TAMPA, Fla. – Five years ago, a diminutive teenage girl with striking brown eyes stood shackled and weeping in a Tampa courtroom.

Jennifer Carvajal admitted she was drunk early one morning a few weeks shy of her 17th birthday. She admitted that she’d blown through a red light and slammed into another car, killing the driver. She admitted ...Read more

BRAZILIA, Brazil — It began with the elderly. When an Amazonian variant appeared, a broader range of Brazilians started dying. Then those in their 40s, 30s and even 20s succumbed. Now, in an even more chilling development — with possibly global implications — COVID-19 is killing pregnant and post-partum Brazilians, leaving newborn orphans....Read more

WASHINGTON — Biolyse Pharma Corp., which makes a cancer medication, was gearing up to start making generic biologic drugs, made from living organisms. Then the pandemic hit.

Watching the COVID-19 death toll climb, the company decided its new production lines and equipment could be converted to making vaccines for poorer countries without the ...Read more

PUNE, India — Pinakin Tendulkar's gated apartment complex — with its yoga garden and jogging path — insulates middle-class families from the pollution, desperation and chaos that permeate the lives of India's urban poor.

Class distinctions are harshly drawn in this nation, but when a ferocious second wave of COVID-19 swept through this ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Southern California air quality officials have adopted first-of-their-kind rules on warehouse distribution centers in an effort to cut truck pollution, increase electrification and reduce health risks in communities hit hardest by lung-damaging diesel exhaust.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s governing board ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The final word on whether former President Donald Trump can live at his Mar-a-Lago estate is out, and some of his neighbors in Palm Beach won’t like it.

Some of Trump’s neighbors alleged that the former president is in violation of a 1993 agreement with the town that limits how many days members of the Mar-a-Lago ...Read more

Five years ago, California became one of the first states in the nation to enact a so-called red flag gun law, allowing family members and police officers to ask a court to block those believed to be a risk to themselves or others from having firearms. Now, as other legislatures weigh adopting similar laws, state officials said Friday that a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s Justice Department got telephone records and attempted to get the email records of three Washington Post reporters who were looking into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the newspaper reported on Friday.

The three reporters, Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Adam Entous, who now ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Most of the nearly $10 billion that the Trump administration diverted from the armed services to build barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border will never be seen again, Pentagon and congressional officials confirmed Friday.

That includes some of the money diverted from military construction funds and all the money former President ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — Mexican federal authorities seized illegal marijuana from a tunnel discovered Thursday in a Nueva Tijuana home located across the border from Otay Mesa in San Diego.

The unfinished tunnel — which Mexican federal officials said was meant for smugglers to bring drugs into San Diego from Mexico — was being constructed no more ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Vans announced Friday that its co-founder Paul Van Doren has died at the age of 90.

"It's with a heavy heart that Vans announces the passing of our co-founder, Paul Van Doren," a Twitter post said. "Paul was not just an entrepreneur; he was an innovator. We send our love and strength to the Van Doren family and the countless ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City’s federal jails are run by “morons,” a furious judge declared at a recent sentencing, saying the U.S. Attorney General himself should be aware of the “disgusting, inhuman” conditions at the lockups.

Manhattan Federal Judge Colleen McMahon said incompetence by the Justice Department and its Bureau of Prisons ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is conducting a “full review” of reports from across the U.S. government on cases of “Havana syndrome,” a set of unexplained medical conditions that have afflicted U.S. personnel since 2016, the White House said Friday.

The cases have occurred among U.S. personnel across several agencies, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — An Irvine man was arrested on fraud charges this week after authorities say he used $5 million in pandemic relief loans to buy luxury sports cars, take lavish vacations and cover his personal expenses.

Mustafa Qadiri, 38, submitted bogus applications for federal loans under the Paycheck Protection Program on behalf of four ...Read more

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — A 13-year-old boy was found beaten, soaked in urine and tethered to a metal step stool, with a blanket over his head at his home in Pompano Beach, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.

Jennifer Elaine Foran, 39, called her husband at work Monday night and told him to come home because of an emergency. He arrived about 9:...Read more

WASHINGTON — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sharply criticized U.S. aid to a group in his country hours before he met virtually on Friday with Vice President Kamala Harris, underscoring the difficulty of her mission to get his help with immigration issues.

Lopez Obrador singled out America’s funding for a non-governmental ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — In the wake of a rash of alarming hate crimes nationwide, more Californians are acknowledging that Asian Americans experience discrimination, and an overwhelming majority of Asian Americans report that they fear becoming victims of hate-based violence, a new survey says.

The California Community Poll, which surveys ...Read more

NEW YORK — Two months ago, Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer offered to bring his client in for questioning by Manhattan federal prosecutors, provided they made clear what subjects they would bring up.

No deal, responded Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos. He repeated what the team had been saying since they began investigating the activities of the...Read more