News Roundups

Below are news roundups for topics relevant to the Arizona / Sonora borderlands:

• Local Community Radio Act
  • On Jan. 4, President Obama signed the Local Community Radio Act of 2010. This bill allows the Federal Communications Commission to resume issuing licenses to Low-Power FM radio stations.  These radio stations broadcast at less than 100 watts and are non-commercial. The signing of the bill represents both the culmination of a decade-long effort on the part of activists and a last-minute compromise with full-power radio stations.
• Giffords Shooting
  • On Jan. 8, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot in the parking lot of a Safeway grocery store near Tucson.  The story has been making national headlines for the past week.  The above roundup provides the broad strokes of the news coverage of the shooting.
• Spillover Violence
  • A war among drug cartels and the Mexican government, partially funded by the U.S. government, is currently raging in Northern Mexico.  Many politicians and residents of the borderlands worry that this violence will “spill over” into the U.S. Others view the phenomenon with skepticism, with the opinion that politicians are using the threat of spillover violence as a political tool. The above news roundup shows the evolution of this debate.

• National Guard on Border
  • In response to the threat of spillover violence, the Obama administration sent National Guard troops to the Arizona / Sonora border.  The above news roundup sheds light on the buildup to the deployment of National Guardsmen.

• Nogales mayor goes to trial
  • The mayor of Nogales, Ariz. was recently indicted on charges of corruption and money laundering.  His case shows the instability of the borderlands, as well as the powerful forces that work behind the scenes to shape the future of the region.
• Operation Streamline
  • Immigration is always an issue in southern Arizona.  A Bush-era program to speed up, or “streamline,” the adjudication of immigrants caught in the U.S. has been met with both support and opposition by politicians, local residents, and political pundits.  The above news roundup provides a chronology of the program.

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