Long Weekends are Staying… for Now / Need to Resume Public Life

Long weekends to continue for one more year. After saying in recent months that he was ending long weekends (or “puentes”) so people don’t get confused about the real date of national anniversaries, President López Obrador pulled back and said these are going to continue for at least one more year to support the tourism sector. “At the request of sector businessmen and through Minister of Tourism Miguel Torruco, I accepted that ‘puentes’ will continue for at least a year,” he said.

Need to resume public life. Before he gets requests to postpone the restart of his national tours due to the COVID-19 epidemic, President López Obrador said he has already decided to move forward because we need to restart public life, but following all safety measures. “Whatever I do, my adversaries won’t like it,” he said. Despite an increase in positive cases and deaths to record numbers for multiple days in a row this week, the president again said there was no risk that hospitals would become saturated.

Well-being Universities will be like another UNAM. President López Obrador said the project to create 100 new public universities is the equivalent of creating another UNAM. “The purpose is for at least 300,000 (students) to attend these universities during my six-year term, more or less the number of students UNAM has,” he said on one of the main education projects of his administration.

Rejects 'AMLOver Index’ proposal. President López Obrador said the new alternative index to GDP he has proposed must have a name related to well-being. After being asked by one reporter whether he would consider naming the new index the “AMLOver Index,” the president laughed and said it was better to choose something more specific. “Well-being Level, or the Well-being Index,” he suggested.

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Click HERE for full transcript in Spanish