BERWICK, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state police say a man who was upset about an argument with his mother drove through a crowd at a fundraiser for victims of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fires-pennsylvania-7bda761e6c6930b5681e32095725e3b0">a recent deadly house fire,</a>&nbsp;killing one person at the event and injuring 17 others, then returned home and beat his mother to death.

Police identified the driver as 24-year-old Adrian Oswaldo Sura Reyes of Nescopeck, who was arraigned early Sunday on two counts of criminal homicide.

Police allege in a criminal complaint that Sura Reyes said he argued with his mother at their Nescopeck home Saturday evening and while driving through nearby Berwick was “extremely frustrated” and was “tired of fighting with his mother, including about money, and wanted to be done with it.”

At the time, police said, a crowd of about 75 people, including adults and small children, had gathered in a blocked-off parking lot in Berwick outside the Intoxicology Department bar, which was holding an all-day fundraising event to benefit victims of the Aug. 5 blaze in Nescopeck that killed seven adults and three children.

Police say Sura Reyes told them he drove past the gathering, then turned around and headed back to the bar “to drive through the crowd of people." Investigators asked how fast he drove into the crowd and Sura Reyes replied “speeding up.”

“Video surveillance gathered by the Pennsylvania State Police corroborates Sura Reyes's statement that he sped up into the crowd purposefully,” according to the criminal complaint.

Geisinger Medical Center said it received 15 patients after the crash, and five remained in critical condition while three were listed in fair condition, a hospital spokesperson said Sunday morning. Seven patients had been treated at hospitals and released.

Trooper Anthony Petroski III told reporters late Saturday that Sura Reyes was not currently a suspect in the fire, the cause of which remains under investigation.

“This is a complete tragedy in a community where there’s already been tragedy,” Petroski said.

Shortly after the crash was reported, troopers were called about a man “physically assaulting" a woman less than two miles away in Nescopeck. Troopers arrived to find local police had arrested Sura Reyes and a woman was dead.

Luzerne County Coroner Francis Hacken confirmed Sunday that the victim, Rosa D. Reyes, 56, of Nescopeck, was the mother of Sura Reyes and had died of multiple traumatic injuries after being hit by a vehicle and assaulted with a hammer.

In the criminal complaint, police say Sura Reyes told investigators he saw his mother in the street upon returning home and struck her with his vehicle, then hit her with a hammer several times.

Sura Reyes was denied bail and remained in Columbia County prison pending an Aug. 29 preliminary hearing. News outlets reported that he said “Sorry" in response to reporters' questions as he was taken from Shickshinny police station. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had a lawyer to comment on his behalf.

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fires-pennsylvania-8e0ccb10158a4d599a6eb71679b7ffcc">The first funerals for victims of the fire were held Friday</a>, and more were scheduled for Sunday and Monday.

The bar called the events an “absolute tragedy” and said on its Facebook page that they will be closed until further notice and would like privacy “while we grieve add try to process the events that occurred.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/8/1565275830792.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSBERWICK, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state police say a man who was upset about an argument with his mother drove through a crowd at a fundraiser for victims of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fires-pennsylvania-7bda761e6c6930b5681e32095725e3b0">a recent deadly house fire,</a>&nbsp;killing one person at the event and injuring 17 others, then returned home and beat his mother to death.Police identified the driver as 24-year-old Adrian Oswaldo Sura Reyes of Nescopeck, who was arraigned early Sunday on two counts of criminal homicide.Police allege in a criminal complaint that Sura Reyes said he argued with his mother at their Nescopeck home Saturday evening and while driving through nearby Berwick was “extremely frustrated” and was “tired of fighting with his mother, including about money, and wanted to be done with it.”At the time, police said, a crowd of about 75 people, including adults and small children, had gathered in a blocked-off parking lot in Berwick outside the Intoxicology Department bar, which was holding an all-day fundraising event to benefit victims of the Aug. 5 blaze in Nescopeck that killed seven adults and three children.Police say Sura Reyes told them he drove past the gathering, then turned around and headed back to the bar “to drive through the crowd of people." Investigators asked how fast he drove into the crowd and Sura Reyes replied “speeding up.”“Video surveillance gathered by the Pennsylvania State Police corroborates Sura Reyes's statement that he sped up into the crowd purposefully,” according to the criminal complaint.Geisinger Medical Center said it received 15 patients after the crash, and five remained in critical condition while three were listed in fair condition, a hospital spokesperson said Sunday morning. Seven patients had been treated at hospitals and released.Trooper Anthony Petroski III told reporters late Saturday that Sura Reyes was not currently a suspect in the fire, the cause of which remains under investigation.“This is a complete tragedy in a community where there’s already been tragedy,” Petroski said.Shortly after the crash was reported, troopers were called about a man “physically assaulting" a woman less than two miles away in Nescopeck. Troopers arrived to find local police had arrested Sura Reyes and a woman was dead.Luzerne County Coroner Francis Hacken confirmed Sunday that the victim, Rosa D. Reyes, 56, of Nescopeck, was the mother of Sura Reyes and had died of multiple traumatic injuries after being hit by a vehicle and assaulted with a hammer.In the criminal complaint, police say Sura Reyes told investigators he saw his mother in the street upon returning home and struck her with his vehicle, then hit her with a hammer several times.Sura Reyes was denied bail and remained in Columbia County prison pending an Aug. 29 preliminary hearing. News outlets reported that he said “Sorry" in response to reporters' questions as he was taken from Shickshinny police station. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had a lawyer to comment on his behalf.<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fires-pennsylvania-8e0ccb10158a4d599a6eb71679b7ffcc">The first funerals for victims of the fire were held Friday</a>, and more were scheduled for Sunday and Monday.The bar called the events an “absolute tragedy” and said on its Facebook page that they will be closed until further notice and would like privacy “while we grieve add try to process the events that occurred.”

Police: Man drives into fundraiser crowd, then kills mother

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anne Heche, the Emmy-winning film and television actor whose dramatic Hollywood rise in the 1990s and accomplished career contrasted with personal chapters of turmoil, died of injuries from a fiery car crash. She was 53.

Heche was “peacefully taken off life support," spokeswoman Holly Baird said in a statement Sunday night.

Heche had been on life support at a Los Angeles burn center after suffering a “severe anoxic brain injury,” caused by a lack of oxygen, when her car crashed into a home Aug. 5, according to a statement released Thursday by a representative on behalf of her family and friends.

She was declared brain-dead Friday, but was kept on life support in case her organs could be donated, an assessment that took nine days. In the U.S., most organ transplants are done after such a determination.

A native of Ohio whose family moved around the country, Heche endured an abusive and tragic childhood, one that helped push her into acting as a way of escaping her own life. She showed enough early promise to be offered professional work in high school and first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” from 1987 to 1991, winning a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of twins Marley and Vicky Hudson, who on the show sustained injuries that anticipated Heche’s: Vicky falls into a coma for months after a car crash.

By the late 1990s Heche was one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she played opposite Johnny Depp as his wife in “Donnie Brasco” and Tommy Lee Jones in “Volcano” and was part of the ensemble cast in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

The following year, she starred with Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights” and appeared with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix in “Return to Paradise.” She also played one of cinema’s most famous murder victims, Marion Crane of “Psycho,” in Gus Van Sant’s remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, and co-starred in the indie favorite “Walking and Talking.”

Around the same time, her personal life led to even greater fame, and both personal and professional upheaval. She met Ellen DeGeneres at a the 1997 Vanity Fair Oscar party, fell in love and began a 3-year relationship that made one of Hollywood’s first openly gay couples. But Heche later said her career was damaged by an industry wary of casting her in leading roles. She would remember advisers opposing her decision to have DeGeneres accompany her to the premiere of “Volcano.”

“We were tapped on the shoulder, put into her limo in the third act and told that we couldn’t have pictures of us taken at the press junket,” Heche said in 2018 on the podcast Irish Goodbye.

After she and DeGeneres parted, Heche had a public breakdown and would speak candidly of her mental health struggles.

Heche’s delicately elfin look belied her strength on screen. When she won the National Board of Review’s 1997 best supporting actress award, the board cited the one-two punch of “Donnie Brasco” and the political satire “Wag the Dog,” in which Heche portrayed a cynical White House aide and held her own against film great Robert De Niro.

Heche also called effectively on her apparent fragility. In 2002 she starred on Broadway in the play “Proof” as a woman fearful of losing her sanity just like her father, a brilliant mathematics professor. An Associated Press review praised her “touching performance, vulnerable yet funny, particularly when Catherine mocks the suspicions about her mental stability.”

In the fall of 2000, soon after her break-up with DeGeneres, Heche was hospitalized after knocking on the door of a stranger in a rural area near Fresno, California. Authorities said she had appeared shaken and disoriented and spoke incoherently to the residents.

