MEXICO CITY — The Mexican army killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho, ” on Sunday, decapitating what had become Mexico’s most powerful cartel and giving the government its biggest prize yet to show the Trump administration its efforts.

Oseguera Cervantes was wounded in an operation to capture him Sunday in Tapalpa, Jalisco about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara and he died while being flown to Mexico City, the Defense Department said in a statement. The state is the base of the cartel known for trafficking huge quantities of fentanyl and other drugs to the United States.

During the operation, troops came under fire and killed four people at the location. Three more people, including Oseguera Cervantes, were wounded and later died, the statement said. Two others were arrested and armored vehicles, rocket launchers and other arms were seized. Three members of the armed forces were wounded and receiving medical treatment.

The killing of the powerful drug lord set off several hours of roadblocks with burning vehicles in Jalisco and other states. Such tactics are commonly used by the cartels to block military operations. Jalisco canceled school in the state for Monday.

Videos circulating on social media showed plumes of smoke billowing over the tourist city of Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco, and people sprinting through the airport of the state’s capital in panic. On Sunday afternoon, Air Canada announced it was suspending flights to Puerto Vallarta “due to an ongoing security situation” and advised customers not to go to their airport.

In Guadalajara, the state capital, burning vehicles blocked roads. Mexico’s second-largest city is scheduled to host matches during this summer’s soccer World Cup.

The U.S. State Department warned U.S. citizens in Jalisco, Tamaulipas, Michoacan, Guerrero and Nuevo Leon states to remain in safe places due to the ongoing security operations. Canada’s embassy in Mexico warned its citizens in Puerto Vallarta to shelter in place and generally to keep a low profile in Jalisco.

Jalisco Gov. Pablo Lemus told residents to stay at home and suspended public transportation.

The U.S. State Department had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of El Mencho. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known as CJNG, is one of the most powerful and fastest growing criminal organizations in Mexico and was born in 2009.

In February, the Trump administration designated the cartel as a foreign terrorist organization.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, like her predecessor, has criticized the “kingpin” strategy of previous administrations that took out cartel leaders only to trigger explosions of violence as cartels fractured. While she has remained popular in Mexico, security is a persistent concern and since U.S. President Donald Trump took office a year ago, she has been under tremendous pressure to show results against drug trafficking.

The Jalisco cartel has been one of the most aggressive cartels in its attacks on the military — including on helicopters — and is a pioneer in launching explosives from drones and installing mines. In 2020, it carried out a spectacular assassination attempt with grenades and high-powered rifles in the heart of Mexico City against the then head of the capital’s police force and now federal security secretary.

The DEA considers the cartel to be as powerful as the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s most infamous criminal groups, with a presence in all 50 U.S. states. It is one of the main suppliers of cocaine to the U.S. market and, like the Sinaloa cartel, earns billions from the production of fentanyl and methamphetamines. Sinaloa, however, has been weakened by infighting after the loss of its leaders Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, both in U.S. custody.

Oseguera Cervantes, 59, was originally from Aguililla in the neighboring state of Michoacan. He had been significantly involved in drug trafficking activities since the 1990s. When he was younger, he migrated to the U.S. where he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute heroin in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in 1994 and served nearly three years in prison.

Following his release from custody, Oseguera Cervantes returned to Mexico and reengaged in drug trafficking activity with drug lord Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, alias “Nacho Coronel.” After Villarreal’s death, Oseguera Cervantes and Erik Valencia Salazar, alias “El 85”, created the Jalisco New Generation Cartel around 2007.

Initially, they worked for the Sinaloa Cartel, but eventually split and for years the two cartels have battled for territory across Mexico.

Since 2017, Oseguera Cervantes has been indicted several times in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

The most recent superseding indictment, filed on April 5, 2022, charges Oseguera Cervantes with conspiracy and distribution of controlled substances (methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl) for the purpose of illegal importation into the United States and use of firearms during and in connection with drug trafficking offenses. Oseguera Cervantes is also charged under the Drug Kingpin Enforcement Act for directing a continuing criminal enterprise.

Last year, people searching for missing relatives founds piles of shoes and other clothing, as well as bone fragments at what authorities later said was a Jalisco cartel recruitment and training site.

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AP writer María Verza contributed to this report.

Forty-six years to the day since the U.S. men’s hockey team paved the way to Olympic gold with a miracle victory, Team USA earned gold again, this time with a sudden-death stunner.

Jack Hughes scored 1 minute, 41 seconds into overtime, firing the puck between the legs of goaltender Jordan Binnington to beat Canada 2-1 in overtime.

