MEXICO CITY (AP) — The sound of construction roared over the most memed metro station in Mexico City as workers hammered at marble floors under a chandelier and rows of lamps reminiscent of a scene from “Harry Potter” or “Titanic,” racing to finish ahead of the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony Thursday.
Mexicans milling through the busy Hidalgo metro station pointed and laughed, occasionally snapping pictures of the face-lift that has become the subject of a cascade of internet memes.
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A woman puts on makeup at the subway in Mexico City, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A dancer holds a replica of the World Cup trophy as soccer fans stand along Reforma Avenue in Mexico City, Saturday, June 6, 2026 ahead of the FIFA World Cup. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
People walk through a subway station that has new lighting, part of preparations for hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
People walk through a subway station that has new lighting, part of preparations for hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
The cosmetic makeover that authorities have attempted to give the capital as visitors arrive from around the globe also has become a symbol of criticisms that the government is prioritizing its superficial appearance for World Cup fans over fixing critical structural issues that have long plagued the city.
“People make fun of it because it's a failed aesthetic, it doesn't make a lot of sense,” said Silvia Escamilla, 28, who was hustling to work among a crowd of Mexican commuters. “All these renovations are like putting makeup on the city, because the infrastructure they could actually invest in just isn’t there.”
For weeks, Mexico City workers have plastered walls and metro cars with cartoon axolotls, the mole salamander that has become a city mascot. They also have painted bridges purple and planted Mexican marigold flowers typical of Day of the Dead celebrations in November.
The 22 million residents of the sprawling capital, known as Chilangos, have jokingly referred to the renovations as the city's “axolotlization.” They have posted videos of flooded underpasses next to freshly painted murals of axolotls and crumbling stairs and potholes painted bright purple.
Hidalgo station, in the heart of the downtown, has perhaps become the subject of more memes than anywhere else in the city.
When city workers installed the chandelier near the metro entrance and rows of Victorian wall lamps in May, social media users were quick to joke that authorities were trying to make the gritty metro system look like it was in a European city.
Residents began to show up at the station in elegant dresses in videos layered over Mozart music. One social media influencer descended the marble stairs dressed as the Beast from the classic Disney cartoon “Beauty and the Beast.” Another arrived as Napoleon Bonaparte in a white wig and French military uniform.
“May you have an elegant metro connection,” one social media influencer said as he strolled through throngs of commuters dressed in a tuxedo and top hat. Another filmed herself selling pink dresses aboard one of the metro trains, yelling to passengers that the items matched the “etiquette” of Metro Hidalgo.
Many more posed next to marble floors and walls torn up by construction ahead of the soccer tournament being hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada.
The crush of jokes amused Mexicans for weeks, but also cut to the core of a deeper problem in the city, said Aldo Solano Rojas, an art historian in Mexico City who has criticized the remodel.
Failures to prioritize issues like the metro's crumbling infrastructure and holes in the major municipal roadways show the government “doesn't understand the real needs of the city,” he said.
“State presence, at its best, is reflected in well-maintained sidewalks and adequate transportation infrastructure that doesn't collapse every day,” Solano Rojas said. “It's not reflected in frivolous, superficial axolotl murals while the streets are flooding.”
The criticisms come in the midst of wider social unrest in Mexico City as the country's teachers union, families of Mexico's 130,000 missing people and a range of other social movements use the proximity to the event to pressure authorities.
The government also has faced accusations of displacing sex workers and street vendors in an effort to clean up the streets. Despite the tensions, city workers on Wednesday were still racing to complete construction ahead of the opening ceremony and first match.
Mirna Baranco looked fondly on the renovations, but the 46-year-old laughed at the chandelier over Hidalgo construction workers. She nudged her boyfriend and pointed.
“I've already seen it all over the place on Facebook, but not in real life,” she said.
Baranco understood the criticisms, but said she didn't think it was necessarily a bad thing that authorities were making changes to be more attractive to international visitors. The World Cup has helped push local governments to make needed renovations, even if some look a little out of place, she said.
The changes show that “Mexico isn't just how others stereotype us, as a country with narcos,” Baranco said. “Mexico has a lot to give the world.”
A woman puts on makeup at the subway in Mexico City, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A dancer holds a replica of the World Cup trophy as soccer fans stand along Reforma Avenue in Mexico City, Saturday, June 6, 2026 ahead of the FIFA World Cup. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
People walk through a subway station that has new lighting, part of preparations for hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
People walk through a subway station that has new lighting, part of preparations for hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD, England (AP) — About 75,000 voters in a pocket of northwest England are about to make a momentous decision. They will cast ballots in a contest that may well pick the U.K.’s next prime minister, or plunge Britain's febrile politics into even more turmoil. Possibly both.
Some of them aren’t too enthusiastic.
“I think they’re all a waste of time,” said Shirley Prior on the choice of candidates in Makerfield, where a special election on June 18 has drawn interest from journalists around the world. That level of attention is all-but unheard of for a midterm by-election to fill one of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.
