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MEXICO
IMMIGRATION OVERLOAD
Police arrest three, rescue 165 hostages
$3.7B ‘too much’ Dems, GOP battle over aid to immigrants By ERICA WERNER
THE ZAPATA TIMES
Tamaulipas state authorities announced Wednesday the rescue of 165 hostages in three operations in two cities. Authorities said the hostages were immigrants. Police arrested three suspects who they said were members of a kidnapping gang. The sus-
pects are also accused of killing three immigrants. One of the operations took place in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, where members of the Accredited State Police and Federal Police rescued seven Honduran immigrants, two of whom were minors, according to a press release. “(The immigrants) had
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PAGE 9A
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — A key Republican said Friday that President Barack Obama’s multibillion-dollar emergency request for the border is too big to get through the House, as a growing number of Democrats rejected policy changes Republicans are demanding as their price for approving any money.
The developments indicated that Obama faces an uphill climb as he pushes Congress to approve $3.7 billion to deal with tens of thousands of unaccompanied kids who’ve been arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border from poor and gang-ridden Central American nations. And they suggested that even as the children keep coming, any final resolution is likely weeks away on Capitol
Hill. As House members gathered Friday morning to finish up legislative business for the week, Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Committee that controls spending, told reporters: “It’s too much money. We don’t need it.” Rogers, who’d previously sounded open to the spending request for more immigration judges, State
Department programs and other items, said that Obama’s request includes some spending to meet immediate needs, and his committee is working to sort that out. But he said other aspects can be handled through Congress’ regular spending bills, though no final action is likely on those until after the No-
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PAGE 9A
IMMIGRATION OVERLOAD
BENGHAZI
DISTRIBUTING CHILDREN
No info hampered rescue try By DONNA CASSATA AND BRADLEY KLAPPER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by William Luther | San Antonio Express-News
Young immigrants stand Wednesday, July 2, in the housing area on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where they are being kept while they wait for their legal status to be resolved.
Planes aid in housing immigrants By LYNN BREZOSKY AND WILLIAM LUTHER SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
SAN ANTONIO — One by one, some striding in flipflops, others walking with shoulders hunched and fists in pockets — and one or two in what appeared to be handcuffs — the youths stepped out of the rear of an MD-82 that had landed at Port San Antonio’s Kelly Field. Directed by casually uniformed officials, the youths headed for waiting buses with darkened windows. The officials then got back on the
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PAGE 10A
Photo by William Luther | San Antonio Express-News
Adults direct young immigrants Tuesday, July 1, to buses as they get off an airplane at Port San Antonio’s Kelly Field in San Antonio. The plane, operated by Orange Air, LLC, arrived in San Antonio from Phoenix.
WASHINGTON — Two of the four U.S. deaths in Benghazi might have been prevented, military leaders say, if commanders had known more about the intensity of the sporadic gunfire directed at the CIA facility where Americans had taken refuge and had pressed to get a rescue team there faster. Senior military leaders have told Congress in closed-door testimony that after the first attack on the main U.S. diplomatic compound on Sept. 11, 2012, they thought the fighting had subsided and the Americans who had fled to the CIA base about a mile away were safe. In fact, they were facing intermittent small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades around midnight and had returned fire. Then the attackers dispersed. Hours later, at first light, an 11-minute mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack slammed into the CIA annex, killing security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. In hindsight, retired Gen. Carter Ham, then head of the U.S. military command in Africa, said he would have pressed Libyan contacts in the defense ministry and other officials to help speed up the evacuation of Americans from Benghazi. Also, a special operations team that had been dispatched from Croatia to Sicily after the first attack might have made it to Benghazi, if a host of variables were ideal — a quick departure, wind direction and speed, and an unobstructed runway to land a U.S. aircraft. Ham said “in a perfect world, with no other disruptions or distractions,” it could have happened. As it turned out, a six-man security team, including Special Forces personnel that arrived at Benghazi airport at 1:30 a.m., was held up there for hours by Libyan militia.
See BENGHAZI PAGE 10A
PAGE 2A
Zin brief CALENDAR
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
AROUND TEXAS
TODAY IN HISTORY
Saturday, July 12
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mass for the 120th anniversary of the Sisters of Mercy in Laredo. 10 a.m. Laredo Medical Center Chapel. A celebration of the partnership between the Sisters and the thousands of people who ministered with them throughout the years. A reception will follow the mass. TAMIU Planetarium Event Date on July 12th, 2014 . Event Time from 3 pm – 7 pm. It will be at the TAMIU Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium. Contact Claudia Herrera at 956326-2463 or claudia.herrera@tamiu.edu. The Texas A&M International University Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium will show: Saturday, July 12, 4pm- Star Signs, 5 pm — Black Holes, 6pm- Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, 7 pm — Live Star Show General Admission is $4 children and $5 adults. Premium shows $1 more. For more information call 956-326-DOME (3663)
Thursday, July 17 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. Los Amigos Duplicate Bridge Club. 1:15 p.m. to 5 p.m. Laredo Country Club. Contact Beverly Cantu at 7270589 for more information. “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.
Thursday, July 24 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. Los Amigos Duplicate Bridge Club. 1:15 p.m. to 5 p.m. Laredo Country Club. Contact Beverly Cantu at 7270589 for more information. “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.
Friday, July 25 Alumni night for 25th reunion of J.W. Nixon High School Class of 1989. 8 p.m. to midnight. LIFE Fairgrounds and Branding Iron. $25 per person. Facebook: J.W. Nixon Eightynine.
Saturday, July 26 Dinner and dance for 25th reunion of J.W. Nixon High School Class of 1989. 8 p.m. to midnight. Embassy Suites. $30 per person. Facebook: J.W. Nixon Eightynine.
Monday, July 28 Monthly meeting of Laredo Parkinson’s Disease Support Group. 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Laredo Medical Center, Tower B, First Floor Community Center. Patients, caregivers and family members invited. Free info pamphlets available in Spanish and English. Call Richard Renner (English) at 645-8649 or Juan Gonzalez (Spanish) at 2370666.
Photo by Bret Coomer/pool/Houston Chronicle | AP
Ronald Lee Haskell collapses as he appears in court Friday, in Houston. Haskell, 33, is accused of killing his ex-wife’s sister, Katie Stay, her husband and the children, ranging in age from 4 to 14, after binding and putting them face-down on the floor of their suburban Houston home.
Man collapses in court By MICHAEL GRACZYK ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — A man accused of killing six members of his ex-wife’s family, including four children, after forcing his way into their suburban Houston home collapsed in court twice Friday as a prosecutor read out details of the crime. A shackled Ronald Lee Haskell was standing before a state district judge during a probable cause hearing when he fell to the ground. Deputies lifted him to his feet and the 33-year-old Haskell stood for about another minute before collapsing again. He was then lifted into a chair and wheeled from the courtroom. “His face, he obviously lost blood in his face, and his knees buckled,” said Haskell’s attorney, Doug Durham. “He’s scared. I think he has a limited mental capacity of what’s
Saturday, Aug. 2 Used book sale, hosted by First United Methodist Church. 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. 1220 McClelland Ave. Hardback books are $1, paperback books 50 cents, and magazines and children’s books 25 cents. Submit calendar items at lmtonline.com/calendar/submit or by emailing editorial@lmtonline.com with the event’s name, date and time, location and purpose and contact information for a representative. Items will run as space is available.
He tied up the family and put them facedown on the floor before shooting each in the back of the head, according to investigators.
DHS secretary visits NM migrant detention center
Man charged in fiery confrontation
Man gets life term for adopted son’s death
EL PASO — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says the agency is working rapidly to open new detention facilities to house the influx of women and children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. On a tour Friday of a temporary center at a border patrol training facility in Artesia, New Mexico, Johnson said more are needed.
CEDAR HILL — North Texas authorities say they’ve filed charges against a 27-year-old man who they say set himself and a police officer on fire in a confrontation at a chicken wing restaurant. Authorities announced Friday that Terrance Jarmell Dunn is charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a public servant. He underwent surgery following the incident Wednesday in the Dallas suburb of Cedar Hill and remains hospitalized.
McKINNEY — A Frisco man has been sentenced to life in prison over the 2011 fatal beating of his toddler son less than a month after adopting the boy. Scott Garrett was sentenced Thursday. He received an automatic life prison term without parole in the death of his 22-month-old son, Logan.
Cutting torch used as tank explodes, 1 hurt
HOUSTON — A memorial service will be held this weekend for a veteran Houston firefighter who died after suffering burns while battling a house blaze. The Houston Fire Department says 46-year-old Daniel Groover will be remembered Saturday at a church service. Groover was inside a burning residence when he lost radio contact with other firefighters. — Compiled from AP reports
Lawmaker appears before grand jury in Perry probe AUSTIN — Rep. Phil King is appearing before the grand jury investigating whether Gov. Rick Perry abused his power by making good on a veto threat. A special prosecutor is investigating whether Perry abused his power by threatening to veto $7.5 million for the state public integrity unit run by the Travis County district attorney’s office.
Thursday, July 31 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. Los Amigos Duplicate Bridge Club. 1:15 p.m. to 5 p.m. Laredo Country Club. Contact Beverly Cantu at 7270589 for more information. “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.
going on.” Before the collapses, Haskell had acknowledged with a quiet “Yes” a couple of questions put to him by State District Judge Mark Kent Ellis about his legal rights. Ellis ordered Haskell held without bond. “Maybe reality is finally setting in,” said Tammy Thomas, the lead Harris County assistant district attorney in the case. “He is facing his consequences.” Thomas said she expected a grand jury to issue a capital murder indictment as a result of Wednesday’s fatal shootings of Stephen and Katie Stay and four of their children, ranging in age from 4 to 14.
NEW BADEN — State regulators say a worker had used a cutting torch when a Central Texas oilfield storage tank exploded and left him critically hurt. Texas Railroad Commission investigators say the 12,000-gallon tank contained oil sludge during Wednesday’s blast.
Service for Houston firefighter Groover
AROUND THE NATION Ventura: No bar fight with ‘American Sniper’ Kyle ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has testified he doesn’t remember any confrontation with the “American Sniper” author who claimed to have punched out Ventura in a bar. Ventura is suing the estate of late military sniper Chris Kyle for defamation because he says the story is a lie. Ventura testified Friday in St. Paul, Minnesota, that he doesn’t know if Kyle was even in the California bar the night of the supposed fight in 2006. Ventura says he remembers signing autographs and posing for pictures.
