MINNEAPOLIS — A powerful animal sedative is slowly making its way into Minnesota’s illicit fentanyl supply, creating the potential to complicate overdose treatment and prompting warnings from health and drug officials.

The drug, medetomidine, sometimes referred to as “rhino tranq,” “mede,” or “dex,” is not approved for human use...Read more

A quarter millennium after its founding, the United States faces a stark choice that will define its future.

In the years ahead, the country can continue to follow the path blazed by President Donald Trump, who is attempting to bring states under the authority of a more powerful federal government led by him. Or it can move in a different ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — As a fast-moving fire chewed dry brush dangerously close to homes in Sorrento Valley last month, the sighting of a small drone flying in the airspace forced all firefighting aircraft to immediately leave the area.

San Diego police were able to find the person they believed to be flying the drone and get it to land, Sgt. Nicholas ...Read more

MIAMI — The warm and inviting living room of the Rosales family’s Kendall West home is decorated with intricately hand-painted egg shell dioramas. In a back bedroom, piles of old photo albums document the family matriarch’s youth in Cuba before she immigrated to Miami in the 1960s. A 1963 LIFE Magazine profile of Fidel Castro is buried in ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A top informal adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is working as a crisis communications consultant for Lineage Logistics, the company whose cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights erupted in flames last month, inundating the surrounding neighborhood with toxic smoke and the odor of rotting food.

Yusef Robb, who runs the ...Read more

NEW YORK — The FDNY and the New York Police Department are coordinating on an investigation of last month’s massive fire at a historic Brooklyn church as an arson incident, FDNY sources said Saturday.

A person of interest was seen fleeing from the South Bushwick Reformed Church moments before the blaze broke out on June 19 around 1:20 p.m. ...Read more

The European Union is developing a “solidarity instrument” to support companies that diversify critical supplies away from China and cushion the effect of any retaliation by Beijing in the event of a trade conflict.

The tool will come at a price, though, and would require funding, just as member states haggle over the bloc’s next ...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. defense contractors including Lockheed Martin Corp. have every interest to let Ukraine manufacture Patriot missile interceptors after President Donald Trump pledged the U.S. would grant a license for the weapons system, a senior Republican lawmaker said.

“I think it’s in their best interest to do so for many factors,” ...Read more

NEW YORK — The gang member accused of fatally stabbing a Columbia University teaching assistant during a series of apparently random attacks in Morningside Heights and Central Park has pleaded guilty to the 2021 stabbing spree, officials from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office confirmed Saturday.

Vincent Pinkney, 30, pleaded ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A former Redlands deputy police chief topped California's public payroll in 2025, taking home $1.26 million in total compensation — more than the combined salaries of the mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, state compensation data show.

According to the state controller's office, the former deputy chief ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — After giving birth to her first child, Jennifer O’Mara sought therapy for postpartum depression.

But when O’Mara left her Delaware County home to visit her in-laws in North Carolina, her counselor had to cancel a virtual session because she wasn’t licensed to practice outside of Pennsylvania.

“My therapist had always ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The federal government is being accused of withholding a key report that could shed light on whether the United States needs to build nuclear weapons factories in South Carolina and New Mexico.

Four environmental groups are calling for the release of the study that examines the life span of plutonium pits, the central cores ...Read more

The U.S. launched its third round of strikes on Iran this week as Tehran declared that it’s closing the Strait of Hormuz “until further notice.”

U.S. Central Command said that President Donald Trump ordered the fresh strikes, which targeted Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels, after Iranian forces attacked a Cyprus-flagged ...Read more

From missiles and uranium to critical minerals and sports diplomacy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a three-nation tour to deepen India’s Indo-Pacific partnerships as regional powers strengthen ties amid China’s growing influence and uncertainty over U.S. engagement.

In recent weeks, Modi has stepped up engagement across the Indo-Pacific...Read more

Marine Le Pen extended her lead in a voter preference poll ahead of next April’s French presidential election after appeal judges cleared her to enter the race for a fourth time by shortening a previous ban on her standing.

The far-right National Rally candidate would get between 34% and 35.5% of the vote in the first round if it were to take...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After a late lunch with his wife in West Hollywood, Miguel Angel Aguilar got in his white convertible 1959 Chevrolet Impala and headed home to Bel-Air. He didn't notice the gray Acura sedan that tailed him through rush-hour traffic on Sunset Boulevard.

In the Acura were four young men who'd driven from Oakland to Los Angeles in ...Read more

SEATTLE — Federal regulators will force the removal of toxic, highly corrosive chemicals from a defunct and leaking pulp mill along the Chehalis River, officials confirmed this week.

Either Richard Bassett, the U.K. businessman who owns Cosmo Specialty Fibers, must start removing vast quantities of these chemicals from the site this month or ...Read more

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s top legislative leaders and Gov. Josh Shapiro have reached a $50.8 billion budget deal, more than a week after a new state budget was due at the start of the fiscal year, according to two sources briefed on the closed-door conversations.

Details of the contents of the overall budget deal were not immediately...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia-area Democrats criticized President Donald Trump’s recent promotion of Freedom Fuel gas stations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as an effort to fool people about the high price of fuel rather than a long-term solution to the problem.

“This appears to be a PR stunt of some sort, which is designed to distract ...Read more