MEXICO CITY - A presidential spokesman says Mexico's interior secretary has been killed in small-plane crash in the capital.

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition, to date, appears to be going smoothly. One apparent selection for a Cabinet-level position that has not yet been confirmed, however, is that of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., as secretary of the Interior Department.

PHOENIX - The Interior Department plans to boost border security by deploying more law enforcement officers along the Southwest border to deter drug smugglers that are endangering local residents and federal workers and damaging fragile ecosystems.

Compromise is possible on a proposed copper mine in southeastern Arizona that's thought to contain the largest undeveloped deposit of high-grade copper in the world, Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar said after touring the site on Friday.

July 28, 2004

PHOENIX - Three environmental say they're suing U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for authorizing uranium exploration across one million acres of public land near the Grand Canyon.

BOISE, Idaho — The U.S. is heading into a tough wildfire season made even more challenging because budget cuts mean fewer firefighters to battle blazes, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Monday.

A federal appeals court gave foes of a new Glendale casino new hope it could be legally blocked.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration says it is settling a long-running and contentious lawsuit over royalties owed to American Indians.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other dignitaries will dedicate Arizona's first commercial-scale wind energy farm Oct. 12 in Navajo County between Holbrook and Heber.

At least Romney had binders. Binders full of qualified women to fill cabinet positions, that is. Democrats mercilessly pounded Romney for the binders comment he made during the 2012 presidential campaign, but I’ll bet the Obama campaign now wishes Romney had passed the binders on to Obama since it seems he’s having a hard time picking women to fill his second term cabinet positions.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Mint has unveiled design of new quarters featuring four national parks and a national forest.

MEXICO CITY - A helicopter carrying the Cabinet minister in charge of Mexico's federal police, his deputy and seven others crashed in cloud-shrouded mountains outside Mexico City on Wednesday, killing everyone on board, President Vicente Fox said.

WASHINGTON - A House subcommittee Thursday voted to nullify the Interior Department’s recently extended ban on new mining claims on more than 1 million acres of federal land around the Grand Canyon.

Racing against the state Legislature, the Tohono O'odham Nation filed suit Monday to force the U.S. Department of Interior to accept 135 acres of tribal land near Glendale as part of its reservation -- and do it soon.

CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama named New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as commerce secretary on Wednesday, filling a top economic post in troubled times and placing a second former campaign rival in his new Cabinet.

Last December, the chief of the U.S. Park Police, Teresa Chambers, remarked rather casually in an interview with The Washington Post that her department, which protects the capital's monuments and federal parkways, was undermanned and underfunded to meet its new post-9/11 duties.

MADRID, Spain - One of the three Moroccans arrested in the Madrid train bombings was a follower of a suspected al-Qaida member jailed in Spain for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

SAN DIEGO  — The U.S. government began flying Mexican deportees home on Tuesday in a two-month experiment aimed at relieving Mexican border cities overwhelmed with people ordered to leave the United States.