San Francisco parking spot app shuts down SAN FRANCISCO — An Italian company whose mobile app allows San Francisco drivers to get paid for the public parking
Today is Saturday, July 12, the 193rd day of 2014. There are 172 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On July 12, 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced his choice of U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket. On this date: In 1543, England’s King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. In 1690, forces led by William of Orange defeated the army of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing the Medal of Honor. In 1909, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing a federal income tax, and submitted it to the states. (It was declared ratified in February 1913.) In 1943, the World War II tank battle of Prokhorovka between German invaders and Soviet defenders took place with no clear victor. In 1948, the Democratic National Convention, which nominated President Harry S. Truman for a second term of office, opened in Philadelphia. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was flown by helicopter from the White House to a secret mountaintop location as part of a drill involving a mock nuclear attack on Washington. In 1967, six days of race-related rioting erupted in Newark, New Jersey; the violence claimed 26 lives. In 1974, President Richard Nixon signed a measure creating the Congressional Budget Office. Former White House aide John Ehrlichman and three others were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter defended Supreme Court limits on government payments for poor women’s abortions, saying, “There are many things in life that are not fair.” In 1994, President Bill Clinton, visiting Germany, went to the eastern sector of Berlin, the first president to do so since Harry Truman. Today’s Birthdays: Movie director Monte Hellman is 85. Comedian Bill Cosby is 77. Singer-musician Christine McVie is 71. Actress Denise Nicholas is 70. Singer-songwriter Butch Hancock is 69. Fitness guru Richard Simmons is 66. Actor Jay Thomas is 66. Singer Walter Egan is 66. Writer-producer Brian Grazer is 63. Actress Cheryl Ladd is 63. Country singer Julie Miller is 58. Gospel singer Sandi Patty is 58. Actress Mel Harris is 58. Actor Buddy Foster is 57. Rock guitarist Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum) is 52. Actress Judi Evans is 50. Rock singer Robin Wilson (Gin Blossoms) is 49. Actress Lisa Nicole Carson is 45. Olympic gold medal figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi is 43. Country singer Shannon Lawson is 41. Rapper Magoo is 41. Actress Anna Friel is 38. Rhythm-and-blues singer Tracie Spencer is 38. Actor Steve Howey is 37. Actor Topher Grace is 36. Thought for Today: “The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again.” — Alan Paton, South African author (1903-1988).
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Ethan Willis, 15, of the Geneva Fire Department Explorers, right, and Herbie Johnston, second from right, hose down a Carson and Barnes Circus elephant with a circus employee on Friday, in downtown Geneva, Ohio. spaces they exit has temporarily shut down the service following an order from the city attorney. Despite saying last month that it wouldn’t stop, MonkeyParking said in a blog Thursday that it “temporarily disabled” its bidding service in San Francisco, a
day before City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s deadline to cease operations or face a possible lawsuit. MonkeyParking CEO Paolo Dobrowolny said in an email Friday that his company was working with lawyers. — 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
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 3A
Schools succeed despite funding Candidates Teacher pay lags, spar over class size grows visit, more By MORGAN SMITH
THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
Stacked up against other states, Texas public schools could win the best-bang-foryour-buck competition. The state has consistently ranked among the bottom five nationally in per-student spending. And even with a growing population of economically disadvantaged and English-language learning students, some academic performance measures are on the upswing. Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials have attributed this low-cost, higher-than-average performance to a combination of tough standards and accountability policies. “Texas has some of the highest classroom standards in the country. Our curriculum prepares students for either college or a career. While not every student will go to college, every student should be encouraged to reach their full potential,” Perry said last month at the Republican Party of Texas’ convention. “We raised the bar of achievement, and students and teachers rose to the challenge.” But the commitment to fiscal restraint has come with its own burdens for the teachers responsible for educating the state’s future workforce. Despite having a starting salary that is on par with other states, the average teacher in Texas makes about $49,000 a year — about $8,000 below the national average. Teacher pay in Texas ranked 30th in the nation during the 2010-11 school year, dropping to 35th two years later, according to an annual state-by-state analysis by the National Education Association. Reports conducted on a smaller scale reveal additional financial strains on the state’s teachers. A study released by Sam Houston State University in October that was commissioned by the Texas State Teachers Association showed a marked increase in teachers reporting that they had taken second jobs during the school year to make ends meet. The same report also showed teachers increasingly spending their own money on school supplies. In 2013, teachers said they spent an average of $697 on school supplies, a $130 in-
Governor hopefuls Davis, Abbott issue challenges to Obama By JAY ROOT AND EDGAR WALTERS THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
Photo by Bob Daemmrich | AP
A study released by Sam Houston State University in October 2013, commissioned by the Texas State Teachers Association, showed a marked increase in teachers reporting they had taken second jobs during the school year to make ends meet. crease over 2010. The trouble for Texas teachers does not end there. Despite a boom in alternative certification programs promising a fast track to teaching, the state faces a chronic — and growing — shortage of certified teachers in middle school math and science. In those subjects, according to Texas Education Agency data, 32 percent of educators are teaching outside their field. The figures for English-language learning programs, in which the number of students has grown 25 percent in a decade, are even higher. Across all grades, 41 percent of the teachers assigned to those programs are not certified. “That’s largely because of an undersupply of bilingual teachers. It’s been like that since 2003-2004 and many years before that,” said David Hinojosa, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “School districts might not have a seventhgrade math teacher who is certified to teach ESL students, so they just throw them in there. It’s largely a sink-or-swim situation.” Since 2005, Texas has dropped from 36th to 47th in per-student spending. In the 2012-13 school year, the state’s budget allowed for $8,200 a student, which was higher than only Arizona, Indiana, Oklahoma and Utah — and below the national average of $10,200. Even with the spending decline, Texas has seen some gains in student achievement. The rate of students graduating from high school on time and attending college has increased in the last decade. On national standardized tests, Texas students
have earned steadily higher scores, in some instances beating the national average. The percentage of students, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, enrolled in Advanced Placement courses and taking college entrance exams like the SAT has soared. But there are also signs that the educational improvements state leaders tout might not last. In 2013, for the first time in 15 years, math and reading scores went down or stayed the same for AfricanAmerican and Hispanic students in both fourth and eighth grade on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a standardized exam that measures reading and math skills in fourth, eighth and 12th grades. Scores also went down for white students in some areas. Performance on the SAT, the college admission exam, has also dropped. Since 2005, Texas students’ SAT scores have decreased by 8 points in reading and 6 points in math. ACT scores have shown an incremental improvement from 20.1 in 2004 to 20.9 in 2013. Julian Vasquez Heilig, an education researcher and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the achievement of Texas students would continue to drop if the state does not prioritize school funding. “The real issue is that we need to decide if we want a Cadillac education or a Kia education,” he said. That question is at the center of a school finance lawsuit pitting Texas school districts against the state. The fight is over the consequences of lawmakers’ $5.4 billion budget cut to public
education during the 2011 legislative session. Months later, Texas public schools opened their doors without state funding to account for growing student enrollment — something that had not happened since the modernization of the state’s public education system more than 60 years prior. There was an immediate effect on teachers, from those who lost their jobs to those who lost faith in the system. For the first time in a decade, the number of teachers employed by the state’s public schools declined, with the attrition rate jumping from 8.9 percent in 2010 to 10.5 percent in 2011. The number of elementary school classes with waivers to exceed the state’s 22-student cap soared to 8,479 from 2,238 the year before. During the 2013 legislative session, lawmakers restored about $3.4 billion they had previously cut. While the number of teachers has not returned to what it was before 2011 — and the number of students has increased by about 5 percent since — the state’s teaching corps has been growing. And the number of class-size waivers, while still above 2010 levels, has dropped significantly from the high it reached during the 2011- 2012 school year. The increase in funding should be classified as “temporary at best,” said Rick Gray, a lawyer representing a group of school districts as he argued their lawsuit against the state in January. “It was an exceedingly small step in the right direction,” he said. “And there is absolutely no requirement it remains in existence beyond the year 2015.”
President Obama’s visit to Texas became fodder in the governor’s race Thursday, with Democrat Wendy Davis suggesting he should visit the U.S-Mexico border in person and Republican Greg Abbott challenging him to adopt the “Texas model” in Washington. During a news conference at a downtown Austin coffee shop, Abbott highlighted the growth of female-owned businesses in the state and said Texas was thriving despite a heavy-handed federal government. The Texas attorney general called Obama “all hat and no cattle” and said he hoped that while the president was in the state, he would “learn why Texas is the best state in the nation for creating jobs.” “The Texas model promotes opportunity and rewards ingenuity by having less government, low taxes, predictable regulations and the right-to-work laws that have prevented disasters like what we’ve seen in Detroit, Michigan,” Abbott said. Davis, who spoke Thursday at the Austin Convention Center to an Association of Texas Professional Educators summit, was asked by reporters afterward about Republican demands that Obama travel to the U.S.-Mexico border to see firsthand the unfolding crisis caused by a wave of children migrants. “I think it’s important to do that," Davis said. “I hope at some point in time he will make time in order to do it, because I think it’s one thing to hear the number. It’s another thing to see for yourself the people, thousands, who are
coming across, many children contained in pens as they first come into the control of Border Patrol,” she said. “We can hear it about it in the abstract, but to see it for ourselves provides real meaning behind what’s going on." The Democratic senator was also asked if she was distancing herself from Obama, whose approval ratings are particularly low in conservative Texas. She spoke to reporters about an hour before Obama’s speech, which was just a few blocks away. Davis said she was “absolutely not” distancing herself from the president, noting that she met with him a few weeks ago when he delivered a speech on civil rights in Austin. She told reporters she had to be in Dallas later Thursday to continue speaking out about her opponent’s effort to “hide the location of dangerous chemicals from Texas families.” Davis was referring to Abbott’s controversial ruling in May preventing the disclosure of data that reveals where chemical plants are storing hazardous chemicals. The “Tier II” reports had been available for years under the federal Community Right to Know law, but Abbott’s office ruled that a 2003 state homeland security law — passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — prevented dissemination of the reports on the grounds that evil-doers could use the information in them to make a bomb. The decision provoked a furor from critics, including Davis, who said average citizens would no longer be able to find out what dangerous chemicals might be stored in their neighborhoods.