In a memoir released the following year, “Call Me Crazy,” Heche talked about her lifelong battles. During a 2001 interview with TV journalist Barbara Walters, Heche recounted in painful detail alleged sexual abuse by her father, Donald Heche, who professed to be devoutly religious and died in 1983 from complications of AIDS. Heche described her suffering as so extreme she developed a separate personality and imagined herself descended from another planet.

In the final days of his life, Heche said, she learned he was secretly gay and that she believed his inability to live honestly fueled his anger and hurtful behavior. Not long after her father died, her brother Nathan — one of her four siblings — was killed in a car crash.

“I’m not crazy. But it’s a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me,” Heche told Walters. In an effort to escape the past, “I drank. I smoked. I did drugs. I had sex with people. I did anything I could to get the shame out of my life.”

Heche dated Steve Martin in the 1990s, and is widely believed to have inspired the childlike, but ambitious aspiring actor played by Heather Graham in his Hollywood spoof “Bowfinger.” She later had a son with camera operator Coleman Laffoon, to whom she was married from 2001 to 2009. She had another son during a relationship with actor James Tupper, her co-star on the TV series “Men In Trees.”

Heche worked consistently in smaller films, on Broadway and on TV shows in the past two decades. She recently had recurring roles on the network series “Chicago P.D.” and “All Rise,” and in 2020 was a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anne Heche remains on life support and under evaluation for organ donation after a car crash that led to her brain death, a representative for the actor said Friday.

Under current California law, death can be determined by the loss of all brain function and in accordance with accepted medical standards.

While Heche is legally dead, she's on life support and “her heart is still beating" so that the nonprofit organization OneLegacy can determine if she can be a donor, spokeswoman Holly Baird said in a statement.

The process, which involves assessing which organs are viable and finding an appropriate recipient, could take from one day to several days, Baird told The Associated Press.

In the U.S., most organ transplants are done after the donor has been declared brain-dead.

The actor suffered a “severe anoxic brain injury,” caused by a lack of oxygen, when her car crashed into a Los Angeles area home Aug. 5 and fire erupted, according to a statement released Thursday that said she wasn't expected to survive.

She's been hospitalized at a Los Angeles burn center.

“This is a sad day. I’m sending Anne’s children, family and friends all of my love,” Ellen DeGeneres said Friday on Twitter amid reports of Heche's dire condition. They were a couple from 1997 to 2000.

Detectives investigating the crash said narcotics were found in a blood sample taken from Heche, though toxicology tests still had to be performed to differentiate them from drugs she was given for her injuries, Los Angeles police said.

A native of Ohio, Heche first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” from 1987 to 1991. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of twins Marley and Vicky.

In the late 1990s she became one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she played opposite Johnny Depp as his wife in “Donnie Brasco” and Tommy Lee Jones in “Volcano” and was part of the ensemble cast in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

The following year, she starred with Harrison Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights” and appeared with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix in “Return to Paradise.”

LOS ANGELES (AP)— Anne Heche is on life support after suffering a 
brain injury in a fiery crash a week ago and her survival isn't 
expected, according to a statement from a representative.

The 
actor, who is in a coma and in critical condition, is being kept on life
 support for possible organ donation, according to the statement 
released Thursday night on behalf of her family and friends.

Heche,
 who's been hospitalized at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills 
hospital north of Los Angeles, suffered a “severe anoxic brain injury,” 
the statement said. Such an injury is caused by a sustained lack of 
oxygen to the brain.

“She is not expected to survive,” the 
statement said. “It has long been her choice to donate her organs and 
she is being kept on life support to determine if any are viable."

On
 the morning of Aug. 5, Heche’s car smashed into a house in a 
neighborhood in west Los Angeles and a fire erupted with the car 
embedded inside the home.

Earlier Thursday, police said they were 
investigating Heche for driving under the influence. Detectives with a 
search warrant took a sample of her blood and found narcotics in her 
system, LAPD spokesperson Officer Jeff Lee said.

Toxicology tests,
 which can take weeks to complete, must be performed to identify the 
drugs more clearly and to differentiate them from any medication she may
 have been given for treatment at the hospital.

Evidence is still 
being gathered from the crash, police said, and they would present a 
case to prosecutors if it is warranted when the investigation is 
complete.

A representative for Heche declined comment on the investigation.

On
 Tuesday, Heche spokesperson Heather Duffy Boylston said she had been in
 a coma since after the accident, with burns that required surgery and 
lung injuries that required the use of a ventilator to breathe.

“Anne
 had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit.
 More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy 
as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who 
you love,” Thursday's statement said. “She will be remembered for her 
courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”

Heche, 53, 
was among the most prominent film stars in Hollywood in the late 1990s, 
playing opposite actors including Johnny Depp (“Donnie Brasco”) and 
Harrison Ford (“Six Days, Seven Nights”). In a 2001 memoir, she 
discussed her lifelong struggles with mental health.

