LAUREL, Miss. — The largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history has caused panic among Hispanic families in this small town, where federal agents rounded up nearly 600 plant workers suspected of being in the country illegally.
One worker caught in Monday’s sweep at the Howard Industries transformer plant said fellow workers applauded as immigrants were taken into custody.
About 100 of the 595 detained workers were released for humanitarian reasons, many of them mothers who were fitted with electronic monitoring bracelets and allowed to go home to their children, officials said.
Roberto Velez, pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Peniel, where an estimated 30 percent to 40 percent of the 200 parishioners were caught up in the raid, said parents were afraid immigration officials would take them.
“They didn’t send their kids to school today,” he said. “How scared is that?”
South Dakota: Third charged in AIM slaying
A federal grand jury has indicted a third man in connection with the 1975 slaying of an American Indian Movement member on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Vine Richard Marshall, better known as Dick Marshall, of Rapid City pleaded not guilty Tuesday to aiding and abetting the first-degree murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley. Prosecution witnesses have testified that Aquash was killed because AIM leaders thought she was a government spy. AIM leaders have denied any involvement in her death.
Canada: Mumps outbreak in B.C.
A growing mumps outbreak has been reported in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver and north of Washington state’s Whatcom County. About 200 people have been verified to have the virus in areas as far west as Burnaby in the Vancouver suburbs, Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin, medical health officer for the Fraser Health Authority, said Tuesday. In an average year, fewer than 100 cases are reported across Canada.
@3. Headline News Briefs 14 no:Mapping Arctic energy resources
Canada plans to map energy and mineral resources in its Arctic region in a bid to encourage development and assert its sovereignty in the far north, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday. Harper said field workers and specialized aircraft will use state-of-the-art science and technology to search for mineral and energy potential. The information gathered will be used to create geological models and subterranean maps to will help companies find resources.
Iraq: Bomber hits police recruits
A suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath his robe blew himself up in Jalula on Tuesday in a crowd of Iraqis trying to join the police force, killing at least 25 people in the second major bombing in Iraq this week. The bomb was packed with nails and ball bearings to maximize casualties, police said.
North Korea: Nuclear reactor threats
Angry that the United States has not removed it from a list of states that sponsor terrorism, North Korea said Tuesday that it has stopped disabling its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and will consider rebuilding it. Two months ago, the country released long-awaited details of its plutonium program and dynamited the cooling tower at the reactor — moves that prompted the Bush administration to say it would drop North Korea from the U.S. terror list and lift some trade sanctions. Since then, though, the United States has declined to take North Korea off the list, citing lack of progress in the North’s promise to allow outside experts to verify the scope of its nuclear program.
Mexico: Headless bodies found
Three decapitated bodies were found Tuesday in an empty lot on the eastern outskirts of Tijuana, the Mexican attorney general’s office said. The killings were the latest in a wave of mostly drug-related violence that has swept Mexico, much of it near the U.S. border. Drug cartels have turned to decapitating their victims as a way to intimidate rivals.
@3. Headline News Briefs 14 no:Floods kill at least 50 horses
Heavy rains have killed at least 50 horses at a Mexico City equestrian club and the 71-year-old watchman who tried to save them, officials said Tuesday. A Monday night storm sent mud and floodwaters spilling through the La Barranca horse club, trapping many of the horses in their stalls, said Mexico State emergency director Arturo Vilchis. At least 50 of the horses drowned.
From Herald news services
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