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Zopinion
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SEND YOUR SIGNED LETTER TO EDITORIAL@LMTONLINE.COM
COLUMN
OTHER VIEWS
US dogs just don’t get the same justice By LLEWELLYN KING HEARST NEWSPAPERS
You are embarking on reading something that is hopelessly one-sided, patently biased and completely partisan. It is plainly and simply a call for equality. I want dogs in the United States to be accorded the same rights and privileges as they are in France. I say that if you want to be born a pooch, do it in France. The French dog’s life is tres bonne. You may think I am barking mad, but I have been studying pampered pooches for decades. In Britain, people have a screw loose about all animals. But in France, the dog is the overlord of all it surveys. British dogs may get roast beef on Sunday, if they are lucky. Their French equals drag their owners to the patisserie whenever they feel the urge for an éclair or a napoleon. British dogs get a bath infrequently in the family tub. But French dogs go to a salon. Sadly, in America, we outsource the grooming to a chain; not the same as a salon for Fifi the Pomeranian or Jacques the wolfhound. But it is really at lunch and dinner when the French dog struts his or her superior situation: They go to fine restaurants with their owners, and sometimes — Mon Dieu! — eat their meals on the same china. In England the lucky few four-footers can go to the pub and, with the publican’s permission, enter the hallowed premises. After some unpleasantness with the same publican’s large mongrel, which always blocks the entrance, he or she will find a spot under the table and hope
for a bit of overcooked banger. It is quite amazing how many dogs will show up in a restaurant in France and, after a few snarls, how fast they will settle down to the serious work of begging for food, or waiting in the certain knowledge that if they have the power over their owners to be taken out to lunch or dinner, delicious victuals will be provided with a loving, ”Bon appetit, mon petit chien!” Last month in Paris, I saw a happy dog sitting on a banquette in a fine restaurant. Dogs in France also are conspicuous on public transportation. You see them on the trains, local and intercity, and the intercity airplanes. Some taxi drivers feel safer with a German shepherd or Rottweiler on the front seat. I have always thought a dog is superior to plastic dividers and other security devices in these uncivil times. The French indulge their dogs and owners to such an extent that they have special sanitation workers who ride motorcycles equipped with vacuum cleaners, so that the good citizens do not, well, step in it. But in America, dogs are defendu, not allowed to darken the door. They are classified as a health hazard. You can get away with dining with your best friend outdoors at some establishments. But mostly, the dear creatures must endure confinement at home while we gorge. My fellow Americans, can this go on? Can we allow the pampered poodles of France to lord it over good ole American coon hounds? Liberte, egalite, fraternite for the dogs of the U.S.A.! Llewellyn King’s e-mail is lking@kingpublishing.com
EDITORIAL
Info barrier must end THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Mr. President, you have a public information problem. Again. Several months ago, journalism organizations complained about a lack of access for news photographers to pertinent presidential events. This week, 38 journalism and open-government organizations called on Barack Obama to call off his department-level “minders” who slow, squelch and otherwise hinder access to public information. Too frequently, efforts to gather information critical to the public are shipped through “public information officers,” meaning answers from those who are on the front lines of agencies are muzzled until permission comes from the contact. These barriers are making it difficult to quickly and accurately hold government accountable to the public. “The president pledged to be the most transparent in history,” reminded Society of Professional Jour-
nalists president David Cuillier. “He can start by ending these practices now.”
COLUMN
A University of Texas power struggle gores Powers
“
KEN HERMAN
AUSTIN — Sides were chosen, righteous indignation was expressed and rallies were planned. You’d think this was something important, like the ousting of a Longhorn football coach. But this was about the separation of Powers. It was nice to see highenergy interest in the future of University of Texas President Bill Powers, who, by announcing his June 2015 resignation on Wednesday, robbed us of a potentially dramatic showdown at Thursday’s UT System regents meeting. “The latest on the ‘July 4th coup,”’ said a Monday headline on Alcalde, the publication of the Texas Exes. It noted that UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa’s quit-in-Octoberor-get-fired-now ultimatum to Powers last week had sparked “a powder keg of responses, articles and letters.” But instead of post-4th fireworks, what we got Thursday was a choreographed performance by regents who discussed
Powers in executive session and emerged to hear Cigarroa praise Powers’ “superb tenure” and Board Chairman Paul Foster call for harmony in the wake of “highly charged conflict.” “I sincerely hope we never revisit this unfortunate chapter in the history of our great state,” said Foster. The anti-drama played out in the high-ceilinged, dual-chandeliered board room so appropriate for an institution that thinks so much of itself. Powers, who’ll leave office next June, participated in UTrelated agenda items, including significant ones about the new medical school he helped bring about. Thursday’s fireworksfree end to this long-simmering saga is good for UT, just as it was back in December when a few days of similar fire and fury ended when football coach Mack Brown resigned. I don’t know if Powers deserves to be gone — now, next June or any time soon. I do know that people I respect believe he’s been a major asset to the university. Others, including Cigarroa, seem to think Powers has become a pain.
Cigarroa said in a Wednesday statement that he had accepted Powers’ resignation schedule (probably the schedule Powers, 68, long has had in mind). As he did Thursday, Cigarroa on Wednesday said nice things about Powers. But, unlike on Thursday, the Wednesday statement noted “a long history of issues with communication, responsiveness and a willingness to collaborate.” Powers is the employee. Cigarroa’s the boss. I don’t know how your deal works, but my smiling face will be gone from this paper when my boss decides my episodic crankiness has morphed into a long history of issues with communication, responsiveness and a willingness to cooperate. And if Powers wasn’t playing well with others while trying to keep his job, how’s he going to behave as a short-timer? This is another case in which I hope that others will behave better than I would. One theory says Gov. Rick Perry has been gunning (figuratively, one has to make that clear with this governor) for Powers. There’s no evidence of that, other than the fact that all nine regents are Perry appointees. I’m not
sure there’d be anything amiss if the theory were true. Perry is the governor, has been for a long time. Texas voters decided that. He gets to appoint the regents. If he so chooses, he gets to influence what they do. Another theory says Powers just wants to outlast Perry, whose term ends in early January. Looks like he’ll accomplish that. But Perry’s influence, in that he’s picked every member of every appointed state board and commission, will linger for years. Some will continue to serve after Perry has moved into the White House. (I don’t think that move will happen, but it’s fun to get the blood boiling in some of you.) Let’s post script this with a Monday tweet from Jim Vertuno, an Associated Press staffer in Austin just back from covering World Cup soccer in Brazil: “2 weeks ago, covered (Uruguay’s) Luis Suarez biting (Italy’s Giorgio) Chiellini. Tonight covering UT System eating its own.” Bite ‘em, Horns. (Ken Herman is a columnist for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: kherman@statesman.com.)
Slow responses Specifically, the protest letter cites delays in answering questions past deadlines, blocking requests to speak to certain experts, conveying information “on background” about what should be public information and blackballing reporters who write critically of some agencies. Holding the press and public at bay doesn’t lessen negative coverage. If anything, it breeds cynicism. The fix is simple. The president should encourage agencies to take calls in a timely fashion, speak on the record about the public’s business, and make public records easily accessible. He should embrace a free-flow of information to help create an informed citizenry. Choke-holds on pertinent sources harm society and the presidency.
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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.
Nation
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 5A
US border program sputters 911 tapes show vet’s collapse By ELLIOT SPAGAT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICALI, Mexico — A U.S. effort to discourage immigrants’ repeated attempts to enter the country illegally by dropping them back in Mexico hundreds of miles away from where they were caught has been sharply scaled back after producing relatively modest gains. U.S. authorities insist the Alien Transfer Exit Program has contributed to overall achievements in border security and say the cutbacks reflected a need to shift resources to deal with Central Americans pouring into Texas. The government has flown or bused hundreds of thousands of Mexican men to faraway border cities since February 2008, believing they would give up after being separated from their smugglers. But government statistics and interviews with migrants in Mexican shelters suggest the dislocation is a relatively ineffective deterrent, especially for immigrants with spouses, children and roots in the U.S. After being dropped off, many get on another bus and head right back to where they started. Once there, they reunite with their smugglers for another attempt, taking advantage of a standard practice that they pay only when they cross successfully. “It’s a nuisance. That’s all,” said Pablo Hernandez, 50, who lingered in the hallway of a shelter in Mexicali, swapping stories with other migrants after the U.S. government took him on a five-hour bus ride from Tucson, Arizona. Hernandez planned to take a commercial bus to the Mexican town of Altar to reunite with his smuggler, who provided a phone number and said he wouldn’t demand his $3,400 fee until Hernandez made it. The challenges illustrate the limits and pitfalls of massive spending increases on border enforcement. Despite overwhelming numbers of Central Americans crossing in Texas, the Border Patrol is making strides by key measures, including a drop in the percentage of migrants who are arrested entering the country again after being caught. The recidivism rate for all migrants arrested on the Mexican border fell to 16 percent in the 2013 fiscal year from 17 percent a year earlier, 20 percent in 2011, 24 percent in 2010
Caller frustrated over slow response ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Ross D. Franklin/file | AP
A young Mexican boy looks at a map of the recorded Arizona border deaths in a well known immigrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico, on Aug. 9, 2012. and 27 percent in 2009. But results for ATEP, as the program is known, were higher: 25 percent last year, up from 24 percent the previous year, down from 28 percent the year before, 33 percent in 2010 and 34 percent in 2009. Last year’s 9-point difference between ATEP and the overall rate matched the widest ever. ATEP has barely fared better than “voluntary returns,” the term for migrants who are simply turned around without being charged. Criminal prosecutions have yielded the lowest recidivism rates. Without fanfare, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency largely withdrew from ATEP last June after spending $15.2 million to fly 50,295 Mexican men on 421 flights from Harlingen, Texas, to California’s Imperial Valley, which neighbors Mexicali. ICE virtually stopped providing detention space for ATEP and pulled back on bus transportation. Thomas Homan, ICE’s executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations, told a congressional panel in March that ATEP was “a good border enforcement strategy” but that ICE shifted money to flying home Central Americans who cross in South Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency spending to deal with that crisis. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Pa-
trol, said in a statement that ATEP has disrupted smuggling networks and contributed to an overall decline in recidivism rates. The program, it said, “was designed specifically to create displacement and increase time between entry attempts.” Asked to provide the cost, Customs and Border Protection said ATEP “uses resources that were already in place ... and cannot be separated from the normal cost of doing business.” Until last year, ICE typically paid a night of detention, which cost an average of $119 a person. Air-conditioned buses still leave the Border Patrol’s Tucson compound each weekday with up to 188 passengers. Two follow a 700-mile route east to Del Rio, Texas, where they are dropped off in the neighboring Mexican city of Ciudad Acuña. Two head about 300 miles west toward Mexicali. As ATEP grew, Mexicali became the top destination for those deported to Mexico, peaking at 66,517 in 2012, a 24 percent increase from two years earlier, according to Mexico’s National Immigration Institute. Several migrant shelters opened in the sprawling city of 750,000 to handle the influx. Migrants gravitate to a breezy, sunlit hallway to discuss their next moves at the Hotel of the Deported Migrant, which housed up to 300 people a night after opening in 2010. The Mexican government offers discounted bus tickets and a limited number of free flights to their hometowns, but few consider it.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Emergency dispatch tapes released Friday reveal further details about efforts to revive a Vietnam veteran who collapsed with a heart attack in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque. Two calls were made while 71-year-old Jim Napoleon Garcia lay on the floor as an ambulance was called to take him to an emergency room 500 yards away. In the first, a female caller described how the man was unresponsive and bleeding from his mouth and nose. She also expressed her frustration that doctors at a cafeteria table weren’t doing more to help. “We called our rapid response here at the hospital but unfortunately they won’t respond to him because he’s out of the main medical building,” said the caller, whose name was not provided. She added that the man was being hooked up to an emergency defibrillator. “Paramedics are already on their way out there,” the dispatcher told her. “There’s a table of doctors sitting right next to him and none of them are doing s—,” the woman continued. “OK, I’m sorry about that,” the dispatcher responded. Neither the caller nor the dispatcher elaborated. In a second call minutes later, a male caller said nurses were performing CPR but the man didn’t appear to be breathing. A hospital spokesman was not immediately available for comment Friday.
