Mexico has extradited 29 alleged drug cartel members to the United States – including high-profile gang leaders.

Those extradited include notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero who has been wanted by the US for the murder of an American agent 40 years ago.

The move – considered to be of the biggest extraditions in Mexico's history – is seen as a major step in bilateral security relations between the two countries.

It comes after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico earlier this year, accusing it of failing to tackle drug trafficking and mass migration.

"As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs," US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Thursday night.

"We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honour of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers – and in some cases, given their lives – to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels," she added.

Reacting to Caro Quintero's extradition DEA Acting Administrator Derek Maltz hailed the move as a "victory for the Camarena family".

He added: "Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable.

"No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you."

Quintero is expected to appear in court in New York on Friday.

Other fugitives extradited include the founders of the brutal Zetas Cartel - Miguel Angel Treviño and his brother Omar Treviño.

Known as Z-40 and Z-42 respectively, the two men ran the feared organisation for years before its eventual demise in the mid 2010s.

Miguel Treviño, who was arrested by Mexican marines in July 2013, was wanted on both sides of the border for ordering massacres and running drugs on a global scale.

Omar Treviño - who was wanted in the US and Mexico on charges of drug trafficking, kidnap and murder - was captured by security forces in Monterrey in March 2015.

Their criminal empire spanned a wide range of illicit activities including cocaine-smuggling, people trafficking, extortion, gun-running and kidnappings.

Police in Webb County, Texas, confirmed the brother's extradition and warned Americans from crossing into Mexico for fear of reprisals.

Among the other prominent figures included in the extradition are former Juarez Cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Andrew Clark, a Canadian citizen accused by US authorities of being part of a massive US and Canada drug smuggling ring that was allegedly run by former Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding.

According to the justice department, six of the 29 detainees could be subject to the federal death penalty, which the Trump administration restored on the first day of his administration.

The agreement marks a significant departure for the Mexican government, which has historically resisted extraditing its citizens if they might face capital punishment.

Catholics gathered to pray for the health of the Pope beneath the steps of St Peter's Basilica for a third night, as his doctors said his condition showed further slight improvement.

Nuns dangling rosary beads, tourists and student priests were among those who joined the gentle incantation of the rosary in the Vatican.

They were led by a cardinal in a scarlet skull cap who prayed for Pope Francis to be able to resume his duties as soon as possible.

The nightly gatherings began on Monday after the 88-year-old's health took a dramatic dip at the weekend. He was fighting to breathe and needed blood transfusions.

But the latest statements suggest the Pope is able to sit in his chair, is eating normally and even doing what the Vatican calls "light work": reading and signing documents.

"It was a bit scary last weekend but a bit better now," Stacey, a medical student from Paris, told the BBC.

She was attending the prayers for the Pope for a second time.

"Francis is very popular with young people because he's really open, and in a world that became a little scary, he gives us a lot of hope."

Xiomara, from Panama, said she felt drawn to this Pope in particular as he was "a good man".

"Prayers always help, they don't just hang in the air," she believes.

Leading the rosary from beneath a white canopy was Cardinal Battista Re.

He's the figure in the Vatican who would call a conclave - the closed gathering of senior clergy that elects a Pope - if Francis were not able to continue in the role.

Despite the slight improvement, the Pope's medical team are still giving no prognosis.

He was admitted to Gemelli hospital on 14 February with double-pneumonia and, according to the Vatican, a CT scan of his lungs shows a "normal evolution" which suggests he is responding to treatment.

We're told he still uses additional oxygen but has suffered no further "respiratory crises".

The tone of Vatican officials has certainly relaxed a little.

On Tuesday, the Pope's condition was described as "stable", which was new. By Wednesday evening there was a "further slight improvement" and the update omitted to say "critical" for the first time.

Vatican officials cautioned that didn't mean the Pope was out of the woods.

But with so little to go on, those following his condition closely are wringing every word - or missing word - for meaning.

Inevitably, many have also been wondering about the future.

The Pope was frail even before this infection, so there has been speculation over whether he might resign.

The Quotidiano Nazionale newspaper calls it the "fluttering of crows" over St Peter's, inevitable at the "sunset" of any Papacy.

It's even louder this time since Benedict XVI set a precedent and stepped down in 2013, the first Pope to do so in six centuries.

Francis has said before that he would consider resigning if he can't carry out his duties.

"His instinct will be to carry on as long as he can and is able to," believes Austen Ivereigh, who co-authored a book with Pope Francis.

"He's shown he doesn't mind being a weak and frail Pope; he can be a Pope in a wheelchair, or one who gets ill regularly and that's ok."

All the same, if his health prognosis were too bad, the author said, "then the [resignation] issue might arise."

Even with Francis confined to the Gemelli hospital, the well-oiled Vatican cogs continue to turn. The bureaucracy functions and the Pope has been signing some documents.

On Monday, his secretary of state and another senior official visited.

Officially, the Pope signed papers, moving a list of candidates further along the path towards sainthood.

But some question why they couldn't wait, given the frailty of the Pope, and wonder what other plans were discussed at that meeting.

As Francis enters his 14th day in hospital, pilgrims to Rome are already experiencing life without him. His weekly audience, or meeting, with the faithful was cancelled for the second week.

"We really want him to get better and continue the amazing work he's started," said Mabi.

She mentions the foregrounding of women in the church in particular.

