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California authorities take 21 children into custody amid surrogacy scheme investigation

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California authorities take 21 children into custody amid surrogacy scheme investigation

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California authorities are investigating a possible surrogacy scam after they rescued 21 children linked to a Los Angeles-area couple.

Fifteen children taken from the couple’s home — as well as an additional six children discovered living elsewhere — are now under the care of a child-welfare agency. The children were between the ages of 2 months and 13 years old, The Associated Press reported.

LAWFUL PERMANENT RESIDENT ARRESTED FOR ATTEMPTING TO SMUGGLE DRUGGED CHILD ACROSS SOUTHERN BORDER

The children’s legal parents are believed to be 38-year-old Silvia Zhang and 65-year-old Guojun Xuan, according to AP.

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The home of Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan is seen on Wednesday, July 16, 2025 in Arcadia, California, where a number of children were removed from the couple’s home after a child abuse allegation in May, according to Arcadia police. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

“We believe one or two were born biologically to the mother,” Arcadia Police Lt. Kollin Cieadlo said. “There are some surrogates who have come forward and said they were surrogates for the children.”

GUATEMALAN NATIONAL INDICTED FOR ALLEGEDLY SMUGGLING TEEN GIRL INTO THE US

Authorities were tipped off after the couple was arrested earlier this year when a hospital reported that their baby had a traumatic head injury. However, neglect charges were not formally pursued, according to Arcadia police.

An aerial view shows the home of Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan on Wednesday, July 16, 2025 in Arcadia, California, where a number of children were removed from the couple’s home after a child abuse allegation in May, according to Arcadia police. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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Cieadlo said Zhang had what appeared to be legitimate birth certificates for the many children which list her as their mother, and the duo had told police that they “wanted a large family,” according to AP.

FIVE ILLEGALS CHARGED IN ALLEGED MARITIME HUMAN SMUGGLING ATTEMPT THAT LEFT CHILD DEAD

“I’m not familiar with how the surrogacy laws work,” Cieadlo said. “We need to do a much deeper dive.”

Law enforcement removed 15 children from the couple’s home. (iStock)

Los Angeles TV stations quoted several women who claimed to be surrogate mothers for Zhang and Xuan, according to AP.

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A company was previously registered at the couple’s address called Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC. The business license was terminated last month, AP reported, citing business records with the California Secretary of State.

Arcadia Police and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Oregon

Wine Enthusiast names 2 Oregon sparkling wines among best

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Wine Enthusiast names 2 Oregon sparkling wines among best


‘Pour in the largest glass you can find while slow dancing in your socks,’ a Wine Enthusiast contributor said of an Oregon wine

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Wine Enthusiast released a list of the top 40 sparkling wines around the world in 2026 – highlighting two bottles of bubbly from Oregon.

“While it can seem like you need a fortune to enjoy high quality sparkling wine, you honestly don’t. Excellent affordable bubbles are being produced around the world, often in places you might not expect. Each of the selections on our inaugural Top 40 Sparkling Wines list delivers personality, freshness, and celebration for under $75,” Wine Enthusiast wrote.

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Wine Enthusiast divided its list into separate sparkling categories including, Champagne, Italian Bollicine, American sparkling and bottles $25 and under.

Snagging a spot on the American sparkling list: Corollary Wines in McMinnville.

Corollary Wines’ 2021 Momtazi Carbonic Rose Pinot Noir scored a spot on Wine Enthusiast’s list of the top 40 sparkling wines of 2026 (Courtesy Corollary Wines).

Corollarly’s 2021 Momtazi Carbonic Rosé Pinot Noir scored 96 points from Wine Enthusiast.

“This is a Peter Max print of a wine, with vivid aromas and flavors to match the wine’s electric Kool-Aid color. It is filled to the brim with aromas and flavors of macerated strawberries, candied rose petals, apricots, and a bitter note similar to watermelon rind. Pour in the largest glass you can find while slow dancing in your socks,” wrote Wine Enthusiast contributor Michael Alberty.

The second Oregon winery to earn a spot on the list: Lytle-Barnett in Dundee.

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Wine Enthusiast also gave Lytle-Barnett’s 2018 Brut Rosé Pinot Noir Chardonnay 96 points.

Lytle-Barnett’s 2018 Brit Rose Pinot Noir Chardonnay was named among the top 40 sparkling wines of 2026 by Wine Enthusiast (Courtesy Lytle-Barnett, Lester Tsai).

“Bubbles as persistent as an eight-year-old with a question deliver aromas of dried rose petals, macerated strawberries, and a touch of fresh hay and talc. This 70/30 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay blend is packed with flavors of lemon zest, Honeycrisp apple slices drizzled in caramel, and a dollop of raspberry,” Alberty wrote.

The nods to Corollary and Lytle-Barnett come as the wineries recently helped launch Method Oregon, a nonprofit made up of 50 Oregon wineries aiming to turn Oregon into a global sparkling wine destination.



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Utah

What Utah transfer Terrence Brown brings to the table for UNC

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What Utah transfer Terrence Brown brings to the table for UNC



Utah transfer Terrence Brown gives UNC a dynamic scoring guard with playmaking upside.

Utah transfer Terrence Brown, one of the top combo guards in the portal, has committed to North Carolina, giving the Tar Heels a high-scoring backcourt addition for next season.

Brown chose UNC over Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Ole Miss and USC. He is ranked the No. 8 combo guard and No. 38 overall transfer by 247Sports.