Asked by the Albuquerque Journal about the table of doctors, VA spokeswoman Sonja Brown said, “Regardless of who was sitting at nearby tables, VA staff along with Kirtland AFB personnel immediately responded in providing basic life support to this veteran. The staff were heroic in their attempts to save the life of this veteran.” The hospital previously said the response to the emergency remained under investigation. Hospital emergency experts have said it’s standard for hospitals to require staff to call 911, even when patients are near an emergency room. The death of Garcia on June 30 prompted new outrage against the VA as it faces allegations that veterans have endured long wait times and died waiting to see a doctor around the country. The revelations have led to a major shakeup of VA operations. The 911 records indicate an ambulance arrived to aid Garcia 10.5 minutes after the emergency call. Hospital officials said it is VA policy to call 911, although the emergency response team will be called to nonresponsive patients in clinics and five other buildings on the campus, not including the cafeteria. Brown said its rapid response policy is under review. The content of the tapes was first reported by The Albuquerque Journal. On Thursday, New Mexico’s congressional delegation sent a letter to the acting VA director saying they have serious concerns about the handling of Garcia’s death.
Entertainment
6A THE ZAPATA TIMES
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
Brooks’ music coming to digital via his site By KRISTIN M. HALL ASSOCIATED PRESS
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Garth Brooks is finally embracing digital music, but he’s doing it his own way. Brooks, one of the last holdout big-name musicians still refusing to put his music on iTunes, said Thursday he will make his back catalog of hits and his new music available for download, but only through his own website. He said the digital downloads of previous music would be available in a few weeks to tide fans over until a new album comes out later this year. The 52-year-old country star remains one of music’s top-selling artists, with 134 million albums sold, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. He has said in the past that he had no animosity toward Apple, but disagreed with its approach to selling music. Other performers who refused to join iTunes but later reached deals include AC/DC,
Radiohead and Led Zeppelin. ITunes was launched in 2001. “So, we’ll be doing our digital the best way we can, the only way we know how, because we are the only ones who kind of play our own way,” Brooks said at a press conference in Nashville. He also announced a new deal with the Sony Music label, which will put out an album of his first new music since 2001. Brooks said it would likely be issued sometime around Black Friday. The first city on his tour will be announced on July 15, according to Sony. Brooks entered semi-retirement in 2001 near the height of his popularity to be with his three daughters and his wife, Trisha Yearwood. Since then he has performed an extended run in Las Vegas and done a few charity shows. The Country Music Hall of Fame member said he’s grateful for his fans sticking around during his time off from the road. “A second half of a career isn’t granted,” Brooks said. “I’m
not saying that’s what I have now, but you have given me a shot to have it.” But he acknowledged a rocky start to his return to the stage. A series of Ireland shows later this month billed as his “Comeback Special” was cancelled after a battle between venue owners and local residents. Brooks had expanded the number of shows he was to play at Croke Park stadium in Dublin because of demand, but the Dublin City Council last week refused to grant permission for five shows, saying they would cause “an unacceptable level of disruption” for residents and businesses. Brooks said tickets had already been sold for five shows and if he couldn’t play them all, he would play none. “And if the prime minister himself wants to talk to me, I will crawl, swim, I will fly over there this weekend,” Brooks said. “Sit in front of him, I will drop on my knees and beg for those 400,000 people to just have fun and let them come see.”
Photo by Mark Humphrey | AP
Country music star Garth Brooks speaks at a news conference Thursday, in Nashville, Tenn. Brooks will make his songs available digitally though his own website.
John Walsh gives up control to get back on TV Personality had to relinquish production for new CNN program By DAVID BAUDER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Evan Agostini/file | AP
TV personality John Walsh, who chased fugitives for 26 years, first on Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted,” returns Sunday on CNN with a new show, “The Hunt.”
NEW YORK — To get back into television, John Walsh had to relinquish some of the control that he’d grown used to. Walsh, who chased fugitives for 26 years, first on Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted” and a short postscript on Lifetime, returns Sunday on CNN (8 p.m. Zapata time) with a new show, “The Hunt.” After years where he made his own program, this time the production team behind Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” was assigned to the show by CNN chief Jeff Zucker. “The hardest thing is the letting go and the squashing of ego when you’ve been successful,” Walsh, 68, said. He measures success with statistics, saying his efforts to publicize crimes and encourage viewers to tip authorities contrib-
uted to the capture of 1,231 fugitives and the recovery of 61 missing children. That scorecard, however, may have contributed to the downfall of “America’s Most Wanted.” Walsh said that in its last few years, he was obsessed with getting as many cases on the air as possible, to the show’s detriment. “It became overwhelming,” he said. “We would have re-creations that were two minutes long. You never got a sense of the victims. You never got a sense of what was going on. We were old and tired.” “The Hunt” slows down and tries to tell a story. The first hourlong episode concentrates on the case of Shane Miller, a California man suspected of killing his wife and two daughters last year. Most of the CNN shows will have one case or two. Working with Zero Point Zero Productions took a huge pressure
off him, Walsh said. Zucker, the longtime executive producer of the “Today” show before moving up in management, said he grew up in the business with Walsh. “The Hunt” is part of his effort to create destination nonfiction shows to sustain CNN during slow news periods. “Part of what we’re trying to do at CNN is do good storytelling and good work,” he said. “I think John exemplifies both of them.” “The Hunt” is soon to announce a partnership with Facebook to promote Amber Alerts. Although Walsh is eager to use social media for his crime-fighting efforts, he said the vast majority of tips he generates is through television. “I will always be the parent of a murdered child,” said Walsh, whose efforts began after the 1981 kidnapping of his 6-year-old son Adam. “I will always be that angry, driven guy.”
International
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 7A
Japan rattled again Earthquake triggers small tsunami near nuclear plant ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Tsafrir Abayov | AP
Israeli soldiers clean the gun of their mobile artillery unit on the Israel-Gaza border Friday. Gaza rocket fire struck a gas station and set it ablaze Friday in southern Israel, seriously wounding one person.
Israel to press forward By JOSEF FEDERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister vowed Friday to press forward with a broad military offensive in the Gaza Strip, insisting international pressure will not halt what he said was a determined effort to halt rocket fire by Palestinian militants as the death toll from the 4-day-old conflict rose above 100. Addressing a news conference, Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off a question about possible cease-fire efforts, signaling there was no end in sight to the operation. “I will end it when our goals are realized. And the overriding goal is to restore the peace and quiet,” Netanyahu said. Israel says it launched the offensive on Tuesday in response to weeks of heavy rocket fire out of Gaza. The Israeli military says it has hit more than 1,100 targets, mostly what it identified as rocket-launching sites, bombarding the territory on average every five minutes. At least 21 Palestinians were killed Friday, pushing the overall death toll to 106, including dozens of civilians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets at Israel, including one that struck a gas station and set it ablaze earlier Friday in the southern city of Ashdod. Israeli health officials said the blast wounded three people, including one in serious condition. The army also said the condition of a soldier wounded by rocket shrapnel on Thursday had worsened. But there have been no deaths on the Israeli side, in large part because of a new rocket-defense system that has intercepted at least 128 incoming projec-
tiles. Netanyahu said he has been in touch with numerous world leaders, including President Barack Obama and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Canada. He said he had “good discussions” with his counterparts, telling them that no other country would tolerate repeated fire on its citizens. “No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power,” he said. Israel’s allies have backed the country’s right to self-defense, but they have called for restraint. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern about the heavy civilian casualties in Gaza, and on Friday, the U.N.’s top human rights official said the air campaign may violate international laws prohibiting the targeting of civilians. “We have received deeply disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes,” said Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. “Such reports raise serious doubt about whether the Israeli strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” she said. Netanyahu brushed aside such criticism, saying Israel’s aerial campaign is aimed at military targets. He blamed Hamas for causing civilian casualties by hiding in residential areas and criticized the group for targeting Israeli population centers. Israel has massed thousands of troops along the border in preparation for a possible ground invasion. Netanyahu was evasive when asked about the odds of a ground operation, say-
ing only: “We are weighing every possibility.” Rocket fire continued in earnest from Gaza toward various locations in southern and central Israel. The commercial center of Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport, Israel’s main international gateway, also heard warning sirens Friday but these rockets were intercepted and there was no disturbance to Israel’s air traffic. Hamas says it intends to fire rockets at the airport and warned foreign airlines to stop flying to Israel. Militants in Lebanon also took aim at northern Israel with rockets for the first time in the conflict. Rocket fire struck near the border between the two countries and the military responded with artillery fire toward the source in southern Lebanon, military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said. The Lebanese military said militants there fired three rockets toward Israel and the Israelis retaliated by firing about 25 artillery shells on the area. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that one of the militants firing the rockets was wounded and rushed to a hospital. The Lebanese military said troops found two rocket launchers and dismantled them. Southern Lebanon is a stronghold of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has battled Israel numerous times. However, recent fire from Lebanon has been blamed on radical Palestinian factions in the area and Hezbollah has not been involved in the ongoing offensive. A pair of Lebanon-based al-Qaida-linked groups, the Battalions of Ziad Jarrah and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, has claimed responsibility in the past for similar rocket attacks on Israel.
