By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — The killing of Mexican cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes on Sunday set off a wave of retaliatory violence from his gunmen, affecting areas popular with foreign tourists such as Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara.

In response, the US State Department urged American nationals to “seek shelter and remain in residences or hotels,” while several US airlines suspended flights to the popular resort town Puerto Vallarta, stranding many tourists who were desperate to escape the violence and return home.

CNN spoke to a number of those affected, including Dallas resident Adryan Moorefield, who was set to travel home from Puerto Vallarta on Sunday but awoke to the news that members of organized crime groups had set buses on fire, blocked roads and clashed with authorities.

“It was such a complete shocker and it almost felt like being in the twilight zone,” Moorefield told CNN. “We’ve been to PV before and thought that this would be a no brainer place to come and do a quick, easy beach vacation.”

American tourist Jim Beck told CNN he ventured outside his hotel in Puerto Vallarta to get breakfast on Sunday and saw “taxi cabs blown up all over town, blocking the roads.”

“Then immediately, everyone was running down the street, screaming and yelling, and they told everyone to get back to their hotels,” Beck said.

Mari, another tourist who asked to go by her first name for privacy reasons, said her young family had been sheltering in their vacation rental and watching the unrest unfold outside.

“We have two little kids, and it’s really scary,” she said. “The entire bay was just covered in fire,” she added. “For hours, there was just a billow of smoke, hovering. You could not see anything across.”

Another US tourist, Travis Dagenais, told CNN that he was woken up in Puerto Vallarta on Sunday morning by so many loud noises that he initially thought construction work was underway.

“We woke up this morning to a lot of what I thought was a building demolition,” Dagenais said.

It took him some time to figure out what was happening as reports of chaos gradually began to surface on social media, he said. Soon he could see the unrest unfold from his balcony.

“I was able to see quite directly, a little too visibly, some of the tactics and some of the cars that were being set on fire, some of the looting that was taking place as local stores and buildings were being attacked,” he said, adding the city “smells like burnt rubber at the moment.”

Dagenais said he and other tourists are currently beset by a raft of uncertainties.

“How long does this lockdown, so to speak, last? How long does the airport stay out of operation? What are some of the ways out? What (are) some of those answers, or just some of the plans we can make?” he wondered.

Dagenais added that most of his fellow tourists were dealing with the sudden chaos “with a certain degree of patience and understanding of things that are beyond the individual’s control.”

“I really hope that everybody in this city, everybody in this country, is able to feel normalcy and is able to feel some degree of safety after this,” he added.

Shelter-in-place separates family

An American woman from California visiting family in Mexico told CNN that she had been temporarily separated from her son and left wonde

CNN

By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — The killing of Mexican cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes on Sunday set off a wave of retaliatory violence from his gunmen, affecting areas popular with foreign tourists such as Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara.

In response, the US State Department urged American nationals to “seek shelter and remain in residences or hotels,” while several US airlines suspended flights to the popular resort town Puerto Vallarta, stranding many tourists who were desperate to escape the violence and return home.

CNN spoke to a number of those affected, including Dallas resident Adryan Moorefield, who was set to travel home from Puerto Vallarta on Sunday but awoke to the news that members of organized crime groups had set buses on fire, blocked roads and clashed with authorities.

“It was such a complete shocker and it almost felt like being in the twilight zone,” Moorefield told CNN. “We’ve been to PV before and thought that this would be a no brainer place to come and do a quick, easy beach vacation.”

American tourist Jim Beck told CNN he ventured outside his hotel in Puerto Vallarta to get breakfast on Sunday and saw “taxi cabs blown up all over town, blocking the roads.”

“Then immediately, everyone was running down the street, screaming and yelling, and they told everyone to get back to their hotels,” Beck said.

Mari, another tourist who asked to go by her first name for privacy reasons, said her young family had been sheltering in their vacation rental and watching the unrest unfold outside.

“We have two little kids, and it’s really scary,” she said. “The entire bay was just covered in fire,” she added. “For hours, there was just a billow of smoke, hovering. You could not see anything across.”

Another US tourist, Travis Dagenais, told CNN that he was woken up in Puerto Vallarta on Sunday morning by so many loud noises that he initially thought construction work was underway.

“We woke up this morning to a lot of what I thought was a building demolition,” Dagenais said.

It took him some time to figure out what was happening as reports of chaos gradually began to surface on social media, he said. Soon he could see the unrest unfold from his balcony.

“I was able to see quite directly, a little too visibly, some of the tactics and some of the cars that were being set on fire, some of the looting that was taking place as local stores and buildings were being attacked,” he said, adding the city “smells like burnt rubber at the moment.”

Dagenais said he and other tourists are currently beset by a raft of uncertainties.

“How long does this lockdown, so to speak, last? How long does the airport stay out of operation? What are some of the ways out? What (are) some of those answers, or just some of the plans we can make?” he wondered.

Dagenais added that most of his fellow tourists were dealing with the sudden chaos “with a certain degree of patience and understanding of things that are beyond the individual’s control.”

“I really hope that everybody in this

By Mia Fishman, CNN

(CNN) — Lindsey Vonn credited her doctor with saving her leg from amputation in an Instagram video posted Monday, going in-depth on the severity of the injury she suffered in her devastating crash at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

In the video, Vonn explained the details of the leg injury she sustained in the crash on February 8 during the women’s downhill event. Vonn was hoping to end up on the podium, despite tearing her ACL shortly before the Games, and instead crashed in dramatic fashion.

Last week, Vonn underwent reconstructive surgery to address multiple fractures in her left leg and experienced complications due to a compartment syndrome diagnosis. She posted the video on Monday from a hotel, saying she’s finally left the hospital after two weeks.