She recently 
had recurring roles on the network TV series “Chicago P.D.” and “All 
Rise,” and in 2020 was a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1660337200892.png" alt="Anne Heche at the 1997 Emmy Awards / Photo by Alan Light, Creative Commons license" />
 <figcaption>Anne Heche at the 1997 Emmy Awards / Photo by Alan Light, Creative Commons license</figcaption>
 </figure>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anne Heche, the Emmy-winning film and television actor whose dramatic Hollywood rise in the 1990s and accomplished career contrasted with personal chapters of turmoil, died of injuries from a fiery car crash. She was 53.Heche was “peacefully taken off life support," spokeswoman Holly Baird said in a statement Sunday night.Heche had been on life support at a Los Angeles burn center after suffering a “severe anoxic brain injury,” caused by a lack of oxygen, when her car crashed into a home Aug. 5, according to a statement released Thursday by a representative on behalf of her family and friends.She was declared brain-dead Friday, but was kept on life support in case her organs could be donated, an assessment that took nine days. In the U.S., most organ transplants are done after such a determination.A native of Ohio whose family moved around the country, Heche endured an abusive and tragic childhood, one that helped push her into acting as a way of escaping her own life. She showed enough early promise to be offered professional work in high school and first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” from 1987 to 1991, winning a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of twins Marley and Vicky Hudson, who on the show sustained injuries that anticipated Heche’s: Vicky falls into a coma for months after a car crash.By the late 1990s Heche was one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she played opposite Johnny Depp as his wife in “Donnie Brasco” and Tommy Lee Jones in “Volcano” and was part of the ensemble cast in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”The following year, she starred with Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights” and appeared with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix in “Return to Paradise.” She also played one of cinema’s most famous murder victims, Marion Crane of “Psycho,” in Gus Van Sant’s remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, and co-starred in the indie favorite “Walking and Talking.”Around the same time, her personal life led to even greater fame, and both personal and professional upheaval. She met Ellen DeGeneres at a the 1997 Vanity Fair Oscar party, fell in love and began a 3-year relationship that made one of Hollywood’s first openly gay couples. But Heche later said her career was damaged by an industry wary of casting her in leading roles. She would remember advisers opposing her decision to have DeGeneres accompany her to the premiere of “Volcano.”“We were tapped on the shoulder, put into her limo in the third act and told that we couldn’t have pictures of us taken at the press junket,” Heche said in 2018 on the podcast Irish Goodbye.After she and DeGeneres parted, Heche had a public breakdown and would speak candidly of her mental health struggles.Heche’s delicately elfin look belied her strength on screen. When she won the National Board of Review’s 1997 best supporting actress award, the board cited the one-two punch of “Donnie Brasco” and the political satire “Wag the Dog,” in which Heche portrayed a cynical White House aide and held her own against film great Robert De Niro.Heche also called effectively on her apparent fragility. In 2002 she starred on Broadway in the play “Proof” as a woman fearful of losing her sanity just like her father, a brilliant mathematics professor. An Associated Press review praised her “touching performance, vulnerable yet funny, particularly when Catherine mocks the suspicions about her mental stability.”In the fall of 2000, soon after her break-up with DeGeneres, Heche was hospitalized after knocking on the door of a stranger in a rural area near Fresno, California. Authorities said she had appeared shaken and disoriented and spoke incoherently to the residents.In a memoir released the following year, “Call Me Crazy,” Heche talked about her lifelong battles. During a 2001 interview with TV journalist Barbara Walters, Heche recounted in painful detail alleged sexual abuse by her father, Donald Heche, who professed to be devoutly religious and died in 1983 from complications of AIDS. Heche described her suffering as so extreme she developed a separate personality and imagined herself descended from another planet.In the final days of his life, Heche said, she learned he was secretly gay and that she believed his inability to live honestly fueled his anger and hurtful behavior. Not long after her father died, her brother Nathan — one of her four siblings — was killed in a car crash.“I’m not crazy. But it’s a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me,” Heche told Walters. In an effort to escape the past, “I drank. I smoked. I did drugs. I had sex with people. I did anything I could to get the shame out of my life.”Heche dated Steve Martin in the 1990s, and is widely believed to have inspired the childlike, but ambitious aspiring actor played by Heather Graham in his Hollywood spoof “Bowfinger.” She later had a son with camera operator Coleman Laffoon, to whom she was married from 2001 to 2009. She had another son during a relationship with actor James Tupper, her co-star on the TV series “Men In Trees.”Heche worked consistently in smaller films, on Broadway and on TV shows in the past two decades. She recently had recurring roles on the network series “Chicago P.D.” and “All Rise,” and in 2020 was a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”------LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anne Heche remains on life support and under evaluation for organ donation after a car crash that led to her brain death, a representative for the actor said Friday.Under current California law, death can be determined by the loss of all brain function and in accordance with accepted medical standards.While Heche is legally dead, she's on life support and “her heart is still beating" so that the nonprofit organization OneLegacy can determine if she can be a donor, spokeswoman Holly Baird said in a statement.The process, which involves assessing which organs are viable and finding an appropriate recipient, could take from one day to several days, Baird told The Associated Press.In the U.S., most organ transplants are done after the donor has been declared brain-dead.The actor suffered a “severe anoxic brain injury,” caused by a lack of oxygen, when her car crashed into a Los Angeles area home Aug. 5 and fire erupted, according to a statement released Thursday that said she wasn't expected to survive.She's been hospitalized at a Los Angeles burn center.“This is a sad day. I’m sending Anne’s children, family and friends all of my love,” Ellen DeGeneres said Friday on Twitter amid reports of Heche's dire condition. They were a couple from 1997 to 2000.Detectives investigating the crash said narcotics were found in a blood sample taken from Heche, though toxicology tests still had to be performed to differentiate them from drugs she was given for her injuries, Los Angeles police said.A native of Ohio, Heche first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” from 1987 to 1991. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of twins Marley and Vicky.In the late 1990s she became one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she played opposite Johnny Depp as his wife in “Donnie Brasco” and Tommy Lee Jones in “Volcano” and was part of the ensemble cast in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”The following year, she starred with Harrison Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights” and appeared with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix in “Return to Paradise.”--------LOS ANGELES (AP)— Anne Heche is on life support after suffering a 
brain injury in a fiery crash a week ago and her survival isn't 
expected, according to a statement from a representative.The 
actor, who is in a coma and in critical condition, is being kept on life
 support for possible organ donation, according to the statement 
released Thursday night on behalf of her family and friends.Heche,
 who's been hospitalized at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills 
hospital north of Los Angeles, suffered a “severe anoxic brain injury,” 
the statement said. Such an injury is caused by a sustained lack of 
oxygen to the brain.“She is not expected to survive,” the 
statement said. “It has long been her choice to donate her organs and 
she is being kept on life support to determine if any are viable."On
 the morning of Aug. 5, Heche’s car smashed into a house in a 
neighborhood in west Los Angeles and a fire erupted with the car 
embedded inside the home.Earlier Thursday, police said they were 
investigating Heche for driving under the influence. Detectives with a 
search warrant took a sample of her blood and found narcotics in her 
system, LAPD spokesperson Officer Jeff Lee said.Toxicology tests,
 which can take weeks to complete, must be performed to identify the 
drugs more clearly and to differentiate them from any medication she may
 have been given for treatment at the hospital.Evidence is still 
being gathered from the crash, police said, and they would present a 
case to prosecutors if it is warranted when the investigation is 
complete.A representative for Heche declined comment on the investigation.On
 Tuesday, Heche spokesperson Heather Duffy Boylston said she had been in
 a coma since after the accident, with burns that required surgery and 
lung injuries that required the use of a ventilator to breathe.“Anne
 had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit.
 More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy 
as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who 
you love,” Thursday's statement said. “She will be remembered for her 
courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”Heche, 53, 
was among the most prominent film stars in Hollywood in the late 1990s, 
playing opposite actors including Johnny Depp (“Donnie Brasco”) and 
Harrison Ford (“Six Days, Seven Nights”). In a 2001 memoir, she 
discussed her lifelong struggles with mental health.She recently 
had recurring roles on the network TV series “Chicago P.D.” and “All 
Rise,” and in 2020 was a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Anne Heche dies of crash injuries after life support removed

KANSAS CITY—A Mexican national was sentenced to 100 months in prison last week in connection to an international drug ring that distributed large quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana from Mexico in the Kansas City area, according to the United State's Attorney.

According to court documents, in January 2021, Aron Rodriguez- Posada, 48, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.

In October 2019, the Kansas Highway Patrol stopped a car hauler in Meade, Kansas, to conduct a vehicle inspection. With consent to search, a trooper located approximately 35 pounds of methamphetamine in the gas tank of one of the vehicles utilizing a scope. 

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) then conducted a controlled delivery of the methamphetamine. Federal agents arrested Rodriguez-Posada as well as Jovany Medina, 24, of Kansas City after the men took possession of the vehicle.

In July 2022, Medina was sentenced to 144 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.

Rodriquez-Posada also pled guilty to one count of unlawful reentry subsequent to removal after admitting to returning to United States after being removed for illegal entry in 2014.

KANSAS CITY—A Mexican national was sentenced to 100 months in prison last week in connection to an international drug ring that distributed large quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana from Mexico in the Kansas City area, according to the United State's Attorney.According to court documents, in January 2021, Aron Rodriguez- Posada, 48, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.In October 2019, the Kansas Highway Patrol stopped a car hauler in Meade, Kansas, to conduct a vehicle inspection. With consent to search, a trooper located approximately 35 pounds of methamphetamine in the gas tank of one of the vehicles utilizing a scope. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) then conducted a controlled delivery of the methamphetamine. Federal agents arrested Rodriguez-Posada as well as Jovany Medina, 24, of Kansas City after the men took possession of the vehicle.In July 2022, Medina was sentenced to 144 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.Rodriquez-Posada also pled guilty to one count of unlawful reentry subsequent to removal after admitting to returning to United States after being removed for illegal entry in 2014.

 KHP found 35 pounds of meth in vehicle's gas tank 

By ALLISON WINTER <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/11/farm-bill-season-arrives-whats-the-outlook-for-2023/">States Newsroom</a>

WASHINGTON — Over the course of the 
next year, lawmakers on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture committees
 will draft a new federal farm bill that will shape food, farm, 
conservation and nutrition programs across the country for the next five
 years.

The omnibus law that began 90 years 
ago as crop supports now has an impact far beyond the farm, with 
programs to create wildlife habitat, address climate change and run the 
nation’s largest federal nutrition program.

“Any number of economic policies that
 we establish in farm bills impact everybody’s daily lives,” said former
 U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture
 Committee during the 2008 farm bill. The Georgia lawmaker now works at 
the global law firm DLA Piper.&nbsp;

Chambliss said farm bills affect food prices and availability, global trade and renewable fuels.&nbsp;

But he said the debate going into the
 legislation is often overshadowed by crop subsidies — the farm bill’s 
longstanding support system for producers of farm commodities. The 
payments are intended to provide economic stability for farmers but are 
usually a target for those who would like to invest the money 
elsewhere.&nbsp;

“The farm bills have evolved into a 
political football for all the wrong reasons,” Chambliss said in an 
interview with States Newsroom.

The current farm bill expires in 
September 2023. But given the size and implications of the programs, it 
is already farm bill season for lawmakers and the groups with a stake in
 the bill.&nbsp;

Advocacy groups are pulling together 
their farm bill platforms. And the House and Senate Agriculture 
committees have each started hosting farm bill hearings in Washington, 
D.C., and in some members’ home districts.&nbsp;

At the Senate Agriculture Committee’s
 first field hearing in Michigan in April, Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, a
 Michigan Democrat, listed climate change, conservation programs and 
expanding opportunities for midsized and local producers among her 
concerns for the new farm bill.

On the House side, Agriculture 
Committee Chairman David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, has said he wants to
 support beginning and underserved farmers and ranchers and expand 
opportunities for conservation and energy programs.&nbsp;

“My goals are to protect the farm 
bill coalition that has provided a safety net for those struggling to 
feed their families as well as for those who help to produce that food,”
 Scott said in an email to States Newsroom.

“We also know that many of our 
programs are oversubscribed, and our available funding has not kept up 
with the demand in the conservation and energy titles,” Scott said.

