The Maya Train is intended to drive economic development to some of the country’s poorest areas, in part by bringing up to three million tourists each year. But one section crosses the Calakmul jungle, part of the Mayan jungle, the largest tropical forest in the Americas after the Amazon.

Only 1 in 90 registered voters participated, leading critics to question the results.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has made completing the Mayan Train, a project that looks to connect parts of the Yucatán Peninsula and drive tourism in remote areas, has met with increasing resistance from the Indigenous people of the region.

Many communities in the train’s path feel deceived by scarce information, while activists fear the social and environmental impacts.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexico office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a string of criticisms Thursday of the government’s handling of consultations with indigenous communities over a planned megaproject known as the Mayan Train in the country’s southeast.

A wrap-up of the most important and interesting Latino news items from the past week

This week’s wrap-up comes to you from the cozy confines of quarantine, as senior editor Hector Luis Alamo has managed to catch COVID for only the second time this year.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A preliminary report by experts into the collapse of a Mexico City elevated subway line that killed 26 people placed much of the blame Wednesday on poor welds in studs that joined steel support beams to a concrete layer supporting the track bed.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — For a president with a plunging economy and the world’s fourth-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador isn’t doing so badly.

Federal police are currently investigating several members of Bolsonaro’s family, including his sons Carlos and Flávio.

Police officers protesting pay and working conditions disrupted the first day of Haiti’s Carnival.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s treasury secretary resigned Tuesday, complaining of the appointment of unqualified officials by “influential people in the current administration who have clear conflicts of interest.”

The criticisms came as the Zapatistas celebrated the 25th anniversary of their brief armed uprising in 1994.

With rising temperatures and the increasing threat of tropical storms due to climate change menacing Puerto Rico, many fear the islands’ access to electrical power will only worsen under privatization.

After candidate registration for Guatemala’s June elections closed this weekend, electoral authorities, toeing the line for far-right political operatives, have spuriously excluded two presidential tickets, clearing the way for conservative Zury Ríos.

Mexico’s president on Friday angrily rejected comments by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Mexican government has lost control over parts of the country.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that the island faces “tremendously difficult challenges” as he arrived in Mexico on Saturday. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called U.S. policy “completely worn out, anachronistic, it has no future or point, and it no longer benefits anyone.”

Women’s rights begin with access to reproductive health care, and because abortion clinics provide such access, they are on the frontline of the struggle for women’s rights in Puerto Rico.

When Debby Wolfe learned about the strained relationship between comedic legend George Lopez and his formerly estranged daughter Mayan, she knew it would make for a good story that everyone could relate to — and laugh with. The Salvadoran Gen-Zer now has a hit show on NBC.

Senior editor Hector Luis Alamo gives a rundown of some of the facts, bits of news, real histories, and actual lies he came across during the past week.

Latino Rebels’ senior editor Hector Luis Alamo provides an overview of some of the most interesting and important things he’s seen, read, and heard over the past week.