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Shops and cars were set ablaze, allegedlyby cartel members. Tourists and residents cowered in fear.

The Mexican military killedNemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known by his nickname "El Mencho,"the head of the New Generation drug cartel, Sunday in a shoot-out 180 miles east of Puerto Vallarta, in the same state of Jalisco. Mexico had a $15 million reward for his capture.

A day after the violence broke out, streets are deserted Monday as locals and tourists heed remain-in-place orders. Schools in several states canceled classes,The Associated Press reported.

Burned-out shells of vehicles remained on the streets, while damaged stores were heavily scorched from flames, videos showed.

"We saw the taxicabs all blown up and blocking the streets and people running down and towards us," Jim Beck, an American tourist who sheltered in his Puerto Vallarta hotel, told NBC's "TODAY" show. "After this morning was the first time we actually felt fear."

Marcus Brady, a Chicago resident currently in Puerto Vallarta, shared videos of the violence with NBC News. He said he thought the cartel's intent was to send a message to the Mexican government and American and Canadian tourists that, "If we want to, we will take complete control of everything and everyone here, no one can stop us."

He said the violence happened in two waves starting early Sunday morning. First, a few cars were set on fire on the main road and bridges in and out of the Zona Romántica area of Puerto Vallarta, he said, with much of that taking place in an area behind foothills.

"When those fires were going out, everyone thought it was over. I know I did. So many of us thought it OK to venture out and I decided to walk down to the boardwalk, through the zone," Brady said.

But the second wave was the worst, targeted inside the zone, he said. Brady said he mistook buses and taxis positioned at intersections as barricades to prevent violence, but they had been put there by the cartel during the night. "And when the second wave started, they coordinated setting them on fire, so it would last all day. The intention was to terrify," he said.

A video from KXAS in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, showed several cars in the parking lot of a Costco set ablaze.

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Yoni Pizer told NBC Chicago that he, his husband and friends had to run for their lives to escape what he said were members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Puerto Vallarta.

"The gunmen were following us and they were shooting," Pizer said. "And they were attacking cars and pulling out drivers. At that point, we just ran as fast as we could." His SUV was torched, but a passerby helped them get away.

Video on social media from Sunday showed sirens blaring andpassengers and workers runningthrough the airport in Puerto Vallarta. It was unclear why the sirens went off or why people were running. Images showed a long line ofpeople hiding behind ticket counters.

Road closures affected some travelers' ability to get to airports, according to U.S. and Mexican embassy and consulate officials.

Steven Polito, a drag performer who divides his time between New York City and Puerto Vallarta, said in an essay forBusiness Insiderthat he was struck by how "unusually quiet it was" when he went to gym at 8:30 a.m. Sunday.

"When I left around 10:00 a.m., it was a very different scene," Polito said. "Everyday life was juxtaposed against horrendous property againsthorrendous property damage. There was an older woman sweeping leaves in the street, while burned-out car after burned-out car was in flames."

Over at the Guadalajara International Airport, officials saidthe violence in the nearby cities did not affect theiroperations. It said social media reports did not reflect what was happening at the airport.

But the violence was not confined to Puerto Vallarta.

Jalisco's capital, Guadalajara, appeared deserted Sunday night as civilians hunkered down. Authorities later announced they had cleared most of the more than 250 cartel roadblocks across 20 states.

Omar Casillas was running a half marathon, about to cross the finish line when things became chaotic. He began getting texts from his family telling him to "barricade the door, pack all your stuff, be ready to leave if you need to, if you have the chance to," NBC Chicago reported.

Casillas' flight out of Guadalajara's airport was canceled.

Avideo posted onlineshows a customs booth in Reynosa, Mexico, about 5 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, filled with flames and smoke.

The person was taken to a hospital, officials said.

The FBI said the shots were fired around 1 a.m. Sunday in Pittsburg, a town of about 800 people at the border with Canada. The agency did not provide a name of the suspect, but said the person was receiving medical attention at a hospital.

The Border Patrol agent, whom the FBI also did not name, was unharmed, an agency spokesperson said.

Pittsburg is a rural community that is home to the state's sole border crossing with the Canadian province of Quebec.

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The shots were fired near the port of entry, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said. The FBI's Boston field office will be investigating the shooting along with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of New Hampshire, authorities said.