Originally a product of the New Deal,
 the first farm bill in 1933 focused on commodity price support to 
provide relief for farmers and ensure a steady domestic food supply for 
Americans during the Great Depression.&nbsp;

Since then, lawmakers have passed 18 
farm bills and greatly expanded the reach of the legislation. For 
example, Congress added a conservation section to the farm bill in 1985 
and an energy title in 2002.

The most recent farm bill, the 
Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, has 12 titles and includes programs
 for commodity crops, nutrition, trade, crop insurance, forestry and 
rural development.&nbsp;

The farm bill’s conservation programs
 pay farmers to make environmental improvements on working land or to 
replace crops on highly erodible and environmentally sensitive land.&nbsp;

One year of outlays for farm bill conservation programs exceeds the annual budget for the National Park Service.&nbsp;

More than 140 million acres of 
farmland in the U.S. are currently receiving conservation-related 
financial and technical assistance from the federal government, 
according to an analysis from the Farm Bureau. The national park system 
has more than 85 million acres, according to the Park Service.

But the largest spending in the farm bill — three-fourths of the funding — goes to nutrition programs, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.&nbsp;

“Most of the farm bill affects 
eaters, not farmers,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for 
government affairs at Environmental Working Group, one of the advocacy 
groups that tracks farm bill spending.&nbsp;

Like many bills on Capitol Hill, the 
farm bill has some “discretionary” programs, which are set up in the 
bill but have to be funded through the annual appropriations process.&nbsp;

But most of the farm bill programs 
are “mandatory” spending. That funding is set in the farm bill itself 
and goes out over the next five years, regardless of congressional 
appropriations. Those mandatory programs include crop subsidies, 
conservation programs, some forms of crop insurance and SNAP.&nbsp;

The 2018 farm bill was projected to spend
 $428 billion over five years, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office.&nbsp; When crafting a new farm bill, lawmakers must keep the total 
within the baseline estimates for the previous farm bill or find another
 new funding source. The current baseline for farm bill programs for the
 next five years is $648 billion, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office’s May 2022 estimates. A new estimate in spring 2023 will set the 
budget for the new farm bill.

“The difficult issue that we have every time we head into a farm bill is the budget,” said Chambliss.

Advocacy groups and lawmakers usually propose shifts in funding levels to try to direct more money to their favorite programs.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“The biggest problem is that there is
 only a certain amount of money we can have, so if we want more money we
 have to rob from Peter to pay for Paul,” Tom Haag, a vice president of 
the National Corn Growers Association, said at a recent panel discussion
 on the farm bill.

But conservation and other 
climate-related programs will receive another funding infusion this year
 from the Inflation Reduction Act, which gives a boost of more than $20 
billion for climate investments on farmland. The bill is up for a vote 
before the U.S. House.

That will provide about a 47 percent 
increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from 
the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.&nbsp;

But folding that budget authority 
into the farm bill may not be a straightforward process, as Agriculture 
Committee members look for ways to direct it to their interests.

“Everyone is going to want a piece of
 that climate money,” said Ferd Hoefner, a Washington, D.C.-based 
consultant on farm and food policy who has worked on nine previous farm 
bills.&nbsp;

Most farm bill crop subsidies go to the major commodity crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice.&nbsp;

The big three of corn, soybean and 
wheat farmers receive more than 70 percent of farm subsidies, according 
to an analysis from the Cato Institute.&nbsp;

Some other producers are eligible for
 the federal safety net through crop insurance, intended to help farmers
 manage for risk of loss from severe weather or market disruptions. 
Lawmakers have expanded the crop insurance program in recent farm bills,
 and its total spending now slightly exceeds that of crop subsidies.&nbsp;

The federal government provides 
policies for more than 100 crops, according to the USDA. But some small 
farmers with varied crops have said it is still hard for them to get 
crop insurance, since policies are regional and limited to certain 
“insurable commodities.”

The farm bill has smaller programs 
for organic agriculture and “specialty crops,” fruits, vegetables and 
nuts. It includes a cost-share program for organic certification, market
 development grants and research programs on citrus disease.&nbsp;

Agriculture subsidies, crop insurance
 and conservation programs have participants nationwide but tend to 
center on the Midwest, Great Plains and Texas.

Overall, Texas landowners get the most federal farm bill subsidies, according to an <a target="_blank" href="https://farm.ewg.org/">analysis of federal data</a>
 from 1995-2020 from the Environmental Working Group. The analysis added
 commodity, conservation, disaster and crop insurance payments combined.

The rest of the top 10 states for 
farm subsidies are: Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North 
Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri and Indiana.

The farm bill’s nutrition programs 
are nationwide, distributed based on household income in both rural 
areas and cities. The percent of residents receiving SNAP benefits in 
2019 ranged from 19.8 percent in New Mexico to 4.2 percent in Wyoming, 
according to USDA.

The farm bill is unique on Capitol 
Hill because it creates regional alliances around issues, rather than 
splitting along party lines. House and Senate Agriculture Committee 
members often tout their bipartisan approach.&nbsp;

“The issues in a farm bill are not between Republicans and Democrats — the difference primarily is regional,” said Chambliss.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Scott and Stabenow currently lead the
 House and Senate committees, but if Republicans take control of the 
House or Senate after the midterm elections, the leadership would shift 
to Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania in the House and John Boozman of 
Arkansas in the Senate.&nbsp;

Thompson represents rural central 
Pennsylvania and comes from a long line of dairy farmers. Boozman won 
the “golden plow” award from the American Farm Bureau in July for his 
support for farmers.

The presidential administration 
usually offers policy advice and program recommendations for the farm 
bill. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, is 
no stranger to the process, having also been at the helm of the USDA 
from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama administration.

A presidential veto of the farm bill 
is rare but not unprecedented. Since 1965, only the 2008 farm bill was 
vetoed as a standalone measure, according to the Congressional Research 
Service. President George W. Bush <a target="_blank" href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080521-4.html">vetoed</a> that bill twice in an effort to get more of his priorities in the bill. Congress overrode his vetos.&nbsp;

As the farm bill’s scope has 
expanded, more and more lobbyists and advocacy groups have joined the 
fray each year to try to influence the process.&nbsp;

Agribusiness groups, environmental 
organizations, climate change experts, poverty and hunger groups and 
religious organizations will all weigh in on the farm bill. Many of 
those groups are working with their members to create farm bill policy 
platforms that they will release in the coming months.&nbsp;

The current farm bill’s mandatory 
programs expire at the end of September 2023, which creates a deadline 
for Congress to reauthorize a new bill before then.&nbsp;

Staff from the House and Senate 
Agriculture committees said they plan to hold more hearings on each 
title of the bill in the coming months, with the hopes of voting on a 
final bill well in advance of the deadline.

But in practice, in the last several 
farm bill cycles Congress has not met those deadlines and usually passed
 temporary extensions to keep programs running while they continued to 
negotiate until the end of the calendar year.

The extra funding from the Inflation 
Reduction Act could lay the groundwork for a push for new climate 
policies in farm bill conservation programs.&nbsp;

In recent hearings, House lawmakers 
have also discussed expanding crop insurance and trying to address the 
mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change.&nbsp;

At a farm bill hearing in July, Rep. 
Rick Allen, a Georgia Republican, urged his fellow lawmakers to tread 
carefully, given how chaotic the past few years have been for 
agriculture and the economy.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

“We should not make major changes unless we are able to fully evaluate the consequences of those changes,” Allen said.&nbsp;

Lawmakers will likely include some 
pilot programs to test new ideas. Those could lay the groundwork for 
major changes in the future.&nbsp;

For example, former Sen. Tom Harkin, 
an Iowa Democrat, championed a pilot program to give schoolchildren 
fresh fruits and vegetables as a snack. In 2005, it was scaled up to 
cover the entire country.

Farm bills traditionally have not 
included much for livestock producers, but some agriculture experts 
expect that to change this year, in response to the turmoil the sector 
faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.&nbsp;

House Agriculture Chairman Scott introduced a <a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/h.r._8590.pdf">small farmer or rancher relief act</a>
 in July, indicating his interest in the issue. His proposal would 
provide targeted insurance to small ranchers with fewer than 100 cattle 
and a grant program for producers that sell direct to consumers.&nbsp;

How can I have input into what’s in the bill?

