Mexico Overrun By Coeds, Cartels

You've got your salt and lime, your tanning oil, and sixteen of your BFFs. What could possibly stop Spring Break '09 from being the BEST SPRING BREAK EVERRRR? Actually, drug cartels in Mexico! If you thought West Philly was dangerous, you should see the South of the Border stats: over 6,000 drug-related murders in 2008 alone. As the Times reports, when former C.I.A. director George J. Tenet heard about the upswing in violence, he had his son cancel plans for a tequila-trip this year and "an e-mail message disclosing the Tenet family’s decision [made] the rounds at the University of Pennsylvania and other colleges in recent weeks."

"I was going to cancel,” said Ashley Knight-Greenfield, who is staying in a villa in Acapulco with 17 other women from the University of Pennsylvania. “I was so scared, but I had my doubts, too. If it was true, why wouldn’t everyone know about it?”

Read the full story - plus Ashley's security strategies! - at the New York Times website.