Mexican-American clothing designer Willy Chavarria has apologized for an Adidas sandal that he created after being accused by Mexican authorities of "cultural appropriation" for copying an indigenous shoe design. The design launched by Adidas is known as the Oaxaca Slip On." It's a black sandal with braided leather straps attached to a chunky sports shoe sole. Mexican artisans and authorities say the intricate leather braids look strikingly similar to the traditional footwear known as huaraches made by the Zapotec Indigenous people in Oaxaca. Chavarria responded to mounting criticisms in a statement addressed to the "people of Oaxaca" in comments sent to The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said that "I am deeply sorry."

Hurricane Erick has made landfall in the western part of Oaxaca state in Mexico. Earlier, forecasters upgraded Erick to an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 hurricane before lowering it to a Category 3. Early Thursday, the hurricane's center was located about 20 miles east of Punta Maldonado. Its maximum sustained winds were clocked at 125 mph. It was moving northwest at 9 mph.

In her first days as Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum made a point of distancing herself from the fossil fuel reliance promoted by her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and vowed to resume an energy transition that he halted. "We are going to boost renewable energies," she said, promising that 45% of Mexico's electricity will come from renewables by 2030. But experts say the country's first woman president will have to contend with legal constraints that she herself favored during the previous administration, constitutional reforms that strongly favor the Federal Electricity Commission, which runs traditional power plants.

Beryl was battering Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula while officials in Texas urged coastal residents to prepare as the storm moves toward the Gulf of Mexico. Beryl hit Mexico near the resort town of Tulum as a Category 2 hurricane but weakened to a tropical storm as it moved across the peninsula. The U.S. National Hurricane Center expects Beryl to regain hurricane strength once it reemerges into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, where it is forecast to head toward northeastern Mexico and southern Texas. Some Texas counties have already issued voluntary evacuation orders in low-lying areas.

Mexican authorities are using a simple but harsh tactic to deal with migrants trying to get to he U.S. They're wearing them out until they give up. Mexico is driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of people headed north. But they country doesn't have the funds to deport migrants. So instead migrants are churning in limbo in Mexico. Authorities round them up across the country and dump them in southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. Some migrants have been punted back as many as six times. A psychologist at the only migrant shelter in Villahermosa says, "Mexico is the wall."

Mexico's first female president held out an olive branch to the more than one-third of Mexicans who didn't vote for her, but she faces a market meltdown and a tough path toward reconciling a country left deeply divided by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor, said "our duty will always be to look out for each and every Mexican, without distinctions." Long-delayed initial vote counts gave her a crushing margin of victory, higher even than the one López Obrador won in 2018. With about 78% of votes counted, Sheinbaum was getting about 59% of votes, about twice as many as her nearest competitor Xóchitl Gálvez, who got around 28%.