The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are both collecting ideas and feedback. The Senate Agriculture Committee has an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/farm-bill">online form</a> for input on the farm bill. And House Agriculture is collecting feedback through a form <a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/forms/form/?ID=9">on their website</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1660239197668.jpg" alt="In recent hearings on the 2023 farm bill, lawmakers in the U.S. House have discussed expanding crop insurance and trying to address the mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change to the legislation. Image courtesy of Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>In recent hearings on the 2023 farm bill, lawmakers in the U.S. House have discussed expanding crop insurance and trying to address the mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change to the legislation. Image courtesy of Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>By ALLISON WINTER <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/11/farm-bill-season-arrives-whats-the-outlook-for-2023/">States Newsroom</a>WASHINGTON — Over the course of the 
next year, lawmakers on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture committees
 will draft a new federal farm bill that will shape food, farm, 
conservation and nutrition programs across the country for the next five
 years.The omnibus law that began 90 years 
ago as crop supports now has an impact far beyond the farm, with 
programs to create wildlife habitat, address climate change and run the 
nation’s largest federal nutrition program.“Any number of economic policies that
 we establish in farm bills impact everybody’s daily lives,” said former
 U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture
 Committee during the 2008 farm bill. The Georgia lawmaker now works at 
the global law firm DLA Piper.&nbsp;Chambliss said farm bills affect food prices and availability, global trade and renewable fuels.&nbsp;But he said the debate going into the
 legislation is often overshadowed by crop subsidies — the farm bill’s 
longstanding support system for producers of farm commodities. The 
payments are intended to provide economic stability for farmers but are 
usually a target for those who would like to invest the money 
elsewhere.&nbsp;“The farm bills have evolved into a 
political football for all the wrong reasons,” Chambliss said in an 
interview with States Newsroom.The current farm bill expires in 
September 2023. But given the size and implications of the programs, it 
is already farm bill season for lawmakers and the groups with a stake in
 the bill.&nbsp;Advocacy groups are pulling together 
their farm bill platforms. And the House and Senate Agriculture 
committees have each started hosting farm bill hearings in Washington, 
D.C., and in some members’ home districts.&nbsp;At the Senate Agriculture Committee’s
 first field hearing in Michigan in April, Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, a
 Michigan Democrat, listed climate change, conservation programs and 
expanding opportunities for midsized and local producers among her 
concerns for the new farm bill.On the House side, Agriculture 
Committee Chairman David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, has said he wants to
 support beginning and underserved farmers and ranchers and expand 
opportunities for conservation and energy programs.&nbsp;“My goals are to protect the farm 
bill coalition that has provided a safety net for those struggling to 
feed their families as well as for those who help to produce that food,”
 Scott said in an email to States Newsroom.“We also know that many of our 
programs are oversubscribed, and our available funding has not kept up 
with the demand in the conservation and energy titles,” Scott said.<h2>What does the farm bill cover?</h2>Originally a product of the New Deal,
 the first farm bill in 1933 focused on commodity price support to 
provide relief for farmers and ensure a steady domestic food supply for 
Americans during the Great Depression.&nbsp;Since then, lawmakers have passed 18 
farm bills and greatly expanded the reach of the legislation. For 
example, Congress added a conservation section to the farm bill in 1985 
and an energy title in 2002.The most recent farm bill, the 
Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, has 12 titles and includes programs
 for commodity crops, nutrition, trade, crop insurance, forestry and 
rural development.&nbsp;The farm bill’s conservation programs
 pay farmers to make environmental improvements on working land or to 
replace crops on highly erodible and environmentally sensitive land.&nbsp;One year of outlays for farm bill conservation programs exceeds the annual budget for the National Park Service.&nbsp;More than 140 million acres of 
farmland in the U.S. are currently receiving conservation-related 
financial and technical assistance from the federal government, 
according to an analysis from the Farm Bureau. The national park system 
has more than 85 million acres, according to the Park Service.But the largest spending in the farm bill — three-fourths of the funding — goes to nutrition programs, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.&nbsp;“Most of the farm bill affects 
eaters, not farmers,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for 
government affairs at Environmental Working Group, one of the advocacy 
groups that tracks farm bill spending.&nbsp;<h2>How much money is at stake?</h2>Like many bills on Capitol Hill, the 
farm bill has some “discretionary” programs, which are set up in the 
bill but have to be funded through the annual appropriations process.&nbsp;But most of the farm bill programs 
are “mandatory” spending. That funding is set in the farm bill itself 
and goes out over the next five years, regardless of congressional 
appropriations. Those mandatory programs include crop subsidies, 
conservation programs, some forms of crop insurance and SNAP.&nbsp;The 2018 farm bill was projected to spend
 $428 billion over five years, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office.&nbsp; When crafting a new farm bill, lawmakers must keep the total 
within the baseline estimates for the previous farm bill or find another
 new funding source. The current baseline for farm bill programs for the
 next five years is $648 billion, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office’s May 2022 estimates. A new estimate in spring 2023 will set the 
budget for the new farm bill.“The difficult issue that we have every time we head into a farm bill is the budget,” said Chambliss.Advocacy groups and lawmakers usually propose shifts in funding levels to try to direct more money to their favorite programs.&nbsp;&nbsp;“The biggest problem is that there is
 only a certain amount of money we can have, so if we want more money we
 have to rob from Peter to pay for Paul,” Tom Haag, a vice president of 
the National Corn Growers Association, said at a recent panel discussion
 on the farm bill.But conservation and other 
climate-related programs will receive another funding infusion this year
 from the Inflation Reduction Act, which gives a boost of more than $20 
billion for climate investments on farmland. The bill is up for a vote 
before the U.S. House.That will provide about a 47 percent 
increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from 
the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.&nbsp;But folding that budget authority 
into the farm bill may not be a straightforward process, as Agriculture 
Committee members look for ways to direct it to their interests.“Everyone is going to want a piece of
 that climate money,” said Ferd Hoefner, a Washington, D.C.-based 
consultant on farm and food policy who has worked on nine previous farm 
bills.&nbsp;<h2>What crops are most affected?</h2>Most farm bill crop subsidies go to the major commodity crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice.&nbsp;The big three of corn, soybean and 
wheat farmers receive more than 70 percent of farm subsidies, according 
to an analysis from the Cato Institute.&nbsp;Some other producers are eligible for
 the federal safety net through crop insurance, intended to help farmers
 manage for risk of loss from severe weather or market disruptions. 
Lawmakers have expanded the crop insurance program in recent farm bills,
 and its total spending now slightly exceeds that of crop subsidies.&nbsp;The federal government provides 
policies for more than 100 crops, according to the USDA. But some small 
farmers with varied crops have said it is still hard for them to get 
crop insurance, since policies are regional and limited to certain 
“insurable commodities.”The farm bill has smaller programs 
for organic agriculture and “specialty crops,” fruits, vegetables and 
nuts. It includes a cost-share program for organic certification, market
 development grants and research programs on citrus disease.&nbsp;<h2>What states are most affected?</h2>Agriculture subsidies, crop insurance
 and conservation programs have participants nationwide but tend to 
center on the Midwest, Great Plains and Texas.Overall, Texas landowners get the most federal farm bill subsidies, according to an <a target="_blank" href="https://farm.ewg.org/">analysis of federal data</a>
 from 1995-2020 from the Environmental Working Group. The analysis added
 commodity, conservation, disaster and crop insurance payments combined.The rest of the top 10 states for 
farm subsidies are: Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North 
Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri and Indiana.The farm bill’s nutrition programs 
are nationwide, distributed based on household income in both rural 
areas and cities. The percent of residents receiving SNAP benefits in 
2019 ranged from 19.8 percent in New Mexico to 4.2 percent in Wyoming, 
according to USDA.<h2>Who are the players?</h2>The farm bill is unique on Capitol 
Hill because it creates regional alliances around issues, rather than 
splitting along party lines. House and Senate Agriculture Committee 
members often tout their bipartisan approach.&nbsp;“The issues in a farm bill are not between Republicans and Democrats — the difference primarily is regional,” said Chambliss.&nbsp;&nbsp;Scott and Stabenow currently lead the
 House and Senate committees, but if Republicans take control of the 
House or Senate after the midterm elections, the leadership would shift 
to Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania in the House and John Boozman of 
Arkansas in the Senate.&nbsp;Thompson represents rural central 
Pennsylvania and comes from a long line of dairy farmers. Boozman won 
the “golden plow” award from the American Farm Bureau in July for his 
support for farmers.The presidential administration 
usually offers policy advice and program recommendations for the farm 
bill. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, is 
no stranger to the process, having also been at the helm of the USDA 
from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama administration.A presidential veto of the farm bill 
is rare but not unprecedented. Since 1965, only the 2008 farm bill was 
vetoed as a standalone measure, according to the Congressional Research 
Service. President George W. Bush <a target="_blank" href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080521-4.html">vetoed</a> that bill twice in an effort to get more of his priorities in the bill. Congress overrode his vetos.&nbsp;As the farm bill’s scope has 
expanded, more and more lobbyists and advocacy groups have joined the 
fray each year to try to influence the process.&nbsp;Agribusiness groups, environmental 
organizations, climate change experts, poverty and hunger groups and 
religious organizations will all weigh in on the farm bill. Many of 
those groups are working with their members to create farm bill policy 
platforms that they will release in the coming months.&nbsp;<h2>When will it get done?</h2>The current farm bill’s mandatory 
programs expire at the end of September 2023, which creates a deadline 
for Congress to reauthorize a new bill before then.&nbsp;Staff from the House and Senate 
Agriculture committees said they plan to hold more hearings on each 
title of the bill in the coming months, with the hopes of voting on a 
final bill well in advance of the deadline.But in practice, in the last several 
farm bill cycles Congress has not met those deadlines and usually passed
 temporary extensions to keep programs running while they continued to 
negotiate until the end of the calendar year.<h2>What might change this year?</h2>The extra funding from the Inflation 
Reduction Act could lay the groundwork for a push for new climate 
policies in farm bill conservation programs.&nbsp;In recent hearings, House lawmakers 
have also discussed expanding crop insurance and trying to address the 
mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change.&nbsp;At a farm bill hearing in July, Rep. 
Rick Allen, a Georgia Republican, urged his fellow lawmakers to tread 
carefully, given how chaotic the past few years have been for 
agriculture and the economy.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“We should not make major changes unless we are able to fully evaluate the consequences of those changes,” Allen said.&nbsp;Lawmakers will likely include some 
pilot programs to test new ideas. Those could lay the groundwork for 
major changes in the future.&nbsp;For example, former Sen. Tom Harkin, 
an Iowa Democrat, championed a pilot program to give schoolchildren 
fresh fruits and vegetables as a snack. In 2005, it was scaled up to 
cover the entire country.Farm bills traditionally have not 
included much for livestock producers, but some agriculture experts 
expect that to change this year, in response to the turmoil the sector 
faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.&nbsp;House Agriculture Chairman Scott introduced a <a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/h.r._8590.pdf">small farmer or rancher relief act</a>
 in July, indicating his interest in the issue. His proposal would 
provide targeted insurance to small ranchers with fewer than 100 cattle 
and a grant program for producers that sell direct to consumers.&nbsp;<h2>How can I have input into what’s in the bill?</h2>The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are both collecting ideas and feedback. The Senate Agriculture Committee has an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/farm-bill">online form</a> for input on the farm bill. And House Agriculture is collecting feedback through a form <a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/forms/form/?ID=9">on their website</a>.

