MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities began flying deportees deep into Mexico Thursday in an effort to discourage them from trying to return, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

The first of twice-weekly flights from El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City left Thursday with 133 deportees aboard, all men.

ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas said the flights will accommodate up to 136 men and women but no children. Deportees fly from throughout the United States to Chaparral, New …

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(Reuters) – Union demonstrations snarled traffic in several Brazilian cities on Thursday morning as part of a one-day strike aimed at seizing the momentum of sweeping protests that shook Latin America’s largest economy last month.

Bus drivers, metalworkers, stevedores and bank tellers were among the unionized workers who took to the streets in at least dozen of Brazil’s biggest cities as organized labor sought to push workers’ rights to the forefront of the national debate.

The …

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Last week, while most of the country was celebrating the Fourth of July holiday, lawmakers in North Carolina took a bill designed to combat so-called “Sharia law” and, without any notice or warning, transformed it into a massive anti-abortion omnibus bill – one that included every single abortion restriction introduced in the 2013 legislative session. The proposals include restricting insurance coverage for abortion services, excessive restrictions on medication abortions and a host of unnecessary regulations …

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The US supreme court will be asked to suspend the blanket collection of US telephone records by the FBI under an emergency petition due to be filed on Monday by civil rights campaigners at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic).

This new legal challenge to the power of government agencies to spy on Americans follows the publication last month by the Guardian of a secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordering Verizon to hand …

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Cairo, Egypt – While chants and songs boomed in the city’s packed Tahrir Square, the epicentre of million-man marches that toppled two presidents in three years, mobs of sexual predators blended within the crowds, hounding female prey.

Although there are no official chronicles of the number of victims, local human rights groups claim more than 100 women were abused since protests started on June 28, with at least two cases of rape recorded.

“It’s no longer accurate …

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Hazardous conditions hindered firefighters’ attempts Monday to search for some 40 people still missing after a runaway oil tanker train exploded over the weekend, killing at least five people, officials said.

Quebec provincial police Sgt. Benoit Richard said Monday morning there was no searching overnight because the situation remained too dangerous.

He said only a small part of the devastated scene has been searched as firefighters made sure all flames were out.

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Turkey reopened an Istanbul park at the heart of last month’s demonstrations against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and protest leaders called a rally there for Monday evening in defiance of the city governor.

Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu announced the reopening three weeks after riot police expelled protesters from Gezi Park following a fortnight of frequently violent protests against plans to redevelop the area.

The protests rapidly mutated into nationwide demonstrations against Erdogan, accused by critics after …

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Cairo (CNN) — Egypt’s military deposed the country’s first democratically elected president Wednesday night, installing the head of the country’s highest court as an interim leader, the country’s top general announced.

Gen. Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi said the military was fulfilling its “historic responsibility” to protect the country by ousting Mohamed Morsy, the Western-educated Islamist leader elected a year ago. Morsy failed to meet demands to share power with opponents who thronged the streets of Cairo, and …

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Before retiring from Congress four years ago, David Hobson, a powerful subcommittee chairman, says he couldn’t fathom why the Energy Department was so determined to build a multibillion dollar plant in South Carolina for transforming plutonium into fuel for US nuclear reactors.

Although the plant was billed as a noble arms control initiative, meant to dispose of the plutonium so it could not be used in weapons again, Hobson was troubled by billions in cost overruns, …

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he Food and Drug Administration in a first has authorized the release of two new types of cigarettes while rejecting four others, using for the first time a regulatory rule established about five years ago by the Obama administration.

That’s not to say the two new products — Lorillard Tobacco’s Newport Non-Menthol Gold Box 100s and Newport Non-Menthol Gold Box — are less harmful than other cigarettes or that the makers can even call the products …

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