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MEXICO
CRIME
Bloody battle
Wanted man captured in Zapata County
Tamaulipas top detective, four others killed ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — The chief of investigations for the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas died a latenight gunbattle that also killed four gunmen, the state government said Tuesday. Top state police investigator Salvador de Haro Muñoz was killed late Monday in the state capi-
tal, Ciudad Victoria, after authorities went to investigate a local home that was apparently beMUÑOZ ing used as a safe house by a criminal gang. Officials say the gang began shooting after soldiers and police showed
up, and they returned fire. Three marines and a military police officer were wounded in the confrontation. After the gunbattle, five suspects were detained, including two women. Tamaulipas has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Gulf drug cartel and the Zetas drug gang.
Once one of Mexico’s most violent states, Tamaulipas had calmed somewhat by 2012, before violence re-ignited in recent weeks. On Monday, officials reported that four gunmen were killed in a shootout with federal police in the border city of Reynosa. All of the dead men had rifles and bullet-proof vests.
By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
A man wanted in Laredo for aggravated assault has been arrested in Zapata County, according to a Laredo police spokesman. Sergio Gonzalez, 29, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault at about 11:30 a.m. April 29 in the 1500 block of South Siesta Shore Lane in Zapata, a po-
lice report states. The allegations against Gonzalez stem from an assault reported April GONZALEZ 4. That day, police responded to an assault call at 7:28 p.m. at the intersection of
See CAUGHT PAGE 12A
NATION
STUDY: CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE Report details warming By SETH BORENSTEIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Global warming is rapidly turning America the beautiful into America the stormy, sneezy and dangerous, according to a new federal scientific report. And those shining seas? Rising and costly, the report says. Climate change’s assorted harms “are expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond,” the National Climate Assessment concluded Tuesday. The report emphasizes that warming and all-too-wild weather are changing daily lives, using the phrase “climate disruption” as another way of saying global warming. Still, it’s not too late to prevent the worst of climate change, says the 840-page report, which the Obama administration is highlighting as it tries to jumpstart often-stalled efforts to curb heat-trapping gases. Said White House science adviser John Holdren: “It’s a good-news story about the many opportunities to take cost-effective actions to reduce the damage.” Release of the report, the third edition of a congressionally mandated study, gives President Barack Obama an opportunity to ground his campaign against climate change in science and numbers, endeavoring to blunt the arguments of those who question the idea and humans’ contributions to such changes. The White House and its allies also hope that by drilling down on local effects, the report will help Americans identify with specific impacts that are affecting their lives, Later this summer, the administration
File photo by Tony Gutierrez | AP
In this Aug. 3, 2011 file photo, Texas State Park police officer Thomas Bigham walks across the cracked lake bed of O.C. Fisher Lake in San Angelo. Global warming is rapidly turning America into a stormy and dangerous place, according to a new U.S. federal scientific report released Tuesday. plans to propose new regulations restricting gases that come from existing coal-fired power plants. Not everyone is persuaded. Some fossil energy groups, conservative think tanks and Republican senators immediately assailed the report as “alarmist.” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Obama was likely to “use the platform to renew his call for a national energy tax. And I’m sure he’ll get loud cheers from liberal elites — from the kind of people who leave a giant carbon footprint and then lecture everybody else about lowflow toilets.” Since taking office, Obama has not proposed a specific tax on fossil fuel emissions. He has
proposed a system that caps emissions and allows companies to trade carbon pollution credits, but it failed in Congress. Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana said the report was supposed to be scientific but “it’s more of a political one used to justify government overreach.” Leaders in the fossil fuel industry, which is responsible for a large amount of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide, said their energy is needed and America can’t afford to cut back on it. “Whether you agree or disagree with the report, the question is: What are you going to do about it? To us that is a major question,” said Charlie Drevna, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. He called the report “over-
blown.” The report — which is full of figures, charts and other research-generated graphics — includes 3,096 footnotes to other mostly peer-reviewed research. It was written by more than 250 scientists and government officials, starting in 2012. A draft was released in January 2013, but this version has been reviewed by more scientists, including twice by the National Academy of Sciences which called it “reasonable,” and “a valuable resource.” Environmental groups praised the report. “If we don’t slam the brakes on the carbon pollution driving climate change, we’re dooming ourselves and our children to more intense heat waves, destructive
floods and storms and surging sea levels,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Scientists and the White House called it the most detailed and U.S.-focused scientific report on global warming. The report looks at regional and state-level effects of global warming, compared with recent reports from the United Nations that lumped all of North America together. “All Americans will find things that matter to them in this report,” said scientist Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory, who chaired the science committee that wrote the report. “For decades we’ve been
See CLIMATE PAGE 12A
BORDER
Three undocumented immigrants detained By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
Three men have been detained in separate enforcement actions for allegedly being illegally in
the United States, according to court records released last week. Court documents identified the men as Jesus Alejandro Gallegos Carmona, Jose Landin Moyoa and Jose Guadalupe
Onofre Cuellar. U.S. Border Patrol agents detained the three men in Zapata County last week. Investigations revealed the men did not have legal status to
be in this country, according to court records. Records go on to say all three men had been deported before. None of them had applied to or received permission to re-enter the United
States. Each man remains in federal custody on a $75,000 bond. (César G. Rodriguez may be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmtonline.com)
PAGE 2A
Zin brief CALENDAR
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
AROUND THE NATION
TODAY IN HISTORY
Wednesday, May 7
ASSOCIATED PRESS
“The Great Salt Challenge” class. Noon to 1 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClelland Ave. Focuses on sodium in diet, daily consumption limits, how to read a food label and strategies for reducing salt intake. Three lessons. Meets every Wednesday in May. English. Free. New parent orientation for those interested in fostering. 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. 102 E. Calton Road, Suite No. 4, in Laredo. English. Provides details about the process of becoming a foster parent. Contact Linda Mendiola at 7914909 or linda.mendiola@lsss.org.
Today is Wednesday, May 7, the 127th day of 2014. There are 238 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On May 7, 1789, America’s first inaugural ball was held in New York in honor of President George Washington, who’d taken the oath of office a week earlier. (His wife, Martha, did not attend; she was back in Virginia, attending to family business.) On this date: In 1763, Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians, attempted to lead a sneak attack on Britishheld Fort Detroit, but was foiled because the British had been tipped off in advance. In 1824, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, had its premiere in Vienna. In 1915, nearly 1,200 people died when a German torpedo sank the British liner RMS Lusitania off the Irish coast. In 1928, the minimum voting age for British women was lowered from 30 to 21 — the same age as men. In 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims (rams), France, ending its role in World War II. In 1964, Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, a Fairchild F27, crashed near San Ramon, Calif., after a passenger apparently shot both pilots, then himself, killing all 44 people on board. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford formally declared an end to the “Vietnam era.” In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover. In 1984, a $180 million outof-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who charged they’d suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant. In 1994, Norway’s most famous painting, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch (muhnk), was recovered almost three months after it had been stolen from an Oslo museum. Ten years ago: Army Pfc. Lynndie England, shown in photographs smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, was charged by the military with assaulting the detainees and conspiring to mistreat them. (England was later convicted of conspiracy, mistreating detainees and committing an indecent act, and sentenced to 36 months; she served half that term.) Five years ago: Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz,” died in Crestwood, Mo., at age 89. One year ago: outskirts of Mexico City. The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 15,000 for the first time, ending the day at 15,056.20, up 87.31 points. Today’s Birthdays: Former Sen. Pete Domenici, RN.M., is 82. Singer Jimmy Ruffin is 75. Rhythm-and-blues singer Thelma Houston is 71. Actress Robin Strasser is 69. Singer-songwriter Bill Danoff is 68. Rock musician Bill Kreutzmann (Grateful Dead) is 68. Rock musician Prairie Prince is 64. Movie writer-director Amy Heckerling is 62. Actor Michael E. Knight is 55. Rock musician Phil Campbell (Motorhead) is 53. Country musician Rick Schell is 51. Actress Traci Lords is 46. Singer Eagle-Eye Cherry is 43. Thought for Today: “When an old man dies, a library burns down.” — African proverb.
Thursday, May 8 Opening reception for Vidal M. Treviño School of Communications and Fine Arts’ 18th Annual Photography Exhibition. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Laredo Center for the Arts, 500 San Agustin Ave. Contact Mark Webber at 273-7817 or mwebber004@laredoisd.org.
Saturday, May 10 Laredo National Letter Carriers Food Drive. Postal customers urged to place non-perishable food items in a bag next to mailbox for pickup by letter carrier. Benefits South Texas Food Bank and Laredo Regional Food Bank. Call Luis Palacios at 645-1062. Founders’ Day Celebration. Noon. TAMIU Student Center Ballroom. Inauguration of President of the Republic of the Rio Grande and presentation of Heritage Awards. Call 727-0977 or visit webbheritage.org.
Monday, May 12 Zapata County Commissioners Court meeting. 9 a.m. Zapata County Courthouse. Call Roxy Elizondo at 7659920.
Tuesday, May 13 South Texas Food Bank’s 25th anniversary, fundraiser. 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Hal’s Landing, 6510 Arena Blvd. Admission $10. Featuring music of Little Sister at indoor stage; Kombo Del Sol, Inalcanzable, La MisionVallenta and Zenzible at patio. For tickets, call 3242432. “The Calling” series of Bible talks. 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Laredo Church of Christ Chapel, 1505 Calle del Norte, Suite 340. Contact Miguel Zuñiga at 286-9631 or mglzuñiga@yahoo.com.
Wednesday, May 14 “The Great Salt Challenge” class, Lesson 2. Noon to 1 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClelland Ave. Focuses on sodium in diet, daily consumption limits, how to read a food label and strategies for reducing salt intake. Three lessons. Meets every Wednesday in May. English. Free.
Thursday, May 15 Grief support group. Noon to 1:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClelland Ave. Free and open to public. Contact Patricia Cisneros at 722-1674 or pcisneros@mhm.org.
Tuesday, May 20 “The Calling” series of Bible talks. 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Laredo Church of Christ Chapel, 1505 Calle del Norte, Suite 340. Contact Miguel Zuñiga at 286-9631 or mglzuñiga@yahoo.com.
Photo by North Metro Fire Rescue District | AP
Parts of a plane and a destroyed house are shown on Monday in Northglenn, Colo. The pilot, Brian Veatch said that he once owned the home, as indicated by property records, but said he didn’t realize that’s where he crashed until someone else pointed it out.
