Periodico The News Gram - noticias para latinos en Eagle Pass y Texas

Noticias Nacionales

	ALONG GULF, MANY WARY OF PROMISES AFTER SPILL GULFPORT, Miss. – People who live along the Gulf Coast know that a promise of money is not nearly as nice as it sounds. It means waiting and waiting, and raising a fuss, and then waiting some more, and consulting lawyers and talking to bureaucrats, and still waiting, and in some cases just giving up. And now, after almost five years of fighting insurance companies and government agencies to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, they are contemplating the prospect of going through all of that again.....

	ROAD TRIPPING THROUGH THE DEEP HEART OF TEXAS Cutting plumb through the heart of Texas, U.S. 281 runs from the arid plains of Wichita Falls at the Oklahoma border to the humid confines of Brownsville at the mouth of the Rio Grande. For most of its winding journey, it proves little more than that the state remains one very flat, dusty, empty place. But for a 300-mile stretch through its Texas midsection – from, say Glen Rose (about 60 miles southwest of Dallas) in the north to San Antonio in the south – U.S. 281 makes for a beautiful and ....

	LAW OFFICERS ASK FOR U.S. FUNDS TO BOLSTER SECURITY ON U.S.-MEXICO BORDER WASHINGTON – Federal and state law enforcement officials told a Senate panel Wednesday that more federal funding is needed to help combat crimes linked to Mexico-based drug cartels and U.S. street gangs. Donald Reay of the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition said more federal funding is needed to help states fill the gaps when federal law enforcement fails. “The answer for border sheriffs is not to send more money to Mexico but augment the needs of our local law enforcement to contain tha....

Texas lawmaker says gambling discussion should be out in open AUSTIN, Texas -- The worse the budget situation in Texas, the more you’ll hear talk about whether the state should expand gambling. And so here we are. Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, called this week for the creation of a House committee to study gambling, which he called the elephant in the room in light of the sizable budget deficit that lawmakers will confront next year. Usually the speaker of the House appoints committees, but Speaker Joe Straus must tiptoe around the issue because his family is....

	Earthquake sounded like tornado, followed by bomb, survivor says ATLANTA -- It sounded like a tornado, followed by a bomb dropping. Then the noise under the ground started, Frantz Florestal said. The metro Atlanta man was in his great-grandmother’s house, one that’s more than 100 years old, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city that was destroyed Tuesday by a record 7.0 earthquake. “You heard the noise under the ground, and it’s shaking and shaking, and everybody started running,” Florestal said. “Houses were falling and falling, all of the fences were ....

MEXICO DEALS A BLOW TO A TOP DRUG GANG BUT WARNS OF CONTINUED DRUG VIOLENCE Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting. Byline: ELISABETH MALKIN New York Times News MEXICO CITY – Even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug lords, Arturo Beltran Leyva’s capacity for violent revenge was especially brazen, officials in both the United States and Mexico say. His enforcement arm, called the Fuerzas Armadas de Arturo, or the Armed Forces of Arturo, is considered one of Mexico’s most ruthless, according to the U.S. State Department. Since September, he had been carryin....

MEXICO DEALS A BLOW TO A TOP DRUG GANG BUT WARNS OF CONTINUED DRUG VIOLENCE Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting. Byline: ELISABETH MALKIN New York Times News MEXICO CITY – Even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug lords, Arturo Beltran Leyva’s capacity for violent revenge was especially brazen, officials in both the United States and Mexico say. His enforcement arm, called the Fuerzas Armadas de Arturo, or the Armed Forces of Arturo, is considered one of Mexico’s most ruthless, according to the U.S. State Department. Since September, he had been carryin....

SUSPECT KNEW WAR HORROR, AND HIS OWN FEAR © 2009 New York Times News Service WASHINGTON – Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist. But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, started having second thoughts about his military career a f....

ÔBAMA’S PRIZE COMPLICATES A PRESIDENCY IN SEARCH OF SUCCESSES Byline:ADAM NAGOURNEY© 2009 New York Times News ServiceWASHINGTON ‚ President Barack Obama is given to big events at big moments, replete with stirring speeches, lofty backdrops and stadium-size crowds.But when Obama walked into the Rose Garden on Friday morning having just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ‚an honor that would normally be a moment of high celebration, if not the culmination of a life’s work ‚ he was humble and self-deprecatory, popping a hole in the balloon of his own accomp....

TEXAS GOVERNOR RACE TURNS REPUBLICANS AGAINST EACH OTHER Byline: JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. © 2009 New York Times News Service HOUSTON – Gov. Rick Perry looks as if he stepped out of a Marlboro billboard: square-jawed, weathered face, a shock of black hair, steely eyes. He even says "howdy" when he enters the room. His public persona is so folksy that many opponents have underestimated his political skills. But Perry, a conservative ideologue whose recent flourishes include expressing sympathy for secessionists and supporting a failed effort to add a "ch....

FIRST REPORTED AMERICAN DEATH FROM SWINE FLU New York Times BROWNSVILLE, Texas ‚ A Texas schoolteacher became the first American to die as a consequence of the new swine flu, Texas health officials said Tuesday. The 33-year-old woman from Harlingen, near the Mexico border, had a pre-existing medical problem, said Dr. Leonel Lopez, epidemiologist for the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services. "The flu just made things worse." He did not identify the teacher but said that she had recently given birth and that her baby w....

FROM EDGAR, 5, COUGHS HEARD ROUND THE WORLD LA GLORIA, Mexico – Edgar Hernandez can rattle off the fierce flu symptoms he suffered a few weeks back like a boy far beyond his 5 years: His head was hot. He coughed until his belly and his throat were sore. He did not want to eat, which was strange for him, someone who gobbles up everything he can. “I feel good now,” he said Tuesday, flashing a smile. But the government has identified Edgar as the first person in Mexico to have become infected with a strain of swine flu, a notoriety that ma....

TEXAS GOVERNOR'S SECESSION TALK STIRS FUROR New York Times JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. HOUSTON - Gov. Rick Perry has touched off a political uproar by expressing sympathy for Texans who want to secede from the United States. His comments have made him a darling of conservative radio hosts, a butt of jokes on television talk shows and a target of criticism from state Democrats. Perry did not actually endorse the idea of Texasí leaving the Union, but critics say his remarks, after an anti-tax protest Wednesday in Austin, came close. Seek....

IN MEXICO, OBAMA SEEKS CURB ON ARMS SALES New York Times President Barack Obama, vowing to confront drug cartels that are "sowing chaos in our communities," called Thursday for the Senate to ratify a long-stalled treaty aimed at curbing illegal arms trafficking. But Obama also suggested he would not press lawmakers to revive an expired ban on assault weapons. On the first day of a four-day swing through Latin America, Obama arrived here Thursday afternoon for a visit that was intended to demonstrate what he called "a new era" in U.....

U.S. CABINET OFFICIALS TO MEET WITH MEXICAN COUNTERPARTS By GARY MARTIN and STEWART M. POWELL New York Times WASHINGTON – U.S. law enforcement officials and their Mexican counterparts will huddle in Central Mexico on Thursday to seek ways to stifle arms smuggling from the U.S to Mexico. Days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Americans shared responsibility for drug-fueled violence in Mexico, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will fly to Cuernavaca in an effort to develop support fo....