World / Nation briefs December 12, 2011
US to leave border crossing to rangers
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas - The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence.
This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.
By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.
The crossing, which would be the nation's first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.
Noriega returns to Panama to serve time
PANAMA CITY, Panama - More than two decades after the U.S. forced him from power, Manuel Noriega was returned to Panama on Sunday as a prisoner and, to many of those he once ruled with impunity, an irrelevant man.
Noriega arrived Sunday evening on a flight operated by Spain's Iberia airlines. He had been delivered directly to the aircraft by a security escort from Paris' La Sante prison.
Officials said a helicopter was waiting to whisk him to the El Renacer prison to serve out three 20-year sentences for the slayings of political opponents in the 1980s.
It is the first time since he was ousted in a December 1989 U.S. invasion that he has been in his native country, after serving drug sentences in the United States and then a money-laundering term in a French prison.
Some Panamanians feel hatred for the former strongman and rejected American ally; a few others nostalgia. But hours before his arrival in the capital, Panama City, it seemed like few people had any strong feelings at all. The crowds were not of protesters or supporters but holiday shoppers.
Jetliner with engine out lands safely in Colorado
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - An engine shut down on a United Airlines jetliner Sunday, forcing it to make an emergency landing in western Colorado with 125 passengers and crew on board.
The Boeing 757 was flying from Denver to Los Angeles when one of its two engines shut down, and the flight was diverted to Grand Junction Regional Airport, typically a landing spot for smaller aircraft.
Passenger Jim Schreckengast said ground crews at first had trouble finding stairs high enough to reach the door of the 757.
The plane landed safely about 11:44 a.m., Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. No injuries were reported.
Mo. officials: Ex-deputy shot ex-wife, boyfriend
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - A former rural Missouri sheriff's deputy is suspected of killing his ex-wife and her new boyfriend before leading officers on a high-speed chase that ended with a shootout at an upscale hotel hosting a Christmas party for hundreds of doctors, nurses and their families, authorities said Sunday.
None of the hotel's guests, which also included members of a youth hockey team, were injured in the Saturday night shootout just two blocks from the Missouri Capitol.
The night's drama began about 70 miles to the southeast in the rural town of Salem, where authorities say former Dent County Sheriff's Deputy Marvin Rice, 44, went to the home of his ex-wife and her current boyfriend, demanding custody of his 2-year-old son and pulling out a handgun during an argument. Annette Durham, 32, and Steven Strotkamp, 39, were fatally shot. Rice fled with the boy while Durham's 6-year-old daughter - who heard the gunshots from a bedroom - ran to a neighbor, who called authorities, the sheriff's office said.
Iran says it will not return US drone
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran will not return a U.S. surveillance drone captured by its armed forces, a senior commander of the country's elite Revolutionary Guard said Sunday.
Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Guard, said in remarks broadcast on state television that the violation of Iran's airspace by the U.S. drone was a "hostile act" and warned of a "bigger" response. He did not elaborate on what Tehran might do.
Iranian television broadcast video Thursday of Iranian military officials inspecting what it identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel drone.
Iranian state media have said the unmanned spy aircraft was detected over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles from the border with Afghanistan. U.S. officials have acknowledged losing the drone.
- The Associated Press