Four years ago, Salvador Rangel, then Bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, outlined in an interview the motivations behind the battles in central Guerrero state, a territory he knew very well. At the time, he was close to Celso Ortega, leader of the Los Ardillos criminal group. Rangel pointed out that the fighting in the region, which has recently resurfaced in several communities in the lower mountains, has never been about drugs. “It’s not about drugs, because there aren’t any drugs here!” the bishop declared. “Celso tells me, ‘not even the damn marijuana grows here.’ So, the issue is political,” he added. Read in retrospect, his statements offer an interesting perspective on the current violence.

Communities in Chilapa and Atlixtac, between the Central and Mountain regions, are reliving a familiar nightmare. For more than a decade, Los Ardillos, whose stronghold is in the neighboring municipality of Quechultenango, have been trying to consolidate their control in towns and communities in the area and expand into surrounding areas. The communities of Tula and Xicotlán, targets for years, form the front line. On one side, Los Ardillos; on the other, the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata, or CIPOG-EZ, a self-defense group trying to halt their advance. And in the middle, the population, viewed by both groups — but primarily by Los Ardillos — as friend or foe, depending on where they live or their political affiliation.

The latest wave of attacks by Los Ardillos, including drone strikes, has displaced dozens of families, according to the state government. The CIPOG-EZ puts that number at several hundred, mostly residents of Tula and Xicotlán, who have taken refuge in the neighboring community of Alcozacán. Furthermore, the community police report more than 70 members killed and 25 missing since 2014, when hostilities began in the region. The last six murders have occurred in the past month. This week, reports of attacks have even reached Alcozacán itself and communities in Atlxitac, further east, the theoretical boundary of the Ortega family’s territory — a family known for its skillful and successful political maneuvering in the state.

Politics underlies the criminal advance. Control of electoral districts in the central part of the state, both local and federal, municipal governments, and the co-opting of community assemblies — part of the region’s layered administrative structure — are the objectives of powerful groups, and there are none as powerful in the central region as Los Ardillos. A source familiar with regional politics says, “Los Ardillos feel very strong, very secure, with this Peace and Justice group,” referring to a local group that masquerades as a community organization. “To what extent are these 10 or 12 communities in Chilapa crucial for maintaining political control in the region, over municipal resources and commercial interests?” the source asks, regarding Tula and the others. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

There is no doubt about Los Ardillos’ intentions to seize territory, nor about the suffering of the local population. Currently, uncertainty centers on the role and motivations of the CIPOG-EZ, which the federal security secretary, Omar García Harfuch, has equated with Los Ardillos, placing them under the umbrella of another criminal group known as Los Tlacos. Harfuch’s statements have been met with surprise in Guerrero. Los Tlacos do exist, but their influence is far removed, in Tlacotepec, the municipal seat of Heliodoro Castillo, on the other side of Chilpancingo, several hours away by car.

A more logical explanation is that Los Ardillos are reacting to the moves of the CIPOG-EZ and its leader, Jesús Plácido, who in January announced an alliance with another self-defense group, the UPOEG, to operate together in several municipalities in the area, particularly in Juan R. Escudero and Tecoanapa. For years, especially after the assassination of its founder, Bruno Plácido — Jesús’s uncle — the decline of the UPOEG has been evident. In some regions, such as Acapulco and the Costa Chica, the group has allied itself with criminal gangs. In the port city and the surrounding area, its alliance has been with the criminal group Los Rusos. “That’s why it seems to me that now, for Los Ardillos, the CIPOG-EZ are just like them,” says the source above. “In other words, they see another group that wants to maintain its power and try to do the same things they do. And that, in reality, they are disguising the intentions of Los Rusos or whatever group it may be. And they’re not going to let them.”

The finance department

In the interview with Rangel, now retired and living far from Guerrero after a mysterious disappearance of several days two years ago, he pointed out that the battle in the lower mountains was related, at least at that time, to the interests of the political parties in the region: President Claudia Sheinbaum’s party, Morena, on the one hand, and the PRI-PAN-PRD coalition, on the other. “In Alcozacán and those communities, the community police forces are divided over money,” the religious leader said. “Deep down, Morena supports those communities because the PRI is currently in power. And what Morena wants is to gain control of those places, those communities. How? By giving money to those people,” he reasoned.