TOKYO — A strong earthquake hit Japan’s northern coast near the nuclear power plant crippled in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The earthquake early Saturday triggered a small tsunami and prompted towns across the northern coast to issue evacuation advisories. Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the 6.8-magnitude quake struck 6 miles below the sea surface off the coast of Fukushima, about 120 miles northeast of Tokyo. The 4:22 a.m. quake shook buildings in Tokyo. Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said there were no reports of damages or injuries.
Towns devastated by the tsunami three years ago, including Rikuzentakata, Higashi Matsushima and Otsuchi, issued evacuation advisories to thousands of households along the northern coast, along with schools and community centers. An 8-inch tsunami reached the coast of Ishinomaki Ayukawa and Ofunato, about 50 minutes after the quake. Smaller waves were observed at severa other locations along the coast. Changes to the shoreline, however, were not visible on television footages of NHK public broadcaster. The agency issued tsunami advisory of up to 3 feet in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures along the Japanese north-
ern coast. Fukushima Dai-ichi and two other nuclear power plants, along with other nuclear facilities along the coast, found no abnormalities, and their reactors and fuel storage pools are being cooled safely, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, has instructed plant workers on night duty along the coast to retreat to higher grounds. The 2011 disaster killed about 19,000 people. That disaster also triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant. More than 100,000 people are still unable to go home due to fear of radiation contamination from the plant.
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Zfrontera TAMAULIPAS
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LAREDO 07/12— El Consulado General de México en Laredo, 1612 Farragut St., invita a la Jornada Sabatina, de 8 a.m. a 2 p.m. Se brindará atención con servicios consulares, tales como pasaportes, matrículas consulares, o bien aspectos en el ámbito de protección. 07/12— En el marco del 120 Aniversario de Sisters of Mercy invita a la Celebración del Espíritu de Merced y Misa por todos los trabajadores Mercy, pasados y presentes, en la capilla del Laredo Medical Center, a las 10:30 a.m. Al concluir habrá una recepción. Llame a Rosanne Palacios al 744-5798 para más información. 07/12— El Planetario Lamar Bruni Vergara de TAMIU presentará “Star Signs”, a las 4 p.m.; “Black Holes”, a las 5 p.m.; “Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon”, a las 6 p.m. y Live Star Show, a las 7 p.m. Costo de admisión general es de 3 dólares para niños y 4 dólares para adultos. 07/12— SOCCER: Laredo Heat recibe a Mississippi Brilla a las 8 p.m. en el Complejo de Soccer de TAMIU. 07/14— Texas A&M International University realizará un Campamento de Liderazgo de Banda para el equipo principal de banda en Cigarroa High School. El campamento de 2.5 días cubre temas tales como trabajo en equipo, liderazgo, administración del tiempo, marcha y técnicas en música. 07/15— Planetario Lamar Bruni Vergara de TAMIU presenta: “Zula Patrol: Down to Earth” a las 2 p.m.; “The Little Star that Could” a las 3 p.m.; “Star Signs” a las 4 p.m.; “Black Holes” a las 5 p.m. 07/15— “The Calling” (El Llamado) es una serie de charlas sobre La Biblia que se realiza de 6:30 p.m. a 7:45 p.m. en Laredo Church of Christ Chapel, 1505 Calle del Norte, Suite 340. 07/17— Planetario Lamar Bruni Vergara de TAMIU presenta: “Zula Patrol: Down to Earth” a las 2 p.m.; “The Little Star that Could” a las 3 p.m.; “Star Signs” a las 4 p.m.; “Black Holes” a las 5 p.m. Costo: 3 dólares, niños; y, 4 dólares, adultos. 07/17— Recepción para Membresía al LARSEA (Laredo Area Retired School Employees Association – Asociación de Empleados Escolares Retirados del Área de Laredo), de 4 p.m. a 6 p.m. en 9003 Cornell Dr. Se invita a todos los empleados retirados de escuelas locales.
NUEVO LAREDO, MÉXICO 07/12— Estación Palabra presenta “Bazar de Arte”, a las 10 a.m.; “Te Leo a la Una”, a la 1 p.m.; “Festival Infantil: El Ciclo, a las 2 p.m.; “Tertulia en la Estación”, a las 2 p.m. Eventos gratuitos. 07/13— Grupo de Teatro Laberintus A.C. presentará la puesta en escena “Invisible”, una adaptación de Damián Aviña del libro clásico “El Principito”, a las 12 p.m. en el Teatro del IMSS, entre Reynosa y Belden (sector centro. Obra es para toda la familia. Costo 20 pesos. 07/13— Domingo de Teatro Universitario presenta la obra “Romeo y Julieta”, en el teatro Lucio Blanco, a las 5 p.m. Entrada 20 pesos. 07/15— El Grupo de Teatro Laberintus presentará el musical “Te Amo, Eres Perfecto... ¡Pero Cambia!” a las 7 p.m. en el Teatro del IMSS, entre las calles Reynosa y Belden (Sector Centro). Costo de entrada: 20 pesos. Obra dirigida a adolescentes y adultos.
SÁBADO 12 DE JULIO DE 2014
TIEMPO DE ZAPATA
Tres operativos efectuados en dos municipalidades del Estado de Tamaulipas, dieron como resultado el rescate de 165 inmigrantes que se encontraban secuestrados, anunciaron autoridades tamaulipecas el miércoles. Durante las acciones fueron arrestados tres presuntos integrantes de una banda de secuestradores. También se les acusa de la muerte de tres extranjeros. Fue el miércoles que en la ciudad de Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Méxi-
co, cuando elementos de la Policía Estatal Acreditable y Policía Federal, rescataron a siete inmigrantes hondureños, de los cuales dos eran menores de edad, señala un comunicado de prensa emitido por el gobierno. “(Los inmigrantes) tenían más de 20 días privados de su libertad en un hotel ubicado en el sector centro de esa ciudad fronteriza”, se lee en la denuncia. Tras una denuncia anónima se logró el arresto de Miguel Sánchez Ribera, originario de Veracruz y encargado del hotel.
En la ciudad de Tampico, Tamaulipas, México, también fueron ejecutados dos operativos, donde, tras una denuncia anónima, la policía estatal acreditable, fue dirigida a una casa en la Colonia Vista Hermosa. Ahí se rescató a 36 inmigrantes. Durante el operativo se logró la captura de Christian del Ángel Ponce, Julio César Cruz González y Julio Hilario Hernández Romero, quienes revelaron otro domicilio en la Colonia Petrolera, también en Tampico. Una vez en Petrolera, 122 inmigrantes fueron rescatados. La mayoría de los inmigrantes
procedían de Honduras, Cuba y El Salvador. “(Los inmigrantes) manifestaron que tenían más de 15 días privados de su libertad, que eran golpeados y las mujeres abusadas, además de que observaron cuando los integrantes de la banda privaron de la vida a una pareja y un niño”, señala la denuncia. La Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) investiga los hechos, señala el comunicado Los inmigrantes rescatados son atendidos por el Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM).
FRONTERA
SEGURIDAD
MODERNIZACIÓN
Logran decomisar armas y narcóticos TIEMPO DE ZAPATA
Foto de cortesía | Gobierno de Nuevo Laredo
Una vista panorámica del Puente Internacional I o de las Américas, en esta foto de archivo. El Puente I será cerrado al acceso vehicular durante un lapso de 16 meses, a partir de enero del 2015, anunciaron autoridades.
Habrá trabajos de mejora en Puente I POR MALENA CHARUR TIEMPO DE ZAPATA
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l proyecto de modernización del Puente I o Puente de las Américas se realiza de acuerdo al cronograma anunciado por la Administración de Servicios Generales de Estados Unidos (GSA por sus siglas en inglés), en febrero. La construcción, que permitirá ampliar y modernizar de manera importante las garitas de revisión tanto para el tráfico peatonal como para el vehicular, inicie en el otoño para ser concluida durante el año 2017. Se contempla el desvío temporal del tráfico vehicular proveniente de México hacia Laredo, del Puente 1 hacia el Puente 2, a principios del 2015 con una duración aproximada de 16 meses. El plan de mejoras incluye una completa renovación del exterior del edificio administrativo así como de los espacios interiores. En un comunicado de prensa de GSA se aclara que el despla-
zamiento de los peatones y los ciclistas por el Puente I, así como el tráfico que se dirige hacia el sur no sufrirá cambios. En febrero, la GSA anunció la recepción de casi 62 millones de dólares para mejoras de los puentes Puente de las Américas y Juárez-Lincoln, como parte del presupuesto de asignaciones para el año fiscal 2014. “GSA recibió 61.6 millones de dólares para invertir en los puertos de entrada de la avenida Convento (Laredo 1) y JuárezLincoln (Laredo 2), en Laredo, Texas”, según se indica en un comunicado de prensa de la agencia federal. La agencia también ha declarado la necesidad de reducir los tiempos de espera y que el flujo del tráfico peatonal sea más rápido y seguro. “La prioridad principal para este proyecto es hacer el proceso del movimiento peatonal más veloz y más seguro, especialmente durante las temperaturas extremas”, de acuerdo a GSA. “El tráfico peatonal se ha incre-
mentado sustancialmente, con una tendencia a que continúe”. El Puente 1, cuyas instalaciones han funcionado por más de 50 años, tiene cuatro carriles y mide 320 metros de largo. Fue reconstruido en el año 1956 después de su destrucción por inundaciones, de acuerdo al sitio de Internet del Departamento de Transporte de Texas. Fue clasificado como el quinto en tráfico peatonal en el país durante el año fiscal 2013. Se indicó también que se emitirán notificaciones sobre el desvío del tráfico con anticipación tanto a los encargados del proyecto como a la comunidad. Esta información será compartida con sus contrapartes en México y Nuevo Laredo. La agencia federal es responsable de mejorar los lugares de trabajo del gobierno administrando los bienes, entregando el máximo valor de las adquisiciones, preservando la propiedad histórica e implementando soluciones de tecnología, de acuerdo al sitio de Internet de GSA.
