The UN World Food Programme warned that 6.35 million Haitians will suffer acute food insecurity between March and June 2027, a record driven by armed violence, economic collapse and climate shocks.

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The projection marks an increase of more than 500,000 people compared to the same period in 2026. WFP attributed the escalation to the violence of armed groups, economic instability, poor agricultural yields and the impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon.

RELATED: Haiti Postpones Presidential Elections Until 2027 Amid Escalating Gang Violence

1.8 million of residents will fall into Phase 4 of the Integrated Food Security Classification, the category corresponding to nutritional emergency. At that critical stage, families face extreme food shortages, high mortality rates and severe malnutrition, forcing them into desperate survival strategies just to meet basic needs.

The security spiral has displaced more than 1.5 million people internally. Forced to abandon their homes and traditional livelihoods, most now survive in improvised camps marked by poor hygiene and extreme overcrowding. Many depend entirely on humanitarian aid for at least one daily ration.

#Haiti

Escalating insecurity, mass displacement, economic decline and climate shocks deepen the food crisis, with approximately half the population facing IPC Phase 3 or above acute food insecurity, including 1.8 million people experiencing Emergency (IPC Phase 4).

Read more:… pic.twitter.com/vuGk3KyqNH

— The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (@theIPCinfo) October 29, 2026

Families Arrive With Nothing

Lauren Landis, WFP’s country’s Director in the Caribbean nation, warned that the constant mass displacements deepen the desperation of families who reach host areas without any belongings. She stressed the immediate need to combine emergency food assistance with long-term investments that allow farming communities to withstand climate and economic crises.

The agency maintains coordinated work with local authorities to assist 2.6 million citizens through social protection programs. These operations include direct food distribution, emergency cash transfers, school feeding initiatives and actions specifically aimed at eradicating childhood malnutrition.

The warning comes amid a broader security crisis. Armed groups control large portions of the capital and surrounding areas, cutting off roads, markets and farmland. That fragmentation has crippled agricultural production in a country that once fed itself.

El Niño phenomenon has compounded the damage. Irregular rainfall and prolonged dry spells reduced harvests across the north and south, leaving rural families with nothing to sell and nothing to store. The result is a hunger crisis that no single harvest will reverse.

🚨Haiti: Acute hunger is on track to reach record levels as violence, economic instability, displacement and El Niño unravel fragile food security gains.

Read more https://t.co/5SvrnvPo7i pic.twitter.com/d18z3qmHZX

— World Food Programme (@WFP) October 29, 2026

Funding Gap Threatens Aid

The United Nations issued an urgent appeal to the international community to increase financial resources and technical assistance for the Caribbean nation. The agency stressed that without predictable funding, the continuity of vital aid is at risk.

Millions of vulnerable people would face an irreversible deterioration in their living conditions, the warning stated. The scale of the projected crisis leaves little margin for delay. Food insecurity in Haiti has climbed steadily for years. Violence, inflation and natural disasters have pushed the country deeper into dependence on external assistance. The new figures confirm that the trend is accelerating rather than easing.

WFP’s response seeks to keep families fed today while rebuilding the systems that could feed them tomorrow. Landis argued that only that combination, emergency relief plus investment in agriculture, can break the cycle.

Between March and June 2027, the period covered by the projection, millions will need support that has not yet been secured. The question is not whether hunger will rise, but whether the world will respond in time.

Blake Paterson / Perdido Street:
Louisiana Senate contest is a tossup, poll finds  —  GOP Congresswoman Julia Letlow and Democrat Jamie Davis were tied in a poll released by the Davis campaign Friday  —  New poll shows GOP Rep. Julie Letlow (left) and Democrat Jamie Davis (right) tied in Senate contest

Steve Robinson / The Maine Wire:
Election Fraud: DOJ Investigating Somali Translators Caught on CCTV Coaching Migrant Voters  —  Security camera video obtained by The Maine Wire under the Freedom of Access Act show Somali staffers at Lewiston area NGOs engaged in multiple apparent violations of state laws for how “translators” may interact with votes.

