A proposed citywide “soda tax” failed to win enough votes in Richmond, Calif. in 2012, but that hasn’t stopped other U.S. cities, and even foreign nations, from taking notice of the concept. Last month, elected officials in Mexico announced their intent to become the first nation in the Americas to impose a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages – and they are looking to Richmond for help.

Of the 60.6 million people who spoke a language other than English at home in 2011, almost two-thirds (37.6 million) spoke Spanish. This places the U.S. as the fifth-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world –not the second one, as it is usually said— after Mexico (117 million), Spain (47.2 million), Colombia (47 million) and Argentina (41 million). The information, taken from the American Community Survey, includes nation, states and metropolitan areas.

A group of Mexican citizens are preparing the first civil lawsuit in the Mexican courts against British oil company BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The plaintiffs are bringing the class action lawsuit under a 2011 reform of the Mexican constitution that allows a large number of people with a common interest in a matter to sue as a group. The civil lawsuit encompasses “damages to people living in the area or who own residential and commercial property along the coast, and people indirectly affected” by the spill. 

As immigrants rally in cities across the United States today, another drumbeat of protest and revolt beats loudly in southern Mexico. Beginning as a teachers’ strike against a new federal education law last February, the protest is now transforming into a broad popular movement against not only the much-touted Pact for Mexico policies of new President Enrique Pena Nieto, but also the political and economic structures they are based on.

With no end in sight to Europe’s financial strains, countries in Latin America are looking on as their one-time colonizers struggle to keep popular unrest over unemployment and austerity measures at bay. Many see signs of a historical shift in the trans-Atlantic power dynamic. Some, notably Mexico and Brazil, see opportunity. In early March, hundreds of thousands of Portuguese marched from Lisbon to the city of Oporto in protest over slashed budgets. 

Just over a year after the Cuban government permitted the first sale of real estate between private parties, a housing boom is emerging in Havana. Fueled by an influx of foreign capital, much of it from Mexico, for Cuban exiles the boom is proving to be a major draw. It also comes amid signs that the Castro regime, which has ruled Cuba since 1959, may be nearing its end. Since November of 2011, when the country saw its first real estate deal in half a century, there has been a sustained rise in housing prices, particularly in Havana. 

The economic crisis in Spain, with a crippling jobless rate at 26 percent and labor strikes growing violent, has unleashed a brutal turf war between rival Latin American drug cartels. Spain’s rapid economic and social collapse in the second half of 2012 created compelling opportunities for drug cartels from Mexico to “relocate” their operations. The conflict between rival Colombian and Mexican drug cartels for domination of Spain is producing an unprecedented “turf” war.

The most fashionable accessory in Mexico City this winter is ... a Spaniard. As the euro crisis shakes Spain to its core, thousands of young Spanish professionals are leaving their homeland in search of employment. The result is a mass exodus of young, educated Spaniards -- a massive brain drain, the likes of which have not been seen since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Mexico, with its historic, cultural and linguistic ties to Spain, has become a leading destination for Spaniards in the Western Hemisphere. 

U.S. media coverage of Mexican migration themes focuses on the outflow of people from south of the border to north of the border. But for some, Mexico is viewed as a land of opportunity and a promising new home. Despite the well-publicized violence that slammed Mexico in recent years, the country continued to attract immigrants. A new study released this month by the Organization of American States (OAS) reported that the documented, foreign-born population in the country increased 45 percent from 2005 to 2010, reaching 850,000 people. 

As outgoing Mexican president Felipe Calderon prepares to enter the Ivory Tower of Harvard, skeletons are rattling the walls of Mexico during the last few days of his administration. Within the past week, Mexican authorities have recovered the remains of scores of murder victims from mass grave sites situated in different regions of  the country. At the same time, relatives of victims of gender, state and other forms of violence have been staging demonstrations in Mexico City, Chihuahua City, Acapulco and other places in demand of justice for murder victims and thousands of disappeared persons, some missing for decades.