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Mexico extradites dozens of cartel leaders and members to US, including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero

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Mexico extradites dozens of cartel leaders and members to US, including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero

Mexico has begun the process of extraditing dozens of high-level cartel leaders and members to the U.S., including Rafael Caro Quintero, a former leader of the Guadalajara cartel involved in the kidnapping and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985.

The founders of Los Zetas, Miguel and Omar Morales, also known as Z-40 and Z-42, will be extradited to the U.S. as well.

The extraditions were done at the request of the U.S. government as President Donald Trump’s tariff deadline looms. One of the president’s demands is for Mexico to crack down on dangerous cartels and fentanyl production and distribution.

SINALOA CARTEL TAKES ROOT IN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOODS: WHERE ARE THEY?

“This morning, 29 people who were deprived of their liberty in different penitentiary centers in the country were transferred to the United States of America, which were required due to their links with criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes,” Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection wrote. 

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“The custody, transfer and formal delivery of said people is carried out under institutional protocols with due respect for their fundamental rights, in accordance with our Constitution and the National Security Law and at the request of the United States Department of Justice. 

“This action is part of the tasks of coordination, cooperation and bilateral reciprocity, within the framework of respect for the sovereignty of both nations.”

President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico, and now officials like Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum are working with the U.S. to take on drug cartels and fentanyl. (Reuters)

The Associated Press reported that the removal of the Mexican drug lords coincided with a visit to Washington, D.C., by Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente and other top economic and military officials, who met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The meeting was the latest in ongoing negotiations with the U.S. over trade and security relations, which have radically shifted since Trump returned to the Oval Office Jan. 20.

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Negotiations resulted in the handover of one of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives, Caro Quintero, who walked free in 2013 after serving 28 years in prison. Caro Quintero was released when a court overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of DEA agent Camarena.

This image released by the FBI shows the wanted poster for Rafael Caro Quintero.  (FBI via AP, File)

Caro Quintero was arrested again by Mexican forces in July 2022 after he allegedly returned to drug trafficking. He was the former leader of the Guadalajara cartel, and the DEA alleges he had returned to drug trafficking and ordered bloody attacks in the northern Mexico border state of Sonora. 

Caro Quintero blamed Camarena for a raid on a marijuana plantation in 1984, allegedly ordering his kidnapping the following year. Camarena’s body was found a month later with evidence of torture and abuse. 

The FBI added Caro Quintero to the Top 10 Most Wanted list in 2018 and offered a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to Quintero’s arrest and/or conviction. 

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MEXICO NABS FBI MOST WANTED CARTEL BOSS ACCUSED OF ’80S KIDNAPPING, MURDER OF DEA AGENT

Cartels sell rainbow fentanyl pills, the DEA says. (Drug Enforcement Administration)

In January, a nonprofit group representing the Camarena family urged the Trump administration to renew longstanding U.S. requests for Mexico to extradite Caro Quintero, the AP learned after obtaining a copy of the letter from a person familiar with the family’s outreach.

“His return to the U.S. would give the family much-needed closure and serve the best interests of justice,” the letter said.

Since taking office, Trump has threatened to impose trade tariffs on Mexico, and several Mexican cartels have been designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. 

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The U.S. had sought the extradition of Caro Quintero shortly after his arrest in 2022. But the request remained stuck at Mexico’s foreign ministry for unknown reasons as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, curtailed Mexican cooperation with the DEA to protest undercover U.S. law enforcement operations in Mexico targeting senior political and military officials.

The removal of the Treviño Morales brothers also marks the end of a long process that began after the capture in 2013 of Miguel Treviño Morales and his brother, Omar, in 2015. The process went on for so many years that Mexico Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero described the lags as “truly shameful.”

The Treviño Morales family, accused by American authorities of running the violent  Northeast Cartel from prison, have charges pending in the U.S. for alleged participation in a criminal organization, drug trafficking, gun offenses and money laundering.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Stocks fall and oil prices gain after Trump warns the Iran ‘clock is ticking’

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Stocks fall and oil prices gain after Trump warns the Iran ‘clock is ticking’

HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks mostly retreated and oil prices jumped on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that the “clock is ticking” as U.S.-Iran negotiations over a permanent end to the war stall.

U.S. futures fell and markets in Japan and South Korea pulled further back from their records. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1% to 60,815.95, a decline led by technology-related stocks. It reached all-time intraday high levels last week above 63,000.

The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond surged to as high as 2.8%, its highest level since the late 1990s, part of a shift toward higher yields as the Bank of Japan gradually raises interest rates and higher energy costs raise expectations of rising inflation. That’s up from around 2.55% just one week ago.

Seoul’s Kospi climbed 0.3% to 7,516.04 after trading lower earlier in the day. It crossed the 8,000 mark for the first time on Friday, supported by buying of technology shares driven by the boom in artificial intelligence, but later declined partly on profit-taking by investors.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.4% to 25,596.68. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 4,131.53, after China reported weaker-than-expected retail data for April.

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Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.5% to 8,505.30.

Taiwan’s Taiex dropped 0.7%, while India’s Sensex fell 0.1%.

Oil prices rose after Trump warned Iran in a social media post that “the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them” following a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump has set deadlines for Iran and then backed off, so investors have remained cautious about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and how it is impacting global energy flows, including oil and gas. The strait is still mostly closed, and the U.S. has also imposed its own sea blockade on Iranian ports since last month.