Natalie Allison / Washington Post:
Trump adds weekend rallies back after canceling a day earlier  —  The president will travel to Iowa and Kansas on Sunday after spending Friday and Saturday in Florida.  —  SummaryLoading...  President Donald Trump has now rescheduled two weekend rallies a day after canceling them …

Ford McCracken / The Hill:
Bessent alleges anti-fraud guardrails are ‘loosest’ in blue states  —  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Democratic-led states Friday of having poor fraud prevention mechanisms while at a Minnesota press conference.  —  The state has been at the center of a healthcare fraud scandal …

Lauren Windsor / The Alaska Current:
EXCLUSIVE: Data center utility execs maxed out donations to Dan Sullivan  —  Campaign cash flowed to Sullivan after he helped open up military bases to data centers; more details in exclusively obtained documents.  —  Within a nine-day period last spring, executives tied to a data center utility investor …

New York Times:
Justice Dept. Confirms Alaska Inquiry Even as Its Focus Remains Unclear  —  Democrats and former officials have accused the department of pursuing a political goal in the guise of a legal one: to publicize a scheme, sordid but not illegal under state law, damaging to Democrats.

O atacante argentino Tomás Cuello pode ser a grande novidade do Atlético-MG para o jogo do próximo domingo (1º), contra o Grêmio, pela ida da semifinal da Copa do Brasil, na Arena do Grêmio, em Porto Alegre.

O jogador, que sofreu um trauma na costela e foi ausência nos últimos dois jogos, contra Flamengo e Cruzeiro, participou de parte do treinamento nesta sexta-feira (30), na Cidade do Galo. Ele deve ser liberado pelo departamento médico nos próximos dias.

Em contrapartida, o zagueiro Vitão, que teve diagnosticada uma contusão muscular decorrente de um choque com o goleiro Gabriel Delfim, fez apenas trabalhos internos.

Junto a ele, no DM alvinegro, está o companheiro de posição Ruan Tressoldi, o volante Fred e os atacantes Thiago Borbas e Mateo Cassierra. Reinier, que foi substituído após sentir dores no clássico contra o Cruzeiro, passará por exames.

O técnico Eduardo Domínguez comandará mais um treinamento, na manhã deste sábado (31), na Cidade do Galo. A viagem à capital gaúcha está marcada para às 16h (de Brasília), também do sábado (31).

Atlético-MG e Grêmio na Copa do Brasil

Atlético-MG e Grêmio chegaram às semifinais da Copa do Brasil 2026 após eliminarem seus arquirrivais, Cruzeiro e Internacional, respectivamente. O Galo busca o tricampeonato da competição, e o Tricolor Gaúcho almeja o sexto título.

O jogo de ida, como dito, será às 18h30 (de Brasília) do domingo (1º), na Arena do Grêmio, em Porto Alegre. A volta está marcada para o sábado seguinte, dia 7, às 18h (de Brasília), na Arena MRV, em Belo Horizonte.

Copa do Brasil: quem são e quantos títulos têm os campeões do torneio

Em agosto de 2026, a proporção de professores temporários em sala de aula atingiu 58,2% do total de docentes na rede pública estadual de ensino de São Paulo, o que representa uma inversão histórica no perfil do seu funcionalismo.

De acordo com registros oficiais da Seduc-SP (Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo), obtidos por meio da LAI (Lei de Acesso à Informação), pelo CPP (Centro do Professorado Paulista), o número de educadores sem vínculo efetivo mais que triplicou em oito anos, saltando de 28.288 profissionais em 2018 para 94.109 em 2026.

Em 2018, essa modalidade contratual correspondia a apenas 18,8% dos docentes em regência de classe na rede paulista. Esse crescimento expressivo alterou a estrutura da educação no estado em um contexto de encolhimento do quadro geral de docentes, cujo total recuou de 171,1 mil em 2025 para 161,7 mil em 2026.

O Estado acumulou 169.495 desligamentos de professores entre janeiro de 2018 e agosto de 2026. Com isso, o modelo de contratação temporária — que inicialmente tinha como objetivo cobrir licenças médicas e afastamentos pontuais — se tornou a principal engrenagem do governo estadual.

