Trump said on Twitter in August that he wanted all postal carriers to “search for and refuse all deliveries of fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!).” “Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop—it didn’t” Trump added. Fentanyl is a cheap, easy-to-synthesize opioid painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin that has played a major role in a devastating U.S. opioid crisis. Last week, authorities in Virginia arrested dozens of people, claiming it had seized enough of the synthetic drug to kill 14 million people....

Hong Kong’s current COVID policy requires anyone who tests positive to be admitted to a hospital or quarantine facility for at least seven days and discharge is dependent on what symptoms a person has and whether they begin testing negative, according to the Associated Press. Officials said they will likely continue to alter the isolation policies to help lift some of the pressure off of hospitals and other facilities, the AP reported....

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) annexed Tibet in 1950—a year after Mao Zedong founded the PRC—and has governed it as a nominal autonomous region ever since. Tibet’s spiritual leader, the 86-year-old Dalai Lama, has been living in exile in India since 1959. Beijing considers him a separatist and has refused to recognize his legitimacy. On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the appointment of Uzra Zeya to the role of special coordinator for Tibetan issues....

The U.S. strategy, announced Wednesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has been titled the “Clean Network” program. It aims to keep suspected Chinese Communist Party-affiliated services out of U.S. mobile networks, app stores, cloud services and undersea cables, as well as to prevent U.S. companies from making their apps available for certain Chinese smartphone manufacturers. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying hit back Thursday on social media, tweeting: “Talking CLEAN while doing DIRTY....

This comes amid recent chatter about the need for more confidence-building measures to avoid accidental clashes in regional hotspots. At a monthly Chinese defense ministry press briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Tan Kefei said the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy “intentionally hypes up conflict and confrontation” by encouraging military alliances and “cliques.” Clique is often used by Beijing to identify the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a coalition between the U.S., Japan, India and Australia—four influential powers spanning the Indian and Pacific oceans....

Ashley and Joe Cole back at Chelsea As Antonio Conte’s side prepared for their Premier League clash against West Brom, looking to return back to the top of the league after Arsenal’s victory on Saturday, eagle-eyed supporters spotted Andrea Pirlo, Joe Cole and Frank Lampard in the stands. The Italian midfielder was invited as a guest of the club, while Joe Cole has been training with the club in order to keep fit during the MLS winter break....

Two-time African champions Enyimba breezed aside Benin Republic’s Energie in the First round and will not slug it out with defending South African Premier Division champions, Bidvest Wits who were sent packing from the Caf Champions League by Angola’s C.D. Primeiro de Agosto. Finally, Fidelis Ilechukwu’s MFM FC face a tough hurdle in their quest to reach the group stage as they have been paired with 2016 Malian Première Division third place side’ Djoliba....

The insensitive images surfaced online on Saturday on Shay Hayston’s personal accounts before making its way to Twitter. According to a report from The Courier Mail, Hayston is a joint owner of several popular cafes in the Brisbane area including The Stand and Froth on Brunswick. It is not immediately clear which restaurant the incident occurred at. The docket names the customers as “two very annoying Asians” and was captioned with “Omg I love my staff” with three laughing emojis....

Cahill, 37, was in doubt for the tie after suffering an ankle injury during Melbourne City’s A-League loss to Sydney FC Friday. Germany 5/1 to win 2018 World Cup However, Football Federation Australia (FFA) announced Sunday that Cahill would travel – although Australia’s all-time leading goalscorer will join his team-mates Monday, a day later than initially expected. “Cahill’s delayed departure to Honduras is part of the monitoring and rehabilitation process that has been put in place for an ankle injury that the Melbourne City FC attacker sustained on Friday night while playing in the Hyundai A-League,” an FFA statement read....

