As of publication, the death toll in Mexico City and several adjacent states was put at more than 200. It was expected to rise as rescue efforts continued. If Tuesday’s afternoon quake had struck in the early morning as in 1985, the death count would surely be much higher. Worse yet, this week’s earth whammy comes less than two weeks after a shattering quake of magnitude 8.2 killed about 100 people in southern Mexico, mostly in the poor, indigenous state of Oaxaca. 

Misoprostol, which requires a prescription in the United States, is used primarily for ulcer prevention here and is not prescribed, on its own, for abortions. American doctors and clinics do sometimes pair it with the drug mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) to produce a “medical abortion,” a method considered more effective than using misoprostol by itself. But the World Health Organization has said that using misoprostol alone can be highly effective as an abortion method.

With only three weeks of campaigning to go before Mexicans elect a new president, López Obrador – known in Mexico by his initials, AMLO – has moved into a statistical tie for first place with Peña Nieto. The political resurrection of AMLO has stunned observers, with the prospect of a leftist government being elected in Mexico now a real possibility.

Thousands of university students took to the streets of Mexico City Wednesday demanding greater freedom of speech in the country and protesting the PRI’s possible return to power. It was the third-largest student protest in less than a week, and it has prompted some journalists in the country to wonder if Mexico is going through a political transformation similar to the “Arab Spring."