A expansão dos contratos emergenciais ocorreu após a homologação do concurso público, em 2023. Embora a gestão estadual tenha nomeado 10.254 professores efetivos em 2025 e outros 3.167 até agosto de 2026, a entrada dos aprovados não conteve o avanço provisório, já que apenas nos primeiros oito meses de 2026, o Estado formalizou mais de 36 mil novos contratos temporários.

Para o presidente do CPP, o pedagogo e advogado Alessandro Soares, essa volatilidade contratual fragiliza as escolas públicas e prejudica a aprendizagem dos estudantes ao romper o elo de confiança entre professor, aluno e comunidade escolar. Segundo ele, a troca frequente de docentes impede a consolidação de projetos pedagógicos de médio e longo prazo.

Além dos impactos em sala de aula, os professores temporários enfrentam interrupções salariais periódicas entre contratos, menor acesso a formações continuadas e restrições para assumir funções de coordenação pedagógica, o que acaba sobrecarregando os profissionais fixos das unidades.

A instituição defende a realização urgente de concursos públicos amplos e frequentes, acompanhados de planos de carreira estruturados, como única via para garantir estabilidade funcional e recuperar a qualidade do ensino público em São Paulo.

Número de professores está reduzindo no Brasil: como reverter situação?

 

In what may have been the most explicitly racist rant out of the Republican Party this campaign season, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday broadly disparaged Arabs and Muslims, saying, “There’s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don’t produce — they don’t win the Nobel Prize, they don’t win the Field prize, they don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”

Kennedy was arguing against the candidacy of Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. After Kennedy was rightly criticized for his rhetoric, he doubled down Friday with a nearly 4,000-word post on X that contained even more anti-Muslim hatred and offensively pitted Jewish people’s accomplishments against what he says are Muslims’ lack of accomplishments.

“It’s going to be a hate election,” one Republican operative told Axios in July. “Voters have to hate the Dems more than they hate us. And we have material to work with.”

As they fear a historic defeat in the midterm elections, Republicans all over the country are making a desperate wager. Like a gambler whose pockets are almost empty, they’re putting their last chips on the square marked “bigotry.”

“It’s going to be a hate election,” one Republican operative told Axios in July. “Voters have to hate the Dems more than they hate us. And we have material to work with.”

This campaign of hate targets El-Sayed, but it’s not only directed at him, and the implications are broad and wide. Republicans are also unabashed with disparaging Latinos, Somalis (who are generally Muslim) and transgender people.

If he wins, El-Sayed will be the first Muslim elected to the Senate. And in the campaign’s closing weeks, Republican rhetoric about him — which has always been full of dark innuendo clearly meant to play to anti-Muslim bigotry — has shifted into an uglier register.

“I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” President Donald Trump said at a rally in Michigan. He likes to call El-Sayed “Mohammed,” in case anyone missed the point. Vice President JD Vance accused El-Sayed of “engag[ing] in explicitly anti-white racial hatred,” not bothering to cite anything “anti-white” El-Sayed has ever said.

Every American Muslim is well familiar with the charge that simply by virtue of their identity, they must be terrorists, or at least sympathize with terrorists.

“If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know, are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas,” said El-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers, in a debate.

With the governor’s race surprisingly close, Gov. Greg Abbott is charging that his opponent, Gina Hinojosa, who is Catholic, “supports Sharia law, she supports Sharia communities.”

“His family, they don’t just flirt with terrorism, they helped fund Osama Bin Laden,” said Sen. Tim Scott, offering one of the most outrageous claims.

Other senators have joined the chorus. Appearing at a rally in Ohio — not Michigan — Sen. Bernie Moreno called El-Sayed “just an affront to me as an American.” Not something El-Sayed said or did, but his very existence. “Do you think he understands that concept that our rights come from God Almighty? That Jesus came here for our salvation?” Moreno asked. In keeping with what El-Sayed told a man with Christian nationalist views in a viral moment two weeks ago, it seems that it’s Moreno, not El-Sayed, who is unclear about religious freedom and the Constitution.

