Politics
Mexico elects leftist Claudia Sheinbaum as the first female president in its history
Claudia Sheinbaum, a U.S.-educated scientist-turned-politician, was elected Sunday as Mexico’s first female president, shattering gender barriers in a country known for a culture of machismo and high rates of violence against women.
“In 200 years of the Mexican republic, I have become the first woman president,” she told supporters in her acceptance speech, describing her victory as a win for all women. “I did not arrive alone,” she said. “We all arrived.”
The leftist former mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum, 62, will also become the first president of Jewish ancestry in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.
She will lead a prosperous but polarized nation that in recent years has been plagued by widespread gang violence. And she will be closely watched to see how she navigates the long shadow of her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum was elected in landslide fashion, according to preliminary vote counts, which showed her winning with 58% of the vote compared with 30% for her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz.
A successful businesswoman, Gálvez ran a spirited campaign representing an opposition coalition, but ultimately could not overcome the well-oiled machinery of Morena, Sheinbaum’s political party. Trailing in third behind the women was Jorge Álvarez Máynez, a member of Congress.
Sheinbaum is the protege and hand-picked successor of López Obrador, who founded Morena in 2011 and who has since transformed it into a political behemoth that has drawn comparisons to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico in autocratic fashion for most of the 20th century.
López Obrador, who under the constitution is limited to a single six-year term, is a deeply polarizing figure: Supporters laud him for helping lift millions out of poverty while critics assail him for disregarding democratic norms and failing to curb cartel violence.
Candidate Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz waves after polls closed Sunday.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)
Although López Obrador was not on the ballot, many viewed the election as a referendum on his term.
Many Sheinbaun supporters said they believed she would advance López Obrador’s trademark anti-poverty policies, particularly his government’s welfare payments to students and elderly people.
“She is going to continue with all the help that the president has given us,” said Rosa Maria Velazco, a 52-year-old teacher. “She will continue to support the poorest.”
Gálvez supporters, on the other hand, largely said they backed her because she promised to change the course set by López Obrador.
“I’m very angry at this government,” said Julieta Jujnovsky, 45, a professor of biology.
She said she didn’t oppose López Obrador’s ideology so much as his style of governing. “He doesn’t want any opposition,” said Jujnovsky, who described the president’s efforts to reform the Supreme Court, slash the number of seats in Mexico’s legislature and overhaul the country’s elections institute as part of a “deterioration” of Mexico’s democracy. “Democracy depends on counterweights and listening to the other side,” she said.
How Sheinbaum will mange to mend the divisions so evident during López Obrador’s term is one of the many questions hanging over her presidency. And, while López Obrador has vowed to retire from politics, many wonder whether he will indeed stay away from the political fray that has animated his entire adult life.
Indigenous women vote in Zinacantan, in southern Mexico, on Sunday.
(Luis Etzin / Associated Press)
Sheinbaum, for her part, has dismissed such questions as misogynist.
Her victory was a groundbreaking development in a country where women were barred from voting until 1954.
Her success is in some way a culmination of years of efforts by Mexican authorities to impose gender equality in a nation where politics was traditionally a male affair. A 2019 constitutional reform set quotas requiring gender parity in all elected posts at the federal, state and municipal levels.
Today, more than half of the members of Mexico’s congress are women, the fourth-highest rate in the world. Eight of the nation’s 31 governors are female and a woman heads the Supreme Court.
Some voters expressed wonderment that Mexico had elected a female leader before much of the rest of the world, including the United States.
“Never in my entire life did I imagine that a woman would be president of my country,” said Cristina Navarrete Santillán, 76, who voted for Sheinbaum in Mexico City alongside her two daughters and two granddaughters. “I am glad to be alive to see it.”
Sunday’s election was Mexico’s largest ever, with voters also choosing a new Congress, eight state governors, the Mexico City mayor and some 20,000 local officeholders nationwide.
Preliminary results showed that Morena performed well in the congressional elections, and would, as part of a coalition with two allied parties, likely have a supermajority that would allow it to easily pass legislation.
In the United States, which is home to nearly 11 million people born in Mexico, migrants who in the past were able only to vote in Mexican elections by mail could vote for the first time in person at consulates.
Long lines of voters stretched for blocks in cities that included Chicago and Orlando, Fla. In Los Angeles, the line at the Mexican Consulate in MacArthur Park wrapped around the block twice, with some people arriving as early as 4 a.m.
Voters draped in Mexican flags waited patiently as mariachi music blasted.
Laura Torres, who arrived with a group from Oxnard, said she had waited six hours to vote and would wait another six if necessary. The group planned to vote for Sheinbaum.
In some parts of Mexico, voters also lined up before dawn.
That was the case in the middle-class neighborhood of San Andres Totoltepec, where Sheinbaum, an environmental engineer by training, was reared and where she voted early Sunday.
As the candidate took her place in a line of about 100 people to cast her ballot, the crowd broke out in chants of “Presidenta!”
Sheinbaum spent much of her career as an academic, although she was raised in a highly political family.
Both her parents were active in the 1968 student movement, best known for the infamous Tlatelolco massacre in which Mexican security forces killed scores of protesters in the capital. Her first husband was a leftist politican.
When López Obrador was elected mayor of Mexico City in 2000, he launched Sheinbaum’s political career by making her secretary of environment for the capital.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, kneels during an Indigenous ceremony during his inauguration six years ago.
( Bloomberg / Getty Images)
She later joined his breakaway political group, the National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, and was elected in 2015 as borough president of Tlalpan, a district in southern Mexico City.
Three years later, she was elected mayor of Mexico City and he was elected president in a landslide victory for Morena.
López Obrador vowed to put the “poor first” in a country that he said had been hijacked by a corrupt and conservative elite. López Obrador’s approval rating still tops 60%, making him one of the most popular leaders in Latin America.
When he departs office in October, he will leave his successor with a strong economy that has been bolstered by the relocation of foreign firms from Asia and elsewhere to Mexico. The Mexican peso has been among the world’s strongest currencies.
But the next president will also inherit a number of crises, including dire water shortages, a struggling healthcare system, stubborn inequality and violence from criminal gangs and cartels so severe that the U.S. State Department warns its citizens not to travel to many Mexican states.
López Obrador’s controversial “hugs not bullets” strategy — which prioritizes social programs for the young over direct confrontations with cartels — has failed to stop the country’s violence, although homicides have fallen some during the last six years. Security is by far Mexicans’ main concern, polls show.
While voters were fiercely split on the issues at the heart of the race, many on both sides of the political divide were elated to have the chance to vote for a woman.
Fewer than a third of the countries in the United Nations have ever had a female leader, according to a Pew Research Center analysis from last year.
Rosa Maria Beltrán, a 39-year-old dentist who voted for Sheinbaum, said she was proud of her country.
“Tell the people in the United States that in Mexico we are going to have a female president before them,” she said.
Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City and Anthony De Leon and Dania Maxwell in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
new video loaded: Federal Agent Fatally Shoots Woman in Minneapolis
transcript
transcript
Federal Agent Fatally Shoots Woman in Minneapolis
Federal officials claimed that the 37-year-old woman was trying to kill agents with a car in Minneapolis, while city and state officials disputed their account.
-
“No! No! Shame — shame! What did you do?” “It was an act of domestic terrorism, what happened. It was — our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.” “We’ve been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety.” “They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly: That is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying — getting killed.” “Get out of the fucking car.” “No! No! Shame! [gunshots] Shame! Oh, my fucking God. What the fuck? What the fuck? You just fucking — what the fuck did you do?” “There is nothing to indicate that this woman was the target of any law enforcement investigation or activity. This woman was in her car, and it appears, then blocking the street because of the presence of federal law enforcement, which is obviously something that has been happening not just in Minneapolis, but around the country.”
By Jamie Leventhal and Devon Lum
January 7, 2026
Politics
Trump greenlights Russian sanctions bill, paving way for 500% tariff on countries supporting Moscow: Graham
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Sen. Lindsey Graham announced Wednesday that President Donald Trump has approved a Russian sanctions bill designed to pressure Moscow to end its war with Ukraine.
Graham revealed the development in a post on X, describing it as a pivotal shift in the U.S. approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“After a very productive meeting today with President Trump on a variety of issues, he greenlit the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that I have been working on for months with Senator Blumenthal and many others,” Graham said.
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent.”
TRUMP TOUTS ‘TREMENDOUS PROGRESS’ BUT SAYS HE’LL MEET PUTIN AND ZELENSKYY ‘ONLY WHEN’ PEACE DEAL IS FINAL
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol July 31, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
According to the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, the bipartisan legislation is designed to grant Trump sweeping, almost unprecedented, authority to economically isolate Russia and penalize major global economies that continue to trade with Moscow and finance its war against Ukraine.
Most notably, the bill would require the United States to impose a 500% tariff on all goods imported from any country that continues to purchase Russian oil, petroleum products or uranium. The measure would effectively squeeze Russia financially while deterring foreign governments from undermining U.S. sanctions.
TRUMP CASTS MADURO’S OUSTER AS ‘SMART’ MOVE AS RUSSIA, CHINA ENTER THE FRAY
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting at the White House Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine,” Graham said.
“This bill would give President Trump tremendous leverage against countries like China, India and Brazil to incentivize them to stop buying the cheap Russian oil that provides the financing for Putin’s bloodbath against Ukraine.”
Graham said voting could take place as early as next week and that he is looking forward to a strong bipartisan vote.
US MILITARY SEIZES TWO SANCTIONED TANKERS IN ATLANTIC OCEAN
The vessel tanker Bella 1 was spotted in Singapore Strait after U.S. officials say the U.S. Coast Guard pursued an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela. (Hakon Rimmereid/via Reuters)
The move on the Russian sanctions bill follows another sharp escalation in America’s clampdown on Moscow. Earlier Wednesday, U.S. forces reportedly seized an oil tanker attempting to transport sanctioned Venezuelan oil to Russia.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Graham publicly celebrated the seizure in another post on X, describing it as part of a broader winning streak of U.S. intervention aimed at Venezuela and Cuba.