If Andy Burnham from the center-left Labour Party wins, there’s a strong chance he will replace embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer as leader of both party and country. He's up against Reform UK, a hard-right party hoping to prove that this longtime Labour stronghold is fertile ground for its anti-immigration message, with potentially seismic consequences for British democracy.
This district has elected Labour lawmakers for 120 years, but Burnham is not a shoo-in. Reform, led by the veteran anti-immigration politician Nigel Farage, won 24 of the 25 council seats up for grabs in local elections in this area last month.
“I always voted Labour because my dad, my grandad, everybody voted Labour then,” Prior said. “I’ve never done that for a lot, a lot of years.”
The election is taking place amid heightened tensions over immigration. A stabbing in Belfast this week, for which a Sudanese man has been charged with attempted murder, triggered violent protests in Northern Ireland in which cars and houses torched.
In the constituency’s main town of Ashton-in-Makerfield, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of London, some voters echo Reform claims that recent arrivals are straining housing and public services.
“Immigration’s too high, all the services are being put under pressure and Labour just keep inviting more and more people into the country and it’s the taxpayer who has to pay for them,” said retiree Phil Arrowsmith.
Annual net migration to the U.K. reached more than 900,000 in 2023, under the previous Conservative government, before falling to 171,000 last year.
That decline has done little to boost a Labour government that has floundered since winning election in July 2024.
Starmer has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.
A dismal performance in local elections last month sparked a clamor from Labour lawmakers for Starmer’s resignation. He has refused, but Cabinet minister Wes Streeting quit so he can run in a leadership contest that could come soon.
Burnham, the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, also harbors leadership ambitions, but needs a seat in Parliament if he wants to challenge Starmer. An opening emerged when Josh Simons, the Labour lawmaker for Makerfield, stepped down to trigger a special election.
Burnham said he understands that voters are “fed up” and calls the large Reform UK vote “a cry for real change” that Labour must heed.
The Makerfield constituency is a capsule of British history, a collection of former coal-mining communities turned commuter suburbs. The slag heaps and slum housing in the area described by George Orwell in his 1937 book “The Road to Wigan Pier” have been replaced by suburbs of tidy modern houses amid Victorian workers’ cottages, interspersed with farmers’ fields.
Though far from the city center, it is part of Greater Manchester, and Burnham gets honks and thumbs’ ups from passing drivers as he walks down the street in his smart-casual uniform of dark jeans with a navy blue shirt and jacket.
The 56-year-old has been mayor of the region of 3 million people since 2017, a period that has seen central Manchester boom, with skyscrapers blooming on postindustrial sites. Many residents praise him for championing the city, and for taking a piecemeal public transport system under municipal control as the Bee Network.
For a decade and a half before that he was a lawmaker in Parliament, and a minister in Labour governments. He doesn’t emphasize that part of his CV, preferring the outsider status that has seen him nicknamed the King of the North.
“What we’ve built in Greater Manchester needs to go national,” Burnham told reporters during a campaign event this week. “I know what it is to turn places around.”
The campaign is an odd mix of the local and the international. Some voters cite immigration as a top concern. Others mention struggling main street shops, potholes and petty crime.
Burnham’s main rival is Reform UK candidate Rob Kenyon, a 41-year-old plumber and local councilor who came second to Labour here in the 2024 national election. He says he’s an unpolished regular bloke, though opponents have criticized him over crude, sexist and anti-vaccine comments on social media.
Reform voters are also being targeted by Restore, an even more hardline anti-immigration party.
Michael Poultney, a retired teacher and Labour supporter, thinks the unpopularity of Starmer’s government means Burnham faces a stiff challenge.
“Without his personal vote, I think we would struggle,” he said. “Keir Starmer has done reasonably well on the international stage, but the government are yet to be in control of the economy.”
Burnham insists he is running for the people of Makerfield, not his own ambition, and is not taking victory for granted.
“I am making no assumptions beyond the 18th of June,” Burnham said.
But he stressed that “this is a change byelection.”
“I will take the fight for the changes I want to see in politics as far as I can take it,” he said.
Andy Burnham walks during a campaign visit to the town of Ashton-in-Makerfield before the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, in Greater Manchester, England, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Campaign posters for Andy Burnham and the Reform UK party are displayed in the town of Ashton-in-Makerfield before the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, in Greater Manchester, England, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Campaign posters for Andy Burnham and for the Reform UK party are displayed in the town of Ashton-in-Makerfield before the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, in Greater Manchester, England, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Andy Burnham speaks with police personnel during a campaign visit to the town of Ashton-in-Makerfield before the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, in Greater Manchester, England, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Andy Burnham smiles during a campaign visit to Ashton-in-Makerfield before the forthcoming by-election, in Manchester, England, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. CORRECTION: corrects family name to Burnham instead of Bunham (AP Photo/Jon Super)
