Nithya Raman, who has been compared to Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, presents a significant challenge to the incumbent, Mayor Karen Bass.

The former speaker, a prodigious fund-raiser and shrewd campaign strategist, seldom intervenes in primaries but has made an exception for a Kennedy before.

Drug syndicates have used .50-caliber ammunition, produced at a plant owned by the U.S. Army and then smuggled across the border, in attacks on Mexican civilians and police.