International
Arizona to remove shipping container wall on US-Mexico border
| By AFP | Paula Ramon |
Arizona agreed Wednesday to dismantle a wall of shipping containers at the Mexican border that critics said was an expensive, ecologically damaging political stunt that did nothing to keep migrants out of the United States.
The state’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey spent $90 million of taxpayers’ money lining up rusting boxes in what he said was a bid to stem the flow of people crossing into the country.
The corrugated containers, which snake for four miles (seven kilometers) through federal lands like a huge stationary cargo train, divide an important conservation area that is home to vulnerable species, but which is so difficult to traverse that people traffickers routinely avoid it.
Now Ducey, who leaves office early next year, will have to get rid of the 915 containers from the Coronado National Forest.
In an agreement reached Wednesday with the federal government, Ducey’s administration said it will “remove all previously installed shipping containers and associated equipment, materials, vehicles, and other objects from the United States’ properties on National Forest System lands within the Coronado National Forest.”
Biodiversity
From close up, the double-stacked container wall looks like the clumsy handiwork of a giant playing with building blocks.
Its presence is so jarring that, in addition to the federal court case, it was also the subject of two lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental organization that has been active in the area for three decades.
“The biodiversity of this region is off the charts,” Russ McSpadden, a member of the organization, told AFP.
“It’s one of the most important conservation areas in the entire United States.”
Arizona shares around 370 miles (600 kilometers) of border with Mexico, including environmental preservation areas, national parks, military zones, and indigenous reservations.
Until the 2017 arrival in the White House of Donald Trump — who was propelled to power on his pledge to “Build That Wall” — there was very little in the way of a physical barrier separating it from Mexico.
Now vast stretches of the border have a fence that towers up to nine meters high.
Before the containers arrived in the Coronado National Forest — an area that can only be reached by dirt roads — the border here was demarcated by a wire fence.
That meager barrier was more than equal to the task of keeping people at bay, says McSpadden, whose cameras have picked up jaguars, and who has worked with teams collecting data on ocelots.
“I’ve never captured migrant traffic on any of the remote cameras,” he said.
“It’s an incredibly wild valley. There’s no real urban population anywhere nearby. It’s a very difficult part of the border for migrants to cross.”
And even if this were a heavily trafficked route, a casual observer can see that the shipping containers would not be very effective.
In several places that AFP visited, the boxes do not line up because of the uneven terrain, leaving gaps easily large enough for a person to walk through.
Others have holes rusted in them, and in some spots, it appears to have been impossible for workers to find a place stable enough to put a container.
A viral video shows a determined climber scaling the six-meter-high barrier in a matter of seconds, gaining easy purchase on the textured box walls.
But what the shipping containers do block is a waterway and the migration routes of the animals McSpadden studies.
“Jaguars know no borders,” he says.
“Southern Arizona, northern Mexico, it’s the same for them.”
With males known to range hundreds of miles, it’s easy for animals that came north to hunt to get trapped away from breeding populations south of the border.
“Jaguars want to move back and forth freely,” he says.
“This is their range, and the border wall bisects the jaguars’ home.”
International
Mexico Arrests CJNG Leader “El Jardinero” in Nayarit
Mexican authorities arrested Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero,” on Monday during a naval operation in the western state of Nayarit, delivering another major blow to the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG).
Flores was considered one of the top regional leaders within the cartel and had reportedly overseen criminal operations along Mexico’s Pacific coast. Security analysts viewed him as a potential successor to slain drug kingpin Nemesio Oseguera.
The arrest was carried out by Mexico’s Navy Special Forces in a planned operation, according to Security Minister Omar García Harfuch.
The United States Department of the Treasury had previously identified Flores as a “significant foreign narcotics trafficker,” while U.S. authorities offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture and extradition.
A U.S. grand jury indicted Flores in 2021 on charges including conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heroin.
His capture comes months after the reported death of “El Mencho,” an operation that Mexican authorities considered a priority due to the cartel leader’s alleged involvement in a 2020 assassination attempt against García Harfuch.
International
Suspect Armed With Shotgun and Knives Detained at White House Correspondents Dinner
U.S. authorities confirmed Saturday that the suspect who stormed into the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner while President Donald Trump was attending acted alone, adding that there is no ongoing threat to the public following the incident, which left one Secret Service agent injured.
Acting Metropolitan Police Department chief Jeff Carroll said during a press conference that the suspect was carrying “a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives” when he attempted to pass through a Secret Service security checkpoint inside the hotel lobby at approximately 8:36 p.m. local time.
“At this point, everything indicates that this was a lone actor, a lone gunman,” Carroll stated, adding that investigators have found no preliminary evidence suggesting the involvement of additional suspects.
During the exchange of gunfire inside the hotel corridors, the suspect was not struck by bullets but was subdued by law enforcement officers and later transported to a hospital for medical evaluation.
A member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division was shot during the incident, though the bullet was stopped by the officer’s ballistic vest, preventing serious injuries. The agent was taken to a hospital and is reportedly “in good spirits,” according to Carroll.
The shooting prompted the immediate evacuation of President Trump, Melania Trump, and several senior officials attending the event after multiple gunshots were heard outside the hotel’s main ballroom.
International
U.S. allows Venezuela to fund Maduro and Cilia Flores’ legal defense
Until now, the U.S. administration had blocked the Venezuelan government from covering the legal fees of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who is also jailed and facing drug trafficking charges, due to international sanctions imposed on Venezuela.
The couple’s legal team had relied on that argument in an attempt to have the indictment dismissed, claiming that preventing a defendant from accessing counsel of their choice violates rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
However, the U.S. Treasury Department will now allow “defense attorneys to receive payments from the Government of Venezuela under certain conditions,” New York prosecutor Jay Clayton wrote in a letter dated Friday to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the case.
According to the letter, the funds must have become available after March 5, 2026, and cannot come from Venezuelan oil sales regulated in the United States.
Since Maduro’s removal from power in early January, former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s interim leader.
The United States effectively controls Venezuelan crude exports, with revenues deposited into special accounts supervised by Washington.
Court documents filed on Friday show that the defense acknowledged the sanctions exemption and, for now, withdrew its motion seeking dismissal of the charges.
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