The efforts made by Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila to recover her U.S. visa have become a problem for the government of Claudia Sheinbaum and Mexico’s ruling party, Morena. Audio recordings were released in which Ávila, 40, is heard speaking with an intermediary in the United States, allegedly from the FBI, offering information to Washington; the leak has dealt a blow to Sheinbaum’s narrative of defending national sovereignty against U.S. interference.

The governor, however, claims that her conversations were merely efforts to recover the visa that the U.S. government had canceled without an explanation for her and her husband, Carlos Torres, in May 2025. Ávila, who denies having cooperated with U.S. authorities beyond the institutional channels as the head of a border state, has not yet regained permission to cross into the United States.

Ávila says that Jaime Bonilla — her predecessor in the governorship and a former party colleague with whom she has a deep enmity — set a trap to record her in December 2025 by making her believe he would help her recover the travel document. The governor says Bonilla sent her an intermediary who claimed to work with “the FBI or HSI,” though she did not specify which agency (the first one reports to the Justice Department; the second one to the Department of Homeland Security). She called it “a psychological ambush” meant to make her believe the United States had her in its sights and might even extradite her. “I am the governor, but I am also a mother. When they started talking about investigations and a possible extradition, I thought about my children, because nothing like that had ever been suggested to me before,” the governor says in an interview with EL PAÍS in Mexico City.

Question. What should the relationship between a border state and U.S. security agencies be like?

Answer. There must be a lot of communication and coordination, without subordination. The president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said this. I govern one of the world’s most important borders. That implies shared challenges with the United States, not only on security but on migration, the economy, social issues and the environment. There are many topics we address; we have binational security groups to work together.

Q. Regarding the leaked audios, which authorities did you speak with about your visa cancellation?

A. A person came to me who had been recommended by former governor Jaime Bonilla at a time when there was communication between us. He told me: ‘This is someone who can help you, who can give you information about your visa issue.’ I received him thinking we would discuss the matter, but he began raising scenarios I had never heard before: charges, sanctions; he even mentioned extradition and letters. I felt it was a psychological ambush. It was an ambush. I asked, ‘What are you talking about? I hadn’t heard any of this.’ The first thing that came to mind was my children. I have a 13-year-old daughter and a little one who is four. I heard arguments from someone skilled at intimidation, at frightening people, at generating fear and even prompting certain responses. I told him: ‘Take all of that to my lawyers; I thought we were meeting about the visa.’

Q. When did this happen?

A. In mid-December 2025. I told them to handle everything through formal channels, with an advisor. Of course I sought legal advice to ask what was happening. In one of the calls he made to me, they mentioned Panama. I have never been to Panama, not even on vacation. The scenarios mentioned in the audios were never carried out. They never contacted the people who advised me. Today I know it was a trap. It’s clear: they even recorded me, they steered the conversation, they tried to corner me.

Q. How did that individual present himself?

A. As an advisor, an intermediary who was coming to help because of his closeness to the former governor. Bonilla is a U.S. citizen, he lives in San Diego, participates in politics and is affiliated with a party in the United States [the Republican Party], and it seemed to me that he was genuinely someone who would explain the visa situation to me.

Q. What is the status of your visa? Have they explained why it was canceled?

A. The status is ‘administrative process,’ and no, I do not know the reason.

Q. In the audios you say you were willing to provide information from the security groups. What did you mean?

A. At those meetings we discuss crime trends, how common-law crime develops, thefts, homicides… We have binational security groups constantly, operating within the legal framework. The information shared is within the law, and it benefits both sides of the border in combating criminality.

Q. In the context of the visa, what did that offer have to do with anything?

A. No, it was not in the context of the visa; it was in the context of that particular meeting, which was recorded to later publish decontextualized audio fragments as a form of pressure.

Q. Who was the advisor Bonilla sent you?

A. I cannot say more because yesterday I filed a complaint against those responsible for this situation. I have the name and phone number, but his identity will be made known in due course.

Q. What are you accusing them of?

A. Of the crimes that the authorities determine. There was a recording; he presented himself as an advisor to an agency; among other things, there was the psychological ambush intended to intimidate me, the violence I felt at the time. I was alone, without a lawyer, with no one who could explain what they were talking to me about in that moment.

Q. Which agency did he claim to represent?

A. He told me he was an external consultant to the agencies, it could be the FBI or HSI.

Q. Did you inform President Claudia Sheinbaum or anyone in your cabinet, such as Secretary Omar García Harfuch, that you were meeting these contacts about your visa?

A. They knew I was pursuing the visa process.

Q. Did they know about the external advisor?

A. No; I looked for advisors because they made all these proposals and speculations. Of course I seek legal counsel.

Q. Can you swear and maintain that you only discussed the visa with U.S. authorities or advisors?

A. Of course; it is a strictly personal matter and also about coordination within the legal framework for cross-border, binational issues — all within the law.