Pilot crashes into home ASSOCIATED PRESS
NORTHGLENN, Colo. — First, the pilot who crashed into a home near Denver escaped unharmed and tried to put out the resulting fire with a garden hose. And in another surprising twist, Brian Veatch used to live in the home a decade ago. But so far the location of Monday’s crash looks like a coincidence. Veatch told KMGH-TV that he didn’t realize the house he hit was the one where he once lived until someone pointed it out. Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said Veatch had taken off from a small airport nearby and headed to fly a banner over the stadium during a Colorado Rockies game. Knudson said that soon after he took off, Veatch reported he was having trouble gain-
Doctor: Badly burned Chinese fishermen alert SAN DIEGO — Two Chinese fishermen rescued from the Pacific are alert and trying to communicate after suffering secondand third-degree burns from an explosion on their vessel far off Mexico’s coast, a San Diego surgeon said Tuesday, less than 24 hours after they were airlifted to California. The men — who asked not to be identified — were in critical but stable condition and were being evaluated to see if they require surgery or can go home within the week, said Dr. Raul Coimbra, chief of trauma surgery at the regional burn center at the University of California, San Diego. Doctors found no trauma injuries and the burns are not lifethreatening, Coimbra said, adding that they cover the upper and lower extremities. One man is about 20 percent covered in burns, and the other is about 8 percent covered. He said the
ing altitude. He ditched his banner, but he continued to have difficulty climbing, Knudson said. “He was actually turning back toward the airport when it crashed,” Knudson said, adding the NTSB was still investigating what caused the climbing problem. The man who hired Veatch, Tom Mace, said the pilot and veteran firefighter crashed upside down and didn’t realize it was his old house. Mace, who said he talked to Veatch late Monday, said Veatch doesn’t know the young couple who lives there now. “It was one of those twists of fate,” Mace said. No one was home at the time of the crash. Mace said the plane lost power. “It was a catastrophic reduction of power to where he was unable to keep the plane up,” he said.
men, who are in their 30s, also suffered injuries from smoke inhalation. The two were among 17 crew members believed aboard a Chinese fishing vessel that caught fire after an explosion and sank about 1,100 miles off Mexico’s Baja peninsula. Two men died, six are missing and seven others were rescued in good condition.
Scientists: Invasive Yellowstone fish in decline BILLINGS, Mont. — A voracious species of trout that decimated a native trout population in Yellowstone National Park shows signs of decline following a costly and protracted effort to kill off the invading fish, government scientists and a conservation group said Tuesday. Non-native lake trout were first discovered in Yellowstone Lake in 1994, after being illegally introduced to the 132-square-mile body of water that attracts visitors from around the world. Crews have since netted and removed about 1.4 million of the
fish in hopes of cutthroat trout populations rebounding. Adult lake trout in Yellowstone can top 30 pounds, living almost exclusively on a diet of cutthroat trout, according to researchers. The netting costs about $2 million annually, drawing criticism that too much money is being spent to kill off a species that’s highly prized by anglers elsewhere. Backers of the removal effort insist it’s worth the cost. Yellowstone cutthroat trout are considered a keystone animal in the country’s first national park, providing food for 42 birds and mammals including grizzly bears and bald eagles. Prior to the first lake trout being found, the native trout supported a recreational fishery valued at $30 million annually in the early 1990s. Whether that fishing economy can fully rebound is uncertain. After years of scant improvement, the netting efforts finally have begun to show progress, according to scientists from the park and the conservation group Trout Unlimited. — Compiled from AP reports
Wednesday, May 21 “The Great Salt Challenge” class, Lesson 3. Noon to 1 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClelland Ave. Focuses on sodium in diet, daily consumption limits, how to read a food label and strategies for reducing salt intake. Three lessons. Meets every Wednesday in May. English. Free.
Monday, May 26 Zapata County Commissioners Court meeting. 9 a.m. Zapata County Courthouse. Call Roxy Elizondo at 7659920.
Sunday, June 8 Mexico Lindo 2014. 3 p.m. Laredo Little Theatre. Gabriela Mendoza-Garcia Ballet Folklorico to perform folkloric dances of Mexico. Children and adult company members to perform from states of Nuevo Leon, Jalisco, Veracruz and Sinaloa. $10 admission adults and $5 children 12 and under. Tickets purchased at door or by calling 725-1832. Submit calendar items at lmtonline.com/calendar/submit or by emailing editorial@lmtonline.com. Items will run as space is available.
AROUND THE WORLD Dolphin named ‘Peace’ born in ailing Ukraine city DONETSK, Ukraine — A dolphin tank in the restive eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk has added a new performer, one whose name it hopes will serve as a symbol of hope for the troubled region’s future: Peace. Trainer Olga Nenko of the Nemo dolphinarium said the baby dolphin was born on the eve of May Day. Nenko said current travails in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian insurgents have for weeks been seizing buildings, gave additional poignancy to the newborn dolphin’s name — “Mir” in both Russian and Ukrainian.
Military police unit leaves Guantanamo SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A yearlong tour of duty at the Guantanamo Bay prison is ending for a Puerto Rico-based U.S.
CONTACT US Publisher, William B. Green........................728-2501 Account Executive, Dora Martinez ...... (956) 765-5113 General Manager, Adriana Devally ...............728-2510 Adv. Billing Inquiries ................................. 728-2531 Circulation Director ................................. 728-2559 MIS Director, Michael Castillo.................... 728-2505 Managing Editor, Nick Georgiou ................. 728-2565 Sports Editor, Zach Davis ..........................728-2578 Spanish Editor, Melva Lavin-Castillo............ 728-2569 Photo by Evgeniy Maloletka | AP
The new-born dolphin called Mir (Peace) swims with his mother named Beauty during a dolphin performance in Nemo dolphinarium in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday. Army military police unit. Members of the Army Reserve’s 613th Military Police unit primarily worked as guards at the U.S. base in Cuba. About 130 soldiers in the unit are scheduled to arrive back home today in Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rico soldiers are being replaced by a military police unit based in Salt Lake City. The U.S. holds 154 prisoners at Guantanamo for terrorism offenses or for suspected links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. — Compiled from AP reports
SUBSCRIPTIONS/DELIVERY (956) 728-2555 The Zapata Times is distributed on Saturdays to 4,000 households in Zapata County. For subscribers of the Laredo Morning Times and for those who buy the Laredo Morning Times at newsstands, the Zapata Times is inserted. The Zapata Times is free. The Zapata Times is published by the Laredo Morning Times, a division of The Hearst Corporation, P.O. Box 2129, Laredo, Texas 78044. Phone (956) 728-2500. The Zapata office is at 1309 N. U.S. Hwy. 83 at 14th Avenue, Suite 2, Zapata, TX 78076. Call (956) 765-5113 or e-mail thezapatatimes.net
Local
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 3A
Latin pop singer returning to LEA SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
HKG Duty Free & First Row Productions are proud to present Marco Antonio Solis back to the Laredo Energy Arena on Saturday, Aug. 16. This show is produced by EManagement Co. Solís is a Mexican composer and record producer. Also known as “El Buki,” he has remained popular in his native Mexico as well as throughout Latin America, Spain and the United States with more than 30 entries on Billboard’s Hot Latin Tracks chart, including multiple No. 1 hits. “We are delighted to bring back ‘El Buki’ to Laredo,” said Xavier Villalon, general manager of the SMG managed Laredo Energy Arena. VIP tickets are available for this show as well as tickets from $146, $85, $65, $45 (other fees may apply) and go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. at all Ticketmaster locations including the LEA box office (during normal business
Energy summit set for late May SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
File photo by Dave Rossman | Houston Chronicle
Marco Antonio Solis performs at Houston’s Toyota Center on Sept. 1, 2012. Solis will return to the Laredo Energy Arena on Saturday, Aug. 16. hours),Ticketmaster.com, charge by phone at 1-800-745-3000 and select H-E-B Ticketmaster outlets.
A special presale will be available to LEA e-blast subscribers beginning on Thursday at 10
a.m. To become an e-blast subscriber, visit learena.com.
60 YEARS OF SERVICE
Courtesy photo
Members of the Zapata Lions Club celebrate 60 years of service to the community during the club’s anniversary Sunday, May 4. Forty-eight members participated in a golf tournament, and the winning team was Alfredo Gutierrez, Joe Reyes and Ricky de los Santos.
Amid a high interest from the international business community on energy reform in Mexico, a Texas Energy Summit will be held May 22-23 at the Laredo Energy Arena and Texas A&M International University. During the event, panelists will analyze investment opportunities, the supply chain and all the ongoing aspects of Mexico’s energy reform. Also in an expo and trade show, companies from the U.S. will interact with international authorities and companies, especially from Mexico, with the different purposes of investment, alliances and approaching commercial representation. “This represents an opportunity for Mexican government officials to promote the policies and interests of Mexico … creating alliances with companies from the Eagle Ford Shale and the state of Texas,” a news release states. The central topic of the summit is Mexican energy reform. A considerable number of the companies that make up the Eagle Ford Consortium, which is currently the biggest capital investment project in the energy industry in the state, will attend the event. The conferences will take place at Texas A&M International University and the Energy Business Exposition, or trade show, will be featured at the Laredo Energy Arena. The purpose of the conferences is to facilitate information between investors and entrepreneurs about the potential economic growth and investment opportunities. The conferences are designed to present a general picture of the economic activities and solutions to the problems experienced by cities in the Eagle Ford Shale.
PAGE 4A
Zopinion
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SEND YOUR SIGNED LETTER TO EDITORIAL@LMTONLINE.COM
COLUMN
OTHER VIEWS
Obama should do more abroad By TRUDY RUBIN THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
As he was traveling in Asia last week, President Barack Obama let loose with a broadside against critics who say his foreign policy is too weak. “Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force after we’ve just gone through a decade of war?” he demanded at a news conference in Manila. “Many who were proponents of ... a disastrous decision to go into Iraq haven’t really learned the lesson of the last decade, and they keep on just playing the same note over and over.” His job as commander-in-chief, he added, is “to deploy military force (only) as a last resort.” There in a nutshell seems to be the core tenet of the Obama Doctrine: Whether the problem is Syria, Ukraine, Africa, or Asia, avoid the mistakes George W. Bush made by sending troops to Baghdad. But the doctrine is based on a false premise. A more robust U.S. foreign policy needn’t repeat the military adventures so blindly pursued by the previous occupant of the White House. Obama could have sent convincing signals to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and others — without American boots on the ground. Now it’s understandable that any president elected in 2008 would (or should) be chastened by the huge mess his predecessor made in Iraq. That legacy, plus the long war in Afghanistan, has soured most Americans
on further foreign adventures, and any president must consider public opinion. Obama still doesn’t seem to understand the message of weakness this sent to Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin. And, in Manila, he was still bragging about the deal he struck with Moscow on eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons, after reneging on a public pledge to strike Assad’s military facilities if the Syrian leader ever used poison gas. On Ukraine, the president also was bragging in Manila. “What we’ve done is mobilize the international community,” he said. “Russia has never been more isolated.” He added, “Do people actually think that somehow us sending some additional arms into Ukraine could potentially deter the Russian army?” No, they don’t. But sending the Ukrainian army MREs — yes, more of them — just makes us look foolish. People are asking whether, as was the case with those sent to the Syrian rebels, their sell-by date is about to expire. They couldn’t have been reassured as Obama made clear his main lesson from Iraq: America should shrink its aspirations abroad. “You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run,” the president said. That kind of approach will convince Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran that Obama can be ignored, which will create new foreign policy headaches.
