
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum addresses fentanyl production following Trump's tariff threat
CBSN
Mexico isn't the sole source of fentanyl, its president said Tuesday at a news conference for the country's anti-drug campaign, just weeks after threats from President-elect Donald Trump to impose tariffs over drug trafficking.
"So far, we have not found that precursors arrive, because most of the precursors come from Asia, and that the whole process is manufactured here in Mexico," President Claudia Sheinbaum said. "The laboratories that have been dismantled in our country are mainly for methamphetamine or crystal (meth)."
Sheinbaum stressed that her government was committed to combating illegal drug distribution. In recent weeks, Mexican authorities have announced several major seizures of fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin — as well as chemical precursors. Officials said last month that the seizure of over a ton of fentanyl pills was the biggest in the country's history.

Russia has released Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian national who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason in August last year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media post early Thursday, offering no information about the terms of her release. The Wall Street Journal first reported Karelina's release, saying she was freed in a prisoner swap orchestrated by the two countries' intelligence agencies.

London — The British government's broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced Wednesday that it is investigating an online suicide forum reportedly linked to 50 deaths in the U.K. Ofcom said it was using new powers granted under British law to look into whether the site's service provider had "failed to put appropriate safety measures in place to protect its U.K. users from illegal content and activity."

Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo — Anthrax poisoning has killed about 50 hippos in Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, which is located in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, the head of the park told AFP on Tuesday. The toxin is caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, which survives for decades in soil where animals that died of anthrax or were carriers were buried. It is transmissible to humans and potentially fatal in its inhaled form.

Moscow — An appellate court in Russia's far east on Monday reduced the prison sentence for an American soldier convicted of stealing and making threats of murder, Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, flew to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok to see his girlfriend and was arrested in May 2024 after she accused him of stealing from her, according to U.S. officials and Russian authorities.