By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ and FERNANDA FIGUEROA, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — What should have been a five-minute time-saving walk from Mexico’s National Palace to the Education Ministry for President Claudia Sheinbaum has become a stomach-churning viral moment after a video captured a drunk man groping the president.

The brief clip has given the daily harassment and assaults that women suffer in Mexico their highest-profile platform. And on Wednesday, Sheinbaum used her daily press briefing to say that she had pressed charges against the man.

She also called on states to look at their laws and procedures to make it easier for women to report such assaults and said Mexicans needed to hear a “loud and clear, no, women’s personal space must not be violated.”

Sheinbaum said she felt a responsibility to press charges, because if not, where would that leave Mexican women? “If this is done to the president, what is going to happen to all of the young women in our country?”

Indeed, if Mexico’s president cannot be in the street for five minutes without a man approaching her from behind, putting his hands on her body and leaning in for a kiss, then it’s not difficult to imagine what women with hours-long commutes on public transportation are experiencing daily.

Andrea González Martínez, 27, who works for Mexican lender Nacional Monte de Piedad, said she has been harassed on public transportation, in one case the man followed her home.

“It happens regularly, it happens on public transportation,” she said. “It’s something you experience every day in Mexico.”

Her coworker, Carmen Maldonado Castillo, 43, said she has witnessed it.

“It’s not good that men attack us,” she said. “You can’t walk around free in the street.”

Sheinbaum said Wednesday that she understands how widespread the problem is.

“I decided to press charges because this is something that I experienced as a woman, but that we as women experience in our country,” she said.

She said she had similar experiences of harassment when she was 12 years old and using public transportation to get to school. As president, she said, she felt like she had a responsibility to all women.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada had announced overnight that the man had been arrested.

The incident immediately raised questions about the president’s security, but Sheinbaum dismissed any suggestion that she would increase her security or change how she interacts with people.

She explained that she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. She said they could walk it in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride.

Brugada used some of Sheinbaum’s own language about being elected Mexico’s first woman president to emphasize that harassment of any woman – in this case Mexico’s most powerful – is an assault on all women.

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When Sheinbaum was elected, she said that it wasn’t just her coming to power, it was all women. Brugada said that was “not a slogan, it’s a commitment to not look the other way, to not allow misogyny to continue to be veiled in habits, to not accept a single additional humiliation, not another abuse, not a single femicide more.”

Lilian Valvuena, 31, said she didn’t think Sheinbaum had really taken violence against women seriously until yesterday when she had a first-hand experience. She hopes that work to better train police to respond will follow.

“They have to prepare them,” she said. “They don’t know what protocols to follow.”

Marina Reyna, executive director of the Guerrero Association against Violence toward Women, said that watching the video she initially worried that Sheinbaum had minimized the assault, continuing to smile and talk calmly to the man. But she hoped the president’s willingness to talk about it Wednesday would change how such cases are handled.

“You lose confidence in the institutions,” Reyna said. “The people stop going to report it, because when you report it nothing happens.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Business Writer

Starbucks’ union members have voted to strike at the company’s U.S. stores next week unless it finalizes a contract agreement, the union said Wednesday.

The strike would begin on Nov. 13, which is the day Starbucks plans to distribute free, reusable red cups. Red Cup Day, a Starbucks tradition since 2018, is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year.

Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, didn’t say how many stores would be impacted. But it said workers in at least 25 cities planned to strike and more locations could be added if the union doesn’t see “substantial progress” toward finalizing a contract.

Around 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-operated U.S. stores are currently unionized. More stores have voted to unionize since 2021, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger restructuring.

The union and the company have yet to agree to a labor contract. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise, last fall. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s new chairman and CEO.

Starbucks said Wednesday that it’s disappointed the union plans to strike instead of returning to the bargaining table.

“Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail, including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners,” Starbucks spokeswoman Jaci Anderson said Wednesday.

In a letter to Starbucks employees released Wednesday, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union has proposed a 65% pay increase immediately and a 77% increase over three years, with additional payments for things like weekends or days when Starbucks runs promotions. Kelly also said some proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if the store is busy.

“These aren’t serious, evidence-based proposals,” Kelly said.