Tibial fractures are among the most common causes of a complication called compartment syndrome. Leg muscles are organized into sections called compartments, which are surrounded by tight tissue that doesn’t stretch much. When bleeding or swelling inside one of these compartments builds up, pressure rises and begins to squeeze the muscles, nerves and blood vessels.

If the pressure isn’t quickly released, compartment syndrome can lead to permanent damage and, in severe cases, be life-threatening or cost a person a limb. The complication is treated with incisions in the leg.

“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my leg,” Vonn said. “He saved my leg from being amputated.”

The discovery of Vonn’s compartment syndrome forced an emergency surgical procedure called a fasciotomy, which took six hours to complete. Connective tissue is “filleted,” as Vonn described it, to release tension and pressure on muscles, blood vessels and nerves within the area.

While Vonn’s focus before that opening weekend run was on her torn ACL, she credits that knee injury with allowing her to avoid amputation.

“If I hadn’t torn my ACL – which I would have torn anyways with this crash – if I hadn’t had done that, Tom wouldn’t have been there; he wouldn’t have been able to save my leg,” Vonn said. “I feel very lucky and grateful for him.”

In addition to a torn ACL and various tibia and fibula fractures, Vonn also broke her right ankle.

“Everything was in pieces,” Vonn said.

While she’s currently immobile and wheelchair bound, she hopes to move to crutches in a few weeks. It is expected to take a year for the bone fractures to heal, which will then allow her to continue with ACL reconstruction.

“I can’t tell you how painful it’s been,” Vonn said, visibly emotional. “It’s been really hard and it was definitely not the way I wanted to end my Olympics, but it’s been really inspiring to watch my teammates.”

Blood loss during surgery kept Vonn in the hospital “longer than she hoped,” prompting a blood transfusion to combat the pain. But after two weeks in a hospital bed, Vonn has moved to a hotel for the time being.

“It will be a long road, but I’ll get th

The post Santa Barbara Sister Cities Committee Leaders Sheltered in Place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico appeared first on edhat.

Por Nicky Robertson y MJ Lee, CNN

Cuando el Departamento de Justicia publicó millones de archivos relacionados con Jeffrey Epstein, el exitoso autor y gurú del bienestar Deepak Chopra fue una de las muchas personas prominentes que se distanciaron de su antiguo amigo.

“Nunca participé ni participo en ninguna conducta delictiva o explotadora. Todo contacto que tuve fue limitado y no estuvo relacionado con actividades abusivas”, escribió Chopra en X a principios de este mes.

Pero los contactos de Chopra con Epstein no fueron limitados, sino que intercambiaron cientos de mensajes según la “Biblioteca Epstein” del Departamento de Justicia. Y una revisión de su correspondencia por parte de CNN revela que compartían una amistad mucho más íntima de lo que se conocía previamente, manteniendo contacto frecuente entre 2016 y 2019, año en que Epstein fue arrestado bajo cargos por operar una red de tráfico sexual y abusar sexualmente de menores de edad.

La revelación es solo un ejemplo más de cómo Epstein tenía una fuerte presencia en el mundo del entretenimiento, la academia y la alta sociedad, incluso después de cumplir una condena en prisión tras declararse culpable, en 2008, de solicitar servicios de prostitución a una menor. Chopra se une a otras figuras de alto perfil que ahora intentan replantear la naturaleza de su relación con Epstein, minimizando la cercanía que tuvieron en el pasado.

CNN descubrió que Chopra y Epstein se comunicaban regularmente por correo electrónico y mensajes de texto, y en múltiples ocasiones quedaron en verse en persona. Los mensajes indican que Chopra visitó a Epstein en la casa adosada de Nueva York, la casa del sur de Florida y el apartamento de París del condenado.

A lo largo de varios años, ambos hombres bromearon sobre temas como la espiritualidad, la salud, el bienestar y las amistades mutuas. Chopra solía expresarle cariño y afecto a Epstein firmando algunos de sus mensajes con “Con cariño” o “XO [besos y abrazos]”. Chopra le declaró en una ocasión a Epstein: “Estoy profundamente agradecido por nuestra amistad”.

Chopra, quien emigró de la India a EE.UU. hace más de 50 años para ejercer la medicina, se describe a sí mismo en su sitio web como un “explorador de la Conciencia y un pionero de renombre mundial en medicina integrativa”. Es autor de decenas de libros, muchos de ellos récord de ventas, sobre temas que abarcan desde la espiritualidad y la salud hasta la física cuántica, y es una figura destacada del movimiento de meditación trascendental. Oprah Winfrey contribuyó a su presentación al público estadounidense, en la década de 1990.

El portavoz de Chopra no ha respondido a las solicitudes de comentarios de CNN.

En su publicación X a principios de este mes, Chopra dijo estar “profundamente entristecido por el sufrimiento de las víctimas de este caso”, y añadió: “Han salido a la luz algunos intercambios de correos electrónicos anteriores que reflejan un tono poco sensato. Lo lamento y comprendo su interpretación actual, dado lo que se conocía públicamente en aquel momento”.

Al ser contactado recientemente y pedirle que comentara sobre su relación con Epstein, Chopra respondió: “No hay conducta inapropiada”.

En al menos dos ocasiones, Chopra, quien ha estado casado durante décadas, invitó a Epstein a llevar a sus “chicas” de viaje.

“Si quieres usa un nombre falso. Trae a tus chicas”, le escribió Chopra a Epstein en un correo electrónico de 2017, en el que le pedía que fuera a Israel. Chopra agregó en una nota posterior: “A tus chicas les encantar