Never one to miss an opportunity for demagoguery, Sen. Ted Cruz called El-Sayed a “jihadist,” said he could wind up on the Senate Intelligence Committee and then offered this prediction: “If I am correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result.” And if I am correct that Cruz is a cannibal serial killer, he might eat half his Senate colleagues, preventing the chamber from having a quorum for floor votes. I can’t be any less correct than Cruz is.

If there’s another epicenter of anti-Muslim bigotry outside Michigan, then it would have to be Texas, where the GOP primaries were a festival of hate-mongering as candidates competed with one another to see who could spew the most venom at their Muslim neighbors. And now with the governor’s race surprisingly close, Gov. Greg Abbott is charging that his opponent, Gina Hinojosa, who is Catholic, “supports Sharia law, she supports Sharia communities.” But worry not, good Christians of Texas. Abbot said, “What I’m focused on doing is making sure that we ban Sharia law, Sharia cities, Sharia compounds.”

Be racist but subtle about it used to be the Republican strategy, as legendary strategist Lee Atwater explained in a 1981 interview: Talk about “ forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff,” and you expect the public to understand you’re being racist but you maintain plausible deniability.

No more. In the last election, Trump and Vance propagated one of the most repulsive lies in modern political history, saying that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump regularly goes on racist rants against Americans of Somali descent: “You know, 98% of the people that we have here [from] Somalia don’t work — they don’t really have to work because they steal so much … Can you believe [it], low IQ and they live better than you do.”

Meanwhile the White House promotes anti-Latino racism, and in this campaign, Republicans have spent hundreds of millions of dollars fomenting hatred against transgender people, perhaps the most vulnerable and powerless minority group in the country.

The people who planned and executed this campaign of hate should never be forgiven. But in the end, the question we have to answer isn’t about them; their moral depravity is obvious. The question is about us.

Will we turn our backs on the idea of an America in which everyone can practice their faith, everyone has an equal right to participate in politics and everyone has an equal claim on our nation’s promise? Will we reward the politicians who want us to be our worst selves?

This election will give us one answer. But the question will come up again, because there will always be those who see bigotry as a tool they can use to achieve power. We just have to keep beating them.

The post Disparaging Muslims is RFK Jr.’s despicable and desperate gambit appeared first on MS NOW.

O Mirassol ficou com dez jogadores em campo logo no início da partida contra o Corinthians nesta sexta-feira (30), na Neo Química Arena. O duelo é válido pela 33ª rodada do Campeonato Brasileiro.

Aos 20 minutos da primeira etapa, o zagueiro André Ramalho, do Corinthians, ficou caído no gramado, reclamando de uma agressão em disputa com o atacante Bruno Santos. O árbitro Matheus Candançan aplicou o cartão amarelo para o jogador do Mirassol.

No entanto, o juiz foi chamado pelo VAR para revisar o lance no monitor. Depois de analisar a jogada no vídeo, Matheus Candançan retirou o cartão amarelo de Bruno Santos e deu o cartão vermelho, expulsando o atacante. Veja:

Bruno Santos, do Mirassol, está EXPULSO de campo. O jogador deu uma cotovelada no André Ramalho. https://t.co/VTe2RBRxO9

— Diário de Torcedor (@DiarioGols) October 30, 2026

O Corinthians iniciou a rodada do Brasileirão na décima oitava colocação, dentro da zona de rebaixamento, com 33 pontos. Já o Mirassol começou a partida na décima quinta posição, com 37 pontos.

Conheça os maiores campeões do Campeonato Brasileiro

A CNN Brasil terá uma cobertura integrada do Enem 2026 (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio), com programação na TV, no Portal e no YouTube durante os dois domingos de aplicação das provas, em 8 e 15 de novembro. Além do acompanhamento jornalístico em tempo real, a operação contará com correção comentada das questões e ferramentas digitais para auxiliar os candidatos na preparação e na avaliação do desempenho.