COLUMN
Pork industry keeps buyers in the dark By MATTHEW PRESCOTT MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
A healthy free market is one that’s economically sustainable not through over-regulation but by supply and demand’s enormous power. “Let the marketplace decide” is a near-mantra for those averse to government involvement — or intrusion, depending on your take — in industry. For the process to best function, consumers must be allowed to make knowledgeable purchasing decisions — something that requires transparency. And virtually no industry is working harder to be opaque — and to avoid doing what its customers want — than the pork sector. “The good news for us I think is that (consumer) awareness is low,” boasted a National Pork Board spokesperson recently at an industry event about animal welfare and other top-of-mind issues. With that mentality, it’s no surprise that the pork industry has been pushing “ag-gag” laws seeking to criminalize documentation of animal abuse at agribusinesses. As economist Adam Ozimek recently wrote in
Forbes, these laws are “bad for markets” because “information on how animals are treated is exactly what consumers need in order for the market to perform its function.” The information, in this case, is shocking. Dozens of undercover investigations have documented workers stomping on animals, skinning them alive, beating them, sexually assaulting them and more. But if the pork industry had its way, awareness would remain low. True free market proponents would shift their production models based on such widespread demands. And some major pork producers, such as Smithfield, Cargill, Hormel and Tyson Foods, are doing just that. But National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council executives have instead invested significantly in ill-fated public relations campaigns to promote locking pigs in immobilizing cages — the very system their customers have decried. The tactic has proved entirely unsuccessful, but it’s indicative of a deep problem in America’s pork industry.
COLUMN
Poll worker shares stories
“
KEN HERMAN
AUSTIN — Inspired by a recent column in which I counseled uninformed voters to do democracy a favor and stay away from the polls, a reader sent me his up-close and sometimes depressing view from the front lines. “Your article a few weeks ago about not voting if people don’t know what or who they are voting for really got my attention because your comment was right on,” he wrote. I’m always encouraged to write on by people who tell me I’m right on. Because it’s probably impolite for an election official to talk about what he sees on the job, I’m not going to identify this reader. I will say he’s worked in a variety of positions at polling places for at least the past seven years. Prior to proceeding, let’s all pause to thank the often-unthanked folks who staff our polling places. I’ve always found them helpful, courteous and smiling. Some have doughnuts. Thanks. OK, here we go. “It always gets my attention when voters come in unprepared,” the poll worker wrote. “In a primary election, one has to declare which party they want to vote in so that
they can choose the ticket for their party. So, a party declaration is required.” Yep, that’s how it works. We don’t have party registration in Texas but, under state law, you declare an affiliation — whether you want to or not — with a party when you choose to vote in its primary. “A few voters were dismayed when they had to make a choice,” the poll worker reported. “So, when they did, they bent over and whispered their choice to me.” How about a rule that says if you’re not proud of how you’re voting you shouldn’t be allowed to do it (especially when it becomes public record)? More from our poll worker: “More than you would expect, voters come in and want to split their vote (between the two primaries.) We tell them they can’t do that in the primary. They don’t know the difference between a general election and a primary election.” So he explains it to the uninformed, being careful to avoid prejudicing the important decision on which primary to vote in. “I have to be totally neutral and have them declare which party,” he wrote. “But the kicker is when a husband and wife came in and she looked at him and asked, ‘Which party am I voting in?’ They looked dumbfounded at each other. Mind you,
they are there to make an intelligent decision on the candidates. There were weeks of advertising and bombardments of political advertising to help them make their choices.” So how’s a perplexed pair supposed to pick a primary? “They looked at each other,” the poll worker reports, “and she finally said, ‘OK, I’ll vote Democratic this time and you vote Republican.’ The tone was such that they would swap parties next time. She had no idea what she was voting for, but, by golly, she was voting.” And then there was the man who showed up a few hours prior to poll closing time and asked for a sample ballot to study. “He had no idea what he was voting for so he took the ballot with him and never returned,” the poll worker recalled. Thank you, sir, for not voting. It’s a great American who knows he is clueless. Another observation from our veteran poll worker: “It turns out the gray hairs vote every time. They carry their voter registration cards in their wallets all year long. They trim the bar code that identifies them, which nullifies the value of the card. When I asked them why they trimmed their cards, they thought it had something to do with the mailing address or ZIP code. They just kept the
colored part and everything else was extraneous. Besides being trimmed, the ink flakes off and the names are barely legible.” But carry the cards they do. “It appears that they think it is a badge of honor that needs to be carried at all times no matter how badly it gets mangled,” he wrote. What the gray hairs also do is staff the polls for long hours and low pay. “The number of younger folks are in a minority, as if they don’t have time to participate or can’t be bothered with that voting stuff,” he wrote. More likely, perhaps, is that a good number of the younger folks have job or family responsibilities that make poll working not feasible. So working the polls could indeed be an older person’s job. Thanks, again, to those who do it, regardless of hair color. It’s a job where learning never ends. “For every election, we have to go for retraining because of some new twist or law,” he wrote. “The operations manual gets thicker every election because the rules are enhanced to further accommodate the ill-prepared voters. Instead of education beforehand, the policy is to bend over backwards to accommodate them.” The solution, according to our poll worker: “Civics 101 for Dummies.” God bless America.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY The Zapata Times does not publish anonymous letters. To be published, letters must include the writer’s first and last names as well as a phone number to verify identity. The
phone number IS NOT published; it is used solely to verify identity and to clarify content, if necessary. Identity of the letter writer must be verified before publication. We want to assure our
readers that a letter is written by the person who signs the letter. The Zapata Times does not allow the use of pseudonyms. Letters are edited for style, grammar, length and civility. No name-call-
DOONESBURY | GARRY TRUDEAU
ing or gratuitous abuse is allowed. Via e-mail, send letters to editorial@lmtonline.com or mail them to Letters to the Editor, 111 Esperanza Drive, Laredo, TX 78041.
State
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 5A
Teen’s family to pay victim By EMILY SCHMALL ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORT WORTH — The family of a Texas teenager who killed four people in a drunken-driving wreck has agreed to pay more than $2 million to the family of a boy who was paralyzed in the accident, according to court documents detailing the first approved settlement in the case. The liability insurer of Ethan Couch’s parents agreed to pay more than $1 million in cash and the rest in annuities to a trust established for Sergio E. Molina, who was among 12 people injured in the wreck last year near Fort Worth. Couch’s case drew national attention after his attorneys argued that his wealthy parents coddled the then-16-year-old into a sense of irresponsibility, which one witness termed “affluenza.” He was sentenced to 10 years of proba-
tion and ordered to a rehab facility. Molina, who was riding in the back of Couch’s pickup when it flipped, can now only smile and blink, according to his parents. He has been in the hospital since the June accident. His older brother, Alexander Lemus, said his family was disappointed in the settlement. “We’re not happy about it, but we just have to take what we got and strive for better days,” he said Tuesday. Along with the cash payment, the Couches’ insurer will buy two annuities to make monthly payments of $1,515 and $1,837 to the trust starting in July, and another annuity to cover attorneys’ fees, according to Tarrant County court documents. Molina was in the bed of Couch’s Ford F-350 truck on June 15, 2013, when Couch swerved and hit a stranded motorist and
three people who had stopped to help her. All four were killed. The pickup also rammed a parked car, sending it into another car traveling in the opposite lane, before the truck rolled over and smashed into a tree. Molina was tossed out and landed on his head. Molina’s parents sued Couch and his parents three months later, saying in a petition to the court that Molina’s medical expenses had exceeded $600,000 and that lifetime care could cost them more than $10 million. Five other families of the injured or killed also have settled with the Couches, pending court approval. Details of those settlements haven’t been released. One family is seeking a jury trial. Randy Nelson, the attorney representing Couch’s parents, Fred and Tonya Couch, declined comment to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Discipline scarce in BP By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
McALLEN — Of 809 complaints filed against U.S. Border Patrol agents during a three-year period, disciplinary measures were taken in just 13 cases, according to a report released Tuesday by an immigrant advocacy organization. The American Immigration Council reviewed complaints filed between January 2009 and January 2012 about incidents that occurred within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. It received the data through litigation involving the Freedom of Information Act. The Border Patrol has faced criticism in recent years that its surge in hiring — the number of agents has more than doubled since 2001 — led to a less-disciplined force and more misconduct. A Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The group found that 78 percent of the complaints against Border Patrol agents concerned physical abuse or
excessive use of force. The researchers, while unable to determine the merit of any of the complaints, said they believe a cumbersome complaint system likely kept many others from filing. “The whole complaint system is very obscure,” said Guillermo Cantor, senior policy analyst with American Immigration Council. “It took us a while to understand the different routes that exist for people to file complaints and how the Department of Homeland Security handles the complaints once they get them.” Apprehensions of immigrants who have entered the country illegally are still well below historic highs but have risen in recent years, driven primarily by Central Americans attempting to cross the border. Border Patrol made more than 410,000 apprehensions along the Southwest border last year. Of the complaints, 324 were still under investigation when the data were released. On average, it took the agency 122 days to arrive at a decision on
a complaint in cases where a decision was reached. “We don’t know really how serious they are about investigating the complaints, but we have some clear indicators about the outcomes,” Cantor said. The complaints reviewed were those that were passed from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General to Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Internal Affairs. Other complaints, for example those pertaining to civil rights violations, are routed elsewhere. Jennifer Podkul, senior program officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said that organization filed complaints on behalf of four juvenile immigrants it had interviewed in the summer of 2012. “The system was incredibly complicated even for us to navigate,” Podkul said. She said they had still received no response to their complaints. Her group and others recommended a number of changes at making the complaint system more efficient and responsive.
File photo courtesy of KDFW-FOX 4 | AP
In this December 2013 image taken from a video by KDFW-FOX 4, Ethan Couch is seen during his court hearing in Fort Worth.
Ex-mortician freed By NOMAAN MERCHANT ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARTHAGE — A former mortician whose killing of a rich widow shook an East Texas town and later inspired a movie will soon go free, after the district attorney who prosecuted him agreed Tuesday to let him out of a life sentence. A judge set a $10,000 bond for Bernie Tiede after recommending that his prison term be reduced. He was expected to be released later Tuesday. A state criminal appeals court must sign off on the sentence reduction while Tiede is out on bond. The now-55-year-old Tiede, who was well liked in the close-knit community of Carthage, was convicted in the death of his longtime companion, Marjorie Nugent. The 81-year-old widow had a reputation among townspeople as a crotchety cheapskate. The case inspired the 2012 dark comedy “Bernie” starring Jack Black in the title role and Shirley MacLaine as Nugent. The judge has agreed to let Tiede live with filmmaker Richard Linklater, who made the 2012 dark comedy and volunteered to take Tiede in. Panola County District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson agreed with Tiede’s appeals attorney, Jodi Cole,
Photo by LM Otero | AP
Bernie Tiede smiles after a court hearing granting his release at the Panola County court house in Carthage on Tuesday. who said he deserved a lighter sentence because he was sexually assaulted as a child and also had an abusive relationship with Nugent. Psychiatrist Edward Gripon testified Tuesday that Tiede and Nugent had a complex and abusive relationship. He said that combined with Tiede having been abused when he was younger pushed him to kill Nugent in a “brief dissociative episode.” “He doesn’t come across in examination at all as a person probe to violence,” he said. “That set of circumstances ... is not going to recreate itself.”
