LOS ANGELES — Two men linked to a Downey residence that authorities say was a smuggling hub for Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel faced sentencing this year before a federal judge.

One appeared last week in a Sacramento courtroom to learn his fate.

The other has been missing for months.

Julio Cesar Nevarez-Erunez, 24, was sentenced to nearly six...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The dreaded norovirus — the "vomiting bug" that often causes stomach flu symptoms — is climbing again in California, and doctors warn that a new subvariant could make even more people sick this season.

In L.A. County, concentrations of norovirus are already on the rise in wastewater, indicating increased circulation of the ...Read more

Tens of thousands of Hungarians took to the streets on Saturday as a video depicting abuse at a state-run juvenile facility added to pressure on Prime Minister Viktor Orban four months before elections.

Protesters marched from downtown Pest across the Danube to Buda castle where Orban and his ally President Tamas Sulyok have their offices. ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Air Pollution Control District’s (APCD) governing board voted unanimously Thursday to expand its air purifier distribution program for South County residents affected by cross-border pollution from the Tijuana River sewage crisis.

The board approved up to an additional $1 million for the Air Improvement ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — An Ecuadorian man was arrested Friday at a coffee shop in Brooklyn Park after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents summoned him to the parking lot in a ruse to get him outside.

The man was a cook at Crumbs & Coffee on Zane Avenue N.; his employer didn’t want to reveal his name.

Crumbs & Coffee co-owner Charles Spies ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Three people were pronounced dead on the scene after a Plymouth minivan sped through a red light in Panorama City, crashing into a Ford Mustang and a Honda Civic on Friday night, the Los Angeles police said.

The 30-year-old man driving a gray minivan was speeding while traveling westbound on Terra Bella Street at about 9:35pm, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Around 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday last month, two masked men approached a black Cadillac Escalade idling outside a Northridge apartment building.

One held a shotgun, the other a handgun. A surveillance system captured the sounds of what happened next: A gang challenge, confusion, a demand for property.

Then six shots and sounds of...Read more

CHICAGO — The gate around 7500 South Shore Drive sat open Thursday, the buzzer system needed to access the building unnecessary. The front door was open, plexiglass falling out of the metal frame, the only brace against the cold.

In Apartment 506, water stands on the wood floorboards. Tenant Alex Manning said it stems from the faulty radiator...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — Immigration and Customs Enforcement waited at the Boise Airport to pick someone up, two local lawyers told the Idaho Statesman. For two days this week, ICE agents were present at the Canyon County Courthouse, the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. And Meridian Police helped an arm of ICE with a car chase earlier this ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles City Councilman John Lee repeatedly violated the city's gift laws in 2016 and 2017, accepting freebies during a lavish trip to Las Vegas and at multiple restaurants in L.A., a judge said in a filing released Friday.

In a 59-page proposed decision, Administrative Law Judge Ji-Lan Zang concluded that Lee committed two ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Somali American college students are carrying passports and IDs to class as fear spreads across Twin Cities campuses amid intensified ICE activity and inflammatory political rhetoric.

While some colleges have issued guidance, others have stayed largely silent, leaving students to navigate safety through group chats, word-of-...Read more

Australia will ban supermarket price gouging from July 1 under a new law the government says would protect shoppers from excessive grocery prices charged by major retailers.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Minister for Competition Andrew Leigh said the changes would make it illegal for “very large” grocery chains to charge prices ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Federal immigration authorities say they have arrested more than 400 people in Minnesota this month, including several with long-standing deportation orders that were never carried out.

Some men arrested recently were ordered removed as far back as 2000 but continued living in the state for decades, according to a Department of ...Read more

A Tokyo-bound United Airlines Inc. flight carrying 275 passengers and 15 crew returned to Washington’s Dulles International Airport after an engine lost power shortly after takeoff, according to the airline.

No injuries were reported.

United Flight 803, a Boeing 777-200ER, returned safely to Dulles at about 1:20 p.m. Saturday after ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Nine former Department of Justice attorneys assigned to investigate alleged antisemitism at the University of California described chaotic and rushed directives from the Trump administration and told the Los Angeles Times they felt pressured to conclude that campuses had violated the civil rights of Jewish students and staff.

In...Read more

The U.S. and Mexico agreed to end a dispute over water at the border with Texas, days after President Donald Trump vowed to impose additional tariffs.

Both governments agreed that Mexico will deliver an additional 202,000 acre-feet of water beginning the week of Monday, Dec. 15 and finalize a broader distribution plan by the end of January, the...Read more

SAN DIEGO — Sitting next to her husband in their Rancho Peñasquitos home, Ukrainian mother Viktoriia Bulavina recalled Friday the tense moments she experienced being taken into immigration custody during a green card interview last week.

On Dec. 4, she was handcuffed in front of her husband, who is a U.S. citizen, and taken away by federal ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — An appeals court has upheld a two-week disciplinary suspension of Alex Jones’ lawyer for mishandling confidential medical records in the run-up to the 2022 trial at which families of Sandy Hook victims won a $1.4 billion defamation verdict against Jones and his companies.

The decision by the state Appellate Court Friday ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Fifteen new cases of measles have been reported in the Upstate since Tuesday, more schools have had infected students, 303 people are in quarantine and 13 in isolation, the South Carolina Department of Public Health reported Friday.

The total number of cases in South Carolina related to the Upstate outbreak is 126 and 129 ...Read more