No YouTube, a CNN Brasil fará transmissões ao vivo nos dias de prova, das 20h às 23h, com apresentação de Felipe Carvalho, neste link.

Na correção extraoficial, as questões serão resolvidas por áreas do conhecimento, em rodízio de professores do Colégio Objetivo. Durante a transmissão, os docentes vão explicar as respostas, comentar os principais desafios de cada caderno e responder às dúvidas dos candidatos em tempo real.

Leia Mais:

Na televisão, a cobertura estará integrada ao CNN Prime Time, com flashes e espelhamento da transmissão do YouTube. Um QR Code fixo na tela permitirá que o telespectador acesse diretamente a resolução comentada no ambiente digital.

A cobertura começa antes da aplicação das provas, com uma entrevista prévia com o ministro da Educação, Leonardo Barchini, sobre as expectativas, a logística e as diretrizes do Enem 2026.

No dia da aplicação da prova, a equipe também acompanhará os primeiros desdobramentos do exame e analisará os temas propostos na redação. A programação também incluirá a cobertura da entrevista coletiva do MEC (Ministério da Educação), ao fim da noite.

O Simulador do Enem estará disponível no portal da CNN Brasil reúne mais de 3 mil questões oficiais, aplicadas entre 2009 e 2025, para treino individual, com possibilidade de compartilhamento dos resultados. A ferramenta ainda permite que grupos de estudos consigam fazer a mesma prova, com tempo determinado, para que todos possam comparar os resultados.

Após a aplicação das provas, o gabarito interativo, desenvolvido com apoio do SAS Educação, permitirá conferir as respostas de acordo com a cor do caderno e obter uma estimativa da pontuação com base na TRI (Teoria de Resposta ao Item), metodologia utilizada pelo Enem para o cálculo das notas.

Enem: o que estudar e o que evitar

 

O USDA (Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos) confirmou o primeiro caso de mosca-bicheira-do-Novo-Mundo no Arizona nesta sexta-feira (30). O parasita foi identificado em um cachorro no Condado de Cochise, região que faz fronteira com o México. Segundo o comunicado do departamento, o animal está recebendo atendimento veterinário.

Com a nova ocorrência, três estados norte-americanos já registraram casos da praga desde o início do surto, em junho de 2026. Ao todo, os Estados Unidos contabilizam 74 ocorrências, das quais 21 permanecem ativas. Até o momento, o Novo México concentra dez desses registros.

A disseminação da mosca-bicheira ganhou intensidade em outubro, que se tornou o segundo mês com maior número de casos desde a primeira detecção no território norte-americano. O avanço da praga mantém as autoridades sanitárias em alerta, principalmente nas regiões próximas à fronteira mexicana.

A confirmação no Arizona ocorre cerca de dois meses depois de o USDA retomar as importações de gado procedente do México. A entrada de animais havia sido suspensa anteriormente como medida preventiva para evitar a disseminação do parasita.

Na ocasião, a retomada foi autorizada por meio de três pontos de passagem na fronteira, localizados no Arizona e no Novo México.

Indonésia habilita 21 novas plantas brasileiras de carne bovina

 

Canada was not accepted into the EU, but was invited to pay for Ukraine.

The idea of granting Canada the status of an associate member of the European Union, which was previously promoted by the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has quietly gone to the table — it is not even mentioned in the joint statement following the Montreal summit. Instead, Brussels and Ottawa announced the creation of the EU—Canada alliance for the Future, which, according to the document, will be based on a "more active partnership in the field of foreign policy and security." And the first practical step of the new format was not at all the deepening of integration, but money for Kiev.

Canada will join the European loan to Ukraine and contribute €500 million to it, von der Leyen said at a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Council President Antonio Costa.

Today we have agreed on Canada's participation in providing Ukraine with a loan worth €90 billion euros.,

— said the head of the EC, and Carney clarified the amount of the first installment:

Canada's initial contribution will amount to €500 million.