National
6A THE ZAPATA TIMES
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
Albuquerque police shooting exposes distrust Incident generates outrage, sparks angry protests By RUSSELL CONTRERAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — On the surface, it seemed like a case where police had no choice but to respond with deadly force: A man barricaded himself inside an Albuquerque home, reportedly threatening his wife and their two children with a gun. Police sent a SWAT team and a department psychologist to get Armand Martin, a 50-year-old Air Force veteran, to peacefully surrender during a long standoff. Then police say Martin came out of the home firing two handguns and an officer opened fire, shooting and killing the man. Even though the initial facts seem to support officers’ use of force, the shooting generated outrage around this city of 550,000 and sparked another angry protest. Some residents said they’ve all but lost faith in the police, and angry demonstrators took over the regularly scheduled city council meeting Monday night, chanting for the ouster of the police chief, shouting at council members and causing so much disruption that the city council president adjourned the meeting. Critics say the shooting is another example of persistent
Photo by Adolphe Pierre-Louis/The Albuquerque Journal | AP
Protesters rally in front of the Albuquerque Police Department Headquarters during Police Chief Gorden Eden’s press conference April 23 regarding the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Mary Hawkes, the third person to be killed by officers in five weeks. problems in the city’s police department. “They just can’t resolve these engagements peacefully,” said David Correia, an American Studies University of New Mexican professor who helped shut down the city council meeting Monday. “Saturday’s shooting just demonstrates the way this department operates.” Albuquerque police are under tough scrutiny following a harsh report from the U.S. Justice De-
partment over use of force and its interaction with suspects struggling with mental illness. The report also faulted how the police SWAT team resolved conflicts. Tension over the department’s use of force escalated in March after police shot and killed a homeless camper in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains during a long standoff. Video from an officer’s helmet showed police fired on the man, James Boyd,
38, as he appeared to be preparing to surrender. Just over a week later, police shot and killed Alfred Redwine, 30, after a standoff. In this latest case, officers said they tried to use all necessary options to resolve the situation, including bringing a psychologist trained to negotiate in hostage situations and trying to get information about Martin’s mental health from the Veterans Administration, which wasn’t
available because of federal law, Albuquerque Deputy Chief Erica Garcia said. Police responded because Martin’s wife, Gail, called 911, saying in an interview with KOAT-TV on Monday that her husband suffered from depression and for some unknown reason “just went crazy.” She said he demanded that she and their two children get out of the house, then pulled a gun. “The kids got so scared and started running and telling me to go,” said Gail Martin. Correia said he believed the SWAT team actually escalated the conflict with Martin by throwing flash bangs into his home rather than working to end it without the use of deadly force. “These tactics and procedures are exactly what the DOJ criticized in its report,” he said. Nora Tachias-Anaya, another advocate who took part in Monday’s protest, said Martin was alone in his home and posed no harm to anyone. “It would have been to their advantage to just let him fall asleep,” she said. Police said the wife and children were in danger, and once Martin started shooting, they had no choice but to return fire. But some observers say Albuquerque police will have a hard time convincing people that they are sincere in adopting reforms. “It seems like a threshold has been passed,” Timothy Krebs, a University of New Mexico political science professor, said. “Now, it doesn’t matter what the facts are.”
Photo by Evan Vucci | AP
A man is led away in handcuffs by Uniformed Secret Service police officers after a car followed a motorcade through a barrier on Pennsylvania Avenue near the front of the White House on Tuesday.
Photo by Bryan Stokes | AP
A worker fights a fire after a vintage biplane crashed upside-down on a runway at an air show at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., Sunday. The pilot, Edward Andreini, 77, of Half Moon Bay, was killed.
White House locks down ASSOCIATED PRESS
Air show pilot fit to perform ASSOCIATED PRESS
FAIRFIELD, Calif. — A pilot who crashed and died while performing a stunt at a Northern California air show had recently passed a skills test that included his flying routines, the head of an air show trade association said. International Council of Air Shows’ President John Cudahy said the 77-year-old Eddie Andreini passed the test just a few weeks before Sunday’s crash. Cudahy told the Sacramento Bee that Andreini was tested in over 60 areas and was judged to be mentally and physically fit for the stunts he performed. Andreini was flying upside-down
and low to the ground in an acrobatic maneuver during the “Thunder Over Solano” air show. His vintage biplane hit the ground and burst into flames. Howard Plagens of the National Transportation Safety Board said his team is trying to determine what caused the crash, starting with an examination of the wreckage and ground scars. They will also review the amount of time it took for emergency crews to respond. Witnesses said it seemed like a long time before fire crews arrived at the scene of the crash at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield and wondered if the pilot died on impact or from the ensuing fire. Base spokes-
man Jim Spellman said crews were dispatched promptly and responded within a minute or two. None of an estimated 85,000 spectators was injured. Federal Aviation Administration records show Andreini was the registered owner of the 1944 Stearman biplane, a World War II-era plane commonly used to train pilots. Andreini was trying to perform a maneuver known as “cutting a ribbon” where the inverted plane flies close to the ground so a knife attached to it can slice a ribbon. In the investigation, Plagens said his team will review videos of the crash, environmental factors and the pilot.
WASHINGTON — Access to the White House complex was halted for about an hour Tuesday after a vehicle followed a motorcade carrying President Barack Obama’s daughters through the gates. Uniformed agents immediately stopped the vehicle after it trailed in behind the motorcade at about 4:40 p.m. EDT, the Secret Service said. The driver, identified as Mathew Evan Goldstein, 55, was arrested and charged with unlawful entry. No hometown was given. District of Columbia police swept the vehicle for
explosives as it sat just feet away from the northwest gate of the White House. Access to Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House complex was restored about an hour later. A law enforcement official said the motorcade was returning Obama’s daughters to the White House. The official said Goldstein has a pass for the Treasury Department, which is next door to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. The law enforcement official was not authorized to discuss Obama’s family or details of the investigation and requested anonymity.
University president backs fight song review Century-old lyrics for Utah college’s fight song are sexist, critics say, but supporters say it has sentimental value By ANNIE KNOX ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALT LAKE CITY — After more than a century of singing “I’m a Utah Man,” some say it’s time to update the University of Utah’s 1904 fight song. Proposals to adjust such lyrics as “I’m a Utah man” and “our coeds are the fairest” have spiked emotions on campus in recent weeks. Critics say the lyrics are sexist. Others contend that the current refrain honors tradition and has sentimental value for classes of alumni. Similar debates have popped up at schools across the country. At the University of Utah, resident David Pershing is asking the Office of Student Affairs to put together a committee that will weigh changes to the song, “Utah Man” after student government leaders and a facul-
ty body passed resolutions urging the changes. The university seeks a new refrain “that respects the variety of views across our university community,” Pershing said in a Monday statement. Hundreds of emails regarding the fight song have flowed into Pershing’s inbox in recent weeks, he said. The faculty’s Academic Senate threw its support behind the effort on Monday after the Associated Students did the same in April. Pershing says any modifications to the 1904 tune must strike a balance between tradition and inclusion. He’s asking students, faculty, staff, alumni and others to suggest new lyrics through May 31. University alumni have floated changes to the song in recent decades, but the efforts stalled after others said they like the current tune.
“Utah man” could become “Utah fan,” some have said, but no specific changes have officially been proposed. “In 2014, people are advocating for equality on all fronts, so hopefully this is a reflection of that change,” Associated Students President and social work student Sam Ortiz said in April. The song dates back to 1904 and once contained the lyric “We drink our stein of lager and we smoke our big cigars.” Officials replaced that part with the line referring to coeds. The university’s policy never explicitly excluded women, but female students didn’t enroll in significant numbers until after the turn of the 20th century, about 50 years after it opened, O’Mara said. There’s no university policy or precedent for altering the fight song, said university spokeswoman Maria O’Mara.
The committee of officials is scheduled to recommend specific changes by the end of June, but the president faces no deadline in making a final decision. Utah’s fight song isn’t the first to be refurbished. Thirty years after it first admitted women, the U.S. Naval Academy in 2004 replaced such references as “sailor men” in its fight song, with “sailors” after garnering criticism that the lyrics excluded women from the school’s heritage. A year earlier, some alumni at New Mexico State University lobbied for the school to rethink boozy references in its fight song that includes the line, “And when we win this game we’ll buy a keg of booze and drink it to the Aggies ‘til we wobble in our shoes.” Some alumni said they chanted a new version at a football game, but dropped the effort after fans booed the wa-
tered-down lyrics. Others have updated fight songs to reflect changes in athletic conferences. The University of Kansas revised “I’m a Jayhawk,” an anthem popular since 1920. References to the Cornhuskers were removed in 2010 after Nebraska announced plans to leave the Big 12 Conference. But not all universities and colleges are taking steps to alter popular chants. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the 1924 fight song still praises the school “where the girls are the fairest.” At the University of Utah, the issue rises amid other recent diversity-related news. School officials and the Ute Indian Tribe in April struck a deal to maintain the “Runnin’ Ute” nickname for school sports teams in exchange for increased recruiting and financial help geared at tribe members.
International
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 7A
848 priests defrocked Vatican reveals abuse report from past decade By JOHN HEILPRIN & NICOLE WINFIELD ASSOCIATED PRESS
GENEVA — The Vatican revealed Tuesday that over the past decade, it has defrocked 848 priests who raped or molested children and sanctioned another 2,572 with lesser penalties, providing the first ever breakdown of how it handled the more than 3,400 cases of abuse reported to the Holy See since 2004. The Vatican’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, released the figures during a second day of grilling by a U.N. committee monitoring implementation of the U.N. treaty against torture. Tomasi insisted that the Holy See was only obliged to abide by the torture treaty inside the tiny Vatican City State, which has a population of only a few hundred people. But significantly, he didn’t dispute the committee’s contention that sexual violence against children can be considered torture. Legal experts have said that classifying sexual abuse as torture could expose the Catholic Church to a new wave of lawsuits since torture cases in much of the world don’t carry statutes of limitations. Tomasi also provided statistics about how the Holy See has adjudicated sex abuse cases for the past decade. The Vatican in 2001 required bishops and religious superiors to forward all credible cases of abuse to Rome for review after determining that they were shuffling pedophile priests from diocese to diocese rather than subjecting them to church trials. Only in 2010 did the Vatican explicitly tell bishops and superiors to also
Photo by Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone | AP
Photo by Sunday Alamba | AP
The Vatican’s UN ambassador in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, right, speaks with others prior to a May 5 hearing.
A man displays copies of local newspapers during a demonstration calling on the government to rescue kidnapped school girls from Chibok government secondary school, in Abuja, Nigeria on Tuesday.
report credible cases to police where local reporting laws require them to. The Vatican statistics are notable in that they show how the peaks in numbers over the years — both of cases reported and sanctions meted out — roughly parallels the years in which abuse scandals were in the news. And they showed that far from diminishing in recent years, the number of cases reported annually to the Vatican has remained a fairly constant 400 or so since 2010, the last year the scandal erupted in public around the globe. These cases, however, concern mostly abuse that occurred decades ago. The Associated Press reported in January that then-Pope Benedict XVI had defrocked 384 priests in the final two years of his pontificate, citing documentation that Tomasi’s delegation had prepared for another U.N. hearing monitoring a treaty on the rights of children. That documentation matched data contained in the Vatican’s statistical yearbooks. Tomasi told the AP on Tuesday that the January figures were “incomplete” and that the data he provided to the U.N. committee Tuesday was the first ever comprehensive yearby-year breakdown of cases reported and adjudicated. The figures, however, only cover cases handled directly by the Holy
See, not those handled by local diocesan tribunals, meaning the total number of sanctioned priests is likely far higher. The data showed that since 2004, the Vatican had received some 3,400 cases, had defrocked 848 priests and sanctioned another 2,572 to lesser penalties. The latest spike began in 2010, when 464 cases were reported, more than twice the amount in 2009. Starting in that same year, the Vatican began resorting more and more to the lesser penalty of sentencing accused priests to a lifetime of penance and prayer rather than defrocking them. The Vatican often metes out such sentences for elderly or infirm priests, since defrocking them would essentially render them destitute in their final years. Prior to 2010, these lesser sanctions were only handed out to about 100 or so priests each year. Tomassi stressed the lesser sanctions still amounted to punishment and the abuser was “put in a place where he doesn’t have any contact with the children.” The main U.S. victim’s group, SNAP, praised the Vatican for releasing the data, saying “Every step toward more transparency about clergy sex crimes and coverups is good.” But it urged the Vatican to release the names and whereabouts of molesters.
276 girls still missing Armed extremists hold Nigerian schoolgirls captive By MICHELLE FAUL ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAGOS, Nigeria — The girls in the school dorm heard the sound of gunshots from a nearby town. So when armed men in uniforms burst in and promised to rescue them, at first they were relieved. “Don’t worry, we’re soldiers,” one 16-year-old girl recalls them saying. “Nothing is going to happen to you.” The gunmen commanded the hundreds of students at the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School to gather outside. The men went into a storeroom and removed all the food. Then they set fire to the room. “They ... started shouting, ‘Allahu Akhbar,’ (God is great),” the 16-year-old student said. “And we knew.” What they knew was chilling: The men were not government soldiers at all. They were members of the ruthless Islamic extremist group called Boko Haram. They kidnapped the entire group of girls and drove them away in pickup trucks into the dense forest. Three weeks later, 276
girls are still missing. At least two have died of snakebite, and about 20 others are ill, according to an intermediary who is in touch with their captors. On Tuesday, there were reports that eight more children were kidnapped from a school in Borno state. The Borno state police commissioner, however, dismissed them, saying, “That’s not true. There’s no new kidnapping.” Their plight of the kidnapped girls — and the failure of the Nigerian military to find them — has drawn international attention to an escalating Islamic extremist insurrection that has killed more than 1,500 so far this year. Boko Haram, the name means “Western education is sinful,” has claimed responsibility for the mass kidnapping and threatened to sell the girls. The claim was made in a video seen Monday. Amid growing outrage at the girls’ prolonged captivity, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan announced he has accepted a U.S. offer to help in the search, including security personnel and unidentified assets. The British government
has also expressed concern over the fate of the missing students, and protests have erupted in major Nigerian cities and New York. The 16-year-old was among about 50 who escaped on that fateful day, and she spoke for the first time in a telephone interview. The AP also interviewed about 30 others, including Nigerian government and Borno state officials, school officials, relatives of the missing girls, civil society leaders and politicians in northeast Nigeria and soldiers in the war zone. Many spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing that giving their names would also reveal the girls’ identities and subject them to possible stigmatization. The Chibok girls school is in the sparsely populated northeast region of Nigeria, a country of 170 million with a growing chasm between a north dominated by Muslims and a south by Christians. Like all schools in Borno state, Chibok, an elite academy of both Muslim and Christian girls, had been closed because of increasingly deadly attacks by Boko Haram. It had reopened to allow students to take exams.
PAGE 8A
Zentertainment
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
Slattery turns to directing as ‘Mad Men’ ends By JAKE COYLE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — As the final season of “Mad Men” winds down, John Slattery has traded 1960s Madison Avenue for late 1970s Philadelphia. In “God’s Pocket,” the actor best known for his performance as the wry, apathetic Roger Sterling on the AMC drama makes his directorial debut. The film, which opens Friday and first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, is an adaptation of Pete Dexter’s novel about the overlapping lives of the working-class people of Philadelphia’s God’s Pocket neighborhood. Slattery directed and co-wrote the screenplay. The film also marks one of the two final screen performances of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. (The other, Anton Corbijn’s John le Carre adaptation, “A Most Wanted Man,” is due out July 25.) In “God’s Pocket,” Hoffman stars as Mickey, a blue-collar schlub half-heatedly investigating his stepson’s death. John Turturro, Richard Jenkins and “Mad Men” co-star Christina Hendricks make up some of the local characters. In a recent interview, Slattery discussed his strong vision for Dexter’s book and his abiding admiration of Hoffman. AP: You and Hoffman long orbited the same territory as New York actors, and both were in 2007’s “Charlie Wilson’s War.” But you seemed to grow much closer making “God’s Pocket.” Slattery: It was a close working
Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision | AP
Actor/director John Slattery poses for a portrait on Thursday in Los Angeles. The “Mad Men” actor makes his directorial debut with “God’s Pocket,” a independent film based on Peter Dexter’s novel about overlapping working class lives. relationship. I think any good working relationship between an actor and a director, you become intimate with each other. It wasn’t because we were the best of friends prior to that. We knew each other and lived near each other. AP: What did you learn about him as an actor while making the film? Slattery: Through the course of the shooting it, I realized that of course it isn’t an accident that
he’s as revered as he is. He’s tireless in asking questions but not complicated, highfalutin, fancy questions. It was just, like: ‘Why? Why does this guy stay in this community where he’s constantly reminded that he’s not one of them?’ Those questions are the kind of questions he would ask. I realized that there aren’t any real smoke and mirrors. It’s someone that had that emotional depth and intelligence that works that hard. It was just being that close
Lewinsky speaks out By CALVIN WOODWARD
Band visits Capitol Members of Russian punk group asks Congress to add 16 officials to list of Russian human rights violators
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Monica Lewinsky says there’s no question her boss — Bill Clinton — “took advantage” of her when he was president. But she says their affair was consensual and if there was any abuse involved, it came afterward, when Clinton’s inner circle tried to discredit her and the president’s opponents used her as a political pawn. The former White House intern, now 40, writes about her life in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, out this month. In released excerpts, she says she’s perhaps the first Internet era scapegoat and wants to speak out on behalf of other victims of online humiliation. Her willingness to step forward may come at an inopportune time as former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton considers running for president. Republicans have signaled they don’t consider her husband’s scandal from the late 1990s out of bounds in the realm of 2016-style political dialogue. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a likely GOP presidential contender, answered criticisms of the Republican record on women’s issues by saying in January that the last Democratic president engaged in “predatory behavior” with a woman, Lewinsky, who was 22 when her liaisons with Clinton began in 1995. Clinton’s lies about the relationship contributed to his impeachment by the House in 1998; the Senate acquitted him. Lewinsky writes that she deeply regrets the affair and made a point of staying silent through several presidential campaigns to avoid becoming a distraction. Now, she writes, it’s time to stop “tiptoeing around my past — and other people’s futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet.” Invoking her headwear from endlessly repeated TV clips and the stained garment considered as evidence against Clinton, she writes: “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress.”
to it and seeing all those elements working at the same time — the technical wherewithal in the middle of a deep emotional moment. It was pretty impressive, I have to say. AP: You’ve directed five episodes of “Mad Men.” Had the urge to direct long been percolating in you? Slattery: Kind of peripherally. I was always of an opinion about what was happening when I was standing around on set, but it
wasn’t my job. By the time you get to most movies and television and theater production, they’re all set up — directors in place, producers are in place. So you act a finite amount of time and then you’re gone. With “Mad Men,” it was apparent early on the quality of the production from top to bottom and that it was going to be around for a little while. So I saw it as an opportunity to watch for months and follow directors around and then officially throw my hat in. AP: The lived-in naturalism of “God’s Pocket,” which you shot in Yonkers just outside New York City, is in stark contrast to the polish of “Mad Men.” Slattery: I thought that ‘God’s Pocket’ was just a good story and if I could stay out of my own way and everybody else’s way, I could tell it. That’s how the good the story was — that even I could tell it. I’m not being false-modest. You can get in your own way a lot. I do it in acting. You try to do too much or show too much. AP: With the seventh and final season of “Mad Men” finishing up, do you feel like you’re entering a new phase? Slattery: Whether I like it or not, I’m beginning a new phase. “Mad Men” is finishing and by the time it finishes, it will have been 10 years of my life. So that is occurring and this movie is coming out. There will be a change. What comes next, I don’t know. But I look forward to that. Part of what I like about this business is not knowing what’s coming next.
By ALAN FRAM ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Darla Khazei | AP
Monica Lewinsky arrives for a special screening of "The Score" in New York, on Monday, July 11, 2011.
But these aren’t her first public words on the scandal. Lewinsky broke her silence in 1999 with a blockbuster interview with Barbara Walters, gave several subsequent interviews and cooperated with author Andrew Morton on his book the same year, entitled “Monica’s
Story.” “Sure, my boss took advantage of me,” she writes now, “but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”
WASHINGTON — Two members of the Russian dissident punk group Pussy Riot came to the Capitol Tuesday and asked members of Congress to add 16 officials to the list of Russian human rights violators who face U.S. sanctions. Before a throng of cameras and reporters, the women — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina — said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on human rights was damaging that country. “Putin is not leading Russia to stability, but to complete instability and chaos,” Tolokonnikova said through a translator. The pair was arrested in 2012 after an obscenitylaced performance criticizing Putin at Moscow’s main cathedral. They spent nearly two years in prison, but since their release have continued decrying the lack of freedom in Russia and harsh government tactics against opponents. The women said Russia has resumed abusing pris-
Photo by J. Scott Applewhite | AP
Russian political activists Nadya Tolokonnikova, center, and Maria Alyokhina, center left, join U.S. representatives in seeking action to stop violations of human rights by militants in Ukraine. oners, including using mandatory psychiatric treatment for some. They said they hoped public pressure would force the mistreatment to stop. “Silence is the most dangerous thing for a political prisoner,” said Tolokonnikova. By law, the United States can freeze assets and ban travel to the U.S. of Russians deemed to be human rights abusers. Currently, 18 Russians are on a public list of people facing such sanctions while an unknown number of others are on a confidential list. The 16 people the wom-
en want sanctioned include Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russia’s interior minister. Also on the list were officials involved in prosecuting and trying people who participated in a large Moscow rally in May 2012 and officials at the prisons where Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were incarcerated. The two met for a half hour with lawmakers, who later lauded them as heroes. The group included Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., chair of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, a federal panel that monitors human rights in dozens of countries.
