Drones, Self-Driving Bots With Artificial Intelligence May Help Secure US Borders
NEW DELHI TELEVISION — Scientists in the US are developing a system of robotic drones and land vehicles integrated with artificial intelligence that may help security forces better monitor the country’s border. Researchers at the University of Arizona (UA) received a USD 750,000 grant from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research to build an autonomous surveillance system for land and aerial vehicles monitoring the country’s border with Mexico.
Mexico President Hopes US Relations Will Focus on ‘Positive Ends’
ASHARQ AL AWSAT — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Saturday said relations with the United States should “generate mutual respect and build confidence,” a day after US President Donald Trump renewed his commitment to building a wall on the border between the two neighbors. Speaking at the end of his trip to Hamburg for the G20 meeting, Pena Nieto told reporters that the relationship with the United States, Mexico’s top trading partner, should instead focus on more positive ends – a view that he believed Trump also shared.
Spyware Sold to Mexican Government Targeted International Officials
THE NEW YORK TIMES — A team of international investigators brought to Mexico to unravel one of the nation’s gravest human rights atrocities was targeted with sophisticated surveillance technology sold to the Mexican government to spy on criminals and terrorists. The spying took place during what the investigators call a broad campaign of harassment and interference that prevented them from solving the haunting case of 43 students who disappeared after clashing with the police nearly three years ago.
Updated North American trade deal could boost U.S. chemical exports
CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS — With talks aimed at revising the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expected to start soon, chemical manufacturers recently offered advice to the Trump Administration for updating the 23-year-old accord with Canada and Mexico. For chemical manufacturers, capitalizing on the shale gas revolution by securing expanded access to the two largest markets for U.S. chemical exports—Canada and Mexico—is a key goal, said Greg Skelton of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry trade association.
Trump promised Mexico would pay for wall but US official says that’s ‘not the focus’
ABC NEWS — President Trump promised repeatedly during the election campaign that Mexico would pay for a border wall with the U.S., but one of his cabinet secretaries said getting the United States’ southern neighbor to pay for a wall is “not the focus for the moment.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday that the Trump administration’s two priorities in dealings with Mexico are immigration and renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
STAMAN: Protecting a good trade
STAR-HERALD — “I have a 1968 Mustang,” I told my friend. “I will trade it for your 1957 Chevy.” It was a typical Hot Wheel trade negotiation growing up. Next week or the next day, the renegotiation would begin. Sometimes, I made out better in the renegotiation, other times, not so good. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Donald Trump called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) one of the worst trade deals in history. He promised if elected he would get rid of it. The future of NAFTA is now in the hands of President Trump.
State of Texas: Cruz health care proposal raises new concerns
KXAN — While the fight over health care is stalled in Washington, a Senator from Texas could hold the key to making a deal. Senator Ted Cruz toured the state to promote his amendment to the Republican health care bill that was introduced just days before the July 4th recess.
Texas Border City Considers Helping US Jail Immigrants
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT — El Paso, Texas, is caught in an immigration conundrum. The summer heat has reduced the river separating El Paso from Juarez, Mexico, to a dry, brown plain, allowing hundreds of people to run across the riverbed recently to embrace their relatives and take pictures. The four-minute visits were approved by border authorities on both sides, as part of an event called “Hugs Not Walls.” Meanwhile, each night El Paso’s jail — under contract with the federal government — takes in hundreds of immigrants awaiting deportation.
In Mexico, massacre of family underlines surging violence
ABC NEWS — The bullet-riddled bodies of the Martinez children were found on a bloody floor, huddled next to the corpses of their parents in a rented shack. The family of six was massacred, authorities believe, because the Zetas cartel suspected the father, an unemployed taxi driver, had played some part in a rival gang’s attack that killed a Zeta gunman.
STC robotics camp reinforcing STEM knowledge in Valley
VALLEY MORNING STAR — Students from all over the Rio Grande Valley got a chance to expand their science knowledge this week at the Robotics and Automation Summer Camp at the South Texas College Technology Campus. The one-week summer camps, which began in June and will run through July, teach students about the depth of robotics by using components of computer science, engineering, math, automation technology or advanced manufacturing.
Zimbabwean students conquer Texas
BULAWAYO24 — AS Africa attempts to stake its claim on the world economy, education that sheds light on global economics and markets becomes more important. This has seen Zimbabwean students go to study abroad and then returning with the objective of developing their country. Surprisingly the US, which is leading in technological innovations such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Dell, among others, has not been high on the list of Zimbabwean students. Dean of the Huston-Tilloston (HT) School of Business and Technology, Dr Steven Edmond, wants that to change, for all the Zimbabwean students that have come to the institution, which is in Austin, Texas, have excelled in their studies, even gaining traction on the competitive US employment market.
Pillar of the Hawaiian Coffee Industry Deported to Mexico
THE DAILY MEAL — Andres Magana Ortiz, an entrepreneur, father of three, and a pillar of the Hawaiian coffee farming community, was denied his last request to be allowed to stay in the U.S. with his family and was deported to Mexico on Friday, June 7. According to NBC News, the 43-year-old Ortiz was smuggled to the U.S. when he was 15 years old to join his mother. During his 28 years in America, Ortiz founded the El Molinito coffee farm in the Kona region of Hawaii, and his fellow farmers describe him as a pillar of the community.
Deportation heartbreak as ICE prepares to send Ohio father of four to Mexico
CLEVELAND.COM — Six-year-old Elsiy Lara Lopez seems oblivious to the conversation about her father’s future while she plays with his iPhone. But when he is asked if he is prepared to be deported to Mexico on July 18, she stiffens and cries, “No, no, daddy can’t go away.” Hearing her plea, Jesus Lara Lopez looks away from the little girl on his lap. His eyes tear up and he struggles for words of comfort that do not come.
COMMENTARY: Call for a boycott of Texas due to ‘discriminatory’ SB 4 law
THE MONITOR — The time has come for us, Texans, to promote an economic boycott of our state until the misnamed “anti-sanctuary” law, Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) is repealed and state officials end their war on immigrants. We should begin a campaign to ask conventions, conferences and major sports events to take their business elsewhere. SB 4, Texas’ “show me your papers” law, which goes into effect Sept. 1, is the worst discrimination law that any state has passed in recent times.