Q. Will we hear another audio of you about negotiations, judicial benefits or accusations against other Mexican politicians?

A. I don’t know if there will be more audios. However, I know the context in which they were made: an ambush in which they tried to elicit responses, where they put forward complex scenarios.

Q. Did you feel fear?

A. I thought about my children. I didn’t fully understand what they were referring to. They even mentioned that I could be extradited.

Q. Can you confirm that no U.S. authority has told you there is an investigation against you?

A. What I can confirm is that we continue working. At this moment I have not received further information. I continue coordinating with U.S. authorities.

Q. What repercussions do you think these leaks will have for Morena ahead of the 2027 elections?

A. Our movement is strong and united. In Baja California there are many results. We have achieved a reduction in virtually all crimes; we are carrying out projects like never before. For me, one of the main achievements is the reduction of poverty.

Q. Faced with attacks from the opposition, would you be willing to step aside to reduce political pressure and even to be investigated?

A. My conscience is clear and I hold my head high. I do not hide; there has not been a single day when I have stopped working for the people. I am on the ground, in neighborhoods, supporting those who need it most. I do not engage in politics for power. I do it to help others.

Q. Why did you ask Jaime Bonilla for help?

A. I did not ask him for help; he offered it. We had a meeting in the summer of 2025 that I accepted to attend because of the movement we come from and with the aim of generating political peace in the state. I accepted his help in good faith. This [the clash with Bonilla] goes back to 2022 with the cancellation of a 40 billion-peso contract with the company Next Energy to build a photovoltaic plant that did not have federal permits. My responsibility as governor was to cancel that contract. That’s where the revenge and persecution started. It is not a personal or political matter; it is a matter of justice and responsibility. I was not going to be complicit in that fraud.

Q. Given your fraught history with Bonilla, why did you accept his help?

A. It was a moment when we were communicating. It was strictly a personal matter: the visa. I listened to the proposals and then this person [Bonilla’s envoy] sought a meeting with me. Since it was something I would never do to someone else, I accepted in good faith. And yes, it was a mistake to receive [the envoy], I acknowledge that; it was a mistake to trust this person. It was a trap.

Q. It a mistake to trust whom?

A. Both of them.

Q. Are you still trying to recover your visa?

A. Of course. For a border resident, it is an important document.

Q. If you got it back, would you go to the United States? Aren’t you afraid?

A. If I ever recover my visa, of course I would go to the United States.

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While health authorities continue working to contain the multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak, a new food contamination investigation has raised alarms across the United States. More than 19 million eggs have been recalled after health officials linked them to a Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak that has already caused illness in nearly 100 people in 17 states.

Although the investigation indicates that products distributed by Midwest Poultry Services are a likely source of the infections, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it is still working to determine whether other sources of contamination are involved. The alert has prompted officials to urge consumers, grocery stores, and restaurants to check the products they purchased and avoid consuming any eggs included in the recall.

Why were millions of eggs recalled?

The voluntary recall was announced by Midwest Poultry Services L.P., an Indiana-based company that produced the eggs at two farms in Texas. In total, the company recalled 1,589,577 dozen eggs — equivalent to more than 19 million eggs — after detecting potential salmonella contamination through its environmental monitoring program and operational review.

The FDA said that epidemiological evidence, laboratory testing, and traceback data indicate that the recalled eggs are a likely source of the outbreak. However, the agency noted that the identified producer does not account for all reported illnesses and that the investigation remains ongoing.

Salmonella is a bacterium that can cause diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, nausea, and vomiting. Symptoms typically develop between six and 72 hours after consuming contaminated food and, in most cases, resolve within four to seven days.

However, the infection can be particularly severe for young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems, who face a higher risk of complications requiring medical treatment or hospitalization. Health officials recommend seeking medical care if symptoms consistent with salmonella infection develop after consuming eggs included in the recall.

How many people have become ill?

According to the latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the outbreak has resulted in 98 confirmed cases across 17 states, including 26 hospitalizations. No deaths have been reported.

Illnesses began between November 21, 2025, and June 30, 2026, although health officials believe the true number of infections is likely higher. Many people recover without seeking medical care or undergoing testing, meaning their illnesses are never officially confirmed. Patients range in age from less than one year old to 81 years old, with a median age of 48.

Texas accounts for the vast majority of cases, with 73 infections, followed by Louisiana with five and Arizona with four. Additional cases have been reported in California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

Investigation points to eggs

During the epidemiological investigation, public health officials interviewed 44 infected individuals and found that 40 of them (91%) had eaten eggs during the week before becoming ill.

In addition, genetic sequencing performed on bacteria isolated from patients showed they belonged to the same strain of Salmonella Enteritidis. At the same time, samples collected by the company at its Texas farms also tested positive for that same strain, further strengthening the link between the recalled eggs and the outbreak.

Which brands and products are affected?

The eggs were distributed between June 6 and July 3 2026, to grocery stores, restaurants, and other commercial food establishments.