“This is all about our country right now. I love the USA,” Hughes told NBC after the game. “I love my teammates.”

It marked only the third time the U.S. men won Olympic gold, following wins in 1960 and the “Miracle on Ice” team that shocked the Soviet Union on Feb. 22, 1980, then later went on to beat Finland in the gold-medal game.

More Olympics coverage:

• A celebration of ‘Beauty in Action’: After weeks of competition, the Milan Cortina Olympics closed with a ceremony inside the Verona Arena, a Roman amphitheater and UNESCO World Heritage site. Check it all out here.

• Goepper avoids major injury: U.S. freeskier Nick Goepper said he suffered only a sprained knee and a bone bruise after a scary fall in the halfpipe finals at the Winter Olympics.

Law enforcement shot and killed armed man trying to enter Mar-a-Lago, Secret Service says

U.S. Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed a man who entered the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago with “what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can,” the Secret Service announced Sunday.

Two law enforcement sources identified the suspect to NBC News as Austin Tucker Martin, a 21-year-old North Carolina man.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said two Secret Service agents went to investigate after the security detail detected that someone entered the Florida club’s perimeter.

“They confronted a white male that was carrying a gas can and a shotgun,” Bradshaw said. “He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position.”

No law enforcement officers were injured, the Secret Service said. President Donald Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago during the incident.

Politics in brief

• A TSA reversal: TSA PreCheck will remain operational for now, a spokesperson for the agency said, reversing earlier indications that the Department of Homeland Security’s expedited screening program would be suspended amid the department’s funding lapse.
• Editing intelligence: CIA Director John Ratcliffe said that he was directing the agency to retract or substantively edit 19 intelligence reports for “bias” after a review by a Trump-appointed board.

• Debanking saga: JPMorgan Chase acknowledged for the first time that it closed Trump’s bank accounts in the political and legal aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.

Northeast braces for historic blizzard, with up to 2 feet of snow expected in some areas

Roughly 35 million people were under blizzard warnings from Maryland to New Hampshire as a powerful winter storm threatened to bring up to 2 feet of snow and strong winds to parts of the region.

The strongest part of the storm was expected to come during the evening and overnight hours into Monday, with the possibility of 2 to 4 inches of snowfall per hour and 50 to 70 mph wind gusts.

Several school districts, including those in New York City and Boston, announced schools will be closed.

This is the first blizzard warning issued for New York City since 2017 and for Philadelphia since 2016. The last time all of New Jersey was under a blizzard warning was in 1996, while the last time all of Delaware was under a blizzard warning was 2010.

Trump says he will raise new global tariff to 15% after Supreme Court setback

President Donald Trump said he was hiking his newly announced global tariff to 15%, less than a day after announcing a 10% worldwide duty.

Trump is implementing the new levy under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which is different from the law under which the prior tariffs were ruled illegal.

Under this law, the tariffs can last for up to 150 days, after which Congress may have to take action to extend them. It’s unclear whether the administration could immediately restart the duty with another executive order after they expire.

More coverage:

• Global uncertainty, again: U.S. allies across Europe voiced alarm and frustration over the latest move in the president’s frequently evolving tariff threats.
• Pulling no punches: Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch took aim at his colleagues for a lack of consistency in approaching broad assertions of presidential power made by Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
• Revoked presidential backing: Trump withdrew his endorsement of Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd of Colorado, who has been critical of the president’s tariff policies.

They watched ‘Heated Rivalry.’ Then they were overcome with desire to hit the ice.

More than half a dozen of the country’s largest LGBTQ hockey leagues said they’ve seen interest from both fans and prospective players spike over the last three months since the success of “Heated Rivalry.”

The show — centered around a romance between two rival pro hockey players — came at a fraught cultural moment for the sport. Multiple National Hockey League teams have recently stopped hosting Pride nights, or face backlash when they do.

Some players in queer leagues said they hope the series will help bring their decadeslong fight to improve the sport they love into the public sphere.

“There’s always work to be done,” said Joey Gale, vice president and co-founder of the Seattle Pride Hockey Association. “But because of all of this new momentum, it feels like we’ve gotten a new spark of energy.”

Notable quote

For the grandson of the inventor of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, all it took was one bite of a Valentine’s Day Reese’s Mini Hearts to leave him heartbroken. Hershey’s, which makes the beloved butter cups and seasonal spinoffs like mini-hearts, had replaced the milk chocolate with a chocolate-flavored coating.

