Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has dismissed allegations from his country’s disgraced ex-security chief — jailed in the United States and facing a possible life sentence for corruption — that he has links to drug cartels.

Senior U.S. officials and migrant advocates say Mexico’s internal migrant bussing is a major factor in the stunning fall in apprehensions at the U.S. border, down 77 percent since December. But it’s unclear whether the results are sustainable. 

Benin’s soldiers would be the only native French-speakers enlisted in the campaign. But the Pentagon has turned to Benin to assist U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in West Africa, straining resources, and Benin has concerns about the intervention’s leadership structure.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada controlled, and may still control, a “veritable army” of cartel members, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro. “His release would guarantee his flight.”

Three U.S. Army members were injured in the 2021 car-bombing attack near the Colombia-Venezuela border. The FBI led the investigation of the case.

More than half of Mexico’s state legislatures voted in favor of a judicial overhaul that has already been approved by the nation’s congress, allowing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to sign the controversial bill into law.

Political columnists have identified Senator Miguel Angel Yunes Marquez as the most likely opposition senator to support the ruling party’s plan for a constitutional reform that would include the direct election of Supreme Court judges.

The Honduras-based institution claims its former president sought to downgrade the group’s credit rating after it became clear that he would not have a second term. Much of its capital comes from democratic countries outside the region, including Taiwan and the U.S. The bank has come under scrutiny for its loans to authoritarian countries.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Thursday she has no plan of leaving her country even as the Nicolás Maduro regime moves to imprison the leadership of her democratic movement.

Blinken’s visit to the island comes amid tense relations between the two countries. The mandate of the Kenyan-led security mission in Haiti expires on Oct. 2. The U.N. Security Council is expected to debate its renewal on Sept. 30.