Farm bill season arrives: What’s the outlook for 2023?

KANSAS CITY (AP) —Jada Riley thought she had beaten homelessness.

The 26-year-old New Orleans resident was finally making a steady income cleaning houses during the pandemic to afford a $700-a-month, one-bedroom apartment. But she lost nearly all her clients after Hurricane Ida hit last year. Then she was fired from a grocery store job in February after taking time off to help a relative.

Two months behind on rent, she made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she’s living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends or her son’s father.

“I’ve slept outside for a whole year before. It’s very depressing, I’m not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn’t have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day.

“I don’t want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.”

Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That’s in stark contrast to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-f0085d9d4547b897a27323bb95cc890c#:~:text=BOSTON%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20More%20than,eviction%20in%20the%20coming%20weeks.">the pandemic</a>, when state and federal&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-bd61b8a59126081bb09ef9515d09866f">moratoriums</a>&nbsp;on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in f&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-260b9c88a08a1ccb78494c8664887cf9">ederal Emergency Rental Assistance,</a>&nbsp;kept millions of families housed.

“I really think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Shannon MacKenzie, executive director of Colorado Poverty Law Project, said of June filings in Denver, which were about 24% higher than the same time three years ago. “Our numbers of evictions are increasing every month at an astonishing rate, and I just don’t see that abating any time soon.”

According to&nbsp;<a href="https://evictionlab.org/" target="_blank">The Eviction Lab</a>, several cities are running far above historic averages, with Minneapolis-St. Paul 91% higher in June, Las Vegas up 56%, Hartford, Connecticut, up 32%, and Jacksonville, Florida, up 17%. In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, eviction filings in July were the highest in 13 years, officials said.

Some legal advocates said the sharp increase in housing prices due to inflation is partly to blame. Rental prices nationwide are up nearly 15% from a year ago and almost 25% from 2019, according to the real estate company Zillow. Rental vacancy rates, meanwhile, have declined to a 35-year low of 5.8%, according to the Census Bureau.

A report last month from&nbsp;<a href="https://nlihc.org/oor" target="_blank">the National Low Income Housing Coalition</a>&nbsp;found that a tenant working full time needs to make nearly $26 per hour on average nationally to afford a modest two-bedroom rental and $21.25 for a one-bedroom. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

“Landlords are raising the rent and making it very unaffordable for tenants to stay,” said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, the eviction initiative project director for the National Housing Law Project.

“Inflation has really shrunk the supply of housing that is available for people with the lowest incomes,” she added. “Without more protections in place, which not all states have, a lot of those families will be rendered homeless.”

Patrick McCloud, chief executive officer of the Virginia Apartment Management Association, said the trend is a return to normal. “No one likes evictions, but they are in some ways a reset to the economy,” McCloud said, adding that evictions have been “artificially depressed.”

“Housing is based on supply and demand. And when no one moves and you have no vacancies, you have a tight market and prices go up.”

Graham Bowman, a staff attorney with Legal Aid Society of Columbus, Ohio, said evictions there are rising — 15% above historic averages in June alone — at a time when there are fewer places for those forced out to go.

Sheryl Lynne Smith was evicted in May from her two-bedroom townhouse in Columbus after she used her rent money to repair a sewage leak in the basement. Smith, who is legally blind and has a federal housing voucher, fears she won’t be able to find anything by September when the voucher expires because of rising housing prices and the eviction on her record.

“It’s very scary,” said Smith, 53, whose temporary stay at a hotel funded through a state program ends this weekend.

In Boise, Idaho, Jeremy McKenney, 45, moved into his car last week after a judge sided with a property management company that nearly tripled the rent on his two-bedroom house. The Lyft and DoorDash driver will have to rent a hotel room whenever he has custody of his children, 9 and 12.

“It’s definitely mind blowing,” said McKenney, adding that everything on the market is beyond his reach even after a nonprofit offered to cover the security deposit. “I have never been homeless before. I have always had a roof over my head.”

The other challenge is the federal emergency rental assistance that helped keep millions housed during the pandemic has dried up in some jurisdictions or been increasingly rejected by some landlords.

“What really gets me is there is rental assistance and so many landlords just don’t want it. They would rather throw someone on the street than take money,” Eric Kwartler, managing attorney of Lone Star Legal Aid’s Eviction Right to Counsel Project, which covers Houston and Harris County in Texas. “If you take the money, you can’t evict them. They want them out.”

The U.S. Treasury said last week that more than $40 billion of the $46.5 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance had been spent or allocated.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia have gone through at least 90% of their first disbursement. Twelve states and the District of Columbia had used 50% of the second allocation, known as ERA2, by the end of May. Three — Idaho, Ohio and Iowa — haven’t spent any ERA2 money and two — Nebraska and Arkansas — didn’t accept the funds.

“The public health emergency may still be here but the funds to deal with it are rapidly disappearing,” said Martin Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.

Treasury is encouraging states and cities to tap other&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-business-health-lifestyle-4eb5e86edad32ceb59fc8b3341bfa3f1">federal stimulus</a>&nbsp;funds to cover the gaps. So far, over 600 state and local governments had budgeted $12.9 billion in stimulus funds to meet housing needs, including affordable housing development.

Gene Sperling, who oversees President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, highlighted the success of its rental assistance program, which has reached 7 million mostly low-income households.

But, more needs to be done to ensure the country doesn’t return to pre-pandemic times when 3.6 million tenants were evicted annually and “evictions were too often a first resort, not a last resort,” he told a forum on eviction reforms at the White House last week.

Some lawmakers said the answer is a permanent rental assistance program. A bill introduced in July would provide $3 billion annually for rental assistance and fund services to keep families housed. A study commissioned by the National Apartment Association and the National Multifamily Housing Council says the answer is building 4.3 million apartments by 2035.

Other advocates called for permanent legal protections like right to counsel for tenants or eviction diversion programs to resolve evictions before they reach the courts.

In Richmond, Virginia, eviction filings in June were 54% below historic averages, attributed to rental assistance and more legal representation for tenants in court, Wegbreit said. Similar programs were credited with New Mexico’s eviction filings being 29% below historic averages in June.

Philadelphia, which passed a law making eviction diversion mandatory through this year, saw filings down 33%. The City Council in Philadelphia also approved spending $30 million over two years for rental assistance.

“We are trying to change the way we look at this issue in Philadelphia, where the only thing you do is go to landlord tenant court or start an eviction,” said Catherine Anderson, supervising attorney with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, who oversees the paralegals on the Save Your Home Philly hotline.