"Initial reports indicate that the subject opened fire on the agent at which time the agent returned fire," Scott said in a statement. "CBP is cooperating fully with investigators."

Officials with the FBI, CBP and U.S. Attorney's Office declined to provide more detail on the suspect or the circumstances that led to the exchange of gunfire. The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement that information would be released if charges are brought against the person.

Pittsburg is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of the state capital of Concord. The town borders Maine and Vermont as well as Canada. The shooting took place near a usually quiet crossing in the only town in New Hampshire that borders Canada. That international border stretches for close to 60 miles (97 kilometers).

Whittle reported from Scarborough, Maine.

The cartel produced a similar nationwide show of force in 2015, even using a rocket propelled grenade to shoot down a Mexican army helicopter, after the Mexican military tried to capture Oseguera Cervantes, more commonly known as "El Mencho."

In 2019, the rival Sinaloa Cartel waged war on the Mexican government when it tried to arrest one of the sons of its leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

"If past is prologue, what we've seen is that there will be at least a week, maybe more, of these sort of violent reprisals by the cartels. And then things will turn inward," Anthony Placido, former head of intelligence for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told USA TODAY.

After Mexican officials announced a powerful Mexican cartel leader was killed during a military operation on Sunday, several regions of the country are grappling with ongoing security risks and unrest.
Police officers secure the area where vehicles were set on fire by organized crime members to block a road following a military operation in which a government source said Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, commonly known as "El Mencho," was killed, in Zapopan, Mexico, Feb. 22, 2026.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> Mexican Army personnel stand guard as passengers leave Guadalajara International Airport in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco State, Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2026.

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Photos show Mexico unrest after cartel leader 'El Mencho' killed

After Mexican officials announced apowerful Mexican cartel leaderwas killed during a military operation on Sunday, several regions of the country are grappling withongoing security risks and unrest.Police officers secure the area where vehicles were set on fire by organized crime members to block a road following a military operation in which a government source said Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, commonly known as "El Mencho," was killed, in Zapopan, Mexico, Feb. 22, 2026.

Already, criminal violence has engulfed parts of Mexico after troops killed Oseguera Cervantes in a Feb. 22 shootout in the cartel's stronghold in the western coastal state of Jalisco.

The cartel's response was immediate, spreading outward from Jalisco and plunging much of Mexico into chaos and violence. CJNG soldiers set cars, buses and businesses on fire and blockaded roads inviolence that spreadto 20 states. Mexican authorities said at least 62 people were killed, including 25 National Guard members, and 70 were arrested.

But as bad as things are in Mexico following Oseguera Cervantes' death, CJNG appears to have stopped short of unleashing anything close to the kind of violence it has shown it is capable of in the past.

U.S. counternarcotics officials have said in recent years the cartel has amassed so much firepower that it resembles more of asmall nation state's armythan a transnational crime syndicate.

The question now, experts say, is whether CJNG will de-escalate the sporadic violence and regroup, or ramp up its attacks on the Mexican government, the public and rival cartels fighting over the lucrative trafficking of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs into the United States.

Experts say the cartel will likely train its sophisticated arsenal of weapons on its rivals in an effort to get back to its main business − earning billions of dollars in annual drug revenue as what the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officially calls "one of thefive most dangerous criminal organizationsin the world."

'Nothing they do is going to bring Mencho back'

Most analysts say CJNG will regroup and focus on maintaining the global dominance over the drug trade that it has long shared with the rival Sinaloa cartel.

"Nothing they do is going to bring Mencho back," Placido said. "And so the most important thing for them is who's going to take over the cartel, and are the Sinaloa guys going to try and take their territory?"

"I don't have a crystal ball," Placido said. "But I would think that instead of these big public manifestations where they're burning vehicles and doing all kinds of stuff to protest against the government, they're going to rapidly become involved in sort of inter-cartel violence and warfare. And that will be more targeted."

In the short term, CNJG certainly has the capacity to wreak much more lethal violence on the Mexican government and the public – including American tourists who have been told to shelter in place.

Some past demonstrations of force by CJNG have included mass arson campaigns known as "narcobloqueos," even more simultaneous roadblocks across multiple states than it has currently – and high-profile assassination attempts.

A 'messy aftermath' before a cartel gets back to business

In an assessment Feb. 23, Mexico-based International Crisis Group analyst David Mora wrote that "claiming a top criminal scalp will not spare the government from a messy aftermath."