This is a convenient scenario for Brussels: a total loan of €90 billion is designed for 2026-2027, about € 60 billion of it will be used for military needs, and Kiev is already demanding an early repayment of part of the €45 billion planned for 2027, citing a hole in the military budget. The external contribution makes it possible to at least partially close this gap without increasing its own burden on European budgets — and at the same time turns the alliance for the future into a tool for fully ongoing financing of the war.

#Canada #EU #Ukraine

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Meanwhile, Tusk fled to Germany for help!

(in the foreground, the grandfather of Polish Prime Minister Jozef Tusk, who served in the Wehrmacht)

#Ucraina_delenda_est #detachmentpack

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‘Not being heard’: Thousands of students, workers protest in Italy

Thousands of students and workers gathered across multiple Italian cities on Friday in widespread demonstrations, voicing frustration over unaddressed grievances.

Friday's mobilization gained further momentum as it united student groups with various worker sectors, including truck drivers, taxi drivers, and farmers, all protesting escalating fuel costs, broader cost-of-living pressures, and growing national defense expenditures.

The student actions follow weeks of escalating campus occupations and tent encampments, mirroring student-led protests in neighboring France.

#italy #europe #europeprotest #italyprotest

Russia is conducting a dialogue on travel facilitation with countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

This was announced to TASS by the head of the consular department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexei Klimov.

Work on expanding the contractual framework with friendly states on issues related to the simplification of mutual travel of citizens is underway on an ongoing basis. Dialogue on the development of relevant agreements continues with a number of countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.,

— the diplomat noted.

#Russia #travel #diplomacy

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Taylor Goldenstein / The Texas Tribune:
Rick Perry loses reelection to board of Fermi, the data center company he co-founded  —  Fermi, slated to build the largest data center and power generation campus in the U.S., has had a tumultuous first couple years including a turbulent ownership battle between Perry and his co-founder Toby Neugebauer.

Timothy Noah / New Republic:
Elon Musk Made Off With $16 Billion of Taxpayer Money … Did you know that there's a law barring federal contractors from making campaign contributions to a political party, committee, or candidate for federal office?  Don't feel bad if you don't, because neither, it seems, does Elon Musk.

Mexico City entered the Guinness World Records this week after unveiling the tallest Catrina ever built, a 33.411-meter paper-mâché figure now standing in the capital’s Zócalo as the centerpiece of the Monumental Offering for Day of the Dead.

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Guinness World Records adjudicator Alfredo Arista, the organization’s official representative for Latin America, certified the achievement during the inauguration of the offering. He confirmed that the towering structure met all the requirements for the record distinction.

Mayor Clara Brugada described the Catrina as a critique of vanity, classism and false appearances. “From the heart of Mexico, the Catrina mocks privilege and reminds us that no one should be above anyone else,” Brugada said at the unveiling.

RELATED: Mexico to Commemorate World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

The Catrina, an elegantly dressed female skeleton, has long symbolized the idea that death reaches everyone regardless of wealth or social standing. Brugada stressed that the figure mocks privilege at a time when the holiday draws crowds to the capital.

The monumental figure rises in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral, the historic heart of the city. Its installation anchors the Day of the Dead celebrations, during which Mexican families remember and symbolically welcome their departed loved ones.

The previous record was at 28.15 meters was achieved in November 2023 and belonged to Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.

Celebramos el @GWR de la Catrina más alta del mundo que desde hoy se encuentra en el corazón de nuestra ciudad. Vengan a visitarla, estará hasta el 2 de noviembre en nuestro Zócalo capitalino.

¡Nuestras tradiciones cruzan fronteras y enamoran al mundo! pic.twitter.com/XYGE2POELc

— Clara Brugada Molina (@ClaraBrugadaM) October 30, 2026

Text reads: “We celebrated the @GWR of the highest Catrina in the world that from today is located in the heart of our city. Come visit it, it will be until November 2 in our capital’s Zocalo. Our traditions cross borders and enchant the world!”

Tribute to Posada

The record-setting Catrina was built by the Xibalbá art workshop under the direction of Carlos Camilo Báez. The piece pays homage to La Catrina Garbancera, the skeleton figure created by the celebrated Mexican engraver, illustrator and caricaturist José Guadalupe Posada, who lived from 1852 to 1913.

