President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction on Monday (December 15), significantly broadening the US government's powers to combat the synthetic opioid responsible for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year.

SAN FRANCISCO - Downstairs at the medical examiner's office, the bodies lay side by side on stainless-steel tables and shelves, shrouded and anonymized in white bags, each person identifiable only by a protruding foot that had been toe-tagged.