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institution expert on nonstate armed groups including CJNG, said the current violence echoes that which followed the Mexican government'sattempt to capture Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of El Chapo, in its stronghold of Culiacán in 2019.

Within hours, heavily armed Sinaloa forces paralyzed the city,directly assaulted the militaryand forced the government to release him.

In the current case, Felbab-Brown told USA TODAY, the current violence is essentially CJNG's way of showing its capabilities, essentially an act of "retaliatory, demonstrative violence against the state."

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"They are saying, 'Hey Mexican government, we are punishing you. We are responding. You killed our leader. This is showing you what we can do,'" Felbab-Brown said.

"It's pretty enormous in geographic scope and scale," she said. "But it will die off in a matter of time."

That could take just a few days, or a few weeks, she said.

"And once this immediate violence settles, then the question is, what kind of other violence will break out within factions of CJNG and between them and their rivals?" Felbab-Brown said. "And that violence will be far more complicated and far more lasting."

What happened after El Chapo's capture

Once the initial explosion of publicly directed violence dies down, what happens next depends on a number of factors.

El Mencho left no clear heir, Mora said, and the remaining leaders could dispute control.

If CJNG doesn't quickly appoint a successor and close ranks, infighting among rival factions within it could consume the organization, Placido said.

That was the case after the capture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of the rival Sinaloa cartel a decade ago.

Since then, Sinaloa has been wracked by infighting and internal power struggles between the sons of "El Chapo" – known as the "Chapitos" – and factions loyal to Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who is now in U.S. custody too.

Much of that violence is cartel-on-cartel though, and would not paralyze huge swaths of Mexico – and its important tourist industry – like the current situation, Placido and Felbab-Brown said.

In the case of CJNG, taking out El Mencho could slow his own cartel's rapid expansion within Mexico and internationally. But it is also likely to leave it weakened against the Sinaloa cartel on several fronts that could lead to bloody turf battles throughout Mexico and even in the United States, they said.

A less likely but still possible scenario: all-out war

A less likely scenario is that CJNG will launch a longterm war against the Mexican government to avenge the death of its longtime leader.

Over the past half century, Mexican drug cartels and criminal gangs haveengaged in protracted skirmishesover its sporadic counternarcotics crackdowns. Colombian cartels did the same thing in the 1990s with car bombs, assassinations and attacks on the military.

If that happens, CNJG is capable of inflicting significant damage, given its arsenal of heavy weapons,many of them obtained from U.S. gun manufacturers,according to a USA TODAY investigation.

Most analysts predict that won't be the case because CJNG, like Sinaloa and other cartels before it, would prefer a détente with the government that allows it to focus on its global business operations.

"In many ways, it's just a waste of resources. El Mencho is dead, so there is nothing to bargain for" like there was after the arrest of El Chapo's son, Felbab-Brown said.

Some public violence is needed, she said, "to show how fearless they are, how they can act with more brazenness, more brutality, more violence than anyone" in order to keep Mexican authorities at bay.

But in the end, Placido said, "It's all about the money. It's always been about the money."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mexico faces 'more complicated violence' after 'El Mencho' death

Tight endKyle Pittsand wide receiverGeorge Pickensare the major prizes of free agency on offense. Teams besides theAtlanta FalconsandDallas Cowboys, respectively, could be out of luck for negotiating with them.

Atlanta is reportedly using the franchise tag on Pitts andCowboysco-ownerStephen Jones inferred that was likelyfor Pickens as well.

"I wouldn't put any timeframe (on a contract)," Jonestold reporters. "Once you have a tag, you have a tag. We know George is going to be here."

The franchise tag is a tool teams can use to prevent one player per year from reaching free agency. The tag is a one-year, fully guaranteed contract calculated using other salaries at the position.

It prevents the player from securing a longer-term deal from another team at the cost of a fully guaranteed salary.

Non-quarterbacks rarely play a season with the franchise tag. Instead, it's often used as a tool to keep the player at the negotiating table for their original team for longer. Jones' quote points to the Cowboys using the franchise tag to keep Pickens in the building to iron out a contract before the start of 2026. If not, he'll play the season on that one-year deal.

