Month: March 2023

CNN  —  Four US citizens were assaulted and kidnapped by gunmen in northeastern Mexico on Friday in a case of mistaken identity, a US official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. The Americans are believed to have been targeted by mistake and were not the intended victims, the official said. Investigators believe a Mexican cartel likely mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers, the official said, adding investigators have not identified any concerning criminal history on the part of the Americans. The Americans had traveled to the border city of Matamoros for medical procedures, the official said, citing receipts found in the vehicle. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered a similar explanation. ...

CNN  —  Thousands of sea lions have died in Peru amid an outbreak of bird flu, according to Peru’s National Service of Protected Areas by the State (SERNANP). Avian flu, also known as H5N1, has spread across multiple species in the country. An initial outbreak among birds was first reported in late November 2022 along the Peruvian coast. SERNANP has now reported at least 63,000 dead birds due to the virus, as well as a rising number of deaths in other species. At least 3,487 sea lions have been found dead due to the virus, according to the agency – over 3% of Peru’s sea lion population. It has also recorded five fur seal deaths linked to the bird flu. “What we remember initi...

CNN  —  A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Fort Lauderdale was forced to return to Havana, Cuba, on Sunday morning after reportedly experiencing bird strikes, the carrier says. In a statement to CNN Sunday, Southwest said the plane suffered bird strikes. “Southwest flight #3923 departing Havana, Cuba, for Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Sunday morning reportedly experienced bird strikes to an engine and the aircraft’s nose shortly after takeoff,” the statement said. “The pilots safely returned to Havana where customers evacuated the aircraft via slides due to the observation of smoke in the cabin.” Passengers and crew then took a bus to the terminal and arrangements were made for the flight to Fort Lauderdale, according to Sout...

CNN  —  Colombia plans to fly dozens of its “cocaine hippos” – the descendents of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar’s private menagerie – to new homes in India and Mexico in a bid to control their booming population, according to the local governor. There are now between 130 and 160 of the hippos, according to the Colombian government, and they have spread out far beyond Escobar’s former ranch of Hacienda Napoles, where they began as a population of just one male and three females. The original hippos were part of a collection of exotic animals Escobar had amassed in the 1980s at his ranch about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Medellín. After his death in 1993, authorities relocated most of the other animals, but not the hippos – because they ...

Sao Paulo CNN  —  This Saturday, as American conservatives flock to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, they’ll get a taste of just how far and wide their own ideas have spread. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will speak on the same stage where a few hours later former US leader Donald Trump will deliver the event’s closing remarks — a man the Brazilian leader has intentionally mirrored from the beginning of his presidency. Far from his home country, Bolsonaro has found a warm reception in America: on social media, mostly Brazilian fans post videos of meeting Bolsonaro outside his south Florida rental and running into him in parking lots, food courts, and grocery stores, where the former president appears in shorts...

Editor’s Note: The CNN film “Navalny” premiered in April 2022 and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary Feature. It is streaming on HBO Max, which is owned by CNN’s parent company. CNN  —  Dasha Navalnaya, the daughter of jailed Russian dissident Alexey Navalny, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine and to release her father and political prisoners in the country, in an extensive interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday. “We will not stop fighting” until both of those goals are achieved, Navalnaya said. Her father Navalny – an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and its war in Ukraine – is currently serving a nine-year jail term at a maximum-security prison east of Moscow after bei...

CNN  —  A pre-Hispanic mummy, estimated to be between 600 to 800 years old, was discovered in a food delivery cooler bag by Peruvian police over the weekend. Police told CNN that the mummified remains were found with three men who were drinking in a deserted park in the Peruvian city of Puno on Saturday afternoon. “A 26-year-old man had a delivery bag labeled ‘Pedidos Ya.’ Inside they found a mummy,” senior agent Marco Antonio Ortega, who is a spokesperson for Puno region’s National Police, told CNN. Pedidos Ya is a Latin American food delivery app. Images of the discovery showed the mummy in a fetal position inside the red delivery bag. The 26-year-old man, identified by...

CNN  —  Investigators are “anxiously awaiting” the results of the autopsy including toxicology report of former US swimmer Jamie Cail, according to a public information officer for the US Virgin Islands Police Department. Its “crucial” to be absolutely accurate, Glen Dratte, director of communications for the agency told CNN. Dratte said all deaths are looked into by the Criminal Investigations Bureau and the probe into the death of Cail, who swam for Team USA as a teenager, is a very fluid investigation. There are “a lot of moving parts” right now, he said. Cail died about seven days ago on St. John island. According to a police news release, her boyfriend, who was not identified, left a bar just after midnight to...

CNN  —  Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has dismissed concerns about his plan to shrink the country’s electoral watchdog on Monday, accusing protesters of links to drug traffickers. Images of a mass protest in Mexico City on Sunday showed tens of thousands of people wearing pink – the color of the National Electoral Institute (INE), which oversees elections and has been accused of partisanship by López Obrador. Many protesters held signs that read: “Hands off the INE.” Speaking during his daily morning press conference on Monday, López Obrador mocked the placards, saying what they meant was, “hands off corruption.” “According to them, privileges are not touched, the narco-state is not touched,” he ...

CNN  —  Former American swimming champion Jamie Cail has died in the US Virgin Islands, according to authorities who are investigating her death on the island of St. John. US Virgin Islands Police Department says Cail’s boyfriend, who was not identified, left a bar just after midnight to check on her last Tuesday when he found her on the floor of their home. The boyfriend and a friend got her into a vehicle and transported her to Myrah Keating-Smith Community Health Center where CPR was rendered, authorities said. Cail, 42, ultimately “succumbed to her ailment,” officials added, saying she had died on arrival. A cause of death has not been released. Cail won gold at the 1997 Pan Pacific Championships as a m...