LOS ANGELES — Health officials are warning about the potentially deadly dangers of a synthetic kratom compound after it was linked to three recent fatal overdoses in Los Angeles County.

A compound known as 7-Hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, was ruled a contributing cause of death in three otherwise healthy adults between the ages 18 and 40, ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In a bid to stabilize struggling crude-oil refineries, state lawmakers on Saturday passed a last-minute bill that would allow the construction of 2,000 new oil wells annually in the San Joaquin Valley while further restricting drilling along California’s iconic coastline.

The measure, Senate Bill 237, was part of a ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State lawmakers on Friday advanced a plan that would allow California colleges to offer preferential admission to students who are descended from enslaved people, part of an ongoing effort by Democrats to address the legacy of slavery in the United States.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 7, would allow — but not require ...Read more

CHICAGO — She got to the base’s main gate at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, dressed in her Army boots and a red and black dress adorned with embroidered flowers, one of two identical dresses she and her daughter received from her aunt on a family trip to Guadalajara.

The boots, she said, were for confidence, the dress to symbolize her Mexican ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Maritza Arias-Galva was on her way home from the grocery store in Atlantic County on Thursday, eager to celebrate her own belated birthday party with her children on her day off work. She’d bought a small cake, balloons, and all she needed to cook pasta and shrimp, one of her 9-year-old daughter’s favorite meals.

But when ...Read more

BOSTON — Kelly Dever, a controversial witness in the Karen Read murder retrial who testified to having a “false memory,” has resigned from the Boston Police Department.

Dever’s resignation became effective on Sept. 1, according to a personnel order the department just released. The order does not detail the circumstances of the officer�...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Lawyers and advocates fear about 1,000 Central American children, including dozens in California, are at risk of being deported to dangerous situations in their home countries before finishing their immigration court proceedings.

They believe the U.S. government is now expanding their list of hundreds of children across the ...Read more

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is condemning the latest gang attack in Haiti, a brutal massacre in a fishing village north of Port-au-Prince that resulted in the deaths of at least 40 people, including a 4-year-old child and their grandmother.

The killings happened Thursday afternoon in Labordrie, a village located 20 miles ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The University of Minnesota’s outdoor firearms range in Rosemount has ended its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will stop making arrangements with all outside agencies to use it, starting in December.

The range, located on UMore Park land, has operated for 40 years as a site for law enforcement to ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — The National Hurricane Center on Saturday continued to give a tropical wave in the Atlantic a medium chance it would develop into the season’s next tropical depression or storm.

As of the NHC’s 8 p.m. tropical outlook, the wave was near the Cape Verde Islands in the far eastern Atlantic and producing a large area of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of a man believed to have fired a gun at officers during a chaotic immigration sweep at a Camarillo pot farm.

The federal law enforcement agency doubled its reward for a man who it said was apparently a protester at the ...Read more

On the edge of the town of Düren in Germany’s industrial heartland, roughly 200 people whistled and shouted at the occupants of Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Tesla cars as they streamed past toward the castle of Schloss Burgau.

Clad mainly in hoodies and flannels, the activists had come to disrupt a closed-door rally of the far-right Alternative ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — California has secured a court order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from barring immigrants living in the country illegally from accessing dozens of federally funded programs, including child care, health care and education services.

As part of the Trump administration’s proposed change, federally funded ...Read more

The Mexican government requested a “rigorous investigation” into the death of man in a Chicago suburb who was shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Friday after allegedly trying to flee arrest.

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed the request through its general consulate in the U.S. city, which confirmed on ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking Congress for an extra $58 million to bolster security for the executive and judicial branches following the fatal shooting of conservative figure Charlie Kirk, according to a White House official.

The request to include the extra funding in an upcoming stopgap bill comes ahead of a Sept. 30 ...Read more

France’s new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu dropped an unpopular proposal by his predecessor to cut two public holidays, while warning that the government will need to find other ways to trim its budget deficit.

Lecornu, appointed by President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday to replace Francois Bayrou who was ousted earlier this week after ...Read more

The Department of Justice is suing Uber for alleged discrimination against people with disabilities, accusing the company of “routinely” denying rides to passengers traveling with service animals and mobility devices like foldable wheelchairs.

The lawsuit, filed in Northern California district court, is seeking $125 million in compensation ...Read more

ATLANTA — As federal agents swarmed the Hyundai Metaplant campus near Savannah on Sept. 4, Daniela Rodriguez received a flurry of phone calls. On the other end of the line were frightened workers.

“They were like: ‘OK, I see people running. Should I run? Should I stay here?,’” said Rodriguez, who leads the Savannah-based group Migrant...Read more

DENVER — Two Evergreen High School parent groups raised concerns about the availability of school resource officers in the hours before Wednesday’s shooting that critically wounded two students, parents said Friday.

At a Tuesday night meeting of the Evergreen High School Parent Teacher Student Association, a parent questioned why Evergreen ...Read more

China launched two investigations targeting the U.S. semiconductor sector ahead of planned talks between the two nations on trade and other issues.

The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Saturday that it’s opened an anti-dumping probe relating to certain American-made analog IC chips, the sort of products sold by Texas Instruments ...Read more