In the post, he also took aim at critics such as Sen. Rand Paul, who has opposed the bill, arguing that it would damage America’s trade relations with much of the world.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Politics
ICE officer kills a Minneapolis driver in a deadly start to Trump’s latest immigration operation
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a Minneapolis driver on Wednesday during the Trump administration’s latest crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.
The 37-year-old woman was shot in front of a family member during a traffic stop in a snowy residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020. Her killing quickly drew a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while visiting Texas, described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”
Emergency medical technicians carry a person on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
(Ellen Schmidt / Associated Press)
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted that characterization as “garbage” and criticized the federal deployment of more than 2,000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.
“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit,” the mayor said.
Frey said he had a message for ICE: “Get the f— out of Minneapolis.”
Police tape surrounds a vehicle believed to be involved in a shooting by an ICE agent on Wednesday.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
A shooting caught on video
Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It was not clear from the videos whether the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop. Witnesses screamed obscenities, expressing shock at what they’d seen.
After the shooting, emergency medical technicians tried to administer aid to the woman.
-
Share via
“She was driving away and they killed her,” said resident Lynette Reini-Grandell, who was outdoors recording video on her phone.
The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the Minneapolis driver, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced Tuesday that it had launched the operation, which is at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Noem confirmed Wednesday that DHS had deployed more than 2,000 officers to the area and said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.
Protesters react after being hit with chemical spray at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis.
(Alex Kormann / Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)
A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there, including Gregory Bovino, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.
In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota,” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.
Shootings involving drivers during immigration actions have been an issue since the raids began in Southern California.
In August, masked U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in San Bernardino opened fire on a truck they had stopped on a street. A video showed an agent demanding the driver roll down his window. When he refused, an agent shattered the window, the truck drove off and gunfire rang out.
When the driver got home, the family reported the incident to police. Federal authorities alleged an agent had been injured when the driver tried to “run them down.” But witnesses and video disputed some aspects of the official account.
In October, a well-known TikTok figure was shot by an agent during a standoff in Los Angeles. The U.S. attorney said the man rammed his vehicle into the law enforcement vehicles in front of and behind him, “spun the tires, spewing smoke and debris into the air, causing the car to fishtail and causing agents to worry for their safety.” But videos showed a much more complicated view of the situation. A federal judge recently dismissed the case against the driver, finding that he had been denied access to counsel while in immigration detention.
Governor calls for calm
In Minnesota on Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz said he was prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He said a family member of the driver was there to witness the killing, which he described as “predictable” and “avoidable.” He also said that, like many, he was outraged by the shooting but called on people to keep protests peaceful.
“They want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot,” the governor said during a news conference. “If you protest and express your 1st Amendment rights, please do so peacefully, as you always do. We can’t give them what they want.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone. He said she had been shot in the head.
“This woman was in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue. … At some point a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off,” the chief said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”
There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot the driver. Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.
“Keep in mind that this is an investigation that is also in its infancy. So any speculation about what has happened would be just that,” Jacobson told reporters.
The shooting happened in the district of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called it “state violence,” not law enforcement.
For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighborhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilize in the event of an immigration enforcement surge. From houses of worship to mobile home parks, they have set up active online networks, scanned license plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noise-making devices to alert neighborhoods of any enforcement presence.
Sullivan and Dell’Orto write for the Associated Press. Dell’Orto reported from St. Paul, Minn. AP writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, and Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas and Times staff contributed to this report.
Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion
NC health officials urge vaccines amid measles and respiratory illness surge
Today in History, 1993: North Dakota-born astronaut leaves Fargo school kids starstruck
This rising sophomore has an important offseason ahead of him for Ohio State football
Oklahoma Sooners add transfer portal offensive lineman to the roster
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Video: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
Trump greenlights Russian sanctions bill, paving way for 500% tariff on countries supporting Moscow: Graham
Saudi-led coalition says STC’s al-Zubaidi fled to UAE via Somaliland
U.S. to exit 66 international organizations in further retreat from global cooperation
San Diego sues to stop border barrier construction
-
News1 week agoFor those who help the poor, 2025 goes down as a year of chaos
-
Detroit, MI4 days ago2 hospitalized after shooting on Lodge Freeway in Detroit
-
Georgia1 week agoBest in Georgia: 2025 AJC Varsity high school football all-state teams
-
Dallas, TX3 days agoDefensive coordinator candidates who could improve Cowboys’ brutal secondary in 2026
-
Detroit, MI1 week agoWith 46k outages around Michigan, Metro Detroit prepares for power loss
-
Southeast1 week agoMurder in small-town America: The crimes that tore quiet communities apart in 2025
-
Miami, FL1 week agoMiami-Dade sheriff’s deputy opens fire on vehicle after altercation during traffic stop, officials say
-
Midwest1 week agoMcDonald’s locks doors to keep out individuals who present ‘a risk’ in crime-ridden Minneapolis area