Mexican authorities warn of new deadly opioid
Mexican authorities warned of the spread of a powerful drug that could worsen the US overdose epidemic.
A public health agency said that nitazenes — a group of synthetic opioids thought to be up to 40 times more powerful than fentanyl — could be laced into drugs, with even trace amounts deadly.
More than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the US in 2023, with nearly 70% of the deaths attributed to opioids such as fentanyl.
Authorities both in the US and Mexico have struggled to halt production of fentanyl, with just 30kg (66lbs) needed to produce as many as 15 million lethal doses. Because of their potency, cracking down on nitazenes could be even more complex.
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Los Angeles Times
26 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Union leader faces federal charge of conspiracy to impede an officer during L.A. ICE raids
Federal authorities on Monday charged David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union California, in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede an officer for his alleged actions during an immigration enforcement raid last week. Huerta, 58, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. since Friday and is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court on Monday afternoon. He is facing a felony charge that carries up to six years in federal prison, according to the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Huerta was detained and injured while documenting a workplace immigration raid in downtown L.A. on Friday. He was treated at a hospital and transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center. Nine people tied to the protests have been charged federally, according to the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. Among them is Russell Gomez-Dzul, a Mexican national, who the White House said was arrested for assaulting a federal officer. Rallies are scheduled in more than a dozen cities across the U.S., including in L.A., by union members and other supporters demanding Huerta's release and an end to the workplace immigration raids. California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla sent a letter Monday to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice demanding a review of Huerta's arrest. The U.S. Atty. for Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, a staunch Trump ally and hard-line conservative who was appointed in April, last week posted a photo on X of Huerta, hands behind his back, following the arrest. Essayli accused Huerta of obstructing the access of federal authorities to a facility where they were conducting a search warrant. 'Let me be clear: I don't care who you are—if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted,' Essayli wrote on X. 'No one has the right to assault, obstruct, or interfere with federal authorities carrying out their duties.' The labor union said in a statement Friday that Huerta was detained 'while exercising his First Amendment right to observe and document law enforcement activity.' Schiff, who referred to Huerta as 'a very prominent union leader in Los Angeles, a very respected voice,' was waiting to attend the labor leader's hearing Monday. Schiff spoke with reporters in front of a building graffitied in expletives aimed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He said that Huerta was 'exercising his lawful right to be present and observe these immigration raids.' 'It's obviously a very traumatic thing, and now that it looks like the Justice Department wants to try and make an example out of him, it's all the more traumatic,' Schiff said, when asked how Huerta was doing. 'But this is part of the Trump playbook. They selectively use the Justice Department to go after their adversaries. It's what they do.' According to the criminal complaint, U.S. Magistrate Judge Margo A. Rocconi authorized search warrants Thursday for four business locations 'suspected of unlawfully employing illegal aliens and falsifying employment records related to the status of its employees'. In an affidavit filed with the federal complaint, a supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, whose name was redacted, said news quickly spread about 'ICE raids' taking place throughout L.A. According to the complaint, Huerta arrived at Ambiance Apparel in the downtown Los Angeles Fashion District before noon Friday, joining several other protesters. The company was one of the sites of a workplace raid. 'The protesters, including HUERTA appeared to be communicating with each other in a concerted effort to disrupt the law enforcement operations,' the agent wrote. The agent wrote that Huerta was yelling at and taunting officers and later sat cross-legged in front of a vehicle gate to the location where law enforcement authorities were serving a search warrant. 'In addition to sitting in front of the gate, HUERTA at various times stood up and paced in front of the gate, effectively preventing law enforcement vehicles from entering or exiting the premises through the gate to execute the search warrant,' the agent wrote in the affidavit. 'As far as I was aware, this gate was the only location through which vehicles could enter or exit the premises.' The agent wrote that they told Huerta that, if he kept blocking the Ambiance gate, he would be arrested. Huerta responded that he couldn't hear the agent through his mask, according to the affidavit. Huerta used a curse word, the agent wrote. According to the complaint, as a white law enforcement van tried to get through the gate, Huerta stood in its path. Because Huerta 'was being uncooperative, the officer put his hands on HUERTA in an attempt to move him out of the path of the vehicle.' 'I saw HUERTA push back, and in response, the officer pushed HUERTA to the ground,' the agent wrote. 'The officer and I then handcuffed HUERTA and arrested him.' Huerta on Friday released a statement through his union, saying: 'What happened to me is not about me; This is about something much bigger. 'This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that's happening. Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice. And we all have to stand on the right side of justice.' Ahead of the Monday afternoon hearing, Huerta's cousin, Marta Gonzales, said she was there to represent the family. 'We're all heartbroken. We have family all over the world,' she said. 'Everyone's been watching.' Gonzales called Huerta 'a giant in our family.' 'This is so unjust,' she said. Asked about the protests over the weekend, she said she wondered if Huerta 'was the spark for a lot of it. It just angered so many people.'
