Mexican navy seizes 10 tons

of synthetic drugs

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s navy seized 10 tons of synthetic drugs in a rural location near the western city of Culiacan, it announced Wednesday.

The navy said in a statement that its forces seized the drugs in large sacks and plastic drums on Tuesday in the community of Los Cedros. They also seized a dump truck.

They said the area was a site for the movement of multi-ton quantities of drugs. Western Mexico has seen industrial-scale production of methamphetamine.

The seized drugs were incinerated.

The seizure follows the discovery of a synthetic drug lab also in Sinaloa state last week. That raid yielded 50 tons of synthetic drugs near the town of Alcoyonqui.

Colleagues say Australian PM

has lost party support, must go

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Three senior Cabinet ministers have told Australia’s prime minister he has lost his government’s support and must hold an internal ballot to elect a new leader quickly, in a major blow to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s chances of surviving his current political crisis.

The trio of Mathias Cormann, Michaelia Cash and Mitch Fifield made their positions public on Thursday, the day former minister Peter Dutton wants lawmakers in the ruling conservative Liberal Party to elect a new prime minister.

Turnbull had defeated Dutton 48-35 in a surprise vote on Tuesday. Turnbull initiated the ballot in the hope of ending speculation that his government had lost faith in him in the face of poor opinion polling.

Cormann, the finance minister, had publicly stated his support for Turnbull on Wednesday, but on Thursday said Dutton should lead the government.