A Monterrey-based advertising company in Mexico changed its set of operations and now offers local residents the opportunity to rent a glass-enclosed mobile cabin to present newborns to family amid the ongoing pandemic.

A glass-enclosed mobile cabin arrives at the venue and is deep cleaned before proud parents and newborn make their entrance, while relatives and friends drive past honking their horns to take a peek at the baby.

Only close relatives are then allowed to get down from their vehicles in order to get a closer look. Renting the cabin costs $900 pesos ($40 dollars) per hour.

Adman Ernesto Gonzalez, came up with the enterprise because his daughter was born in June and he was worried that his 95-year-old grandmother would be unable to meet her.

Mexico racked up a record number of new confirmed coronavirus infections on Saturday (August 1), registering more than 9,000 daily cases for the first time and passing the previous peak for the second day running, official data showed.

Mexico’s health ministry reported 9,556 new cases of coronavirus, surging past the record of 8,458 set on Friday. The ministry also logged 784 additional fatalities, bringing the total tally in the country to 434,193 cases and 47,472 deaths. (Reuters)

(Production: Daniel Becerril, Rodolfo Pena Roja, Geraldine Downer)

The Mexican Army and state security forces on Sunday (August 2) captured Jose Antonio Yepez, a notorious drug gang leader blamed for helping fuel a surge in violence that has severely tested the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Widely known as “El Marro” (The Mallet), Yepez was captured early on Sunday (August 2) morning, according to the federal government and authorities in the central state of Guanajuato, one of the principal flashpoints of gang violence in Mexico.

Yepez, boss of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, a Guanajuato-based gang, has been engaged in a bloody struggle for criminal control of the state with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the country’s most powerful and violent groups.

The capture should deliver a boost to Lopez Obrador, who pledged to bring down record levels of violence plaguing the country when he took office in December 2018. Instead, homicides have further increased during his presidency.

The Guanajuato attorney general’s office said security forces captured Yepez with five other people and rescued a kidnapped local businesswoman during the operation. Weapons were also secured during the raid.

One of Mexico’s most-wanted bosses, El Marro has appeared in expletive-laden videos threatening his enemies, and in June a clip of an emotional Yepez lamenting the arrest of his mother and sister was widely broadcast on national media.

The women, who were suspected of aiding his operations, were later released when judges picked apart the case against them.

Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said Yepez would be taken to the Altiplano penitentiary, a maximum-security prison where drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was housed before he escaped through a tunnel in 2015. Guzman was recaptured in 2016.

Initially notorious for fuel theft in a state crisscrossed by pipelines and home to a major oil refinery, the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel has become increasingly embroiled in battles with the CJNG, based in the neighboring state of Jalisco.

A hub of the carmaking industry, Guanajuato was once one of the safer regions of Mexico, but the violence of the past few years has pushed national homicide tallies to record levels. (Reuters)

(Production: Manuel Carrillo)

Dramatic scenes out of Mexico on Sunday (July 5) as a plane suspected of carrying drugs was reportedly set alight after allegedly being intercepted by soldiers on a highway in Quintana Roo state, according to local reports.

Media reported that the incident took place on Federal Highway 184. Members of the army doing a flyover at the site reportedly spotted the plane before deploying units.

According to some media reports, those aboard set fire to the plane to escape.

Authorities have yet to officially report on the contents of the plane or whether any arrests were made. (Reuters)