Obama to sign $600M border bill

Obama to sign $600M border bill

WASHINGTON

Determined to show a commitment to stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, the Senate convened a special session Thursday and passed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border.

The voice vote in the nearly empty Senate chamber sends the legislation to President Barack Obama, who planned to sign it into law today.

India sets deadline for BlackBerry info

NEW DELHI

India’s Home Ministry threatened Thursday to block BlackBerry corporate e-mail and messaging services unless the device’s manufacturer makes them accessible to its security agencies by Aug. 31.

The ministry said that if no technical solution is provided by then, it will take steps to block the services from the country’s mobile-phone network. The phones are made by Canada’s Research In Motion Ltd.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also have threatened to cut off popular BlackBerry services unless they get greater access to user information.

Fruit pulp linked to US typhoid cases

ATLANTA

A rare U.S. outbreak of typhoid fever has been linked to a frozen tropical-fruit product used to make smoothies, health officials reported Thursday.

Seven cases have been confirmed — three in California and four in Nevada. Two more California cases are being investigated. Five people were hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC said five of the victims drank milkshakes or smoothies made with frozen mamey fruit pulp. Four of them used pulp made by Goya Foods Inc. of Secaucus, N.J. The company has recalled packages of the pulp, sold mostly in western states.

Mamey is a sweet, reddish fruit grown mainly in Central and South America. It is also known as zapote or sapote.

Tobacco shipments to troops to resume

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

The U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that it plans to resume shipping care packages with cigarettes and other tobacco to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A law aimed at preventing smuggling unintentionally had banned families from sending tobacco to military members serving overseas. Spokesman Greg Frey said the postal service is planning to issue new instructions that could allow shipments to resume possibly as soon as Aug. 27.

Trial for youngest Gitmo inmate opens

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba

A war-crimes trial for Guantanamo’s youngest detainee opened Thursday with prosecutors showing an al-Qaida video of him making — and apparently planting — bombs in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers offered competing views of whether Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in 2002, was capable of acting independently from the Islamic extremist father who took him to Afghanistan.

Blagojevich jurors agree on 2 counts

CHICAGO

Jurors in the corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Thursday that they have reached agreement on just two of 24 counts against him and haven’t even begun discussing 11 of the counts. The judge told them to go back and deliberate more.

The exchange once again left the courtroom in a state of uncertainty, with lawyers and legal experts saying there is no way to know how long the deliberations may go on — but some said the apparent deadlocks on some counts were a good sign for Blagojevich and his co- defendant brother, Robert.

Associated Press