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The 6-foot-3 rising senior averaged 19.9 points, 3.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds for Utah last season while shootingt 45.3% from the field and 32.7% from 3-point range. He earned All-Big 12 honorable mention. 

His ability to both score and create for others makes him a natural candidate to replace former Tar Heels combo guard Seth Trimble.

Here is a full breakdown of what Brown brings to the tables.

What to be excited about

For starters, Brown is a high-level scorer. He scored 20 or more points 18 times and 25 or more points nine times last season. North Carolina’s backcourt had a player score 20 or more points only five times last season. Trimble accounted for four of those games, and Bogavac had one in UNC’s regular-season finale against Clemson.

Brown has shown he can be an effective passer as well. He posted a 27.7 assist percentage, an increase of 6.4 points from the previous season. That number rose to 28.1 percent in conference play, eighth-best in the Big 12.

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He has shown he can be a capable defender, averaging 1.7 steals per game throughout his career. His career best was 2.2 steals per game in 2024-25 with Fairleigh Dickinson, which led the Northeast Conference.

What to be concerned about

The only concern UNC should have with Brown is his ability to play with players just as good as, and possibly better than, he is. The worry should not be that he may intentionally ballhog. In fact, he may simply try to do too much.

Because he was on two mediocre programs such as FDU and Utah, Brown had free rein to shoot himself out of slumps as he was the No. 1 scorer and the primary ballhandler. The last two seasons, Brown has ranked in the top 15 in usage rate and has averaged 16.4 and 15.4 shots per game. While his offensive rating improved at Utah, going from 96.8 to 108.1, his effective field-goal percentage was still below 50 percent at 48.6.

He will have to learn not to put too much pressure on himself as he plays alongside teammates such as Neoklis Avdalas, Jarin Stevenson and possibly Henri Veesaar, if Veesaar returns to Chapel Hill.

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How He Fits at UNC

Brown should fit in just nicely in Chapel Hill and will provide a much-needed boost to its backcourt.

With UNC’s stronger supporting cast and a coach with a championship pedigree in Michael Malone, Brown will be pushed to process the game faster. He will need to read the floor quickly, use his first step to collapse the defense or kick out to shooters, and he could form an intriguing pick-and-roll duo with both Avdalas and Veesaar.

Brown’s athleticism could be a difference-maker at UNC. All he has to do is improve his shot selection and overall efficiency.

Follow us @TarHeelsWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels news, notes and opinions.

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Washington

Pulitzer-winning Washington Post editor Dan Eggen found dead at 60 after being laid-off earlier this year

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Pulitzer-winning Washington Post editor Dan Eggen found dead at 60 after being laid-off earlier this year


Veteran Washington Post editor Dan Eggen — a key architect of the paper’s political coverage who was laid off in a brutal round of cuts earlier this year — was found dead at his home in the nation’s capital on Tuesday. He was 60.

No foul play or violence were suspected in the death, local authorities told Eggen’s family, according to WaPo. The cause of death was pending an autopsy as of Wednesday morning.

Eggen spent nearly three decades at the paper, helping steer its reporting on the White House, Congress and presidential campaigns. He was on a team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for investigating the plotters behind 9/11, going on to work on projects that won the most prestigious award in journalism in 2016, for reporting on Russian election interference, and in 2022, for exploring the previous year’s attack on the US Capitol.

Dan Eggen, a longtime Washington Post editor who helped shape the paper’s political coverage, was found dead at his Washington home on Tuesday. Facebook/Dan Eggen

A fixture of the newsroom’s most sensitive coverage, Eggen was “a sharp editor with a keen story sense,” the Post’s executive editor Matt Murray told staff.

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“Dan was involved in hiring, editing and mentoring dozens of politics writers across the years,” he wrote, adding that Eggen’s “news muscle and instincts were integral to our coverage.”

At the time of his death, Eggen was set to start a new job at NOTUS, a recently launched, DC-based outlet that’s been scooping up laid-off WaPo staffers.

“We hired Dan to join us at NOTUS after some of the best reporters in DC told us he was the best editor they’d ever had,” the site’s editor in chief Tim Grieve wrote on X. “We were excited to have him here, and I think he was equally excited to be coming here. Deepest condolences to everyone who loved him.”

Josh Dawsey, a Wall Street Journal reporter who previously covered the White House for the Washington Post, recalled Eggen’s relentless work ethic. The late journalist “worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day” and was “incredibly dedicated, a wonderful line editor” who pushed reporters to improve, Dawsey told WaPo.

“I viewed him as one of the true beating hearts of the newsroom … Dan is one of those people who make the newspaper work,” he added.

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Ashley Parker, a former White House reporter for the Washington Post who has since decamped to The Atlantic, remembered Eggen as a deeply collaborative editor who empowered his staff, saying he “was the rare editor who believed in his reporters” and “changed only 10 percent of your copy but made it 90 percent better.”


Eggen had recently been laid off from The Washington Post and was preparing to start a new role at NOTUS before his death.
Eggen had recently been laid off from the Washington Post and was preparing to start a new role at NOTUS before his death. Getty Images

Eggen began his WaPo career as a metro reporter and covered the post-9/11 Justice Department before becoming an editor.

He is survived by two children from his ex-wife, journalist Stephanie Armour, and a sister, according to WaPo.

The Post has sought comment from local police.



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