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But unionized baristas said they don’t always get the 20 hours per week they need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Unionized workers also point to Starbucks’ generous pay package for Niccol, which saw him make $95.8 million in 2024. The package included $75 million in equity to make up for what he forfeited by his abrupt departure from Chipotle, his previous employer.

“Our fight is about actually making Starbucks jobs the best jobs in retail. Right now, it’s only the best job in retail for Brian Niccol,” said Jasmine Leli, a three-year Starbucks barista and strike captain from Buffalo, New York. Leli said starting pay for baristas in most states is $15.25 per hour.

The strike would echo previous labor actions against the company. In 2023, thousands of Starbucks workers at more than 200 stores walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores.

In her letter, Kelly emphasized that most company-owned stores as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like airports will remain open if there is a strike.

The Gophers football program picked up a commitment from former Ohio State pledge Aaron Thomas on Wednesday.

The 6-foot-7, 300-pound offensive tackle from Phoenix left the Buckeyes class on Monday, but is staying in the Big Ten.

“Riding my own wave,” Thomas wrote on X. “@GopherFootball is home.”

The three-star recruit via 247Sports composite rankings had nearly 30 scholarship offer from schools across the country.

Thomas is the 28th overall commitment for the U’s 2026 class and its sixth-highest-rated recruit.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered officials on Wednesday to submit proposals for a possible resumption of nuclear tests in response to President Donald Trump’s statements last week that appeared to suggest the U.S. will restart its own atomic tests.

Speaking at a meeting with his Security Council, Putin reaffirmed his earlier statement that Moscow will only restart nuclear tests if the U.S. does so first. But he directed the defense and foreign ministries and other government agencies to analyze Washington’s intentions and work out proposals for resuming nuclear weapons tests.

On Oct. 30, Trump appeared to signal that the U.S. will resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades, saying it would be on an “equal basis” with Russia and China.

But U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that new tests of the U.S. nuclear weapons system ordered by Trump will not include nuclear explosions.

Trump made the announcement on social media while in South Korea, days after Putin announced successful tests of the prospective nuclear-powered and nuclear capable cruise missile and underwater drone. Putin’s praise for the new weapons that he claimed can’t be intercepted appears to be another message to Trump that Russia is standing firm in its maximalist demands on settling the conflict in Ukraine.

The U.S. military also has regularly tested nuclear-capable weapons, but it has not detonated atomic weapons since 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. signed but did not ratify, has been observed since its adoption by all countries possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea being the only exception.

Putin in 2023 signed a bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban, which Moscow said was needed to put it on par with the U.S. The global test ban was signed by President Bill Clinton but never ratified by the U.S. Senate.

During Wednesday’s Security Council meeting, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov reported to Putin about U.S. efforts to modernize its atomic arsenals, arguing that along with a possible resumption of nuclear tests by Washington they “significantly increase the level of military threats to Russia.”

Belousov suggested that Moscow immediately start preparations for nuclear tests on the Arctic Novaya Zemlya archipelago. He added that the site, where the Soviet Union last tested a nuclear weapon in 1990, was ready for quickly resuming the explosions.

Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the military’s General Staff, also vouched for quickly starting preparations for tests.

“If we don’t take appropriate measures now, we will miss the time and opportunity to respond promptly to the U.S. actions, as it takes from several months to several years to prepare for nuclear tests, depending on their type,” Gerasimov said.

After hearing from military leaders and other top officials, who noted the conflicting signals from Washington on whether the U.S. will restart nuclear explosions, Putin ordered government agencies to “gather additional information on the issue, analyze it within the framework of the Security Council and submit coordinated proposals on the possible start of work on preparations for nuclear weapons tests.”

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Putin didn’t order a start to preparations for nuclear tests and for now only told officials to analyze whether it’s necessary to begin such work. He said in remarks carried by the state Tass news agency that Moscow needs to fully understand U.S. intentions before making further decisions.

Later, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Security Council chaired by Putin, said the Russians have no choice but to treat Trump’s comments seriously.

“No one knows what Trump meant about ‘nuclear testing’ (he probably doesn’t himself),” Medvedev posted on X. “But he’s the president of the United States. And the consequences of such words are inescapable: Russia will be forced to assess the expediency of conducting full-fledged nuclear tests itself.”