Brands included in the recall are Kroger, Simple Truth, Brookshire’s, Country Morning, and Sunups, in various sizes of white shell eggs and cage-free brown eggs.

The products were sold at Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana, as well as Brookshire’s supermarkets in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mississippi, in addition to other retailers and food distributors.

How can consumers identify the recalled eggs?

The FDA advises consumers to check egg cartons for plant codes P-1950 or 0840962, best-by dates between July 20 and August 17, 2026, and Julian dates ranging from 157 to 184.

If a product matches those identifiers, consumers should not eat it. Instead, they should discard it or return it to the store where it was purchased for a refund. The FDA also recommends thoroughly washing and sanitizing any surfaces or containers that came into contact with the recalled eggs to help prevent cross-contamination.

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Dinosaurs, which dominated the planet for tens of millions of years, may have perished in a matter of hours. The asteroid impact about 66 million years ago turned Earth into an inferno within its first day. But specialists who study the cataclysm disagree about what happened next. For some, the energy released by the strike triggered a chain of global catastrophes (widespread fires, megatsunamis…) that wiped out most terrestrial life. For others, the atmosphere filled with dust that blocked sunlight — similar to major volcanic eruptions — producing a decades-long winter. A new study, however, assigns this dust an immediate, deadly role: it turned the planet’s surface into a grill that seared the dinosaurs.

The impact near what is now the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico) disintegrated the asteroid — a body roughly 12 kilometers (7.45 miles) in diameter — but also vaporized a huge portion of the impact zone. The authors of the new paper, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, estimate it vaporized more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of material, made mainly of vaporized rock and soil particles, as well as all the animals and plants in the strike path and the meteorite itself.

“Part of the rock vapor and the spherules escaped to space and never fell back to Earth,” Brandon Johnson, a crater and planetary impact expert at Purdue University (United States) and the study’s lead author, wrote in an email. But most of both components, which rose to between thousands to tens of thousands of kilometers above the surface, eventually fell back. “The spherules can pass through the atmosphere and separate from the rock vapor as they are decelerated by drag forces”; that differing behavior is key to what followed.

The spherules, no larger than a grain of sugar, generated heat during atmospheric friction on their descent similar to that produced during rocket and capsule reentries. Their presence in sediments worldwide has allowed scientists to pinpoint the exact moment of the impact and to explain the global fires that followed. But much of the material — especially what remained of the asteroid — would not have behaved the same way: this new study reveals it did not condense into spherules but remained as an ultra-fine dust cloud that ultimately enveloped the planet.

“All that enormous kinetic energy has to go somewhere and, in the end, it is converted into heat,” Johnson said. But the dust cloud, several millimeters thick, would have prevented that heat from dissipating upward, reflecting it back toward the ground. The researchers estimate the radiation was 17 times higher than the level needed to kill a human. “That’s what killed the dinosaurs and the other animals. It wasn’t the shock wave from the impact or the fireball, because those effects don’t reach very far,” the U.S. researcher added.

Alexandria Johnson, a professor in Purdue’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and a co-author of the study, analyzed the physical properties of individual dust particles and of the cloud as a whole to determine their radiative characteristics. Her conclusion is stark: “We found that the dust layer was so opaque to radiation that it trapped virtually all the heat generated by the falling spherules near the planet’s surface. It’s like the dust acted as a lid on a pot.” Only animals able to shelter underground — such as early mammals — fish in non-surface waters, or some avian dinosaurs would have survived the inferno.

But the dust did more than intensify lethal heat. Its effects continued long afterward, but in the opposite direction. Over time the heat waned, while sunlight continued to be blocked for years or decades, causing a prolonged winter. Simulations in earlier studies indicate average global temperatures dropped by 20 degrees Celsius and stayed that way for about 30 years. That would likely have been the final blow marking the end of an era — the Cretaceous and the age of dinosaurs.

Both Brandon and Alexandria Johnson and their co-authors believe global fires were the main cause of mortality, but acknowledge their case rests on a single, highly significant site — the Tanis deposit in North Dakota. There, roughly 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) from the impact zone, they found the most consistent evidence: countless animals that died almost instantly, including many fish with spherules lodged in their gills. The death layer is capped by a thin stratum of extraterrestrial dust — the material analyzed in the new study.

“It’s possible that, over time, we will find evidence of truly global wildfires,” said Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a paleontologist at University College London who did not participate in the study. “It’s just that, for now, we don’t have any,” he added in a statement. If such evidence is found and the near-instant deadly role of the dust layer can be generalized, scientists could determine whether the end-Cretaceous mass extinction that ushered in the Paleogene occurred in hours (from scorching heat), in years or decades (from subsequent cooling), or from a combination of both processes. “It would be fantastic to find out which animals survived immediately after the impact and what their biological traits were. That might finally explain why some animals survived while others, like the dinosaurs, did not,” Chiarenza concluded.

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