In case you missed it

• Authorities investigating the possible abduction of Nancy Guthrie are exploring the possibility of using genetic genealogy, which relies on traditional genealogical research and modern DNA analysis to unravel unsolved crimes and cases of unidentified human remains.
• Crews recovered the bodies of all nine skiers killed in the Lake Tahoe avalanche. Among the deceased were six close friends and three guides.
• Rondale Moore, an NFL receiver who had season-ending training camp knee injuries in each of the last two years, was found dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound at 25.
• Musician Willie Colón, one of the most iconic figures in salsa and the Nuyorican salsa movement, died at 75.
• Bill Mazeroski, the Hall of Fame second baseman who hit one of the most memorable home runs in baseball history, died at 89.
• NASA’s new moon rocket suffered another setback, putting next month’s planned launch with astronauts in jeopardy.
• Netflix released a posthumous interview with Eric Dane as part of its “Famous Last Words” series after his death from ALS.

The Milan Cortina Olympics ended Sunday with a closing ceremony inside Verona Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheater that sits roughly mid-distance between the far-flung mountain, valley and city venues that made these the most spread-out Winter Games in Olympic history.

The 2½-hour ceremony celebrated Italian music and dance, both classic and contemporary, headlining internationally acclaimed ballet dancer Roberto Bolle along with popular Italian singer Achille Lauro and DJ Gabry Ponte.

Some 1,500 Olympians, a bit over half those who competed in the Games, paraded into the monument built in the first century for gladiator fights and exotic animal hunts.

They entered en masse behind a pair of flag bearers from each of the 92 participating nations, including biathlete Lisa Vittozzi and speedskater Davide Ghiotto for host Italy, and hockey player Hilary Knight and ice dancer Evan Bates for the United States – all gold medal winners.

The United States fielded its biggest Winter Olympics team ever for the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, with 232 athletes competing, and broke the record for Team USA’s most gold medals at a single Winter Games. The U.S. was one of only two nations to compete in all 16 sport disciplines, along with host Italy, according to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

“These Games showcased the very best of Team USA: resilience, unity and a relentless pursuit of excellence,” said USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland said in a statement. “Our athletes delivered a truly historic performance, earning a Team USA-record 12 gold medals and creating moments that will inspire the next generation … That momentum now carries us forward as we look ahead to Los Angeles in 2028, where we’re excited to build on this legacy and welcome the world to our home soil.” 

Some 12,000 spectators joined the athletes and officials for the closing ceremony. It was much more intimate than the opening ceremony, which starred Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli inside Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, attended by more than 60,000 people.

The ceremony celebrated Italian lyric opera, which has been recognized by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO as a global treasure, but also pay tribute to contemporary Italian classics. Both opera and dance are at home in the stone amphitheater, which each summer hosts a popular opera festival with lavish productions and the gala dance performance titled Roberto Bolle and Friends.

Part of the ceremony included a somber remembrance of athletes who have died, although the commemoration, filled with butterfly imagery, did not identify specific athletes. 

Earlier in the 2026 Winter Games, the International Olympic Committee kept Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych out of competition after he refused a last-minute plea from the IOC for him not to use a helmet that honors athletes killed in Russia’s war on his country. The helmet goes against a rule about making political statements on the Olympic field of play, according to the IOC. 

“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry told reporters at the time, according to the Reuters news agency. The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play.”

This was the first Games for Coventry, a two-time Olympic champion in swimming, who oversaw the ceremony alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

One of the key moments of the ceremony is when the Olympic flag is handed over to the next Winter Games host nation, France, and its flag is raised next to Italy’s and Greece’s.

The Milan Cortina Games spanned an area of 8,500 square mile, from ice sports in Milan to biathlon in Anterselva on the Austrian border, snowboarding and men’s downhill in Valtellina on the Swiss border, cross-country skiing in the Val di Fiemme north of Verona and women’s downhill, curling and sliding sports in co-host Cortina d’Ampezzo.

It’s a model that will remain for future Games, to avoid the expense of building new facilities. The 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps will stage events in the Alps and Nice, on the Mediterranean Sea, while speedskating will be held abroad in a venue to be decided.

The closing ceremony concluded with the Olympic flames being extinguished at the unprecedented two cauldrons in Milan and Cortina, to be viewed via video link. A light show will substitute fireworks, which are not allowed in Verona, to protect animals from being disturbed.

A total of 116 medal events have been held in eight Olympic sports across 16 disciplines, including the debut of ski mountaineering this year, over the course of 17 days of competition.

The Milan Cortina Paralympics’ opening ceremony will also take place in the Verona Arena, on March 6, and the Games will run until March 15.