Security casts shadow over Obama's Mexico trip

President Barack Obama is seeking to refocus economic relations between the U.S. and Mexico, even as fresh questions about security cooperation threaten to cast a shadow over the president's visit to the southern neighbor.

Obama also will use his three-day trip, which begins Thursday and includes a stop in Costa Rica, to highlight the immigration overhaul moving through Capitol Hill, both for an audience in Latin America and for those back home in the U.S.

The president is scheduled to arrive Thursday afternoon in Mexico City for meetings with President Enrique Pena Nieto and members of Mexico's business community.

Since taking office in December, Pena Nieto has moved to end the widespread access it gave U.S. security agencies helping fight drug trafficking and organized crime. The changes mark a dramatic shift from the policies of Pena Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderon, who was lauded by the U.S. for boosting cooperation between the two countries as he led an aggressive attack on Mexico's drug cartels.

The White House has tried to downplay a potential rift, with officials emphasizing Mexico has kept the U.S. informed about the changes. Obama on Tuesday said he would wait to hear directly from his Mexican counterpart before assessing the changes.

Despite the intense focus on security issues, Obama advisers say the president will try to show that the ties between the two countries are broader than the drug wars that defined the relationship in recent years.

"Security has been so front-and-center in the public discussion of the U.S.-Mexico relationship that lost in that is the enormous commercial relationship between the two countries," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.

Obama is expected to call for the U.S. and Mexico to deepen trade ties to promote job creation on both sides of the border. However, he is not expected to announce any major new economic initiatives.

Mexico was the second-largest export market for U.S. goods in 2011, according to the office of the U.S. trade representative. U.S. trade with Mexico totaled $500 billion in 2011.

White House aides say they also see strengthening Mexico's economy as a way to address one of the root causes of much of the illegal immigration to the U.S.

Rhodes said the U.S. expects Pena Nieto and other regional leaders to be largely supportive of the immigration overhaul being debated on Capitol Hill, which includes provisions to strengthen security at the 2,000-mile long border with Mexico.

However, Carl Meacham, a former senior Latin America adviser on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. immigration effort is viewed with "skepticism and confusion" in the region.

"They've been brought to the altar so many times by different American administrations that there's a bit of a lack of trust," said Meacham, who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Getting Mexico's buy-in, particularly on border security, could help Obama sell the immigration overhaul in the U.S., particularly to wary Republicans. GOP lawmakers have long insisted the U.S. must focus its efforts on securing the border before addressing the legal status of the more than 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.

The immigration bill being debated in the Senate would strengthen border security, allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' legal status and provide an eventual path to citizenship for most of the immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

More than half of the immigrants in the U.S. illegally are from Mexico, according to the Pew Research Center.

Following a speech Friday to Mexican entrepreneurs, Obama will travel to Costa Rica, his first visit as president to the Central American nation. In addition to meetings with Costa Rican President Laura Chincilla, Obama will attend a gathering of leaders from the Central American Integration system. The regional network also includes the leaders of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

On Saturday, Obama will attend a business conference aimed at fostering economic cooperation between the U.S. and Central American nations. The president is due back in Washington Saturday night.
  

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Most complete ancient mammoth skeleton ever found discovered in Mexico

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  The huge mammoth bones Were discovered by chance by the residents of Santa Ana Tlacotenco in Milpa Alta.National Institute of Anthropology and History

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  The investigation is being conducted Jointly by INAH and the Anthropological Research Institute of the UNAM, with the support of the Delegation Milpa Alta.National Institute of Anthropology and History

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Picture a 30-year-old male, wandering the wilderness alone, far from his friends, seeking love. Let's call him Manny.

Picture him trudging from lake to lake in the Mexican mountains, having climbed nearly half a mile from his pals into the hills to the picturesque watering holes, in search of a mate.

Now flash forward some 12,000 years to modern day Mexico City, where residents of the suburb of Milpa Alto recently stumbled across the most complete mammoth skeleton ever found in the country, the National Institute of Anthropology and History announced Monday.

Manny's journey was finally over.

Archaeologists in the borough were digging through volcanic ash from an eruption thousands of years ago when by chance residents of the area discovered part of the skull, mandibular branch, ribs and vertebrae, part of the forelegs and the scapular of Mammuthus Columbi.

It was the first time mammoths had been recorded in the country’s capital, said Joaquin Arroyo, Quaternary mammalian fauna specialist.

Mammoth remains have been discovered at various points in Mexico, in areas near lakes that could have been where herds congregated. But none were ever seen in areas as high as this one, which sits a mile and a half above sea level. Mammoths were believed to separate from the pack when looking for a mate, Arroyo said.

"It may be the case with this mammoth, found walking alone in a place so high on a slope away from the lakes," he said.

Following three weeks of excavation, archaeologists have found part of the skull, mandibular branch, some ribs and vertebrae, part of the front legs and shoulder blades, representing approximately 35 percent of the young adult mammal's bones. He died at around 30 years old.

Mammuthus Columbi reached 16 feet high and weighed about 10 tons, while its defenses, which people wrongly identified as tusks, measuring about 10 feet long. Unlike Manny's lumbering namesake from the movie Ice Age, the mammoth was bald as an elephant.

Research is being conducted jointly by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the Institute of Anthropological Research (IIA) of the UNAM, with the support of Milpa Alta.

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New Mexico donut shop cooks up 'Breaking Bad' treat with meth-like sprinkles

One donut shop in New Mexico has cooked up the essence of television’s “Breaking Bad” with treats covered with fake blue crystal meth.

Rebel Donut in Albuquerque have concocted  the “Breaking Bad” donut featuring blue frosting topped with what looks like blue crystal methamphetamine. The meth-like sprinkles mimic the highly potent blue meth made famous by the AMC’s  hit show about a high school physics teacher turned drug dealer to support his fight against cancer, KOAT reports.

"Obviously we don't call it the Blue Meth Donut," Rebel Donut owner Carrie Mettling told the station.

Actor Aaron Paul, a star of the show, was actually the first to bite into the Rebel Donut creation. Customers have been quite addicted to the creation ever since, Mettling said.

"People kept coming in (asking), ‘Do you have the Breaking Bad donuts?’" she said.

Steinar Smith, a regular at the donut shop, said there are “pluses and minuses” to playing off the illicit drug but said it was a “fun spin” on the show.

But because the name of the pastry doesn't give away what the rock candy really represents, Mettling said kid customers are left in the dark.

"People who know the show know what it is, but it's equally popular among people that don't know what the show is,” Mettling said. 

Click for more from KOAT.com.

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