KANSAS CITY (AP) —Jada Riley thought she had beaten homelessness.The 26-year-old New Orleans resident was finally making a steady income cleaning houses during the pandemic to afford a $700-a-month, one-bedroom apartment. But she lost nearly all her clients after Hurricane Ida hit last year. Then she was fired from a grocery store job in February after taking time off to help a relative.Two months behind on rent, she made the difficult decision last month to leave her apartment rather than risk an eviction judgment on her record. Now, she’s living in her car with her 6-year-old son, sometimes spending nights at the apartments of friends or her son’s father.“I’ve slept outside for a whole year before. It’s very depressing, I’m not going to lie,” said Riley, who often doesn’t have enough money to buy gas or afford food every day.“I don’t want to have my son experience any struggles that I went through.”Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That’s in stark contrast to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-f0085d9d4547b897a27323bb95cc890c#:~:text=BOSTON%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20More%20than,eviction%20in%20the%20coming%20weeks.">the pandemic</a>, when state and federal&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-bd61b8a59126081bb09ef9515d09866f">moratoriums</a>&nbsp;on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in f&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-260b9c88a08a1ccb78494c8664887cf9">ederal Emergency Rental Assistance,</a>&nbsp;kept millions of families housed.“I really think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Shannon MacKenzie, executive director of Colorado Poverty Law Project, said of June filings in Denver, which were about 24% higher than the same time three years ago. “Our numbers of evictions are increasing every month at an astonishing rate, and I just don’t see that abating any time soon.”According to&nbsp;<a href="https://evictionlab.org/" target="_blank">The Eviction Lab</a>, several cities are running far above historic averages, with Minneapolis-St. Paul 91% higher in June, Las Vegas up 56%, Hartford, Connecticut, up 32%, and Jacksonville, Florida, up 17%. In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, eviction filings in July were the highest in 13 years, officials said.Some legal advocates said the sharp increase in housing prices due to inflation is partly to blame. Rental prices nationwide are up nearly 15% from a year ago and almost 25% from 2019, according to the real estate company Zillow. Rental vacancy rates, meanwhile, have declined to a 35-year low of 5.8%, according to the Census Bureau.A report last month from&nbsp;<a href="https://nlihc.org/oor" target="_blank">the National Low Income Housing Coalition</a>&nbsp;found that a tenant working full time needs to make nearly $26 per hour on average nationally to afford a modest two-bedroom rental and $21.25 for a one-bedroom. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.“Landlords are raising the rent and making it very unaffordable for tenants to stay,” said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, the eviction initiative project director for the National Housing Law Project.“Inflation has really shrunk the supply of housing that is available for people with the lowest incomes,” she added. “Without more protections in place, which not all states have, a lot of those families will be rendered homeless.”Patrick McCloud, chief executive officer of the Virginia Apartment Management Association, said the trend is a return to normal. “No one likes evictions, but they are in some ways a reset to the economy,” McCloud said, adding that evictions have been “artificially depressed.”“Housing is based on supply and demand. And when no one moves and you have no vacancies, you have a tight market and prices go up.”Graham Bowman, a staff attorney with Legal Aid Society of Columbus, Ohio, said evictions there are rising — 15% above historic averages in June alone — at a time when there are fewer places for those forced out to go.Sheryl Lynne Smith was evicted in May from her two-bedroom townhouse in Columbus after she used her rent money to repair a sewage leak in the basement. Smith, who is legally blind and has a federal housing voucher, fears she won’t be able to find anything by September when the voucher expires because of rising housing prices and the eviction on her record.“It’s very scary,” said Smith, 53, whose temporary stay at a hotel funded through a state program ends this weekend.In Boise, Idaho, Jeremy McKenney, 45, moved into his car last week after a judge sided with a property management company that nearly tripled the rent on his two-bedroom house. The Lyft and DoorDash driver will have to rent a hotel room whenever he has custody of his children, 9 and 12.“It’s definitely mind blowing,” said McKenney, adding that everything on the market is beyond his reach even after a nonprofit offered to cover the security deposit. “I have never been homeless before. I have always had a roof over my head.”The other challenge is the federal emergency rental assistance that helped keep millions housed during the pandemic has dried up in some jurisdictions or been increasingly rejected by some landlords.“What really gets me is there is rental assistance and so many landlords just don’t want it. They would rather throw someone on the street than take money,” Eric Kwartler, managing attorney of Lone Star Legal Aid’s Eviction Right to Counsel Project, which covers Houston and Harris County in Texas. “If you take the money, you can’t evict them. They want them out.”The U.S. Treasury said last week that more than $40 billion of the $46.5 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance had been spent or allocated.According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia have gone through at least 90% of their first disbursement. Twelve states and the District of Columbia had used 50% of the second allocation, known as ERA2, by the end of May. Three — Idaho, Ohio and Iowa — haven’t spent any ERA2 money and two — Nebraska and Arkansas — didn’t accept the funds.“The public health emergency may still be here but the funds to deal with it are rapidly disappearing,” said Martin Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.Treasury is encouraging states and cities to tap other&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-business-health-lifestyle-4eb5e86edad32ceb59fc8b3341bfa3f1">federal stimulus</a>&nbsp;funds to cover the gaps. So far, over 600 state and local governments had budgeted $12.9 billion in stimulus funds to meet housing needs, including affordable housing development.Gene Sperling, who oversees President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, highlighted the success of its rental assistance program, which has reached 7 million mostly low-income households.But, more needs to be done to ensure the country doesn’t return to pre-pandemic times when 3.6 million tenants were evicted annually and “evictions were too often a first resort, not a last resort,” he told a forum on eviction reforms at the White House last week.Some lawmakers said the answer is a permanent rental assistance program. A bill introduced in July would provide $3 billion annually for rental assistance and fund services to keep families housed. A study commissioned by the National Apartment Association and the National Multifamily Housing Council says the answer is building 4.3 million apartments by 2035.Other advocates called for permanent legal protections like right to counsel for tenants or eviction diversion programs to resolve evictions before they reach the courts.In Richmond, Virginia, eviction filings in June were 54% below historic averages, attributed to rental assistance and more legal representation for tenants in court, Wegbreit said. Similar programs were credited with New Mexico’s eviction filings being 29% below historic averages in June.Philadelphia, which passed a law making eviction diversion mandatory through this year, saw filings down 33%. The City Council in Philadelphia also approved spending $30 million over two years for rental assistance.“We are trying to change the way we look at this issue in Philadelphia, where the only thing you do is go to landlord tenant court or start an eviction,” said Catherine Anderson, supervising attorney with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, who oversees the paralegals on the Save Your Home Philly hotline.

Evictions spiking as assistance, protections disappear

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention said Friday that several of the denomination's major entities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of its&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/baptist-religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-southern-convention-bfdbe64389790630488f854c3dae3fd5">multiple problems related to clergy sex abuse</a>.

The SBC's Executive Committee has received a subpoena, but no individuals have been subpoenaed at this point, according to the committee's lawyers.

“This is an ongoing investigation and we are not commenting on our discussions with DOJ,” they said.

The statement from SBC leaders — including Executive Committee members, seminary presidents and heads of mission organizations — gave few details about the investigation, but indicated it dealt with widespread sexual abuse problems that have rocked the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

“Individually and collectively each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate with the investigation,” the statement said. “While we continue to grieve and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future.”

There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department about the investigation.

Earlier this year, an SBC sex abuse task force released a blistering 288-page report from outside consultant, Guidepost Solutions. The firm’s seven-month independent investigation found disturbing details about how denominational leaders mishandled sex abuse claims and mistreated victims.

The report focused specifically on how the SBC’s Executive Committee responded to abuse cases, revealing that it had secretly maintained a list of clergy and other church workers accused of abuse. The committee later apologized and released the list, which had hundreds of accused workers on it.

A Guidepost spokesperson declined to comment on news of the DOJ probe.

Following the release of the Guidepost report, the SBC voted during its annual meeting in June to created&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-california-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-baptist-southern-convention-ba7ba613947cc893659b6e8e45ab4b73">a way to track pastors</a>&nbsp;and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms. Earlier this week, SBC President Bart Barber, who also signed Friday’s statement, announced the names of the Southern Baptist pastors and church members who will serve on the task force.

Southern Baptist sex abuse survivor Christa Brown, who has long called for the SBC to do more to address sex abuse across its churches, celebrated the news of the DOJ investigation.

“Hallelujah. It’s about time,” Brown said in a Friday post on Twitter. ”This is what’s needed.”

Another survivor, Jules Woodson, went public with her abuse story in 2018 and has been pushing for reforms in the SBC ever since. On Friday, she reacted to the investigation news by tweeting, “May justice roll down!!!"

Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone, who serves on the Executive Committee and is the vice chair of the new abuse task force, said on Twitter that the investigation "is not something to fear ... If there is more work to do, we will do it.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1660444151062.png" alt="Photo courtesy Southern Baptist Convention" />
 <figcaption>Photo courtesy Southern Baptist Convention</figcaption>
 </figure>By HOLLY MEYER and DAVID CRARY&nbsp;NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention said Friday that several of the denomination's major entities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of its&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/baptist-religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-southern-convention-bfdbe64389790630488f854c3dae3fd5">multiple problems related to clergy sex abuse</a>.The SBC's Executive Committee has received a subpoena, but no individuals have been subpoenaed at this point, according to the committee's lawyers.“This is an ongoing investigation and we are not commenting on our discussions with DOJ,” they said.The statement from SBC leaders — including Executive Committee members, seminary presidents and heads of mission organizations — gave few details about the investigation, but indicated it dealt with widespread sexual abuse problems that have rocked the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.“Individually and collectively each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate with the investigation,” the statement said. “While we continue to grieve and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future.”There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department about the investigation.Earlier this year, an SBC sex abuse task force released a blistering 288-page report from outside consultant, Guidepost Solutions. The firm’s seven-month independent investigation found disturbing details about how denominational leaders mishandled sex abuse claims and mistreated victims.The report focused specifically on how the SBC’s Executive Committee responded to abuse cases, revealing that it had secretly maintained a list of clergy and other church workers accused of abuse. The committee later apologized and released the list, which had hundreds of accused workers on it.A Guidepost spokesperson declined to comment on news of the DOJ probe.Following the release of the Guidepost report, the SBC voted during its annual meeting in June to created&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-california-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-baptist-southern-convention-ba7ba613947cc893659b6e8e45ab4b73">a way to track pastors</a>&nbsp;and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms. Earlier this week, SBC President Bart Barber, who also signed Friday’s statement, announced the names of the Southern Baptist pastors and church members who will serve on the task force.Southern Baptist sex abuse survivor Christa Brown, who has long called for the SBC to do more to address sex abuse across its churches, celebrated the news of the DOJ investigation.“Hallelujah. It’s about time,” Brown said in a Friday post on Twitter. ”This is what’s needed.”Another survivor, Jules Woodson, went public with her abuse story in 2018 and has been pushing for reforms in the SBC ever since. On Friday, she reacted to the investigation news by tweeting, “May justice roll down!!!"Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone, who serves on the Executive Committee and is the vice chair of the new abuse task force, said on Twitter that the investigation "is not something to fear ... If there is more work to do, we will do it.”___

Clergy sex abuse: US investigating Southern Baptist Convention 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha police say a man who tried to rob a bank got into a scuffle with an off-duty police officer on the way out and fired one round after grabbing the officer’s gun, but no one was hurt.

Police said the incident was reported just before 3 p.m. Wednesday when the off-duty officer radioed for help from the First National Bank branch near 50 Street and Ames Avenue where he was working.

Before the encounter with the officer, the man went into the bank and handed an employee a note indicating there was a bomb in the building, but the man didn’t get any cash before he left. During the struggle with the officer the man grabbed the gun and fired, but the officer was able to take the gun back before the man fled.

The 41-year-old man was found a few blocks away after he had broken into a home and arrested with the help of a police dog.

The man was initially taken to a hospital before he was jailed on suspicion of attempted robbery, assaulting an officer, burglary and several other charges.

By Associated PressOMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha police say a man who tried to rob a bank got into a scuffle with an off-duty police officer on the way out and fired one round after grabbing the officer’s gun, but no one was hurt.Police said the incident was reported just before 3 p.m. Wednesday when the off-duty officer radioed for help from the First National Bank branch near 50 Street and Ames Avenue where he was working.Before the encounter with the officer, the man went into the bank and handed an employee a note indicating there was a bomb in the building, but the man didn’t get any cash before he left. During the struggle with the officer the man grabbed the gun and fired, but the officer was able to take the gun back before the man fled.The 41-year-old man was found a few blocks away after he had broken into a home and arrested with the help of a police dog.The man was initially taken to a hospital before he was jailed on suspicion of attempted robbery, assaulting an officer, burglary and several other charges.

Bank robber grabs officer's gun and fires during a scuffle

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican border cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito and Ensenada were hit by gang violence that included vehicles being set ablaze and road blockades.

The<a href="https://mx.usembassy.gov/alert-fires-roadblocks-and-police-activity-in-tijuana-mexicali-rosarito-ensenada-and-tecate/"> U.S. Consulate in Tijuana instructed its employees</a> “to shelter in place until further notice” around midnight because of the violence.

It was the third time this week Mexican cities have seen widespread arson and shootings by drug cartels. The gangs appear to be targeting stores, vehicles and innocent bystanders in response to disputes or attempts to capture gang members.

Tijuana officials said vehicles had been burned at about 10 points around the city, and Mayor Montserrat Caballero blamed it on disputes between drug gangs.

Caballero issued a public appeal to “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to stop the growing trend of targeting innocent civilians.

“Today we are saying to the organized crime groups that are committing these crimes, that Tijuana is going to remain open and take care of its citizens, and we also ask them to settle their debts with those who didn’t pay what they owe, not with families and hard-working citizens.”

The extent of the violence was still unclear Saturday. Late Friday, the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana said in a statement that it “is aware of reports of multiple vehicle fires, roadblocks, and heavy police activity in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tecate.”

The mayor’s comment about remaining open was an apparent reference to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, where some classes and public events were cancelled after similar violence on Thursday.

Alleged gang members went on a shooting spree in Ciudad Juarez, killing nine people, including four employees of a radio station, after a fight between rival gangs at a local prison left two inmates dead.

On Tuesday, drug cartel gunmen burned vehicles and businesses in the western states of Jalisco and Guanajuato in response to an attempt to arrest a high-ranking cartel leader of the Jalisco cartel.

The area around Tijuana, which borders southern California, is a lucrative drug-trafficking corridor long dominated by the Arellano Felix cartel but which has since become a battle ground between various gangs, including the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican border cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito and Ensenada were hit by gang violence that included vehicles being set ablaze and road blockades.The<a href="https://mx.usembassy.gov/alert-fires-roadblocks-and-police-activity-in-tijuana-mexicali-rosarito-ensenada-and-tecate/"> U.S. Consulate in Tijuana instructed its employees</a> “to shelter in place until further notice” around midnight because of the violence.<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D434786292017760%26set%3Da.227341039428954&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="426" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe></div>It was the third time this week Mexican cities have seen widespread arson and shootings by drug cartels. The gangs appear to be targeting stores, vehicles and innocent bystanders in response to disputes or attempts to capture gang members.Tijuana officials said vehicles had been burned at about 10 points around the city, and Mayor Montserrat Caballero blamed it on disputes between drug gangs.Caballero issued a public appeal to “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to stop the growing trend of targeting innocent civilians.“Today we are saying to the organized crime groups that are committing these crimes, that Tijuana is going to remain open and take care of its citizens, and we also ask them to settle their debts with those who didn’t pay what they owe, not with families and hard-working citizens.”The extent of the violence was still unclear Saturday. Late Friday, the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana said in a statement that it “is aware of reports of multiple vehicle fires, roadblocks, and heavy police activity in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tecate.”The mayor’s comment about remaining open was an apparent reference to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, where some classes and public events were cancelled after similar violence on Thursday.Alleged gang members went on a shooting spree in Ciudad Juarez, killing nine people, including four employees of a radio station, after a fight between rival gangs at a local prison left two inmates dead.On Tuesday, drug cartel gunmen burned vehicles and businesses in the western states of Jalisco and Guanajuato in response to an attempt to arrest a high-ranking cartel leader of the Jalisco cartel.The area around Tijuana, which borders southern California, is a lucrative drug-trafficking corridor long dominated by the Arellano Felix cartel but which has since become a battle ground between various gangs, including the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.Speaking about the Ciudad Juarez violence Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said: “They attacked the civilian, innocent population like a sort of revenge. It wasn’t just a clash between two groups, but it got to the point where they began to shoot civilians, innocent people. That is the most unfortunate thing in this affair.”Four employees of the MegaRadio station who were broadcasting a live promotional event outside a pizza store in Ciudad Juarez were killed in the shootings.Such random violence is not without precedent in Mexico.In June of last year, a rival faction of the Gulf cartel entered the border city of Reynosa and killed 14 people the governor identified as “innocent citizens.” The military responded and killed four suspected gunmen.And cartels in Mexico frequently hijack vehicles and burn them to distract police or prevent them from pursuing gunmen.