On that occasion, Rangel recounted an anecdote that, in his view, reinforced the argument he had made. “A few days ago, I had to go to Ahuacuotzingo, beyond Chilapa, where Ranferi Hernández was killed,” the priest explained, referring to the historic leader of the left in Guerrero, who was assassinated in 2017. “I was waiting for my guide at a gas station, and ahead of me was a pickup truck carrying five people. The guide arrived, and it turned out he knew them, and he said to me, ‘They’re from the State Government’s finance department.’ Well… Just then, the state police arrived and pulled up alongside us and said, ‘Are you going to Alcozacán?’ And we said, ‘No, no, we’re going somewhere else.’ So, the finance people were going to Alcozacán. What were the finance people going to Alcozacán for, protected by the state police? What’s going on? What’s the point? It’s that Morena is supporting this rebel movement to establish Morena there,” he said.

Rangel’s logic was that if state finance officials were going to Alcozacán, a CIPOG-EZ stronghold, it was to give money to the community police and thus fund their fight against Los Ardillos. True or not, the religious leader’s statements complicated reality and moved it away from Manichean portrayals. There were no good guys or bad guys. There was a hunger for power. The question, as now, was whether the ambition stemmed from a genuine idea of ​​progress for the local population, a pure defense of the communities’ way of life, or a political project of plunder and accumulation disguised as the former, as Secretary Harfuch has suggested recently.

Four years later, Morena has made progress in some areas, but not all. The PRI still controls Chilapa and has won Chilpancingo. The PRI’s mayoral candidate in 2024, Alejandro Arcos, was assassinated shortly after taking office. Hitmen linked to Los Ardillos slit his throat. The PRD, which has moved closer to the PRI in recent years, governs Quechultenango. The Green Party governs Atlixtac. Its mayor survived an assassination attempt last year. As for the CIPOG-EZ, its venture in Tecoanapa and Juan R. Escudero hasn’t fully taken hold. The worst news of all is that next year there will be elections for all positions: mayors, governor, and state representatives. Given the circumstances, the fight could be fatal.

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When Slate asked in 2023 whether the star of Only Murders in the Building was a comedy genius or the most annoying actor on the planet, the response was swift. “Martin Short is a comedIC genius. End of story,” Ben Stiller posted on X. “Hard to believe people are actually debating whether or not Martin Short is funny. Newsflash: He is HILARIOUS.” Mark Hamill declared. They were far from the only celebrities to rally behind the actor in response to an article titled Why We Keep Putting Up with Martin Short?, in which critic Dan Kois described the actor as “exhausting and unfunny.”

The piece laid bare two realities. First, Martin Short’s humour — over-the-top, flamboyant and high-energy — is not to everyone’s taste. Second, he is widely adored by his peers. Both are reflected in the Netflix documentary Marty, Life Is Short, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, known for Body Heat and Dreamcatcher, who previously directed Short in Mumford.

“I would say my career has been 80% failure,” the star says in Marty, Life Is Short.

It might sound like false modesty — a way to downplay being the subject of a film about his own life — but a closer look at his career lends some weight to the remark. Now in his seventies, he is enjoying a peak in popularity, thanks in large part to the success of the Disney+ series Only Murders in the Building, where he stars alongside Selena Gomez and his close friend Steve Martin. The story of three amateur detectives obsessed with true-crime podcasts has brought him international recognition, award nominations, and rumours of a relationship with his co-star Meryl Streep — something he has not confirmed, as he remains notably private and does not use social media.

Media scrutiny and fans’ eagerness to see the romance confirmed have kept Short in the headlines, alongside another recent and tragic event: the suicide of his daughter, Katherine, in February.

Death has been a constant presence in the life of a man who says he had an exceptionally happy childhood. His humour does not stem from torment, as it does for comedians such as Jim Carrey or Richard Pryor; it was never an escape from reality. The son of a violinist and a steel executive, he is the youngest of five siblings. He was the star of a family in which everyone was witty, funny, and entertaining.

The first shadow fell when he was 12. While at summer camp, he received a phone call: his eldest brother had died in an accident. Before he turned 20, both his father and mother had also died. Over the course of his life, he built another family — a large one, with him at its emotional centre. “Let’s say you’re going to host a dinner party. And you invite Marty. And then it turns out Marty can’t come. You cancel the party,” Steve Martin sums up Short’s pull over his circle of friends — a group that includes Steven Spielberg, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Tom Hanks, and Rita Wilson. Together with Hanks and Steve Martin, they hold an annual party they call “colonoscopy eve.”