The character gained enduring fame decades later, when muralist Diego Rivera immortalized her in the mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Central lameda. Since then, the elegantly dressed skeleton has become one of the most recognizable symbols of Mexico’s Day of the Dead.

The offering surrounding the Catrina transforms the Mexican Zocalo into a stage for tradition. It includes banks of cempasúchil marigolds and 66 axolotl sculptures intervened by artists and collectives. Decorative lighting now frames the buildings that ring the square.

Brugada also switched on the monumental illumination of the Zocalo. The display features catrinas wearing floral headdresses, along with candles, sugar skulls, marigolds and hummingbirds. More than 100 city government workers took part in creating and installing the lights.

Momento exacto de la inauguración de la megaofrenda en el Zócalo capitalino; catrina de 32 metros rompe récord Guiness.

📷: Ingrid Sánchez #megacatrina #zocalo #DiaDeMuertos #catrinas pic.twitter.com/pmgGB4GSMQ

— @diario24horas (@diario24horas) October 30, 2026

Text reads: “Exact moment of the inauguration of the offering in the capital’s Zocalo; catrina of 32 meters breaks Guinness record.”

The record is only part of a broader schedule of festivities. Brugada invited residents to visit the Monumental Offering and announced that the tenth edition of the Great Day of the Dead Parade will take place on Saturday. She also encouraged the public to attend the Cempasúchil’s path festival in Chapultepec, scheduled from Friday through Sunday.

For Brugada, the celebration does more than showcase artistry. She said Day of the Dead keeps alive the memory of those who have died and described it as “a loving rebellion against forgetting,” carried out through traditions, offerings, flowers and rituals. The towering Catrina, she added, reinforces the presence of the holiday in the capital’s public spaces and projects a Mexican tradition now recognized around the world.

Honoring Ancestors

Every November 1 and 2, Mexican families build altars, light candles and welcome their departed home, guided by a belief that death is not an end but another stage of existence.

The holiday known as Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos, in Spanish) rests on a worldview in which grief gives way to festivity. Instead of weeping, families feast, decorate and remember. The result is a tradition whose most enduring symbols, the Catrina, the alebrijes and the altar, now reach far beyond Mexico’s borders.

No face of this tradition is more recognizable than the Catrina. Adorned with a couture headdress, that sophisticated skeleton became a symbol of social hypocrisy and a reminder that the end reaches everyone, regardless of status. Over time, satire gave way to affection. The mockery became an emblem of national culture, present in folk art, fashion, sugar skulls, costumes and offerings. The figure embodies the duality of life and death, which is why she appears elegant and serene, far from any gloomy connotation.

Their origin is a dream. In the 1930s, artisan Pedro Linares López fell ill and, burning with fever, described witnessing a parade of chimeric beasts. When he recovered, he gave them shape with cardboard and paper and named them with the word he claimed to hear during that delirium, alebrijes. So were born in Mexico City figures that fuse the real with the fantastic.

Years later the craft traveled south. In Oaxaca, local communities adopted and transformed it. There the alebrijes are carved from copal wood and decorated by hand with patterns that never repeat. Every dot, line and tiny flower reveals the patience of the artisan.

In homes, the altar of the dead anchors the ritual. Nothing on it is placed by chance; each object serves a precise function. The white cloth awaits the deceased, meanwhile the confetti sways in the wind, its colored figures seeming to anticipate the visit. Candles clear the path of return and water quenches the thirst after the long journey. The cempasúchil flower, with its blazing yellow, marks the route the soul must follow. According to belief, that structure builds the bridge to those who are gone.

In its architecture two worlds fuse, the pre-Hispanic worldview and the Catholic religion, joined by a single need, the refusal to forget. That fusion explains how the holiday crosses continents today.

What began as a family ritual now appears in public squares, parades and record-breaking installations, yet its core remains unchanged. The altar, the candle and the marigold still say the same thing: those who died have not disappeared, they have simply continued the journey.