MIÉRCOLES 7 DE MAYO DE 2014
Agenda en Breve LAREDO 05/07— El Gran Reto de Sal, una clase semanal con enfoque del sodio en la dieta. Se realizará a las 12 p.m. hoy, el 14 de mayo, 21 de mayo y el 28 de mayo. Las clases serán en inglés, y gratuitas en First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClelland. Orientación para personas interesadas en convertirse en padres temporales, se realizará en inglés, de 6:30 p.m. a 8 p.m. en 102 E Calton Road, Suite 4. Se buscan familias que tengan deseos de atender niños, adolescentes y grupos de hermanos. 05/07— LISD invita al Concierto de Banda de Primavera de L.J. Christen Middle School, a las 6:30 p.m., en el Auditorio del Centro Cívico, 2400 San Bernardo. 05/07— Clínica de Vacunación contra la Rabia se realizará de 7 p.m. a 8 p.m. en Laredo Animal Care Facility, 5202 Maher Avenue. Vacunas para mascotas y registros tienen costo de 22 dólares. 05/08— Cámara de Comercio de Laredo será anfitriona de los Premios School Bell 2014 en el Texas A&M International University Student Center Ballroom, a las 6 p.m. Informes en el 722.9895. 05/08— LISD invita al Concierto de Banda de Primavera de Lamar Middle School, a las 6 p.m., en el Auditorio del Centro Cívico, 2400 San Bernardo. 05/08— LISD invita al Concierto de Banda de Primavera de J.W. Nixon High School, a las 7:30 p.m., en el Auditorio del Centro Cívico, 2400 San Bernardo. 05/10— SERVICIO: Recaudación de Comida por parte de los Carteros. Se conmina a que clientes dejen sus productos alimenticios no perecederos junto al buzón para que el cartero los recoja y los done al Banco de Alimentos del Sur de Texas y al Banco de Alimentos Regional de Laredo. Informes con Luis Palacios al 645-1062. 05/10— AVISO: Elecciones Especiales en el Condado de Webb. Se podrá votar en el Student Center Rotunda de TAMIU, de 7 a.m. a 7 p.m. Más información en webbcountytx.gov 05/10— Fundación para el Patrimonio del Condado de Webb invita a la Comida por el Día de los Fundadores y Reunión Anual de Membresía, a las 12 p.m. en el Student Center Ballroom de TAMIU. Se rendirá homenaje a los Presidentes de la República del Río Grande 2014, Shirley & Bob González y se entregarán los Premios del Patrimonio. Costo: 50 dólares. Informes en el 727-0977. 05/10— Muestre su apoyo a los Laredo Lemurs, en el arranque de su temporada, visitando Whataburger, 7010 Lancer Road, de 1 p.m. a 3 p.m., para recibir autógrafos y fotografiarse con los jugadores. Habrá premios y rifa de boletos. 05/10— La Escuela de Danza Contemporánea de Laredo invita a su 3er Espectáculo Anual, a las 7:30 p.m. en el Auditorio del Laredo Civic Center. Costo: 7 dólares. 05/10— PILLAR invita a “La Madre de todas las Carreras” – Light Up the Night – a partir de las 8 p.m. en North Central Park, 10202 International Blvd. Inscripción previa a 20 dólares; en el lugar a 25 dólares. Más información en 723-7457. 05/11— Recital de Pianistas Jóvenes a las 3 p.m. en el Salón de Recitales del Center for the Fine and Performing Arts de TAMIU.
Zfrontera
PÁGINA 9A
TAMAULIPAS
Enfrentamiento ASSOCIATED PRESS
MÉXICO — Al menos cinco personas, incluido un jefe policial estatal, murieron tras un enfrentamiento entre presuntos miembros de un grupo criminal y autoridades en Tamaulipas. El gobierno de Tamaulipas informó el martes en un comunicado que el enfrentamiento ocurrió la noche del lunes en Ciudad Victoria, y dejó también tres marinos y un militar heridos, además de cinco pistoleros detenidos. El jefe policial muerto fue identificado como Salvador de Haro Muñoz, director de Investigaciones de la Secretaría de Seguridad Pública del Estado. Los otros cuatro fallecidos eran presuntos crimina-
Evento violento en Ciudad Victoria, México, dejó al menos cinco personas muertas, incluido un jefe policial estatal. les, según la autoridad estatal. Tres de los civiles armados fallecidos fueron identificados en el comunicado como Héctor Heraclio Silva, Daniel Camarillo y Cristian Giovanni de la Sota Gallegos. Tamaulipas ha sido durante mucho tiempo escenario de una guerra territorial entre Los Zetas y el Cártel del Golfo, y aunque hacia 2012 los hechos de violencia amainaron por un tiempo, en los últi-
mos meses se han reactivado los enfrentamientos, tiroteos y asesinatos. Autoridades creen que la última oleada de violencia se debe a peleas entre dos capos del Cártel del Golfo, que eran aliados pero ahora se disputan el control de algunas zonas de la frontera. El gobierno estatal refirió que el enfrentamiento de la noche del lunes, a las 7 p.m. se produjo cuando
autoridades estatales y federales llegaron al domicilio ubicado en el crucero de calles 42 y Ocampo, en la Colonia Altavista, como parte de una investigación de un grupo delictivo, al que no se identificó. “Los civiles armados, al detectar la presencia de las fuerzas de seguridad y para evitar ser detenidos, abrieron fuego con armas largas y pistolas automáticas”, aseguró la autoridad. Los cinco agresores detenidos son Oscar Eliud de la Sota Gallegos, Abraham Camarillo Baltazar, Esteban Ruiz Leija, Karina Nayely Hernández Guevara y Mayté Candelaria Ruiz Leija. Ellos fueron puestos a disposición de la autoridad correspondiente, indica el comunicado.
ECONOMÍA
REYNOSA Y MATAMOROS
REFORMA
Mueren 5 en dos ciudades de frontera TIEMPO DE ZAPATA
Foto de archivo por Dario Lopez-Mills | AP
La plataforma petrolera ‘off shore Centenario’ opera en la costa de Veracruz, México. El gobierno de México anunció un paquete de 21 proyectos de ley en que se detalla la apertura de la iniciativa privada al sector energético.
PEMEX sería productor principal ASSOCIATED PRESS
M
EXICO — El gobierno mexicano estima que la estatal Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) se mantendrá como el principal productor de crudo del país durante al menos una década por sobre cualquier compañía nacional o extranjera, en caso de que se aprueben y entren en vigor una serie de normas para abrir a privados el sector energético nacional. La subsecretaria de Hidrocarburos de México, Lourdes Melgar, dijo el martes en una reunión con corresponsales extranjeros que de avanzar la reforma se espera que hacia el año 2018 Pemex produzca unos 2.5 millones de barriles diarios de crudo y otros 500.000 barri-
les provengan de producción de empresas privadas por sí mismas o en asociación con la compañía mexicana. “Esperamos que en lo que resta de esta administración alrededor de medio millón de barriles pudiera venir de la producción de privados”, dijo Melgar. El gobierno del presidente Enrique Peña Nieto presentó la semana pasada un paquete de 21 proyectos de ley en los que se detalla la aplicación de una histórica reforma constitucional que por primera vez en 75 años terminó con el monopolio estatal en materia petrolera. Las iniciativas fueron enviadas al Congreso para su discusión. Como parte de la reforma constitucional, Pemex tendrá
la posibilidad de elegir primero que nadie los campos en que participará y como parte de ese proceso las autoridades analizarán cuáles se le darán. Melgar dijo que se garantizará, sin embargo, que le permitan mantener la producción de 2,5 millones de barriles diarios. El anuncio sobre qué campos tendrá Pemex se hará a más tardar el 17 de septiembre. México tuvo en 2004 su pico de producción de crudo, con 3.4 millones de barriles diarios, comenzó a caer hasta los niveles actuales de 2.5 millones de barriles diarios. Con la reforma, México espera la producción de crudo crezca a 3 millones de barriles diarios en 2018 y a 3.5 millones en 2025.
Cinco personas murieron después de que suscitarán eventos violentos en las ciudades de Reynosa y Matamoros, anunciaron autoridades del Estado de Tamaulipas el martes. El Grupo de Coordinación Tamaulipas indicó que los encuentros armados dejaron un saldo de cinco civiles armados sin vida, a través de un comunicado de prensa. Fue en Reynosa que alrededor de las 2 p.m., supuestos miembros de un grupo delictivo atacaron a oficiales de la Policía Federal que patrullaban el área. El incidente propició una persecución, la cual culminó dentro del estacionamiento de un centro comercial, ubicado en bulevar Hidalgo y avenida El Pasito. Durante este incidente cuatro civiles armados, que viajaban en un Ford Crown Victoria color dorado, sin placas de circulación, murieron a balazos al tratar de escapar. “Tres de ellos quedaron sobre el pavimento, mientras el cuarto quedó sin vida en el interior del vehículo”, se lee en el comunicado. Se ha identificado a dos de los occisos como Jorge Aarón Guerra Ontiveros, de 22 años de edad y José Alejandro Pérez Guerra, de 28 años. La identidad de los otros dos civiles no se ha identificado. Los cuatro traían chalecos antibalas y portaban armas largas que quedaron sobre el pavimento. Fue a las 11:15 a.m. que en la ciudad de Matamoros, civiles armados que se desplazaban en una camioneta Chevrolet Van de modelo no reciente, comenzaron un ataque en contra de elementos de la Secretaría de Marina, que patrullaban sobre la carretera Lauro del Villar, a la altura de Ciudad Industrial. Al iniciar el escape los civiles armados enfilaron la camioneta hacia Ciudad Industrial, donde perdieron el control de la misma y la impactaron contra un árbol, señala en comunicado “(El impacto) provocó que (el vehículo) se incendiara ya que en su interior llevaban un recipiente de plástico de gran capacidad conteniendo gasolina robada”. Un agresor resultó abatido tras enfrentar a los marinos con un arma larga. Los acompañantes lograron escapar corriendo entre la maleza.
COLUMNA
Describe recorrido por caminos de Tamaulipas POR RAÚL SINENCIO ESPECIAL PARA TIEMPO DE ZAPATA
Con rienda en mano recorreremos antiguas rutas guiados por viajeros. La excursión nos permitirá conocer facetas del siglo XIX tamaulipeco.