A drone strike over the weekend on a United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant added to worries over a potential escalation in the conflict.

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Brent crude, the international standard, gained 0.7% to $110.02 per barrel. It was trading at roughly $70 a barrel in late February before the start of the Iran war. Benchmark U.S. crude was trading 0.8% higher to $106.31 per barrel.

“Re-escalation risks are increasing,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a research note. While there has also been a pick up on shipping activities over the past week around the strait, they said, “this can change quickly.”

The pair also noted that the oil market was reacting to the lack of tangible results on the Iran war after last week’s widely-watched summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, even as the White House said both the U.S. and China had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.

U.S. officials had hoped that Beijing could use its influence, given its economic ties with Iran, to help broker a peace agreement and reopen the strait. Trump said last week in an interview that Xi told him China “would like to be of help” in negotiating an end to the war. So far it’s been unclear how Beijing might do that.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury was at around 4.60%, up from 4.47% last Thursday and sharply higher than the nearly 4% level it was holding at before the Iran war.

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On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.2% from the record it set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 1.5%.

In other dealings early Monday, the U.S. dollar rose to 158.86 Japanese yen from 158.62 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1635, up from $1.1622.

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Canada confirms hantavirus case linked to cruise ship outbreak that has killed three passengers

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Canada confirms hantavirus case linked to cruise ship outbreak that has killed three passengers

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Canadian health officials on Sunday confirmed that one of four Canadians who returned from the MV Hondius cruise ship, the subject of an international Andes hantavirus outbreak, tested positive for hantavirus. Three people connected to the outbreak have died.

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The Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed the positive test after British Columbia’s top public health officer previously described the case as a “presumptive positive.”

“One individual’s sample was confirmed positive for hantavirus,” the agency said in a statement.

Officials said additional testing will be conducted at a national laboratory. It was not immediately clear whether that testing was for confirmation, strain characterization or another purpose.

CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER DESCRIBES UNCERTAINTY AFTER 3 DEATHS AMID HANTAVIRUS PROBE

Experts say cruise outbreaks get more attention due to public reporting rules, but many travelers still plan to sail as booked. (Myloupe/Universal Images Group)

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The development comes as global health officials continue monitoring the rare hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius, which has sickened multiple passengers.

As of May 13, the World Health Organization said 11 cases had been identified in connection with the cruise outbreak, including eight confirmed cases, two probable cases and one inconclusive case. Those figures included three deaths. The Associated Press later reported that the Canadian confirmation brought the number of people from the ship who had tested positive to 10.

Canadian health officials said four Canadians returned home from the MV Hondius, though only one has tested positive for the virus.

RARE HANTAVIRUS HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION SUSPECTED ON LUXURY CRUISE SHIP WHERE 3 HAVE DIED

The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)

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The confirmed patient and a traveling companion — identified as a Yukon couple in their 70s — returned from the cruise together. The companion later tested negative, officials said.

A third person in their 70s from Vancouver Island remains in isolation, along with a British Columbia resident in their 50s.

So far, no confirmed U.S. cases tied to the cruise ship have been reported, though WHO said as of May 13 that one U.S.-repatriated passenger had inconclusive laboratory results and was undergoing retesting.

HANTAVIRUS DEATHS ON CRUISE SHIP HIGHLIGHT DANGERS OF RODENT-BORNE DISEASE

Pictured is the MV Hondius, the cruise ship tied to a hantavirus outbreak after a stop in Argentina that left three passengers dead. (Europa Press Canarias via Getty Images)

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Last week, however, health officials in Ontario County, New York, announced they were investigating a suspected locally acquired hantavirus case unrelated to the cruise ship.

The Ontario County Public Health Department said there was no risk to the general public. Officials also said the strain typically seen in the United States is not known to spread from person to person.

The outbreak linked to the MV Hondius began after the Dutch cruise ship, carrying 147 passengers and crew members, departed Argentina on April 1 for a South Atlantic voyage.

TRAPPED CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER SHARES UPDATE ON CLEANLINESS OF SHIP AMID DEADLY HANTAVIRUS OUTBREAK

The outbreak has prompted heightened precautions internationally, including in the Netherlands, where Radboud University Medical Center quarantined 12 staff members after officials said a hantavirus patient’s blood and urine were not handled under the strictest protocols recommended for the virus strain.

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The outbreak has also sparked comparisons to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel previously told Fox News Digital there is “no comparison.”

He noted hantavirus is difficult to spread.

Passengers evacuated from the hantavirus-stricken Hondius cruise ship walk with their belongings after disembarking at Eindhoven Air Base, Netherlands, on May 12. (Piroschka van de Wouw)

“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”

While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” cases of human-to-human transmission, he added.

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The World Health Organization has assessed the risk to the global population as low, while noting that current evidence suggests subsequent human-to-human transmission may have occurred on board. Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to have documented person-to-person transmission, though such spread is considered rare.

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Siegel also noted hantavirus cases have been reported in the United States for decades, though they remain “very rare.”

Fox News Digital’s Brittany Miller and Angelica Stabile, along with The Associated Press, contributed to this report.

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Moment of collision between two Navy jets at Idaho air show

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Moment of collision between two Navy jets at Idaho air show
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Two US Navy jets collided during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, sending both aircraft crashing to the ground in front of spectators. All four crew members ejected safely before impact.

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