Peanut Butter News

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WASHINGTON — The number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. has dropped for the first time in two decades — decreasing by 8 percent as the sour economy dried up jobs and increased enforcement made it harder to sneak across the border with Mexico, a new study finds.

Much of the decline comes from a sharp drop-off in illegal immigrants from the Caribbean, Central America and South America attempting to cross the southern border of the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center, which based its report on an analysis of 2009 census data.

Full Story at CNN.com

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) — BP will try again within the next day to cap a well that has gushed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the energy company said Friday.

The latest attempt will involve inserting a tube into a ruptured pipe, collecting oil and sending it to a vessel on the surface, said Mark Proegler, a BP spokesman.

The insertion tube was on the sea floor, and engineers planned to move it into place later in the day, Proegler said.

Full Story at CNN.com

Tijuana, Mexico (CNN) — On Tijuana’s Avenue de la Revolucion, street vendor and sidewalk philosopher Juan Ramon Rocha leaned on his coin and jewelry cart and waited.

But the tourists from across the border never rushed into the streets of T.J., as it’s often called.

Rocha made one sale, to a local resident, in an hour.

“The business, you can see for yourself, it went down 95 percent,” he said. “Please tell them, the Americans, it’s safe to come here. We are all Americanos, North Americanos. Do you see any problems here?”

Full Story at CNN.com

Mexico City, Mexico (CNN) — Authorities believe assassins targeted a pregnant woman and two other people connected with a U.S. consulate who were killed in drive-by shootings over the weekend, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said Monday.

The killings were carried out by a local gang, known as Los Aztecas, that is allied with the Juarez Cartel, Reyes told CNN. No arrests had been made by Monday afternoon.

Full Story at CNN.com

Washington (CNN) — The United States has renewed a travel alert to Mexico, citing increased violence in the country.

The alert, issued Sunday by the State Department, is in effect until August 20 and supersedes an alert issued August 20, 2009.

“Recent violent attacks have caused the U.S. Embassy to urge U.S. citizens to delay unnecessary travel to parts of Michoacan, Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua … and to advise U.S. citizens residing or traveling in those areas to exercise extreme caution,” the alert says.

Full Story at CNN.com

Thousands stuffed the bleachers on both sides of a California high school football field Monday night to remember a beloved teacher who was slain in Mexico a few days ago.

Grieving family members, friends and residents of El Monte, California, waved glowsticks in the air and listened to heartfelt stories about how Augustin Roberto “Bobby” Salcedo was a devoted family man and an inspirational educator. They heard, too, that he was a practical jokester who made people laugh.

Full Story At ClickToNews.com

The Bush adminstration is quietly making approval for a super highway 10 lanes wide, train, and oil pipe lines running from the South of Mexico to the Heart of America and onto Canada. This highly restricted highway will eliminate unions as cheap Mexican labour can take all products from the Far East by passing the American Border and drop off all products in Kanasas City for clearance and then onto any desination in the USA or Canada.

Full Story At  msnbc.com

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s government is suspending all nonessential activity of the federal government and private business as the number of confirmed swine flu cases jumped.

The decision came as global health authorities warned Wednesday that swine flu was threatening to bloom into a pandemic, and the virus spread farther in Europe even as the outbreak appeared to stabilize at its epicenter. A toddler who succumbed in Texas became the first death outside Mexico.

Full Story At  CNN.com

Some observers say Twitter — a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages — has become a hotbed of unnecessary hype and misinformation about the outbreak, which is thought to have claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico.

“This is a good example of why [Twitter is] headed in that wrong direction, because it’s just propagating fear amongst people as opposed to seeking actual solutions or key information,” said Brennon Slattery, a contributing writer for PC World. “The swine flu thing came really at the crux of a media revolution.”

Full Story At news.yahoo.com

MEXICO CITY – The schools and museums are closed. Sold-out games between Mexico’s most popular soccer teams are being played in empty stadiums. Health workers are ordering sickly passengers off subways and buses. And while bars and nightclubs filled up as usual, even some teenagers were dancing with surgical masks on.

Across this overcrowded capital of 20 million people, Mexicans are reacting with fatalism and confusion, anger and mounting fear at the idea that their city may be ground zero for a global epidemic of a new kind of flu — a strange mix of human, pig and bird viruses that has epidemiologists deeply concerned.

Full Story At  CBS News

(AP) The Obama administration plans to spend more than $400 million to upgrade ports of entry and surveillance technologies to help thwart drugs and arms smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that the projects will help keep violence from spilling across the border.

“Working together at all levels, we take them on and we take them out. That is our goal,” Napolitano told reporters after an aerial tour of the border area near San Diego.

Full Story At  msnbc.com

REYNOSA, Mexico – Acting on a tip, 30 masked soldiers in combat gear bust down the door of a boarded-up house to find 55 terrified migrants, hostages of the Gulf drug cartel.

Amid screams and the smell of urine and sweat, they find a blood-spattered room and a nail-encrusted log used to beat the captives and extort money from their families: $3,000 each.

Five suspected kidnappers are hauled off in a military truck, including the alleged leader — the son of a local police officer.