Alrededor de 100 armas de fuego fueron decomisadas por elementos de seguridad tamaulipecos, a principios de esta semana durante una serie de operativos en el municipio de Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México, señaló el Grupo de Coordinación Tamaulipas. Mediante cuatro operativos se logró asegurar un total de 10 kilogramos de marihuana, 91 armas largas, una ametralladora, 17 armas cortas, 16 granadas de diferentes características, un cohete, 91.409 cartuchos de diferentes calibres, 1.175 cargadores para diversas armas, siete vehículos, refacciones y accesorios para armamento. Fue el lunes 7 de julio que en las inmediaciones de la Colonia Granjas Económicas, se llevó a cabo el primer operativo donde elementos de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional aseguraron 12 armas largas, 153 cargadores de diversas armas, 872 cartuchos de diferentes calibres, cuatro granadas, 10 kilogramos de marihuana y tres vehículos. En esta misma fecha personal militar realizaba un reconocimiento por la Colonia Esfuerzo Nacional, tras el cual lograron el decomiso de siete armas largas, 53 cargadores para diferentes armas, 2.403 cartuchos de diversos calibres y un vehículo. Durante el tercer operativo, personal militar aseguró 43 armas largas, una ametralladora, 17 armas cortas, 69.216 cartuchos de diferentes calibres, 844 cargadores para diversas armas, una granada de fragmentación, un cohete y un vehículo, en la Colonia Villa Florida. El cuarto operativo fue efectuado por la Policía Federal y la Secretaría de Marina, donde se localizaron dos vehículos, encontrándose en el interior de uno de ellos 29 armas largas, tres granadas de fragmentación, ocho granadas calibre 40 milímetros, 125 cargadores para diversas armas, 18.918 cartuchos de diferentes calibres, así como refacciones y accesorios. El operativo tuvo lugar en la Colonia Lázaro Cárdenas. Lo asegurado fue puesto a disposición de las autoridades correspondientes.
COLUMNA
‘Cielito lindo’ habría sido himno a Estado POR RAUL SINENCIO ESPECIAL PARA TIEMPO DE ZAPATA
Las raíces mexicanas de “Cielito lindo” se dan por descontadas. El público mexicano dispensa esta canción amplias preferencias, tanto así que alguna vez con formalidad quiso convertírsele en himno de Tamaulipas.
Decreto Al respecto el poder legislativo de la entidad expide decreto, fechado en Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, México, en marzo de 1918. El documento suma tres artícu-
los. “Se declara himno […] tamaulipeco el hermoso ‘Cielito lindo’, que se tocará en todas las ceremonias oficiales”, abre el primer artículo. También deberá interpretarse –añade—“en todos los lugares donde se presente el gobernador”. Complementa la siguiente cláusula: “Es obligación de todos los habitantes del estado oír de pie y descubiertos el himno que se decreta”. El tercer dispositivo cierra: “Publíquese por bando y pregón hasta en los rincones más apartados del estado”. El ordenamiento fue firmado por Fidencio Trejo Flores, presidente del cuer-
po parlamentario. Loel gobernador provisional Emiliano Próspero Nafarrete Ceceña; “por tanto mando se imprima, circule, publique por bando y pregón y se le dé el debido cumplimiento”, determina el mandatario.
Eventos Pero de tales formalidades Trejo Flores y Nafarrete Ceceña parecen desentenderse, ya que las normativas nunca fueron publicadas por el órgano informativo de la entidad. Determinados antecedentes contribuirían a explicar mejor lo ocurrido, aquel 15
de marzo. En conflicto postelectoral, Luis Caballero Vargas y César López de Lara se disputan el puesto de Gobernador e instalan sus respectivos congresos. En filas caballeristas destacan Trejo Flores y Nafarrete Ceceña. Los dos ocupan altos cargos públicos. “Cielito lindo” le gusta mucho a Caballero Vargas. Durante su campaña política, en la cual varios sufragios se anulan, el candidato a gobernador la vuelve pieza distintiva. Con dichos afanes, el decreto relativo incurre en irregularidades adicionales. Ya que atropella derechos legítimos de terceros. Efecti-
vamente, Quirino Mendoza y Cortés es reconocido compositor de la melodía. Usarla requiere su consentimiento. Informes disponibles sugieren que Quirino no estaba al tanto. La pieza musical alcanzaba ya tremenda popularidad. Al paso de los años lograría mantenerse entre las favoritas del país. Clasificada en los ritmos del son huasteco, adquiere relucientes credenciales autóctonas. Propios y extraños coinciden en considerarla típica de México. (Relato publicado con consentimiento del autor, según aparece en La Razón, Tampico, Tamaulipas, México.)
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
THE ZAPATA TIMES 9A
THE WEEK IN REVIEW WEEKLY STOCK EXCHANGE HIGHLIGHTS
d
d
NYSE 10,936.34-168.38
GAINERS ($2 OR MORE) Name Last Chg iPLEEafe 190.00 +55.00 BioAmber 13.90 +3.40 Veritiv n 38.46 +5.96 AmREIT 22.25 +3.39 Edenor 16.43 +2.50 DirGMnBull 33.58 +5.08 BcoMacro 46.02 +6.65 CSVInvNG 3.77 +.53 DrNGBr rs 15.05 +2.07 UtdContl 45.70 +5.82
%Chg +40.7 +32.4 +18.3 +18.0 +17.9 +17.8 +16.9 +16.4 +15.9 +14.6
Last Chg 12.21 -7.38 54.86 -21.19 5.47 -1.92 5.49 -1.84 2.49 -.71 10.80 -2.93 9.27 -2.23 19.60 -4.66 12.04 -2.36 18.34 -3.38
%Chg -37.7 -27.9 -25.9 -25.1 -22.2 -21.3 -19.4 -19.2 -16.4 -15.6
NASDAQ 4,415.49 -70.44
GAINERS ($2 OR MORE) Name DigitalAlly Camtek h ChinaInfo GlobeIm n RoyaleEn LaJollaPh SuprtlH pfA BioDlvry lf SummerInf NeoGenom
Last 6.15 4.18 5.40 14.79 3.98 10.65 7.90 14.02 3.39 4.21
Chg +2.85 +.98 +1.17 +2.94 +.66 +1.68 +1.20 +2.03 +.49 +.58
%Chg +86.4 +30.6 +27.7 +24.8 +19.9 +18.7 +17.9 +16.9 +16.9 +16.0
Name Intelliph SareptaTh TileShop ChXDPlas RadiusH n OceraTh rs Potbelly n Arotech Celladon n LeadgBr g
Last 2.83 21.98 10.98 6.32 11.55 5.92 11.92 3.51 12.77 3.75
Chg -1.32 -7.92 -3.60 -1.95 -3.56 -1.77 -3.48 -1.01 -3.55 -1.03
%Chg -31.8 -26.5 -24.7 -23.6 -23.6 -23.0 -22.6 -22.3 -21.8 -21.5
MOST ACTIVE ($1 OR MORE) MOST ACTIVE ($1 OR MORE) Name
Vol (00)
Last Chg Name
S&P500ETF3615502196.61-1.59 BkofAm 2950853 15.38 -.65 CBS B 2756835 61.35 -2.95 iShR2K 1868046115.10 -4.72 MktVGold 1755098 27.32 +.82 GenElec 1604060 26.55 -.31 Twitter n 1446525 38.33 -3.00 AMD 1426452 4.37 +.13 Alcoa 1401773 15.97 +.99 iShEMkts 1399642 43.89 -.27
Vol (00)
Volume
1,233 2,005 298 57 3,273 35 14,333,126,183
Last Chg
Facebook 2299923 66.34 +.05 Apple Inc s 2285129 95.22 +1.19 SiriusXM 2170342 3.38 -.08 PwShs QQQ1540964 95.27 -.43 MicronT 1461141 32.80 -.93 Intel 1402747 31.25 +.11 Cisco 1393505 25.52 +.33 BlackBerry 1342854 11.51 +.90 Microsoft 1170735 42.09 +.29 Groupon 1009565 6.58 -.09
DIARY Advanced Declined New Highs New Lows Total issues Unchanged
Dow Jones industrials
-44.44 -117.59
Close: 16,943.81 1-week change: -124.84 (-0.7%) 17,500
MON
TUES
STOCK MARKET INDEXES 78.99
WED
-70.54
THUR
52-Week High Low
28.74
17,074.65 8,298.17 576.98 11,334.65 4,485.93 1,985.59 1,452.01 21,108.12 1,213.55 5,970.50
FRI
17,000 16,500
DIARY Advanced Declined New Highs New Lows Total issues Unchanged
Volume
513 2,288 133 95 2,841 40 8,802,255,566
14,719.43 6,237.14 467.93 9,246.89 3,475.39 1,627.47 1,170.62 17,280.03 1,007.17 4,729.92
Name
Last
Dow Jones Industrials 16,943.81 Dow Jones Transportation 8,254.31 Dow Jones Utilities 559.43 NYSE Composite 10,936.34 Nasdaq Composite 4,415.49 S&P 500 1,967.57 S&P MidCap 1,411.48 Wilshire 5000 20,828.86 Russell 2000 1,159.93 Lipper Growth Index 5,850.56
Wk Wk YTD Chg %Chg %Chg -124.45 -40.43 +5.16 -168.38 -70.44 -17.87 -32.66 -278.68 -48.22 -119.94
-.73 -.49 +.93 -1.52 -1.57 -.90 -2.26 -1.32 -3.99 -2.01
12-mo %Chg
+2.21 +11.54 +14.04 +5.15 +5.72 +6.45 +5.14 +5.70 -.32 +4.66
+9.57 +28.23 +12.33 +15.14 +22.65 +17.10 +15.58 +17.04 +11.91 +20.04
16,000
MONEY RATES
15,500
Last
15,000
J
F
M
A
M
J
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LOSERS ($2 OR MORE)
LOSERS ($2 OR MORE) Name Gigamon LumberLiq DoralFin USEC Inc PortglTel PSBMetDS DirGMBear Voxeljet n CGG CSVLgNGs
WEEKLY DOW JONES
STOCKS OF LOCAL INTEREST Wk Wk YTD Chg %Chg%Chg
Name
Ex
Div
Last
Wk Wk YTD Chg %Chg%Chg
Name
Ex
Div
AT&T Inc AEP Apple Inc s BkofAm CBS B Caterpillar CCFemsa CmtyHlt ConocoPhil Dillards EmpIca ExxonMbl Facebook FordM GenElec HewlettP HomeDp iShR2K Intel IntlBcsh IBM
NY NY Nasd NY NY NY NY NY NY NY NY NY Nasd NY NY NY NY NY Nasd Nasd NY
1.84 2.00 1.88 .04 .48 2.80 2.17 ... 2.92 .24 ... 2.76 ... .50 .88 .64 1.88 1.48 .90 .50 4.40
35.76 54.31 95.22 15.38 61.35 109.96 114.31 42.69 84.73 117.24 7.78 101.74 66.34 17.47 26.55 33.97 79.61 115.10 31.25 26.72 188.00
+.38 +.55 +1.19 -.65 -2.95 -1.12 -1.26 -2.79 -1.67 -2.70 -.20 -.85 +.05 +.15 -.31 -.03 -2.44 -4.72 +.11 -1.08 -.53
Lowes Lubys MetLife MexicoFd Microsoft Modine NewLead rs Oi SA Penney RadioShk S&P500ETF SanchezEn Schlmbrg SearsHldgs SiriusXM SonyCp UnionPac s USSteel UnivHlthS WalMart WellsFargo
NY NY NY NY Nasd NY Nasd NY NY NY NY NY NY Nasd Nasd NY NY NY NY NY NY
.92 47.44 -.79 -1.6 -4.3 ... 5.25 -.42 -7.4 -32.0 1.40 55.74 -1.48 -2.6 +3.4 3.13 27.93 +.18 +0.6 -4.7 1.12 42.09 +.29 +0.7 +12.5 ... 15.27 -.74 -4.6 +19.1 ... .07 -.08 -51.4 -100.0 .14 .70 -.05 -7.0 -56.0 ... 8.75 -.50 -5.4 -4.4 ... .85 -.11 -11.6 -67.3 3.58 196.61 -1.59 -0.8 +6.5 ... 32.92 -3.20 -8.9 +34.3 1.60 114.70 -2.80 -2.4 +27.3 ... 38.93 -1.99 -4.9 -2.0 ... 3.38 -.08 -2.3 -3.2 .25 16.66 -.18 -1.1 -3.6 1.82 100.27 -.71 -0.7 +19.4 .20 27.64 +.29 +1.1 -6.3 .20 92.46 -3.74 -3.9 +13.8 1.92 76.82 +1.07 +1.4 -2.4 1.40 51.49 -1.51 -2.8 +13.4
+1.1 +1.0 +1.3 -4.1 -4.6 -1.0 -1.1 -6.1 -1.9 -2.3 -2.5 -0.8 +0.1 +0.9 -1.2 -0.1 -3.0 -3.9 +0.4 -3.9 -0.3
+1.7 +16.2 +18.8 -1.2 -3.7 +21.1 -6.1 +8.7 +19.9 +20.6 -7.9 +.5 +21.4 +13.2 -5.3 +21.4 -3.3 -.2 +20.4 +1.4 +.2
Last
Stock Footnotes: g=Dividends and earnings in Canadian dollars .h= Doe not meet continued- listings tandards lf = Late filing with SEC. n = New in past 52 weeks. pf = Preferred. rs = Stock has undergone a reverse stock split of at least 50 percent within the past year. rt = Right to buy security at a specified price. s = Stock has split by at least 20 percent within the last year. un = Units. vj = In bankruptcy or receivership. wd = When distributed. wi = When issued. wt = Warrants. Mutual Fund Footnotes: b = Fee covering market costs is paid from fund assets. d = Deferred sales charge, or redemption fee. f = front load (sales charges). m = Multiple fees are charged. NA = not available. p = previous day’s net asset value. s = fund split shares during the week. x = fund paid a distribution during the week. Gainers and Losers must be worth at least $2 to be listed in tables at left. Most Actives must be worth at least $1. Volume in hundreds of shares. Source: The Associated Press. Sales figures are unofficial.
Prime Rate Discount Rate Federal Funds Rate Treasuries 3-month 6-month 5-year 10-year 30-year
CURRENCIES Pvs Week
3.25 0.75 .00-.25 0.03 0.06 1.64 2.52 3.34
Pvs Day
All others show dollar in foreign currency.
MUTUAL FUNDS Name
Total Assets Obj ($Mlns) NAV
Total Return/Rank Pct Min Init 4-wk 12-mo 5-year Load Invt
Alliance Bernstein GlTmtcGA m Columbia ComInfoA m Eaton Vance WldwHealA m Fidelity Select Biotech d Fidelity Select BrokInv d Fidelity Select CommEq d Fidelity Select Computer d Fidelity Select ConsFin d Fidelity Select Electron d Fidelity Select FinSvc d Fidelity Select SoftwCom d Fidelity Select Tech d PIMCO TotRetIs T Rowe Price SciTech Vanguard 500Adml Vanguard HlthCare Vanguard InstIdxI Vanguard TotStIAdm Vanguard TotStIdx Waddell & Reed Adv SciTechA m
WS 610 ST 2,618 SH 937 SH 8,664 SF 641 ST 294 ST 661 SF 165 ST 1,782 SF 1,236 ST 3,149 ST 2,465 CI 144,452 ST 3,130 LB 105,758 SH 10,320 LB 94,753 LB 99,159 LB 114,516 ST 3,736
+1.3 +1.5 +2.8 +0.6 +0.1 +0.4 +3.4 -0.4 +1.9 +0.4 +0.8 +1.4 +0.7 +0.9 +1.4 +2.8 +1.4 +1.2 +1.1 +2.0
86.13 57.78 12.61 196.10 72.04 32.29 79.30 15.54 78.01 84.12 116.49 119.88 10.96 41.39 181.64 206.20 180.46 49.52 49.50 16.67
+23.0/A +26.6/C +32.3/A +25.0/D +15.4/B +23.4/C +19.6/E +12.2/D +41.1/A +16.2/B +24.2/C +24.3/C +4.9/C +28.6/B +19.9/B +31.3/B +19.9/B +19.8/B +19.6/C +29.4/B
+11.8/E +16.8/D +19.8/D +29.3/A +15.5/C +15.1/E +22.0/A +18.8/A +21.8/A +13.7/D +24.5/A +21.3/A +6.1/B +19.3/C +20.0/A +22.2/C +20.0/A +20.5/A +20.4/A +22.7/A
4.25 2,500 5.75 2,000 5.75 1,000 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 NL1,000,000 NL 2,500 NL 10,000 NL 3,000 NL5,000,000 NL 10,000 NL 3,000 5.75 750
CA -Conservative Allocation, CI -Intermediate-Term Bond, ES -Europe Stock, FB -Foreign Large Blend, FG -Foreign LargeGrowth, FV -Foreign Large Value, IH -World Allocation, LB -Large Blend, LG -Large Growth, LV -Large Value, MA -Moderate Allocation, MB -Mid-Cap Blend, MV - MidCap Value, SH -Specialty-heath, WS -World Stock, Total Return: Chng in NAV with dividends reinvested. Rank: How fund performed vs. others with same objective: A is in top 20%, E in bottom 20%. Min Init Invt: Minimum $ needed to invest in fund. Source: Morningstar.
MEXICO
Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast | AP
Last
3.25 Australia 1.0652 1.0645 0.75 Britain 1.7117 1.7143 .00-.25 Canada 1.0733 1.0650 Euro .7348 .7351 0.01 Japan 101.33 101.27 0.05 Mexico 12.9869 12.9949 1.74 Switzerlnd .8921 .8926 2.64 3.47 British pound expressed in U.S. dollars.
been held more than 20 days in a downtown hotel room in the center of this border town,” authorities said. The rescue took place after an anonymous tip led police to a former Veracruz state resident identified as Miguel Sanchez Ribera, and the hotel’s manager. Two other rescues took place in Tampico, Tamaulipas, also after anonymous tips. One of the rescues was conducted by Accredited State Police, in which 36 immigrants were rescued from a house in the Vista Hermosa neighborhood. Police arrested suspects identified as Christian Angel Ponce, Julio César González and Julio Hilario Cruz Hernández Romero, the latter who re-
Continued from Page 1A vealed another address in the Petrolera neighborhood where 122 immigrants were rescued. The majority of the immigrants were from Honduras, Cuba and El Salvador, authorities said. “(The immigrants) said they had been held for more than 15 days against their will. They were beaten and the women abused, in addition to gang members allegedly taking the lives of a couple and a child,” authorities said. The federal attorney general’s office is investigating, the press release said. Those rescued were referred to the Instituto Nacional de Migración. (Translated by Mark Webber of the Times staff.)
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, top, talks with an inmate in Cook County Jail in Chicago, on June 26. Dart said when he took over running the jail in 2006 was shocked four years ago when guards released an inmate with a serious mental illness.