“We’re very excited,’’ Short said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “We go to Steve’s house around 5 p.m. the night before. There’s Jell-O, you know, there’s not much you can [eat]. You have to purge all day, and then we toast.”

“We all came over, we played poker, and we watched some funny movie, and you drink all this stuff,” Steve Martin added.

The next day, they all drive together to the appointment, and whoever lost at poker has to wait and go last. Once the test is over, they go out for a meal together.

The tight-knit nature of his friendships is a constant theme in the documentary, with both Hanks and Spielberg recalling that, when their children were young, they always preferred being at Short’s house.

Short did not always know he wanted to be an actor, although he enjoyed filming a TV show in the attic of his family home. He never studied acting at first: he began in medicine and later switched to social work. What he really wanted was to be a singer — a Canadian Frank Sinatra.

He joined a theatre group, and that is where he met Eugene Levy. It was the Schitt’s Creek star who made the call that changed his life: “You should be an actor — come to Toronto,” he told him.

He gave himself a year. If he did not find work in that time, he would return to his studies. But it worked: drawing on his boundless energy, he began creating eccentric characters. It was an extraordinary moment for Canadian comedy. Around him were John Candy, Rick Moranis, his close friend Catherine O’Hara — who has since died — and Dan Aykroyd. There was an abundance of talent. It was a vibrant period that reached its peak with the musical Godspell (1970).

Gilda Radner, one of the original Saturday Night Live cast members, became his on-and-off partner, but he ended up marrying her understudy in the musical, Nancy Dolman — a soft-spoken, blonde, almost angelic singer with whom he immediately fell in love. They were the couple everyone wanted to be.

“My husband and I went through a little rough patch, and we went to therapy,” O’Hara recalls in the documentary. “And one of the questions she was, ‘Do you have friends, do you know a couple whose relationship you would love to have or you’d love to emulate?’ We said, ‘Oh, we have these friends Marty and Nancy.’ And she said, ‘I can’t tell you how many people have named them when I’ve asked this question.’”

Short and Dolman adopted three children, she left the entertainment world, and they became a model family. But professionally, things were not going as well as Short had hoped, and he began to feel overshadowed by the success of those around him.

His films were flops, even though they seemed to have all the ingredients for success. He starred in Three Amigos (1986) alongside Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, two of the biggest comedians of the moment. The story of three silent-film actors who accidentally take on a group of outlaws failed to perform as expected at the box office.

Innerspace (1987) also seemed like a sure bet. In it, he played a supermarket clerk into whose body a miniaturized army lieutenant is accidentally injected. He co-starred with Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, who fell in love during filming, and it was directed by Joe Dante. It was an engaging comedy with action and humour, yet it too flopped, as did Three Fugitives (1989), co-starring Nick Nolte.

But he did find success with Father of the Bride (1991), the remake of the Spencer Tracy–Elizabeth Taylor classic. Alongside his close friend Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, he played Franck Eggelhoffer, a wedding planner so flamboyant that executives worried he might be too much for the film. It was a huge success, and he returned for the sequel.

That success was not repeated with Mars Attacks!, Tim Burton’s ensemble film about a Martian invasion, in which he played the White House press secretary.

But nothing bombed more spectacularly than Clifford (1994), in which he played a 10-year-old boy. It is the film where he showcases his full range, unleashing his boundless physical comedy. When Harold Ramis, the writer of Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, saw it, he thought it was “a $100 million movie.” Audiences did not agree — nor did critics. Roger Ebert tore it apart, saying it was “a movie that should never have been made.” It was little comfort that Elizabeth Taylor later told him it was one of her favourite films, or that over time it has become a cult classic.

His greatest successes came through the characters he created, especially Jiminy Glick, a rude, bumbling interviewer whom The New York Times in 2002 described as “the most unpredictable and hilariously uninhibited comic creation to hit TV since Bart Simpson was in diapers.”

The roles he developed at the Canadian sketch comedy troupe Second City drew the attention of Saturday Night Live. He joined in its 10th season to help fill the void left by Eddie Murphy and worked alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Christopher Guest, and Billy Crystal. He lasted just a year — and nearly did not make it that far, admitting that during the fourth episode he tried to quit.

