Texas’s San Antonio airport will get a 420lb autonomous security robot

City council approves year-long contract with Knightscope to rent a K5 robot to respond to door alarms at the airport

An autonomous robot is due to become the latest addition to San Antonio International Airport’s security apparatus.

Following a 7 to 3 vote on Thursday by the San Antonio city council, city officials approved a year-long contract with Knightscope, a California-based developer of autonomous security robots, to rent its K5 robot for $21,000.

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Texas police arrest suspect after six people killed in spree of violence

Shane James, 34, charged with two counts of murder over series of shootings that also left three injured including two police officers

Police in Austin have arrested a man after a series of shootings that left six people dead and three people injured, including two police officers and a bicyclist, over the course of eight hours.

Austin’s interim police chief, Robin Henderson, said at a news conference early on Wednesday that the violence occurred in two separate incidents across two central Texas communities. He said police were not aware the incidents were connected until after they arrested the man, named as 34-year-old Shane James.

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Weather tracker: UK and France brace for Storm Ciarán

Torrential rain and 100mph gusts forecast in some areas when low-pressure system makes landfall

Storm Ciarán is expected to arrive in the UK and Ireland, France, and the Iberian peninsula on Wednesday night into Thursday. Gusts of up to 100mph (160km/h) could be possible off the western coast of France before the severe winds filter through the Channel. Brittany and the western French coast could experience wind speeds of more than 80mph, and it is likely to remain windy through the weekend.

Torrential rain is also expected, with a chance of flooding in parts of western France and the north-western Iberian peninsula. Coastal inundation is also likely to be a risk along the northern Spanish and Portuguese coasts, as well as along the French coastline, with sea swell caused by strong winds and the low-pressure displacement of seawater. The rest of France could also experience heavy rain.

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Anti-abortion groups sue San Antonio over reproductive justice fund

Plan includes $500,000 to organizations offering Texans care but it unclear if it will go to groups that help people get abortions

Several anti-abortion groups on Tuesday sued the city of San Antonio over the city’s plan to create a reproductive justice fund and provide $500,000 to organizations that offer Texans reproductive care.

The lawsuit seeks to put a halt to the reproductive justice fund, which, it alleges, would give taxpayers’ dollars to “criminal organizations that violate the state’s abortion laws” by helping people get abortions out of state. Because Texas law bans anybody from helping “procure” an abortion, the lawsuit argues, “if any part of the ‘procurement’ activity occurs within Texas, then the act is criminal even if the abortion that has been ‘procured’ takes place outside the state.”

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Texas airport worker dies after being sucked into Delta jet engine

Identity of worker killed on Friday evening at San Antonio international airport has not been publicly released

A worker at San Antonio’s international airport died after being sucked into a jet’s engine late on Friday.

A source who was briefed directly on the case told the Guardian on Sunday that it appeared the worker had “intentionally stepped in front of the live engine” on the jet and that police were investigating that aspect. But the cause of worker’s death hadn’t officially been determined Sunday, and the source spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation into the case was still pending.

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Texas police fires officer who shot a teen sitting in his car in a fast food parking lot

James Brennand confronted the 17 year old who was in a car that had evaded him a day earlier and began shooting when the car drove off

A Texas police force has fired an officer who shot and wounded a teenager sitting in his car eating a hamburger.

The San Antonio police department fired James Brennand after he shot Erik Cantu, 17, on 2 October in a fast-food restaurant parking lot, the agency’s training commander, Alyssa Campos, said in a video statement released Wednesday.

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Fifty-one migrants found dead inside abandoned Texas trailer truck

Mexican foreign minister mourns ‘huge tragedy’ as US investigates effort to smuggle people across border

Fifty-one people believed to be migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.

The discovery in Texas may prove to be the deadliest tragedy among thousands of people who have died attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades.

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