Mexico to close infamous island penal colony

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Mexico to close infamous island penal colony

2019-02-19 01:50 Last Updated At：02:00

Mexico will close a famed island penal colony off the country's Pacific coast and convert it into a cultural and environmental education center, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday.

The federal prison on the largest of the Islas Marias will release about 200 of its approximately 600 inmates and the rest will be relocated to other prisons.

The prison founded in 1905 on Maria Madre passed through periods of infamous brutality. When Panama closed its Isla Coiba penal colony in 2004, Isla Marias was the last one remaining in the Americas.

Lopez Obrador said the new cultural center will be named after Jose Revueltas, who was imprisoned there and wrote the novel "Walls of Water."

"It is the history of punishments, of torture, of repression for more than a century," Lopez Obrador said.

He noted that the last riot there occurred in 2003 because it was over capacity. At that time there were 8,000 prisoners there, he said.

Lopez Obrador visited the island 70 miles (110 kilometers) off the coast of Nayarit state Sunday with members of his cabinet.

Environmentalists have pushed the government for years to close the prison and make the islands a nature reserve.

Being tightly controlled and undeveloped outside the prison has helped Islas Marias and other former penal colonies conserve delicate coastal ecosystems that otherwise would have given way to beach resorts or other commercial exploitation.

In 2004, it seemed to be headed toward conservation as the government closed buildings and shipped most of the prisoners back to the mainland. But suddenly officials sent over 150 more prisoners and announced a $2 million investment.

Mexico's federal prisons now are now nowhere near capacity, making closure of the island prison more palatable.

Far removed from its dark history of hard labor and abuses, the Islas Marias became a prison for the more well-behaved inmates, who enjoyed more freedom than at a regular prison. Some were even allowed to live with their families on the island.

Conan O'Brien kicks off 98th Academy Awards, first award goes to Amy Madigan

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Conan O'Brien launched the 98th Academy Awards with a “Sabotage”-scored sprint through the nominees, dressed as Amy Madigan's character in “Weapons,” and a plea for what he called “that rarest of qualities today: optimism.”

O'Brien, hosting for the second time, alluded to “chaotic and frightening times” in his opening monologue at the Dolby Theatre. But he argued that the current geopolitical climate made the Oscars all the more resonate as a globally unifying force.

O'Brien also joked, though, that the night could get political. As an alternative, like the Super Bowl halftime show, he said Kid Rock would be hosting an alterative Oscars at Dave & Busters.

Some of O'Brien's best digs came for the streamers. Netflix chief Ted Sarandos, he joked, was in a theater for the first time. O'Brien also lamented the lack of nominees for Amazon MGM: “Why isn't the website I order toilet paper from winning more Oscars?”

“I’m honored to be the last human host of the Academy Awards,” said O'Brien. "Next year it’s going to be a Waymo in a tux.”

Minutes after a faux-Madigan kicked off the broadcast, the real Madigan won the night’s first award, best supporting actress, for her performance in the horror thriller “Weapons.” The 75-year-old actor’s win came 40 years after her first Oscar nomination, in 1986 for “Twice in a Lifetime.”

Letting out a giant laugh as she hit the stage, Madigan exclaimed, “This is great!”

The 98th Academy Awards were steering toward a coronation for either Paul Thomas Anderson or Ryan Coogler. Most would call that a win-win.

Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” is the favorite heading into the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. But Coogler’s “Sinners” comes in the lead nominee with a record 16 nominations. Both filmmakers are poised to leave with their first Oscar.

But little else is assured at an Academy Awards where Michael B. Jordan or Timothée Chalamet (despite the ballet diss heard 'round the world) could win their first Academy Award in a too-close-to-call best actor race.

The telecast is airing live on ABC and streaming on Hulu. (YouTube will be the new home of the Oscars beginning in 2029.) The official red carpet preshow begins on ABC and Hulu at 6:30 p.m. EDT, while E! will kick off its red-carpet broadcast at 4 p.m.

Despite the war in Iran and expanding geopolitical turmoil, O’Brien has pledged an entertaining show in the mold of hosts like Bob Hope and Johnny Carson. “Let’s have fun with it, is my attitude,” O’Brien told reporters earlier in the week.

Still, the already high security will be even greater this year at an Oscars, taking place two weeks after the United States and President Donald Trump launched the war with Iran. Some attendees wore pins reading “Artists for cease fire.”

“Of course, every year we monitor what’s going on in the world,” Raj Kapoor, executive producer of the show, said earlier in the week. “We have the support of the FBI and the LAPD, and it’s a close collaboration.”

Two of the five best song nominees will be performed: “I Lied to You,” from “Sinners,” with Miles Caton, Raphael Saadiq and others; and “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters.”

“KPop Demon Hunters,” a Sony Pictures production that was sold to Netflix, was the most-watched movie of 2025. (It has 325 million views and counting, making it Netflix's most-streamed movie ever.) But it seems all but certain that the night’s final award won’t go to a streaming release; Apple's “CODA” remains the only streaming film to achieve that. Instead best picture is likely to go to an anomaly in today’s movie industry: big-budget original films from a personal vision.

“Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” were both theatrical releases shot on film. And both came from Warner Bros., the legacy studio that’s agreed to merge with David Ellison’s new media colossus, Paramount Skydance. The $111 billion deal, which awaits regulatory approval, has rattled an industry already reconciling itself to the acquisitions of MGM (by Amazon) and 20th Century Fox (by The Walt Disney Co.).

Elegy may mark Sunday’s Oscars. The in memoriam segment is expected to include, among many others, remembrances of Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Robert Duvall. O’Brien, who had hosted a party attended by Rob and Michele Reiner the night before their deaths, has promised a “very powerful” tribute.

New this year is a best casting category. Another innovation is a requirement that Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members watch all nominees before voting. On the academy’s streaming platform — even Oscar voting is streamed — voters had to check a box attesting to having watched each nominee before voting in a category.

Though the Oscars often feel largely removed from their times, a crop of nominees that explicitly grapple with the current political moment will be center stage. That includes not just “One Battle After Another,” which opens with a raid on an immigration detention facility, but movies like Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian political thriller “The Secret Agent” and Jafar Panahi’s Iranian revenge drama “It Was Just an Accident.”

The war in Iran has particular meaning to Panahi, whose film is nominated for best international feature and for best screenplay. The esteemed Iranian filmmaker and last year's Palme d'Or winner has made films clandestinely in his native Iran despite repeated imprisonment, travel ban and even home arrest. While promoting the film, Panahi was sentenced to a year in prison. At least one of his cowriter nominees, Mehdi Mahmoudian, was unable to leave Iran to attend Sunday’s awards.

Twenty three years ago, the Academy Awards were also held amid war in the Middle East. The 2003 Oscars took place just three days before the Iraq War began. Many in Hollywood protested the war. “Chicago” won best picture.

For more coverage of the Oscars, visit https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards.