►Federal authorities on Monday said that they were considering reducing the number of National Guard troops along the Southwest border [1]. “The Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security are working together closely to explore options to further strengthen the already unprecedented levels of personnel, technology and infrastructure deployed at the southwest border," said Pentagon spokesman Robert Ditchey. Both DHS and the DoD said evaluations are being conducted to determine how much troop support is still needed on along the border, the Arizona Republic reported. 

►Verizon almost caused an emergency after sending out an alert telling customers to seek shelter because of a “civil emergency.” [2] No actual emergency existed. The cell phone company was doing a test of its emergency notification system, but forgot to say that in the text message. Calls to a local 911 center tripled and poured into the New Jersey State Police. “In an email, a Verizon spokesman said the company apologized for any inconvenience or concern that the message caused. The company didn't say why the message was sent without being labeled as a test or whether Monday's incident was the first time such a mistake had occurred,” ABC News reports.

►DHS announced on Monday the release of its first Spanish PSAs. Spanish "See something, Say something" ads [3] will air on Spanish-language TV and radio stations in California, Colorado, New York, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

►A key leader of the Zeta cartel was captured on Monday. Mexican president Felipe Calderon announced the arrest on Twitter. Calderon says the arrest of Hernandez Lechuga [4], a founding member of the cartel, is capture 22 out of a list of the 37 most wanted drug bosses.

►In other news, Fierce CIO has compiled of list of the different lab’s cyberthreat predictions for 2012 [5]. ⇒ U.S. National Guard Captain John Mihalczo was sentenced to 15 months [6] in prison on Monday for taking $35,000 in bribes from defense contractors to award them DoD contracts. The total loss for the United States was $115,000. He is the first of nine defendants to be sentenced.⇒ And an artist finds a new use for facial recognition technology [7] to reflect the mood of a city.