Anybody Have Mexico Vacation Plans in the Near Future?
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Within hours of the killing of Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, better known as El Mencho, in a military raid on Feb 22, gunmen suspected to be his supporters blocked highways across several states and set cars and businesses ablaze.
In some towns, tourists and residents were urged to stay indoors, while truckers were advised to take safe routes or return to their depots until the violence abated.
Several airlines, including Air Canada, United Airlines and Aeromexico, on Feb 22 cancelled flights to Puerto Vallarta, a beachside resort town where stunned tourists filmed plumes of smoke rising into the sky from fires.
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We were in Puerto Vallarta maybe 12 years ago or so. Janet wanted to go into town so despite my concerns we went. Even then there was a sense of unease among the locals, like being in a very bad neighborhood.
I do think Mexico and other Latin American states will have to go through this if they ever hope to not be narco-states. It's also the key to our immigration problems.
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Close friends of ours winter in a little town about 40 minute drive south of Manzanilla. Spoke to them yesterday afternoon. The town is quiet but it is in a virtual lock down - stores, restaurants, bars and beaches are all closed. Streets are empty. Locals take this very seriously.
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For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Mexico will host matches in three cities: Mexico City (Estadio Azteca), Monterrey (Estadio BBVA), and Guadalajara (Estadio Akron). Estadio Azteca will host the opening match on June 11, 2026, marking the third time it has hosted a World Cup opener.
i betcha the folks at FIFA are beginning to have some second thoughts....
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I have to admit my ignorant and say that I had never heard before of El Mencho. I had heard of other drug kingpins, but never him.
I suppose maybe he was a bit more "low key" than the others.
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Well, we should see some cheap Mexican vacations, at least.
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It was a typical quiet Sunday morning in the Pacific coast city of Puerto Vallarta—until the gunfire rang out.
Jim Vawter, a 76-year-old Iowan who is one of thousands of American retirees living in Puerto Vallarta, was lounging with a coffee at the Bean and Brick cafe when a commotion erupted at 9 a.m. in the street outside.
“I heard a couple gunshots,” he said. “And then we started hearing sirens.”
The Bean and Brick quickly closed, and Vawter stepped outside and into the middle of chaos. Gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel were on a rampage in a violent response to the Mexican military’s killing of their chieftain, Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera.
The cartel is considered the country’s most powerful organized crime group, one that doesn’t shy away from conspicuous violence to send a message. And on Sunday, its gunmen shattered the peace in Mexico’s premier Pacific beach destination, among the wealthiest places in Jalisco state.
American retirees normally spend the day walking the boardwalk or enjoying the cafes and restaurants in the Zona Romantica. On Sunday, they were huddling at home, peeking out of their windows at the unfolding violence.
The city of 600,000, with its white stucco buildings and palm-lined streets, looked something like a war zone. Plumes of black smoke billowed into the sky. Police and firefighters raced to emergencies. The burning hulks of cars littered streets.
“It was full of vehicles on fire, just about everywhere you would look,” said Vawter, who took pictures and video.
Then Vawter saw motorcycles—two men per bike, the one in the rear toting semiautomatic weapons—stopping one vehicle after another and forcing people out. Buses and cars had to brake under threat of being shot.
“They would immediately set them on fire and take off,” said Vawter, who had worked for a Midwest electric utility before settling in Puerto Vallarta. “It was swarmed with motorcycle riders. All the vehicles that were moving were stopped.”
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https://www.ft.com/content/82012a4c-2cfa-49f2-b833-11632c78761fMexico’s military intelligence followed a girlfriend of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera to locate the cartel kingpin, who then died after a shootout with his security detail, officials said.
Defence minister General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said on Monday that authorities, relying on a mix of Mexican and US intelligence, had located “a trusted associate of one of El Mencho’s romantic partners” on Saturday, who then took her to a building in Tapalpa, Jalisco state.
“There, this partner met with El Mencho, and on February 21 she left the premises,” Trevilla added. “Information was obtained indicating that El Mencho remained at the location, surrounded by a security detail. The operation was planned that same day.”
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Polymarket’s been around long enough that we should have an idea of its accuracy. What % of the time does a thing happen when polymarket claims it has an x% chance of happening?
Would need confidence intervals to really make sense of that statistic. If it takes a million predictions to average out to accuracy, any individual one wouldn’t mean much.