Here's what it means for the rest of free agency at their positions if Pickens and Pitts aren't free to negotiate league-wide:

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WR free agency without George Pickens

Pickens is by far the top wide receiver available in this free-agent class. Second-team All-Pro wide receivers rarely are available - especially ones who haven't hit their second contract yet. That's why the Cowboys are motivated to keep him in-house.

If Pickens stays with Dallas, that moves all of the other free agents up a spot in the rankings and with it likely a bump in pay.

Fellow 2022 draftees Alec Pierce and Rashid Shaheed will become the top free agents at wide receiver. Both offer excellent speed on the outside and Shaheed's a dynamic threat in the return game. Jauan Jennings offers a more possession-based skillset but could get a bump in salary with Pickens off the market as well.

Here's the top 10 free agent wide receivers by projected average annual value (AAV) of their future contracts after Pickens, perSpotrac:

1. Jauan Jennings, San Francisco 49ers: $22.61 million

2. Alec Pierce, Indianapolis Colts: $20.24 million

3. Wan'dale Robinson, New York Giants: $17.64 million

4. Deebo Samuel, Washington Commanders: $15.77 million

5. Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins: $15.07 million

6. Rashid Shaheed, Seattle Seahawks: $14.12 million

7. Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: $13.31 million

8. Romeo Doubs, Green Bay Packers: $12.00 million

9. Keenan Allen, Los Angeles Chargers: $6.81 million

10. Hollywood Brown, Kansas City Chiefs: $5.5 million

TE free agency without Kyle Pitts

Pitts has draft pedigree as the No. 4 overall pick in the2021 NFL Draft, as well as recent production with his second-team All-Pro award in 2025.

Like Pickens, there's a mix of options beyond him at the position, either veterans or second-contract players. Teams will have to decide if they value more youth or production at the position with handing out money in this free-agent cycle. Without Pitts, there's a chance the other players have a chance to make more money but the overall tight end market isn't on the same level as wide receiver. Teams aren't as willing to spend big on the position in the same way.

Here's a look at the top 10 free agents at the position without Pitts, per Spotrac projected AAV:

1. Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs: $10.77 million

2. David Njoku, Cleveland Browns: $9.99 million

3. Isaiah Likely, Baltimore Ravens: $8.81 million

4. Chig Okonkwo, Tennessee Titans: $7.96 million

5. Cade Otton, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: $7.91 million

6. Dallas Goedert, Philadelphia Eagles: $6.00 million

7. Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams: $5.35 million

8. Tyler Conklin, Los Angeles Chargers: $3.33 million

9. Noah Fant, Cincinnati Bengals: $3.22 million

10. Darren Waller, Miami Dolphins: $3.21 million

All the NFL news on and off the field.Sign up for USA TODAY's 4th and Monday newsletter. Check out the latest edition:Top 100 free agents for 2026.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Pitts, Pickens franchise tags' impact on NFL free agency at WR and TE

In a statement, a USA hockey spokesperson said the team was grateful for the invite, but had "previously scheduled academic and professional commitments," per NBC News.

"We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal–winning U.S. Women's Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement," a USA Hockey spokesperson said. "Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate."

"They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment," the spokesperson added.

Trump drew some criticism Sunday after video emerged of him congratulating the men's hockey team for also winning the gold medal at the 2026 Olympics. Toward the end of the call, Trump laughed as he told players, "We'regoing to have to bring the women's team, you do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached." That comment drew laughs from players in the locker room.

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FBI director Kash Patel also drew criticism forflying to Italy and celebrating with the men's hockey team. He was the one who called Trump following Team USA's win.

While Trump chuckled about the suggestion on the phone, the invite was ultimately extended to the women's team. And the women's team opted to decline.

The women took home the gold medal last Thursday,defeating Canada in overtime 2-1. The women's team trailed late in the contest before Hilary Knight deflected the puck into the goal with roughly two minutes to play. Megan Keller then pulled off a tremendous move on a defender before scoring the game-winning goal in overtime to give Team USA the win. It wound up beingthe most-watched women's hockey game of all time.

Three days later, the men defeated Canada in overtime 2-1 in eerily similar fashion. With the contest tied 1-1, Jack Hughes scored in overtime togive the men the walk-off, gold-medal win. It marked the first time since the "Miracle on Ice" team that the U.S. men took home gold in hockey at the Olympics.