Postecoglou trimmed his initial 30-man list to 23 on Wednesday, with Brisbane Roar forward Jamie Maclaren earning a late call-up after scoring his opening goal of the A-League season against Perth Glory on Sunday. READ MORE: MVP-worthy Giovinco snubbed by MLS FC Tokyo forward Nathan Burns, Perth Glory fullback Josh Risdon and 1860 Munich defender Milos Degenek were also recalled. Cahill has been left out of the squad for the match in Bangkok on Nov....

Jenner, an Olympic decathlete turned reality-TV star, launched her campaign in April as the recall effort to oust Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom picked up steam. Newsom is now all but certain to face a race as early as this fall, after his critics gathered enough signatures to force a special election by year’s end. A handful of prominent Republicans—including Jenner, John Cox, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Falcouner and former congressman Doug Ose—are already campaigning to replace Newsom....

On Sunday, Jenner, 73, spoke out in a series of Twitter posts, in which she said that she has been receiving the threats for voicing her opinion on the news topics of the day. “I have never received more death threats, death threats to my team, nasty hate mail than this week,” the Fox News contributor wrote on the micro-blogging platform. “It is all from the so called ‘inclusive’ lgbt community....

Jenner, a Republican who rose to fame as a gold-medal winning Olympian and through her appearances on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, said she believes states should be allowed to make their own laws, and she supports Texas’ right to do so regarding abortion. Texas passed a law that bans abortion after six weeks. Reproductive rights activists have slammed the law, saying it is an attempt to get around Roe v....

Oklahoma’s Joe Mixon did the same earlier in the day, and though neither the Bears nor the Sooners ultimately were hurt by the gaffes, they were all the more perplexing after Clemson’s Ray-Ray McCloud found himself in the national spotlight for doing the same thing the previous week and costing his Tigers a touchdown. MORE: Tracking the Top 25 Cal coach Sonny Dykes, for one, has seen enough. Starting next week, there will be a new rule for Bears who reach the end zone: “Every time we score a touchdown from now on, we will hand the ball directly to an official,” Dykes said, via USA Today....

If the Terminator doesn’t morph into the Great Communicator, it won’t be for lack of trying. “They both have a very optimistic, almost idealized view of America,” says Landon Parvin, a former Reagan aide recruited to help Schwarzenegger. And Schwarzenegger, say his advisers, shares Reagan’s free-market, small-government philosophy. But he is determined to avoid following in Reagan’s tax-raising footsteps; instead, he’ll try to persuade voters to allow him to borrow $20 billion to close California’s exploding deficit....

Tulare County Sheriff’s Office shared the encounter on Facebook with a post titled: “Bad Boys, Bad Boys! Whatcha Gonna Do?!” The sheriff’s office said its deputies were patrolling the local waterways when they met their match in Matix Fultz, aged six. “Little Matix was enjoying a day on Lake Kaweah with his family when the TCSO Deputies rode past in their patrol boat,” said the sheriff’s office in the Facebook post, “That’s when Matix decided to take the law into his own hands and squirt the Deputies with his water gun!...

The fake applications were filed at 105 community college campuses out of the state’s 116 campuses on behalf of first-time applicants older than 30, earning less than $40,000 and who were looking to earn a two-year degree, the Los Angeles Times reported. “We were kind of scratching our heads going, ‘Did or didn’t 60,000 extra older adult students really attempt to apply to community colleges here in the last few months?...

Keuana Weaver, from Long Beach, traveled with a friend just over the border to Tijuana for what was supposed to be a routine four-hour operation. But her mother, Yolanda Weaver, said the 38-year-old died on the operating table after suffering a heart attack and complications linked to blood clotting. “They just discarded my daughter like she was a piece of trash. No one still has called me to say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry....

While still in a drought, due to 2022’s extremely dry conditions—the second most arid in 128 years, according to the U.S. government’s National Integrated Drought Information System—California has seen up to 20 inches of precipitation between December 26 and January 6. With the state forecast to be hit by what the National Weather Service described on Sunday as a “relentless parade of cyclones moving across the Pacific,” there is confusion as to why a large swathe of the state still remains in extreme drought....