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Chile President Pinera speaking now. Obama to take first questions from press since the start of his taxpayer funded Obama family Spring Break.BTW, not only did Obama bring Michelle, the kids and Michelle's mother, he also brought the kids godmother on the trip.

AUSTIN - The Texas Department of Public Safety is advising students on spring break to avoid drug violence-plagued Mexico. A DPS statement Tuesday cited the continued violence and also urged boaters to stay on the U.S. side of Falcon Lake. A U.S. drug agent was shot and killed Feb. 15 in Mexico. The victim was Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata. DPS Director Steven McCraw says while drug cartel violence is most severe in northern Mexico, it's prominent in other parts of the country, including resort areas such as Cancun and Acapulco.

CINCINNATI (AP) - A "drunk and belligerent" 17-year-old Notre Dame football recruit was killed in a fall from a fifth-floor hotel balcony during his senior-year spring break in Florida, authorities said Saturday.

Offensive lineman Matt James, one of the top prospects in new Notre Dame coach Brain Kelly's first recruiting class, died Friday in Panama City, Fla., after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony, according to WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune.

Spring break is either upon Ann Arbor families or will soon arrive to scoop up students sending them bursting out of schools doors with the ferocity of unbridled pent-up spirit. Of course most kids will be thinking about everything from short trips out of town to getting away from the books, classrooms, and endless studying. Parents on the other hand might be thinking of a short and much-needed break from the unending cycle of shuttling their children from one school to another and from one extra curricular engagement to another. Whew! Time out on that! Well while spring break can...

Discovery Cruise Lines is offering a warm welcome to Spring Breakers -- a group cruise lines and most South Florida beachfront hotels have tried to discourage for years. "We do really well with the Spring Break crowd," spokeswoman Rene Mahfood said. "We have a beer drinking contest -- which you can imagine is very popular -- a Miss Discovery contest, a Real Man contest, karaoke. They just love to be in the sun and everybody is mixing and mingling and flirting." Discovery has seen its Spring Break business decline during the last decade, however. To drum up passengers, it works...

Spring break is coming up, which means it's time to invest in a sexy new swimsuit.If you’re Jessica Alba, you can get away with just about anything. But if you’re not, we’ve got some great advice to make this year the best spring break beach experience ever.Yes, going to the gym and toning up is important because swimsuits, by virtue of their form and function, tend to leave little to the imagination.More important, however, is learning which swimsuits work best for your body type. Cuts, shapes, fabrics, prints can have a major impact on how your beach-bod looks, so...

RAMADI — For most individuals, Spring Break is a time to take a break from studying or work, head out to the beach and get a bronze tan while enjoying the sun and sandy beach. However, for the Marines with 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 1, Spring Break 2008 was a time to search for insurgents in the gleaming sun, hold security and perimeter watch during a gusty sandstorm, and concentrate on the mission at hand. The battalion recently wrapped up a four-day joint operation near Lake Tharthar in al-Anbar province dubbed Operation Spring Break. The operation, similar...

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. -- Three spring breakers were arrested after an explosion rocked two hotel guests from their bed and shattered the windows of their Daytona Beach Shores hotel room around 2:30am Friday. Officers patrolling the Oceanside Inn on South Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach Shores heard a loud explosion early Friday morning. Several witnesses said the explosion came from the sundeck, located on the second floor of the hotel. When officers first arrived, they found three safety windows had been shattered, along with a metal light pole that had been destroyed. They also noticed metal and glass debris...

Spring break has turned violent and deadly in unrelated incidents on Galveston Island. A 16-year-old girl from Deer Park drowned amid strong winds and currents. Elsewhere, a number of fights capped a concert on East Beach. A dozen were arrested. At spring break destinations everywhere, these scenes are often repeated. Yet psychologist Laurence Abrams says teens are just trying to enjoy themselves and the alcohol, sex and trouble tend to come with that. "They're not trying to hurt themselves. They're trying to have fun. Sometimes they make mistakes, as we all do. I'm not in favor of it. Don't misunderstand...

Eight California lawmakers are traveling overseas this week to study high-speed rail systems and other matters as the Legislature takes an 11-day spring break. Assembly members Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, Mary Hayashi, D-Hayward, Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, and Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, are on a trip to Spain sponsored by the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy. Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert, and Assembly members Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia, Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, and Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, are part of a delegation visiting Japan. One reason for the trips is to study the development of high-speed rail systems in...