"He's a people's Pope and people want his work to continue."

"We're sorry, because we hoped to meet the Pope today at an audience – we had tickets," Fr Cristiano said.

Around him almost 100 Catholics from northern Italy were gathering to begin processing up the street towards St Peter's behind a large wooden crucifix.

"I'm not disappointed, I'm just worried for him," the priest said. "Today the news is not so bad, but it's not so good, either. So we need to pray."

US President Donald Trump says he will revoke a license which allowed Venezuela to export some of its oil to the US despite sanctions.

The move is a major blow to the Venezuelan government as the license provided it, through joint ventures between the state-run oil company and US oil giant Chevron, with a crucial income in dollars.

Trump said he was revoking the licence - which gave Chevron permission to operate in Venezuela - because the government of Nicolás Maduro had failed to meet "electoral conditions" and had not transported "violent criminals" deported from the US at a quick enough pace.

Venezuela called the decision "damaging" and said it could increase migration to the US.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, writing that he was "hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022".

He did not clarify which concessions he was referring to, but the only licence related to Venezuela granted that day was the one issued by the US treasury authorising Chevron to "resume limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela".

The licence allowed Chevron to operate joint ventures with Venezuela's state-controlled oil company PDVSA, but barred the US company from paying "any taxes or royalties to the Government of Venezuela".

Chevron's spokesman Bill Turenne said in a statement on Wednesday that "Chevron conducts its business in Venezuela in compliance with all laws and regulations, including the sanctions framework provided by US government".

In a recent interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth argued that if Chevron was forced to pull out of Venezuela, it would allow companies from China and Russia to increase their presence and influence there.

He also warned that Venezuela's economy could suffer more if Chevron left the country, which could drive further migration to the US.

The Venezuelan opposition, on the other hand, has in the past argued for the licence to be revoked, arguing that it provides the Maduro government with "a financial lifeline".

The licence was granted in 2022 by the Biden Administration in an attempt to entice the Maduro government to allow free and fair elections.

It remained in place even after Venezuela's government-aligned electoral council declared Maduro the winner of the presidential election in July 2024 - a result which has been refuted by the opposition and by a number of countries, including the US, which have recognised Maduro's rival as the legitimate winner instead.

President Trump's announcement came less than a month after his envoy, Richard Grenell, met with Nicolás Maduro in Caracas.

During his visit, Grenell secured the release of six US citizens who had been held in Venezuela, as well as a deal under which the Maduro government sent planes to the US to fetch deported Venezuelans.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said "the regime has not been transporting the violent criminals that they sent into our Country (the Good Ole' U.S.A.) back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to".

He added he was "therefore ordering that the ineffective and unmet Biden 'Concession Agreement' be terminated" as of 1 March.

Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez warned that US sanctions had in the past led to an increase of Venezuelans migrating to the US and that this was likely to happen again.

Stopping undocumented migration has been one of Trump's main priorities since taking office.

The announcement had a swift effect on oil prices, which rose more than 1% on Thursday.

More than eight million households across Chile were left without power on Tuesday afternoon after an electricity transmission line failed, cutting off the electricity supply to much of the country.

In the capital, Santiago, the entire underground train system was suspended almost immediately. Thousands of people had to be evacuated and stations were plunged into darkness.

"We were like sardines in the dark," one passenger described the moment their underground train stalled.

Many of those who had been in lifts inside the stations when the power cut happened had to be freed by firefighters.

One woman in her 70s was trapped in a lift between two floors in a building in Santiago.

She told local media that she had "kicked the door" of the lift to draw attention to her plight and her screams eventually alerted the concierge.

"I'm brave, I told myself 'I'm not going to die here'," she said.

Videos shared on social media also showed metro passengers using their mobile phones' flashlights to find their way out of dark stations.

According to Metro de Santiago, the evacuation of the underground was completed 90 minutes after the power cut - but disruption caused by the outage carried on for many more hours.

The 150 extra buses deployed to ferry passengers were not nearly enough to make up for the suspension of the metro, which transports an average of 2.3m passengers every day.

Long queues formed at bus stops, where passengers grew increasingly angry when packed buses did not stop.

Their numbers soon swelled with workers sent home early because most offices were paralysed by the lack of electricity.

"The power went out at 3:00pm, so we had no power at all," one shopkeeper in Santiago said. "People started closing up at around 4 or 5pm."

Traffic in the capital was further disrupted by the failure of several traffic lights.

A truck collided with a car at one crossing where the traffic lights were out and there were reports of at least one other accident also caused by the lack of functioning traffic lights.

With the gridlock getting worse, thousands of people were forced to walk to their destinations in summer temperatures of around 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit).

One of them, Sharon Ortiz, a 28-year-old waitress, told AFP news agency that the public transport system had "collapsed".

"I got to work two hours late, I got stuck in the middle of the Costanera [shopping centre] and from there I had to walk," she said.

Some people hitched lifts on the back of trucks.

Restaurants and cafes were among the businesses affected by the power cut.

Some remained open to offer those walking home a place to rest, but many closed because cash machines, card machines and fridges were not working.

Some of the most dramatic scenes unfolded in Fantasilandia, an amusement park in Santiago, where at least a dozen people were stuck on top of a rollercoaster.

Fantasilandia's manager said that while the park had backup generators, the attractions would not immediately restart for security reasons.

Hospitals relied on emergency generators for power.