately on the stock market.

America Movil aims to complete the spin-off by May or June, the company's CEO Daniel Hajj previously said during a conference call with investors in February.

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, who is ranked by Forbes as the world's second-richest man, reportedly established his own oil company.

Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, who is also the world's second-richest man, created his own oil company named Carso Oil & Gas, media reports said on Wednesday.

The company was formed after shareholders of the subsidiaries of Slim's industrial conglomerate, Grupo Carso, voted in February 2015 to merge Carso Infraestructura, Construccion y Perforacion and Condumex Perforaciones into Carso Oil & Gas.

According to a report released by the new company, its assets amount to 3.5 billion pesos (approximately 230 million dollars), which are placed in 17.7 million shares.

Earlier in an interview with Reuters, Slim said that he remains upbeat about the energy reform in Mexico, adding that up to 50 billion dollars should be injected into the sector.

Last year, Mexico completed a major overhaul of its energy sector, effectively ending the state monopoly held by state-owned oil company Pemex and opening the sector for private investors.
Right now, Slim's core business is related to telecommunication markets in Mexico and Latin America.

Apart from the companies America Movil, Telcel and Telmex, Slim's main assets include Grupo Carso, which currently controls a number of large-sized Mexican companies.

In January 2015, Slim became the largest shareholder in the parent company of the New York Times newspaper.