   For many, it's SPRING BREAK (or soon to be)...  Spring break—that’s when kids work on their tans and teachers work on their sanity. Spring break—that’s when kids go wild someplace other than school. Spring break is when the only thing kids study is each other. The college kids call it spring "break." Their parents, however, call it spring "broke." Spring break is when teenagers give their swimsuits a dry run. Spring break—that’s when students take time off from football games, basketball games, dances, parties, and hanging out in bars, and go to Florida and relax. Thousands of college kids...

<p>Mexico City - The deadly hemorrhagic form of dengue fiver is increasing dramatically in Mexico, and experts predict a surge throughout Latin America fueled by climate change, migration and faltering mosquito eradication efforts.</p> <p>Overall dengue cases have increased by more than 600 percent in Mexico since 2001, and worried officials are sending special teams to tourist resorts to spray pesticides and remove garbage and standing water where mosquitoes breed ahead of the peak Easter Week vacation season.</p>

Students packing their bags for Spring Break in Mexico may be surprised to find armed Mexican soldiers waiting for them. The soldiers are there to ward off the drug violence plaguing tourist spots and the border towns. Most U.S. students already celebrating in Mexico were not aware of the escalating drug violence that sparked the massive crackdown by Mexican authorities. Every year, the U.S. State Department issues a Spring Break advisory called "Know Before You Go." This year, the advisory says students should know there is increasing violence in Acapulco and they should be "vigilant." The warning says students should...

WASHINGTON - Congressional schedule-keepers had planned for a two-week sprint between vacations to produce weighty reforms on immigration, pensions and tax policy. But Friday, at the finish line, all of those measures were missing. The 16-day Easter break began just the same. "Most families do spend a little time together over Easter, so I don't think that it's an unusual time to do it," said Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois. Durbin said he expects more questions from his constituents about the war in Iraq than Congress' schedule. As for those who wonder why Congress is taking a two-week...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Dana Wassum and Mary Jane Jackson brought their bikinis all the way from Maryland's Towson University to party and soak up spring break sun. So far, they've been disappointed. "I kind of thought it would be more crazy," the 21-year-old Wassum said. "Like wet T-shirt contests. We wanted to enter one but couldn't find any." Three years after Daytona Beach stopped advertising aimed at pulling in the lucrative but sometimes rowdy spring break crowd, the number of students coming here has dropped from 400,000 to a trickle. MTV is no longer welcome to film its...

3/31/2006 - KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) -- “Service Before Self,” one of the Air Force’s core values, is on the minds of 135 U.S. Air Force Academy cadets who are working during their alternative spring break in areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The project is part of the Cadet Service Learning program which centers on community involvement. “CSL takes this core value from theoretical concepts of the classroom and a training environment,” said Maj. Eric Ecklund, of the academy’s Center for Character Development. “It allows cadets to put it to the test in real situations, meeting the needs...

Skyler Bartels kept looking over his shoulder. It's a habit he picked up living at the Windsor Heights Wal-Mart for three days. Really living there. Eating, sleeping, checking out the DVDs, never leaving. The plan was to spend his entire spring break there. Under the radar. Some kids go to Cancun. Skyler Bartels, a Drake University sophomore from Harvard, Neb., went to the garden and patio department. The great experiment had been over for a few days, but Bartels was still in great-experiment mode. As we sat at a booth in the Subway sandwich shop toward the front of the...

SARASOTA COUNTY -- It was spring break on Siesta Public Beach, and these college students were living it up. Shirts were off. Bikinis and sunglasses were on. Lounging on their towels after a long game of Frisbee, a few of them reached into their cooler for some nice, cold peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples and carrots. "It's my last one," said Steve Christner, 21, a senior on spring break from Eastern Mennonite University. "So I'm really trying to soak it up." Sarasota gets a small share of Florida's spring breakers, and many are Mennonite students looking for a good...

College students are replacing the sun, sand and surf of a typical spring break with the mud, muck, mold and mildew of Katrina relief, according to a campus ministry spokesman. Campus Crusade for Christ has drawn thousands of students from campuses across the nation to spend their respective spring breaks helping Gulf Coast communities recover and rebuild. The campus ministry had originally planned on 8,000 participants but drew another 2,000 student registrants to the Katrina-devastated lands. Students flew and traveled by bus for up to 36 hours from such cities as Berkeley, Calif., and Buffalo, N.Y., for the "rolling" spring...