Police Raids

Hundreds of federal and state agents served search warrants throughout the county Tuesday, targeting a large commercial marijuana cultivation and distribution organization, authorities said. The raids at residences and outdoor marijuana-growing sites that covered thousands of acres were part of a two-year investigation initiated by the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. About 450 agents from the narcotics bureau, the FBI and numerous other agencies served 29 search warrants in Eureka, Arcata, Redway, Garberville and Shelter Cove.

At least eight alleged drug traffickers were killed during a raid in a Rio de Janeiro shantytown, police said. A state police spokeswoman said officers were met by gunfire when they arrived at the Minha Deusa slum. The agents seized drugs, rifles, grenades and ammunition, she said. Rio is one of the world's most violent cities and the site of frequent shootouts between police and drug gangs.

Federal and local authorities arrested 38 gang members and confiscated dozens of weapons in South Los Angeles this week, the culmination of two investigations into increased violence in the Baldwin Village neighborhood early this year, officials said. The arrests of members of the Black P-Stone Bloods and Rollin' 20s Crips occurred in early-morning raids Wednesday and Thursday, said John Torres, special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The gang members were booked on a variety of narcotics and firearms charges.

A report Wednesday indicating a marked decline in the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. fueled a widening national debate over the Bush administration's policy of immigration enforcement through aggressive workplace raids. The largest such enforcement action was in May in Postville, Iowa, where federal immigration agents descended on a meatpacking plant and arrested nearly 400 workers later detained in a building used to house cattle.

Two Mexican federal agents were charged Friday with possession of alleged drug money after they were arrested at a West Covina home with more than $500,000, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Nine people were killed Saturday as Hamas routed a well-armed clan loyal to the rival Fatah group from its urban stronghold in the worst flare-up of internal Palestinian strife this year. Hospital officials said 72 people, including 12 children, were wounded as mortar shells and machine-gun fire rattled Gaza City's crowded Shijaiyah neighborhood during the daylong battle. Among the injured was clan leader Ahmed Hillis, who fled into Israel with dozens of his followers.

Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside. Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package. Inside was 32 pounds of marijuana that evidently didn't belong to the couple.

Jesus Suarez, a Santeria priest, had slit the throat of one goat that June afternoon. He had three more goats, two sheep and 44 chickens to go. But before he could finish the ritual sacrifice, Coral Gables police swarmed the house where he and some 20 other followers of the Afro-Cuban religion had gathered to worship. The officers, Suarez recalls, pointed their guns at the devotees and screamed at them to freeze. Suarez could hear a couple of worshipers in the front yard yelling, "No dispare!"

A violent brawl in a Newport Beach bar may have started because the Hells Angels believed that a Christian motorcycle ministry was claiming an affiliation with them, according to court documents made public Thursday. The 52-page search warrant affidavit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, also cites an anonymous tipster who called police shortly after the July 27 brawl and said the Set Free Soldiers were planning a "war party" at an abandoned chicken farm in Riverside County.

As clashes between police and protesters subsided outside the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, county prosecutors charged eight people with conspiring to cause a riot as part of a terrorist act. The eight suspects were arrested in connection with raids of homes in the Twin Cities that were conducted by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department before the convention began. The charges are highly unusual because of the terrorism aspect. Ramsey County Atty.