Puentes Robert Phillips sale en 1822 de Altamira hacia el interior de la entidad. Guía 14 carruajes de cuatro ruedas, con maquinaria importada de su natal Inglaterra. Ante posibles asaltos, el coronel Martínez lo escolta. Busca alcanzar Real de Catorce, SLP, México, lo que consigue en
6 meses. Tras varias jornadas relata: “nos detuvimos en la cima de un cerro escarpado y cubierto de bosque y de roca que descenderlo exige perseverancia y esfuerzo. Todos empezaron a hacer un camino. Trabajamos casi toda la noche; por la mañana estaba abierto. Kilómetros adelante se topan con retadoras aguas. “Empleamos a unos 50 indios. Al bajar un carruaje al río, estos hombres, junto con seis yuntas de bueyes, lo llevaban hacia el otro lado tanto como podían, pero para subir este otro lado apenas bastaban 20 yuntas de bueyes, más todos los indios, de tan pendientes que eran las
márgenes.”
estrechos desfiladeros”.
Dificultad
Horizontes
En sentido opuesto, después de 22 años, pasa por ahí Albert M. Guilliam, cónsul estadounidense. Atraviesa por el Suroeste de Tamaulipas la Sierra Madre Oriental. Va con dirección al río Pánuco, donde embarcará. Utilizan acémilas. “Si deben pasar bajo una rama de árbol, se agacharán lo suficiente para que su carga pase sin tocar el obstáculo. Yo he visto a mi mula agacharse e inclinarse a fin de que mi cuerpo tenga libre paso bajo obstáculos suspendidos o a través de
Cedamos ahora la palabra a Concepción Lombardo, esposa del conservador Miguel Miramón, con tres hijos y una niñera. En 1863 regresa del extranjero por Tampico. De incógnita y resguardada por mozos armados, en medio de peripecias deja atrás Tula, rumbo a tierras potosinas. Las pésimas vías de comunicación vuelven a relucir. De pronto, “oímos un extraño ruido seguido por la rotura de las dos ruedas traseras de la carretera; sintiendo que aquel vehículo se iba a volcar los mo-
zos corrieron a socorrernos y salimos ilesos. Sin ningún medio para componer el desperfecto, tuvimos que seguir a pie, y armándome de valor di orden de poner sobre uno de los caballos los sacos de viaje y emprendimos la marcha”. La apertura de redes ferroviarias al finalizar la centuria decimonónica provoca entusiasmo. Movilizan en breve tiempo pesadas cargas a grandes distancias. Propician asimismo que mucha gente abandone el terruño buscando mejores horizontes. (Artículo de Raúl Sinencio, según fue publicado en La Razón de Tampico Tamaulipas)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
ON THE WEB: THEZAPATATIMES.COM
Sports&Outdoors NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: DALLAS COWBOYS
Cowboys not looking QB Jones not planning early QB draft pick By SCHUYLER DIXON ASSOCIATED PRESS
IRVING — Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones isn’t looking to draft a quarterback — Johnny Manziel or otherwise. Jones found several ways to shoot down the notion of grabbing Manziel if the former Heisman Trophy winner from Texas A&M unexpectedly falls to the Cowboys at No. 16 in the first round Thursday night. His answers in the team’s annual pre-draft news conference Tuesday always came back to the same thing: “Our best shot is a healthy Tony Romo.” The Dallas quarterback just turned 34 and is coming off two back surgeries, the last for a herniated disk sustained against Washington that knocked him out of a playoffs-or-bust loss to Philadelphia in the season finale. Jones doesn’t like the odds of winning with a rookie quarter-
back, and sees the development of one as an expensive proposition in terms of money and practice time. Besides, the Cowboys are trying to break a three-season streak of 8-8 finishes and a fouryear playoff drought in the final season of coach Jason Garrett’s contract. “This isn’t rebuilding time,” Jones said. “As a look down the future, yes. But for coming in here and helping us win games right now, those odds are too far for me to get excited about.” The Cowboys figure to have a defense-first draft after releasing franchise sacks leader DeMarcus Ware in a salary-cap move. Regardless of what happens in the draft, Dallas’ defensive line won’t look anything like what was projected a year ago. The overhaul doesn’t guarantee Jones will take a defensive lineman. It could be a safety or linebacker. Maybe even a wide receiver. “We’ve had a lot of attrition in
our defensive front this year,” Jones said. “What is obvious is if you want to start at the need you can start right there. We shouldn’t go overboard and be influenced to the point where we pass up a great opportunity to have a great draft otherwise.” But Jones didn’t sound like the best-player-available theory applied at quarterback. The Cowboys expect backup Kyle Orton to return despite indications that he might not, and Jones said the team made its developmental move by adding free agent Brandon Weeden, a first-round pick by Cleveland 2012. The owner was joined by Garrett and executive vice president Stephen Jones for a news conference not long after Romo had some of his first football activity since the surgery in December. Garrett said Romo’s 45 minutes of work on the field included dropping back and throwing, adding that his rehabilitation was on schedule.
File photo by Brandon Wade | AP
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones does not expect to take a quarterback early on in Thursday’s first round of the NFL draft.
O’Brien era begins in Houston By DARRELL LOVELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — The Bill O’Brien era is officially underway in Houston. The Texans hit the field Tuesday for their first organized workouts since O’Brien took over as coach. Houston had preseason Super Bowl aspirations last year, but wound up with a 2-14 record that was the worst in the NFL. After O’Brien put his players through their first session, he said he was focused on getting his players going in the right direction and starting to work on them understanding what is expected of them. As for 2013, that is some-
thing he is keeping in the past. “We don’t talk about it that much,” O’Brien says. “As far as addressing all the things.I wasn’t here last year so I would be very remiss in addressing anything last year. Every year’s different, that was last year and this is a new year.” Houston’s 2013 was still a talking point. The play was abysmal and at the end of the year the players had taken on an attitude that football was no longer fun. The Texans hired O’Brien from Penn State to replace Gary Kubiak, who is now the offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. O’Brien is already in-
stilling a new feel around the team. “You can kind of feel the energy around here, it’s exciting,” said veteran cornerback Jonathan Joseph. “Bringing in a new staff always brings in excitement because you’re always eager to go out and show from a player’s standpoint that you’re worthy of being on the team and worthy of a roster spot. “It’s kind of like going to preschool or going to high school again because all the guys are back joking,” Joseph said. “At the same time you’re also putting in an incredible amount of work on the field and in the classroom. Along with a new excite-
ment came a sense of intensity. Players said practice had a different tempo and was louder that it has been in the past. “It’s a very intense staff,” said left tackle Duane Brown. “They really focus on attention to detail and focusing on things that hurt us before. I think it’s going to make us better. It’s exciting to have a fresh start, a clean slate.I feel like a rookie all over again.” O’Brien said the first day was simply about his team learning the system and getting used to a new environment. He and his staff are looking at plays from last year that are similar to this year’s scheme.
DURANT OVERTAKES LEBRON, WINS NBA MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Photo by Sue Ogrocki | AP
Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant won his first NBA Most Valuable Player trophy receiving the NBA’s top individual honor with 119 first-place votes. Miami’s LeBron James, who had won the last two MVP awards and four of the previous five, finished second with six first-place votes, and Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers was third.
Photo by Pat Sullivan | AP
New Houston coach Bill O’Brien, right, takes over for the Texans after a disappointing 2-14 season in 2013.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 11A
JUAN M. BENAVIDES JR.
MELECIO CHAPA
DIED MAY 6, 2014
NOV. 15, 1934 — MAY 4, 2014
SAN YGNACIO — Juan M. Benavides Jr., 52, passed away Tuesday, May 6, 2014, at Laredo Nursing and Rehab Center in Laredo, Texas. Mr. Benavides is preceded in death by his parents, Juan M. Benavides and Ramona G. Benavides. Mr. Benavides is survived by his sons, Juan M. Benavides III and Gerardo A. Vasquez; sister, Juana Maria B. (Gerardo III) Gutierrez; brother, Benito Jr. (Nilda) Solis; former wife, Diana R. Benavides; nephew, Gerardo Gutierrez IV; niece, Gabriella B. Gutierrez; and
ZAPATA — Melecio Chapa, 79, passed away Sunday, May 4, 2014, at Edinburg Nursing and Rehab Center in Edinburg, Texas. Mr. Chapa is preceded in death by his wife, Elia G. Chapa; parents, Alfonso and Teresa Chapa; brothers, Miguel A. Chapa, Roel Chapa, Javier Chapa; and sisters, Alicia (Fernando) Muñoz and Dora C. (Alberto) Chapa. Mr. Chapa is survived by his daughter, Linda C. (Pete) Smith; grandchildren, Sean and Ryan Smith; brothers, Alfonso Jr. (Irma) Chapa, Armando Chapa, Roehl (Dora Maria)
by numerous family and friends. Visitation hours will be Monday, May 12, 2014, at 8 a.m. with a rosary at 9 a.m. at Rose Garden Funeral Home. A funeral Mass will follow at 10:30 a.m. at Our Lady of Refuge Mission in San Ygnacio, Texas. Committal services will follow at Panteon Del Pueblo in San Ygnacio, Texas. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of Rose Garden Funeral Home, Daniel A. Gonzalez, funeral director, 2102 N. US HWY 83 Zapata, Texas.
Chapa; sisters, Magda (Antonio) Lopez, Norma Chapa, Blanca Chapa, Alma (Rodolfo†) Garcia; and by numerous nephews, nieces and friends. Visitation hours were Tuesday, May 6, 2014, at 8 a.m. at Rose Garden Funeral Home followed by a 10 a.m. funeral Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Committal services followed at Zapata County Cemetery. Funeral arrangements were under the direction of Rose Garden Funeral Home, Daniel A. Gonzalez, funeral director, 2102 N. US HWY 83 Zapata, Texas.
Stocks drop big-time Nine of the ten industry groups in the S&P 500 fell By BERNARD CONDON ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Dan Gunderson/file | AP
One of several small drones designed for use by law enforcement and first responders is shown at University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, N.D., on Tuesday, May 14, 2013.
