HIGHGATE, Vt. - Motorists passed easily through border checkpoints Thursday as tougher identification standards for U.S. and Canadian citizens went into effect without the backups and confusion some travelers had feared.

WASHINGTON - President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Felipe Calderon said Monday that the death of a Mexican migrant after being shot with a stun gun by a U.S. immigration officer was an unacceptable human rights violation.

McALLEN, Texas -- Corruption along the U.S.-Mexican border takes many forms.

NOGALES – As a young man, Edward Holler slipped easily through gaps in a U.S.-Mexico border fence behind his house to visit shops and friends on the Mexican side.

The Obama administration is going to put 1,200 National Guard troops along the U.S. border with Mexico.

By Thomas Baranick

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration outlined plans Thursday to begin operating portions of a high-tech "virtual fence" along the Southwest border later this year and strongly disputed news reports that a 28-mile pilot project to test the technology was largely a failure.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) - A top U.S. border official says the only area with more than 100,000 annual apprehensions of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico will soon be under that figure because the flow of immigrants is declining.

Cartels are turning to children to bring their illegal goods to the U.S.

TUCSON - The U.S. State Department has added the border city of Nogales, Sonora, to its list of locales in Mexico where American travelers should be wary because of increasing violence.

WASHINGTON - In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere.

Air travelers were taking their own precautions as they passed through Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport Monday following confirmations of more swine flu cases in the United States and Mexico.

NOGALES - An illegal immigrant who rescued a 9-year-old after the boy's mother died in the southern Arizona desert was honored for his actions Tuesday by U.S. and Mexican officials at a border crossing here.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is shuffling its homeland security operation to make 5,000 more armed agents available to protect commercial flights.

The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a contract to the General Dynamics C4 Systems division in Scottsdale for a nationwide secure wireless communications system for 18 federal law enforcement and security agencies.

To the cheers of U.S. infantrymen, the first stage of the ground war opened Thursday with American howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems firing at Iraqi troops.

Federal officers have captured a 19-year-old Queen Creek man wanted in California for warrants stemming from a hit-and-run accident that resulted in an injury.

A Mesa teenager missing for more than two weeks has been found safe near the Mexican border.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexican children illegally crossing the border alone remain vulnerable to drug cartels, gangs and other dangers because a 2-year-old law designed to protect them is not being executed well, advocates from the U.S. and Mexico said in a report released Wednesday.