U.S. Sends Help to Mexico After Series of Deadly Attacks

Published July 19, 2010 | FoxNews.com

The remains of a vehicle are seen on a street in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, July 16. (AP Photo)

The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Monday said immigration officials are working closely with Mexican authorities to investigate a series of stunning attacks in Mexico including a car bomb in the border city of Juarez that has drawn comparisons to Middle Eastern terrorism. 

While the Obama administration rolls out its plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard and other assets to the southwestern border, the violence in northern Mexico has only escalated in recent weeks. 

Eighteen people were massacred at a party in the city of Torreon on Sunday -- more than a month after 19 people were killed at a drug-rehab center in Chihuahua. In the border city of Juarez, where more than 1,500 have been killed this year, a car bomb apparently designed to lure police to the scene killed three people on Thursday.

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First Lawsuit Heard Agains Arizona Immigration Law

A showdown over immigration

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Ashley Cooper is not an illegal immigrant. She's not Hispanic.

Yet the 22-year-old who graduated recently from Northern Arizona University spends her weekends in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods in Flagstaff, Ariz., raising money to battle the state's new immigration law. She and other volunteers pass collection cups around soccer matches, neighborhood festivals and quinceañeras— traditional Hispanic coming-of-age parties for girls turning 15.

"I've never been more of a churchgoer in my life than now," Cooper, a volunteer with the Repeal Coalition, a group trying to repeal the state's immigration law, says of her fundraising efforts.

Cooper and others who feel strongly about Arizona's immigration enforcement law are preparing for what could be an onslaught of litigation starting July 29, when the law is scheduled to go into effect. It would require police officers to question the immigration status of suspects stopped for another offense if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they are in the country illegally.

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Russia Ready to Deliver Fuel to Iran Despite Sanctions

Russian companies were ready to supply fuel to Iran, despite unilateral U.S. and European Union sanctions targeting Tehran's oil and gas sectors, the Russian energy minister said Wednesday.

"Russian companies are prepared to deliver oil products to Iran. The possibility of delivering oil products to Iran exists, if there is a commercial interest," said Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko.

Russia already expressed its dissatisfaction with sanction measures, agreed last month by the U.S. and the EU, to punish Iran for its defiance in the nuclear standoff with Western countries.

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Under Fire, Apple to Discuss iPhone

Published July 14, 2010

 | The Wall Street Journal

AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato

Piotr Kubiak of Oakland, Ill., shows off his new iPhone 4, right, next to his old iPhone outside of an Apple store Thursday, June 24, 2010, in Chicago.

Fox News has confirmed that Apple will hold a news conference Friday concerning its iPhone 4, which is facing mounting criticism over reception problems tied to antenna design.

An Apple spokesman declined to give further details, including whether the conference will address reported reception problems or Apple's response to those problems. Apple plans to hold the conference at its headquarters, the spokesman said.

Apple watchers speculated that the company will offer a solution. "Given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4, it's going to be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone," speculated Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research.

The Cupertino, Calif., company launched the phone last month to great fanfare as it boasted of a design that put the antenna in a stainless steel band around the phone's frame.

But even as the phone has continued to sell well at stores, it has been plagued with user complaints about dropped calls when the phone is held in a way that covers part of the antenna.

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U.S. General: Iran's Threat in Iraq on the Rise

BAGHDAD — The threat to U.S. troops in Iraq from Iranian-backed militants has increased although it will not disrupt the ongoing withdrawal, a top U.S. commander said on Tuesday.

While the overall number of attacks on U.S. military convoys leaving Iraq has been "fairly low," top U.S. commander in the country Gen. Ray Odierno said "a very consistent threat" from Iran-backed groups has increased in the last two weeks.

Tehran is stepping up its efforts to increase its political and economic influence in Iraq as U.S. military capability diminishes, he added.

"There's a very consistent threat from Iranian surrogates operating in Iraq," Odierno told reporters in Baghdad. As a result, security has been beefed up at some U.S. bases in Iraq and joint operations with Iraqi forces against suspected Iranian-sponsored insurgents have been increased.

While the connections between certain groups of Shiite militants and the government in Tehran was "always very convoluted," Odierno was fairly certain of their ties to the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a heavily armed paramilitary force tasked with protecting the clerical regime.

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Leak Foils BP Effort to Choke Gusher With Cap

NEW ORLEANS -- BP engineers working to choke the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico found a leak on a line attached to the side of the new well cap and were trying to fix it Thursday before attempting to stop the flow of crude.

BP said Wednesday evening it had isolated the leak and was repairing it before moving forward. It wasn't clear how it would affect the timing of the operation, or whether oil continued to be slowly closed off into the cap.

Work started earlier Wednesday after a day-long hiatus to allay government fears that the disaster could be made worse by going forward with the tests to determine whether the temporary cap can withstand the pressure and contain the oil. It was the best hope yet of stopping the crude from streaming into the water for the first time since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 people.

The process began with BP shutting off pipes that were funneling some of the oil to ships on the surface so the full force of the gusher went up into the cap. Then deep-sea robots began slowly closing, one at a time, three openings in the cap that let oil pass through. Ultimately, the flow of crude will be blocked entirely.

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Texas Mayor Left Ominous Suicide Note, Keys at Front Door

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Jayne Peters, the mayor of an affluent Dallas suburb, killed her daughter Corinne in their home in Coppell, Tex., before committing suicide.

COPPELL, Texas -- When police arrived at a suburban Dallas mayor's sprawling upscale home, they quickly realized something was very wrong. Rather than attend a City Council meeting, Mayor Jayne Peters had apparently taped an envelope to the door with a key and an ominous note inside.

Something unpleasant awaited them, warned the typed missive.

Inside the two-story brick house, Coppell police found a horrific scene Tuesday night. Peters and her 19-year-old college-bound daughter were both dead of gunshot wounds to the head, an apparent murder-suicide committed by the mayor, investigators say.

Three other notes were found at the house. But they did not offer an explanation for the deaths, only instructions for managing family affairs, such as care for the dogs, Coppell Deputy Police Chief Steve Thomas said Wednesday.


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Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston to Tie the Knot

(July 14) -- Levi Johnston has taken his reconciliation with the Palin family one big step further: He popped the question to Bristol, but they didn't tell her parents she said yes because she was too scared.

Her parents seem less than thrilled.

The cover of Us Weekly shows Bristol Palin, 19, wearing an engagement ring. Johnston, 20, has his arm around her, and both are holding their 18-month-old out-of-wedlock son, Tripp. The cover -- with the headline blaring "We're Getting Married!" -- was shown this morning on NBC's "Today." A video of the magazine's photo shoot in Alaska also was shown.

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Illegal immigrants seeking in-state tuition rates hold 'teach-ins' at Capitol, White House

WASHINGTON

the Capitol and White House steps, that is.

A coalition of student immigrant advocacy groups in Massachusetts, Colorado and California on Wednesday launched a makeshift school in the nation's capital, reminiscent of the "teach-ins" of the 1960s, to encourage a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants through college enrollment.

The first class at "Dream University" — a school with informal classes and volunteer professors and instructors from around the country — was held Wednesday outside the White House, with more planned in the weeks ahead. Students don't get credit for the classes, but they're free.

The first class of about 27 students, several wearing white DREAM University T-shirts, gathered at Lafayette Park, across from the White House.

Cady Landa, a former Boston public schoolteacher, led the students in a discussion of a report recently released by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

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