A network of illegal drug sellers based in the U.S., the Dominican Republic and India packaged potentially deadly synthetic opioids into pills disguised as common prescription drugs and sold millions of them through fake online drugstores, federal prosecutors said Monday. At least nine people died of narcotics poisoning between August 2023 and June 2024 after … Read more
MEXICO CITY — Riding in a black SUV with tinted windows, lawyer Mariel Colón rolls up to the gates of a remote mansion, strolling past a security guard side-by-side with Emma Coronel, the wife of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Sporting suits and sunglasses, the pair stride into a dimly lit room full … Read more
LOS ANGELES — In 2019, Brandon McDowell was contacted by a sophomore in college who asked to buy Percocet, a prescription painkiller. What the 20-year-old sold her instead were counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that can be lethal in a dose as small as 2 milligrams. Hours later, Alexandra Capelouto, also … Read more
NEW YORK — For 10 months, rumblings, lawsuits, law enforcement raids and mounting allegations of widespread sexual abuse had surrounded Sean “Diddy Combs. The business empire, cultural cachet and fatherly image he had cultivated in the decades since he became a hot young hip-hop mogul in the 1990s had begun to erode. On Tuesday, those … Read more
Sean “Diddy” Combs, the disgraced hip-hop mogul, faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in an indictment that was unsealed Tuesday. He was arrested Monday in New York after being indicted by a federal grand jury. The arrest and indictment come after a months-long sex trafficking investigation and 10 months after a flurry of women … Read more
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs is due in court Tuesday on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. An indictment says the music mogul “engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals.” Combs was arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities … Read more
PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon’s first-in-the-nation experiment with drug decriminalization is coming to an end Sunday, when possessing small amounts of hard drugs will once again become a crime. The Democratic-controlled Legislature passed the recriminalization law in March, overhauling a measure approved by 58% of voters in 2020 that made possessing illicit drugs like heroin punishable … Read more
BISMARCK, N.D. — Organizers of a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana in North Dakota submitted petition signatures on Monday, likely setting up another statewide vote on the issue that voters and state lawmakers have previously defeated. The New Economic Frontier measure group submitted more than 22,000 signatures, sponsoring committee chairman Steve Bakken said. The … Read more
BANGKOK — East and Southeast Asia are awash in record amounts of methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in a new report Tuesday. It traced their source largely to the cross-border region known as the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet. The region is historically known … Read more
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a bill that would make it a crime to possess two abortion-inducing drugs without a prescription, a move that doctors fear could prevent them from adequately treating their patients in a timely manner. Under the bill, which aims to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol, pregnant patients would … Read more