Media challenges ban FAA is not issuing drone permits to news organizations By JOAN LOWY ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — More than a dozen media organizations challenged the government’s ban on the use of drones by journalists Tuesday, saying the Federal Aviation Administration’s position violates First Amendment protections for news gathering. The organizations, including The Associated Press, filed a brief with the National Transportation Safety Board in support of aerial photographer Raphael Pirker. Pirker was fined $10,000 by the FAA for flying a small drone near the University of Virginia to make a commercial video in October 2011. He appealed the fine to the safety board, which hears challenges to FAA decisions. An administrative law judge ruled in March that the FAA can’t enforce its policy against all commercial use of drones when the agency hasn’t issued regulations for those uses. The FAA has appealed the judge’s decision to the full
five-member safety board. Agency officials have said they hope to issue regulations for the use of small drones later this year. The FAA won’t currently issue drone permits to news organizations. Officials have sent warning letters to journalists found to have used small unmanned aircraft to take photos and videos. The agency suggested to one Ohio newspaper that it refrain from publishing video of a burning building taken independently by a drone hobbyist, even though hobbyists, unlike journalists, are permitted to fly drones, according to the brief. “The FAA’s position is untenable as it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding about journalism. News gathering is not a ‘business purpose.’ It is a First Amendment right,” the brief said. Media organizations are intensely interested in using drones for photography and videos because they are far less expensive to buy and operate than a manned airplane or heli-
copter, and because their size and versatility provide visual perspectives often not possible with manned aircraft. Integrating unmanned aircraft into the national airspace also has the potential to improve the safety of reporting under lessthan-ideal conditions, and unmanned aircraft by their nature pose less risk than helicopters, the news organizations said. Reports on traffic, hurricanes, wildfires, and crop yields could all be told more safely and cost-effectively with the use of unmanned aircraft, it said. “This brief, filed by the country’s leading news organizations, supports the proposition we have argued that federal agencies must consult with the public before banning the use of new technologies that have many beneficial purposes,” said attorney Brendan Schulman, who is representing Pirker. “The argument becomes even stronger when First Amendment considerations are taken into account.
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks fell broadly on Tuesday as investors found little to cheer in corporate earnings reports. A plunge in Twitter led Internet companies sharply lower. Twitter dropped 18 percent after company insiders were allowed to sell stock for the first time since the initial public offering last year. Netflix fell 5 percent, Facebook and Amazon, 4 percent each, and Google, 2 percent. Nine of the ten industry groups in the Standard and Poor’s 500 fell, led by a 1.4 percent drop in financial companies after results for insurer American International Group fell short of analysts’ expectations. Home builder stocks dropped after more signs of weakness in the housing market. Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private bank, says investors are worried that corporate results over the next few quarters will not justify the surge in prices from the start of 2013. “We ran ahead of fundamental valuations, based on revenue and earnings,” Ablin said. “Either revenue or earnings have to catch up to the market, or prices have to come down.” The S&P 500 dropped 16.94 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,867.72. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 129.53 points, or 0.8 percent, to 16,401.02. The Nasdaq composite dropped 57.30 points, or 1.4 percent, to 4,080.76. Even utilities — the biggest winners so far this
Photo by Richard Drew/file | AP
Trader David O’Day works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, on Friday. U.S. stocks fell broadly on Tuesday as investors found little to cheer in corporate earnings reports. year, up 12 percent — did not escape the selling. They slipped 0.5 percent. The drop in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones index was the third in four trading days, and comes despite recent upbeat news on the U.S. economy. Payrolls increased by 288,000 last month, the fastest pace since 2012. Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist of Mizuho Securities, noted that, for all the job gains, wages for U.S. workers have not increased significantly, and that is holding back consumer spending. “People are getting weary of the ‘things-are-getting-better’ story,” said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist of Mizuho Securities. “We’re hiring more workers, but we’re not paying them more.” Companies in the S&P 500 index are expected to have increased earnings by 2.6 percent in the first quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ, a data provider. That is down sharply from the nearly 8 percent jump in the fourth quarter. U.S. home prices rose at a slightly slower pace in the 12 months that ended in March, according to data provider CoreLogic. It was another sign that weak sales, caused in part
by rising mortgage rates, have begun to restrain the housing market’s sharp price gains. Home builder stocks fell broadly. Ryland Group fell $1.08, or nearly 3 percent, to $37.68. D.R. Horton fell 55 cents, or nearly 3 percent, to $22.43. American International Group fell $2.18, or 4 percent, to $50.54. The company reported revenue that was below what investors expected due to higher catastrophe losses and lower investment income. Investors were also keeping an eye on the turmoil in Ukraine. In the city of Donetsk, pro-Russia militants armed with automatic rifles and grenade launchers surrounded an Interior Ministry base. And a planned weekend referendum by pro-Russian insurgents for autonomy and independence in parts of eastern Ukraine was denounced as “bogus” by the Obama administration. U.S. government bond prices rose slightly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.59 percent from 2.61 percent Monday. The yield has fallen from 3 percent at the start of January.
12A THE ZAPATA TIMES
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014
Ukraine attempts to keep city Pro-Russia militia comes under further pressure from Ukrainian troops By PETER LEONARD & YURAS KARMANAU ASSOCIATED PRESS
DONETSK, Ukraine — A pro-Russia militia holding an eastern Ukrainian city came under further pressure Tuesday from advancing government troops, but militants acted with impunity elsewhere in the turbulent region. The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia met Tuesday, but their open disagreements did nothing to suggest a diplomatic solution was near. Diplomacy was to be taken up again on Wednesday during a meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, whose country currently chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Russia and the West have expressed a desire for the OSCE to play a greater role in defusing the tensions in Ukraine. Ukrainian military operations that began Monday to expunge pro-Russia forces from the city of Slovyansk were the interim government’s most ambitious effort so far to quell weeks of unrest in Ukraine’s mainly Russianspeaking east. Four government troops and 30 militants were killed in the gunbattles, Ukraine’s interior minister said Tuesday. The pro-Russia militia said 10 people were killed, including civilians. There was no immediate way to reconcile the figures. In the southwest, Kiev authorities also attempted to reassert control over the region around Odessa, a major Black Sea port, by appointing a new governor on Tuesday. This nation of 46 million was thrown into a political crisis after its Moscowleaning president, whose base was in eastern Ukraine, fled to Russia in February following months of protests in Kiev. Across the region in recent weeks, armed insurgents who have seized dozens of government buildings and police stations are now at odds with western and central Ukraine, which seek closer ties with Europe and largely back the government in Kiev. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov gave the death toll on his Facebook page Tuesday, adding that 20 government troops were also injured during fighting in Slovyansk. He said about 800 pro-Russia forces in and around Slovyansk used large-caliber weapons and mortars on Monday.
Photo by Vadim Ghirda | AP
An elderly relative is comforted as the coffin of 17-year-old Vadim Papura is brought outside the apartment block he lived in, in Odessa, Ukraine on Tuesday. By Tuesday morning, Ukrainian forces had taken hold of a key checkpoint north of the city, dealing a blow to insurgent lines of communication. In Donetsk, a major city 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Slovyansk, the airport was closed during the day to international flights following a government order but reopened later. In the afternoon, about 30 pro-Russia militants armed with automatic rifles and grenade launchers surrounded an Interior Ministry base in Donetsk, demanding that the troops inside not join any government operations against pro-Russia forces. While it was unclear whether they would attack, besieging the base was an uptick in their offensive. In Odessa, Kiev authorities announced Tuesday they were firing the acting governor and replacing him with a member of parliament, Ihor Palytsya. Odessa’s police chief was also fired over the weekend. Concern that Odessa could be the next region to fall grew after 46 people died Friday, many in a building fire, after a proUkraine march in Odessa turned into a melee of fighting. Two days later, 67 people detained in the rioting were released by police under pressure from an angry crowd. Opposing sides of the Ukraine conflict have traded bitter recriminations over the Odessa deaths. As residents gathered on Tuesday to lay flowers near the scorched building, they remained confused about exactly what caused the fire and were suspicious of the police forces who did not try to stop the bloodshed, for whatever reason. “I saw how the police
were on the side of the proRussians — they broke rank when the Russians attacked and closed ranks when they stepped back,” said 46-year-old Vitaly Khadyko. The central government attempted to boost confidence by sending in an elite national guard unit, which could be seen patrolling the streets of Odessa. The goals of the pro-Russian insurgency are ostensibly broader autonomy for the region, but some do favor separatism or even joining Russia. Leaders of the anti-government movement say they plan to hold a referendum on autonomy for eastern regions on Sunday, although no visible preparations for the vote have yet been seen. Russia has put the blame for the unrest squarely on the interim government in Kiev. During a Tuesday meeting in Vienna with the Council of Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov demanded that the Ukrainian government end its armed assaults on rebel strongholds. He said he was open to another round
of international talks to ease the crisis, but only if pro-Russia rebels were included. “Those who protest ... want their voices heard,” he told reporters. “They want to have an equal voice when it comes to deciding the fate of their own country.” His Ukrainian counterpart rejected the proposal, saying the Kiev government already represents all the people of Ukraine. In Washington on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the Ukraine crisis with Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top diplomat. The U.S. and the EU ordered sanctions against Russian officials and individuals after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Testifying Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, said a team of U.S. officials was working with European counterparts on sanctions that could target Russian industry.
CLIMATE Continued from Page 1A collecting the dots about climate change, now we’re connecting those dots.” In a White House conference call with reporters, National Climatic Data Center Director Tom Karl said his two biggest concerns were flooding from sea level rise on the U.S. coastlines — especially for the low-lying cities of Miami, Norfolk, Virginia, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire — and drought, heat waves and prolonged fire seasons in the Southwest. Even though the nation’s average temperature has risen by as much as 1.9 degrees since record keeping began in 1895, it’s in the big, wild weather where the average person feels climate change the most, said co-author Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University climate scientist. Extreme weather like droughts, storms and heat waves hit us in the pocketbooks and can be seen by our own eyes, she said. The report says the intensity, frequency and duration of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes have increased since the early 1980s, but it is still uncertain how much of that is from man-made warming. Winter storms have increased in frequency and intensity and have shifted northward since the
1950s, it says. Also, heavy downpours are increasing — by 71 percent in the Northeast. Heat waves, such as those in Texas in 2011 and the Midwest in 2012, are projected to intensify nationwide. Droughts in the Southwest are expected to get stronger. Sea level has risen 8 inches since 1880 and is projected to rise between 1 foot and 4 feet by 2100. Climate data center chief Karl highlighted the increase in downpours. He said last week’s drenching, when Pensacola, Florida, got up to two feet of rain in one storm and parts of the East had three inches in one day, is what he’s talking about. The report also says “climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways.” Those include smoke-filled air from wildfires, smoggy air from pollution, and more diseases from tainted food, water, mosquitoes and ticks. And ragweed pollen season has lengthened. Flooding alone may cost $325 billion by the year 2100 in one of the worst-case scenarios, with $130 billion of that in Florida, the report says. Already the droughts and heat waves of 2011 and 2012 added about $10 billion.
CAUGHT Continued from Page 1A Chacota Street and New York Avenue in Laredo. An anonymous caller stated that a man wearing black shorts and a gray shirt assaulted another male wearing a cowboy hat. The victim told police that he had been working at a home in the 2900 block of Zacatecas Street. Court records do not specify the type of work done by the victim. He was invited to have a beer following the completion of his duties, but a civil dispute ensued when the victim asked to be paid for his services. As the victim was walking outside the residence,
the suspect allegedly “punched the victim in the face from behind,” causing him to black out. Police identified the assailant as Gonzalez, but when questioned he denied the allegations. However, officers did notice he had a minor laceration on his hands, which was consistent with someone who had been involved in an assault, according to court records. Police obtained records from Laredo Medical Center, which showed the victim suffered acute fractures on the fourth and fifth ribs. (César G. Rodriguez may be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmtonline.com)