He also took on dramatic roles in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Morning Show, and Damages. While filming the legal drama starring Glenn Close, he received the worst news of his life: his wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died shortly afterwards. The documentary is dedicated to her and to Catherine O’Hara. They had spent more than 30 years together.

Spielberg thought he might never be funny again. He and his wife, Kate Capshaw, became key sources of support, along with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson — and, of course, Steve Martin. He threw himself into work; he did not want to be alone at home. He says he does not want to be rich or influential, just to keep going and enjoy himself.

Largely stepping away from film, his career has focused on television, a live tour with Steve Martin, and widely acclaimed appearances on late-night shows, which led The New Yorker to describe him as the greatest talk show guest of all time. His career may have been a 80% failure, as he puts it, but the remaining 20% has made him a genuine star.

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Charl Kleinhaus’s life took a dramatic turn on May 12, 2025, when his plane landed at Dulles International Airport, in a suburb of Washington, D.C. He arrived with his two children and grandson. Waving an American flag and brimming with excitement, he had finally achieved his long-held dream: leaving South Africa.

Kleinhaus was one of the first 59 Afrikaners to enter the United States through the refugee program that President Donald Trump created. He welcomed white South Africans, while closing the doors to all other foreigners fleeing persecution or torture in their home countries. According to the State Department, from October 1, 2025, to April 30, 2026, a total of 6,069 refugees arrived in the United States. Three of them are Afghan. The rest are South African.

Kleinhaus, 47, is employed on a farm in South Dakota. He’s never had a job in agriculture before (he used to work as a stonemason on construction sites). Still, despite the difficulties of such a large-scale move, he’s confident that he’ll soon be able to start his own business in the country that has welcomed him. He never wants to leave.

“The people are much better than what I ever expected,” he gushes over the phone to EL PAÍS. What he values most is that the U.S. is a “Christian country, where you have rights — where it’s [fair] — no matter the color of your skin. You’ve got the same right[s] as everybody else,” he explains.

In the first few months after arriving, he couldn’t sleep. This was because there were no security bars on his windows… something he wasn’t used to. Kleinhaus says that, in South Africa, he feared for his life, which led him to apply for the refugee program as soon as he saw Trump announce it. He recounts how his neighbor was hacked to death with machetes: he cites this as an example of the persecution that, he claims, whites face in a country marked by the legacy of apartheid. The system of racial segregation and institutionalized discrimination against Black people was in effect in South Africa from 1948 until the 1990s, largely driven by the Afrikaner population.

The situation following the fall of that regime — with a majority-Black party in power and affirmative action laws instituted to compensate for the inequalities created by decades of discrimination, coupled with attacks suffered by white people — has led to talk of genocide. Trump, for his part, has used the term, referring to the brutal murders of white farmers in recent years as an example. But the reality is that violence in South Africa is widespread: analysts point out that most violent crimes occur in poor, predominantly Black areas, thus refuting the notion of a white genocide. The homicide rate per capita in 2022 was 43.7 per 100,000 inhabitants. In the United States, that same year, the rate was 6.5 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Preferential treatment

Trump froze the entire Refugee Admissions Program as soon as he returned to the White House. And, the following month, on February 7, 2025, the administration reinstated it… but only to accept Afrikaners, who are white South Africans descended from Dutch, French, and German settlers (although Indians and other mixed-race South Africans were later also admitted). Other foreigners — such as Afghans who had worked with the U.S. Army — were notified that their flights had been canceled. They were left in limbo, despite the fact that they had waited for years to be granted asylum and even had tickets to the United States.

At the time, Bishop Sean Rowe, head of the Episcopal Church, declared: “It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years.”

During Joe Biden’s administration, approximately 125,000 refugees were admitted annually to the United States. But last September, the Trump administration announced that the quota for fiscal year 2026 (from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026) would be 7,500, with the spots “primarily allocated to Afrikaners from South Africa.”

Recently, Reuters and The New York Times reported that the Trump administration intends to double the number of white South Africans in the refugee program. According to The New York Times, the administration plans to declare an “unforeseen emergency” to attract more Afrikaners. This would represent a radical shift away from a program that was originally created to welcome people fleeing wars, famines, and natural disasters worldwide, transforming it instead into a channel primarily for white people seeking to live in the United States.