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mexican flag becomes L.A. protest symbol: What to know
The green, white and red-striped flag of Mexico has become an emerging symbol of resistance in ongoing protests that erupted in Los Angeles over the weekend against the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Photos and videos of Mexican flag-carrying protesters demonstrating amid fires and law enforcement in tactical gear have circulated online and in traditional media, drawing the ire of key members of President Trump's administration. One prominent image shows a masked Mexican flag bearer on a dirt bike riding circles around a burning car. 'Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers, while one half of America's political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil,' Vice President Vance wrote on the social media platform X on Saturday. Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and immigration hardliner, posted multiple images on social media Sunday of protesters waving Mexican flags and also described the L.A. disruption as an 'insurrection.' 'What is the correct term to describe foreign nationals, waving foreign flags, rioting and obstructing federal law enforcement attempting to expel illegal foreign invaders?' Miller wrote in one X post. 'Look at all the foreign flags. Los Angeles is occupied territory,' he added in another. Thousands of people took to the streets of L.A., a Democratic stronghold with a large immigrant population, to protest federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workplace raids that started with about 40 arrests in the city Friday as part of Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. Trump deployed 2,000 National Guardsmen over the weekend to quell California's growing protests. The troops are scheduled to remain in L.A. for 60 days or until Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calls them off, the White House said, and hundreds of Marines could be deployed as backup in the coming days. The president wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday that he had directed officials in his administration to 'take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.' 'Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free,' he added. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) blamed Trump's troop deployment for the 'chaotic escalation' of tensions between law enforcement officers and protesters that erupted Sunday, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said his state will sue the federal government for deploying soldiers over his objections. Past immigration protests have urged demonstrators to carry American flags to symbolize their support for American values. But the images of Mexican flags, flags from other Latin American countries and modified Mexican flags that also feature the American flag have taken center stage in the L.A. protests and have become a frequent point of rebuke among Trump's allies. Arizona Republic columnist Phil Boas warned in an article earlier this year that Mexican flag-waving protesters could be doing a disservice to their cause. 'I understand the energy and enthusiasm of youth, but cooler heads in the Latino community in Phoenix and Los Angeles might want to stage an intervention with their young protesters,' Boas wrote when anti-ICE protests erupted shortly after Trump returned to the White House in January. 'It may feel good to wave a Mexican flag in MAGA's face, but you are not appreciating what a turn-off that is to many Americans who are not MAGA.' Others have countered that the sight of other countries flags at immigration protests is a common unifying act, though. 'Waving a foreign flag at protests is good trouble — a sign for the brave to rally together and stand tall against a commander in chief who understands nothing but chaos,' Gustavo Arellano, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, wrote in February. Mexican leaders acknowledged in a news conference on Monday that 42 Mexicans — 37 men and five women — had been detained in the L.A. ICE raids on Friday. Four were deported, they said. 'We will continue our visits to monitor the Mexicans in detention centers in Los Angeles,' Mexico Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente said. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned violence at the protests but didn't call on demonstrators to stand down. 'We call on the Mexican community to act peacefully and not fall for provocations,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump didn't stop an insurrection in LA. He started it long ago
President Trump has been itching to 'have troops everywhere' on American soil and is using immigrants to execute his plan. The Los Angeles immigration protests aren't an isolated incident but rather the eruption of Trump's carefully calibrated plot to incite anger and violence, which he can then exploit to militarize American streets. Authorities fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters over the weekend, and the images couldn't have played better for Trump. He immediately began framing the narrative as an insurrection that needed militarization to quash. Though many of the protests were peaceful, some protesters threw rocks at officers, set Waymo driverless taxis on fire, and yes, even dared to wave the Mexican flag during those intense moments. Trump seized on the war-zone-like selective imagery replayed by the press and social media users to deploy National Guard troops, a rare move but one that the president had been itching to use. Let's talk about how we got here and why this is Trump's calculated plot from the get-go, framing Mexicans as criminals and rapists. That anti-Mexican and border-hawk sentiment grew into dehumanizing foreigners as 'animals' and 'vermin' that are 'poisoning our blood.' This kind of rhetoric isn't just vile, it's an effective tool to get Americans angry and even egg on the use of federal troops to crack down on perceived enemies on U.S. soil. For months, Trump's border hawks have carefully choreographed media stunts of immigration agents arresting deportable migrants — those already with deportation orders. But those stunts hardly produced the millions of deportations that Trump promised to get reelected. To increase that number, Trump ended the protected status of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and set traps for those showing up to immigration court hearings. Want to arrest and deport criminals? Fair game. But trapping migrants as if it was some sort of hunting sport is despicable. The strategy is to drop migrants' cases while ICE agents wait for them outside the courtroom. They then arrest them and fast-track their deportation. I've been exasperated at the lack of coordinated response to this entrapment. There's nothing American about deploying masked men in full military gear to split defenseless families — men, women and children handcuffed for following the law and showing up in court as required. Only an idiot would be surprised to see the eruption in Los Angeles. Opinion: Democrats 'demand' answers on immigrant arrests. Kristi Noem chuckles I'll never promote violence. Nobody should. But in this case, I understand the anger and frustration. California authorities can handle the street protests, and if they don't, then it's their duty to ask for federal help. None of that happened. Trump arbitrarily invoked a U.S. Code on Armed Services to send the National Guard, bypassing the governor's authority. That code is used as a last resort if 'there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.' There's no rebellion underway in Los Angeles. It's a protest against Trump's cruel immigration crackdown — and yes, it has turned violent. Want to talk about a rebellion? Then MAGA must also condemn Trump's own rebellion against the U.S. capitol in 2021, when he attempted to overturn election results and stay in power by force. That was a deadly direct attack against the U.S. government, not a street protest against policy. Taking to the streets to protest injustices is at the core of American principles. Without it, we don't have a country. Elvia Díaz is editorial page editor for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Reach her at 602-444-8606 or Follow her on X, (formerly Twitter), @elviadiaz1. Like this column? Get more opinions in your email inbox by signing up for our free opinions newsletter, which publishes Monday through Friday. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump uses LA protests to demonize immigrants, militarize US | Opinion