“It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the U.S. for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the U.S. from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship,” the South African government noted in a statement.

The killings of white farmers in South Africa represent less than 1% of the more than 27,000 annual murders that occurred between 2023 and 2024 across the country, according to Afriforum, a non-profit organization. Experts say that these deaths don’t constitute genocide. There are approximately 2.7 million white Afrikaners in South Africa, while roughly 80% of the population is Black.

An unexpected welcome

Some of the Afrikaners who have entered the program report suffering the consequences of having been chosen over other nationalities. Johanna (a pseudonym, because she fears reprisals) arrived in the United States this past March with her three children and her mother. Her experience has not been what she expected.

“I’m experiencing persecution by my supervisor, my agency… this is more because they’re Muslims and I’m a woman, so I’m experiencing this on a daily basis. And my caseworker for the [Matching Grant Program] is a Black man from the Ivory Coast. And it’s difficult. These people, they’re furious with the administration, because all other immigrants are blocked [from coming] in, so all their family and friends are outside the country. So now, [they] take this out on us,” she explains by phone from Florida, where she now resides.

Johanna applied to enter the U.S. through the program as soon as it was announced because “if we had stayed in our country, sooner or later, they would have ended up killing us all,” she says. Her experience in the United States, however, hasn’t been as positive as Kleinhaus’s. She lashes out at the resettlement agencies contracted by the government to help refugees during their first few weeks in the country. “Everybody back home thinks this is just the best thing ever. They [think that they’re] going to get here, they’re going to get [a] nice place to stay, they’re going to get furniture, they’ll get all the food [they need]… but that’s not the case,” she sighs.

Johanna recounts that, upon arrival, the agency housed her in a dangerous neighborhood, where one of her compatriots was stabbed. “Since I arrived, we’ve been placed in a Black motel. They wanted to place us in a Black neighborhood. They wanted to put my kids in a Black school. And I just said, ‘Listen, this is what I fled from. How can you do this to us again?’ We couldn’t sleep at night, as the people in the motel [were] fighting and [there were] drugs and prostitution… the police [were] in and out of there,” she recounts.

While she acknowledges that other Afrikaners have had better experiences, she complains of corruption in many of the agencies tasked with helping them. In her case, an agency managed the allocation of $2,450 (per person) provided by the government for a period of 90 days. After 28 days, however, the agency informed her that the money had run out, between payments to the motel and the security deposit for the house where they were going to put her family (without her consent). She was also unhappy with the food and furniture that was purchased for them with the allocated funds, which was done without her input.

Through a Facebook group of fellow South Africans, she managed to rent a house elsewhere, but she’s still worried about her financial situation and finding employment. “You must go and pack shelves, or you must work in a garden, or whatever. Then, you work for their friends (referring to employers who are connected to the agency) and then they pay you like minimum wage, so you cannot survive,” she says.

Johanna says that she’s in a difficult situation. On the one hand, she wants to warn people about the problems they’ll face upon arriving in the United States… but, on the other, she doesn’t want to discourage her compatriots, since her goal “is to get all my people here as soon as possible and in as many numbers as possible.”

Shelly Hepburn is intimately familiar with the hardships faced by those who have felt disillusioned upon arrival. Years ago, after watching a documentary about the violence in South Africa, she decided to help Afrikaners seeking asylum in the United States. Divorced and with two grown daughters, she took in several families. Over four years, she housed about 15 people. She offered each family free housing for seven months and provided them with support to get by. Although she paused the program for a few years, she maintained a Facebook page to help them. When Trump announced the refugee program, she shifted the focus of her page to assist those admitted under it. In Connecticut, where she lives, there are a dozen South African families whom she stays in touch with. She supports them by delivering food and relocating them to safe areas.

“We’ve had good experiences. People are doing great. Their feeling of safety and freedom… they haven’t felt [it] ever. And they’re getting in touch with their American community, they’re becoming one with their community. And then, you have the bad stories, where the [resettlement] agency is pressuring them, lying to them, putting them in housing that’s filthy, [rundown], dangerous,” she explains.

In recent weeks, it has come to light that at least four beneficiaries of the refugee program have returned to their countries of origin for various reasons. Most, however, will not return. “My son and my grandson will enlist in the army; they will go to war to defend this country,” says Charl Kleinhaus proudly.

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