Jails struggle as asylums By ADAM GELLER ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO — Peering through the chain link of a holding pen at the Cook County Jail, a man wrapped in a navy varsity jacket leans toward clinical social worker Elli Petacque Montgomery, his bulging eyes a clue that something’s not right. “They say I got bipolar, that’s all,” he says. “OK, are you taking your meds?” she asks. “When I can get them,” he answers. “I’m down here every day,” Montgomery says. “Every morning I hear this.” The Chicago jail and many of its 3,300 counterparts across the country have become treatment centers of last resort for people with serious mental illnesses, most arrested for non-violent crimes. And like other jails, it is awash in a tide of booking and releases that make it particularly unsuited for the task. U.S. jails, most of whose 731,000 inmates are trying to make bail or awaiting trial, hold roughly half the number in prisons. But last year, jails booked in 11.7 million people — 19 times the number of new prison inmates. The revolving door complicates the task of screening for mental illness, managing medications, providing care and ensuring inmate safety. “Jails are churning people,” says Henry J. Steadman, a consultant to government agencies on how courts and correctional facilities deal with people with mental illnesses. Experts have pointed to rising numbers of inmates with mental illnesses since the 1970s, after states began closing psychiatric hospitals without following through on promises to create and sustain comprehensive community treatment programs. But as the number of those with serious mental illnesses surpasses 20 percent in some jails, many have struggled to keep up, sometimes putting inmates in jeopardy. The Associated Press has reported that at least nine of the 11 suicides in New York City jails over the past five years came after operators failed to follow safeguards designed to prevent self-
harm by inmates. The AP’s investigation into the deaths of two mentally ill inmates at the city’s Rikers Island complex — one who essentially baked to death in a 101degree cell in February and the other who sexually mutilated himself last fall — have prompted promises of reform. Federal law protects the rights of people in jails and other institutions. But in temporary holding facilities, dealing with serious, longterm mental illnesses requires operators to rethink what they do, Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart says. “You’re given a court order by a judge to hold this person in the jail until you’re told not to,” Dart says. “You’re not supposed to do anything other than feed him, give them a bed, make sure they don’t harm anyone else or themselves. ... You’re not in there trying to cure people.” Many jails are dealing with similar dynamics, with sometimes disturbing results. In June, federal officials cited “deplorable” conditions for mentally ill inmates in the Los Angeles County jails as partly to blame for 15 suicides in 30 months. The L.A. system, the country’s largest with 19,000 inmates, has been under federal supervision since 2002, but still fails to adequately supervise inmates “with clearly demonstrated needs,” the Justice Department concluded. In Pensacola, Florida, Justice officials last year issued a scathing report about conditions at the Escambia County Jail. Records showed many inmates who requested care were never seen by a mental health professional. When inmates refused to take medications, the jail merely removed them from its list of those with a mental illness. In Columbus, Nebraska — seat of a county of 33,000 — six Platte County Detention Center inmates attempted suicide early this year, as many as in the previous 10 years combined. Jon Zavadil, the recently retired sheriff, says about 80 percent of all inmates medicated for some type of mental illness. “Every county jail in the state has the same problem,” says Zavadil, who blames Nebraska lawmakers for voting to close two of the state’s three public psychiatric
hospitals over the past decade. Researchers long warned mental illness was being “criminalized,” as police arrested more people for low-level offenses. In the 1980s, researchers found about 6 percent of inmates showed signs of serious mental illness. A survey published in 2009 found 17 percent of jail inmates with serious mental illnesses. Individual jails report far greater numbers. Today, many of those jailed with mental illnesses have grown up in a system that is full of holes. “Even what we had when I started doing this work in 1988 was better than what we have now,” says Nancy Koenigsberg, legal director for Disability Rights New Mexico, which helped bring suit against her state’s Dona Ana County Detention Center in 2010 for mistreating mentally ill inmates. But while the jail has since increased its mental health staff, New Mexico cities and counties have continued closing drop-in centers and other programs to that help maintain treatment. Many people wind up repeatedly picked up for relatively minor crimes. At the Volusia County Detention Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, administrators compiled a list of such “frequent flyers.” The 19 worst had been collectively jailed 894 times, mostly for minor offenses. Nearly half had a history of mental illness. “A lot of their behavior was low level,” says Marilyn Ford, the county’s corrections director. “So they cycle through in a fairly short period of time and they never make it to prison.” Chicago’s jail can offer an island of stability for inmates with mental illnesses, Dart says. In coming months, Dart plans to convert a former boot camp into a transition center to help those with mental illnesses after release. But William, a 62-year-old inmate who says he’s been jailed nine or 10 times for theft to support a drug habit, is doubtful. Many judges dismiss mental illness as a factor in crimes, says the inmate, diagnosed with depression, anxiety and symptoms of bipolar disorder. Outside jail, treatment is hard to get. “Once we leave here,” he says, “we’re back on doom street.”
BILLIONS vember midterm elections. And asked whether the House would approve the spending package as-is, he said “no.” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest responded by saying that “we’re open to working with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to get this done.” “The thing that I would point out, though, is that the president has moved quickly to be very clear about what specifically needs to be funded,” Earnest said. “And we would like to see Republicans back up their rhetoric with the kind of urgent action that this situation merits.” Rogers spoke shortly after the Congressional Hispanic Caucus convened a press conference to denounce efforts to attach legal changes to the spending measure that would result in returning the children home more quickly to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Those countries account for the bulk of the more than 57,000 kids who’ve arrived since October. Republicans are demanding such changes, and White House officials also have indicated support, while House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid left the door open to them this week. But key Senate Democrats are opposed, and members of the all-Democratic Hispanic Caucus added their strong objections Friday that sending the kids home quickly without immigration hearings could put them at risk. “I don’t know of a man or a woman in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who is going to vote to undermine the rights of these children,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. “It would be unconscionable for us to do that.” Gutierrez said the lawmakers would make that same case directly to Obama in a meeting next week. And he pleaded for Democrats to stand firm. “I’m tired of every time the Republicans raise their voices against the immigrants that somehow we ameliorate, we change our position and
Continued from Page 1A weaken our stance,” Gutierrez said. “Our stance should be clear — we’re for the immigrants.” The policy changes in question concern a 2008 law aimed at helping victims of human trafficking that appears to be contributing to the current crisis by ensuring court hearings for the children now arriving from Central America. In practice, that often allows them to stay in this country for years as their cases wend their way through the badly backlogged immigration court system, and oftentimes they never show up for their court dates. Obama administration officials along with Republican lawmakers want to change the law so that Central American kids can be treated the same way as Mexican kids, who can be turned around quickly by Border Patrol agents. “If you want to stop the problem, treat the children humanely and send them back. I guarantee you it will work,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday in a speech in Louisville. Democrats and advocacy groups say such a change would put the kids in jeopardy. “We will oppose this link even if it means the funding bill goes down,” said Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. If the changes go through, “They’ll be sent back to their persecutors with no help whatsoever, and possibly to their deaths.” The border controversy spilled over to a gathering of the National Governors Association in Nashville, Tenn., where governors of both parties blamed a gridlocked Congress. “Congress needs to act,” declared Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, the group’s Republican chairman. “They are children, so we want to treat them very humanely, but we also have a lot of concerns for the health and wellness of our citizens in our state.”
10A THE ZAPATA TIMES
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
PLANES plane, and the buses drove toward for Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. At the Air Force base, children were taking turns playing soccer in impromptu fields outside the military dorms used to house some of the flood of young Central American immigrants heading north for a chance at the American dream. They were passengers on “ICE Air,” a low-profile but increasingly busy carrier that uses San Antonio as one of its main hubs, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Air uses a fleet of charter planes — this particular one owned by Orange Air LLC, a relatively new charter operation that has been kept busy flying back and forth, with stops in Texas, Arizona and California. Since October, more than 52,000 unaccompanied Central American minors have been taken into custody after crossing the border. Although the youth immigration crisis is only recently making headlines, ICE Air has been around for years, providing air transport between ICE Enforcement and Operations’ 24 field offices and “hub cities” such as San Antonio; Mesa, Arizona; Alexandria, Louisiana; and Miami. Media in 2008 and 2009 widely reported about the U.S. government-paid flights — with box lunches the main passenger amenity — to take adult immi-
grants back home, primarily to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. In addition to using seats on commercial aircraft, ICE Air has since 2006 used charters to deport hundreds of thousands of people to their home countries. During the 2013 fiscal year, ICE Air transported 189,000 people to 16 countries, conducting an average of 43 charter flights a week to foreign and domestic locations. The cost per flight hour
Continued from Page 1A
a Laredo Democrat, none of the surge of unaccompanied minors has been sent home. Rather, there’s been stepped-up deportation of Central American adults. Cuellar said there currently are at least 20 to 25 flights a week, each carrying 135 adults. While ICE has been scrambling to transport minors with commercial, charter, and Coast Guard and Homeland Security aircraft, that movement has been between U.S. destinations.
favors increased immigration enforcement. “At this point, they’re scrambling to find places to put them around the country, and nobody seems to want them. And not because they don’t have compassion, but because it comes with enormous expense.” Harris County officials said unaccompanied minors were being flown into George Bush Intercontinental Airport after protesters in Murrieta, California, blocked buses carrying immi-
Children, especially, are easy prey for coyotes and transnational criminal organizations.” CBP COMMISSIONER R. GIL KERLIKOWSKE has been reported at about $8,300. With the surge of unaccompanied minors taking the gamble that they’ll at worst be sent home after a years-long process, there have been even more ICE flights. “In speaking with our officers assigned to ICE Air Operations, ICE’s air transportation arm, air transports have been so heavily used during the crisis that two additional planes have already been leased, and still more could be utilized,” Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, said during June 25 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. But according to a recent update by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar,
Orange Air did not return a call about the company’s work with ICE, but flight records showed as many as six flights a day for the plane since mid-June, all to or from the border states of Texas, Arizona and California with at least one flight to Lawton-Fort Sill in Oklahoma, which also has a facility for unaccompanied youths. On June 26, the plane traveled from Brownsville to Tucson, Tucson to McAllen, McAllen to El Paso, El Paso to Brownsville, Brownsville to Tucson, and Tucson to McAllen. “They’re just moving them around to places where they can house them till they figure out what to do next,” said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which
grants to a processing station. “When you have unaccompanied minors, you become obligated not just for the education but for all kinds of services, everything from feeding to housing,” Mehlman said. “We don’t expect 10-year-olds to take care of themselves.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show the number of unaccompanied children crossing into the Rio Grande Valley sector alone has ballooned 178 percent so far this fiscal year compared to the year-ago period. The fiscal year starts in October. In attempt to stem the flow, the Obama administration has been trumpeting the message that there are no “permits” given to those who cross the border, and
that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act, which spares youths brought here as children from deportation, does not apply to recent arrivals. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in Panama City recently, stressed that message in a meeting with leaders from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. “There are rules of law, and there is a process, and there is false information that is being spread about benefits that might be available to these young people,” Kerry said. CBP Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske traveled to a busy crossing area on the Rio Grande earlier this month to launch a Spanish-language campaign broadcasting the perils of the journey via the airwaves and on billboards. “Children, especially, are easy prey for coyotes and transnational criminal organizations, and they can be subjected to robbery, violence, sexual assault, sex trafficking or forced labor,” Kerlikowske said. Cuellar, who spent that day at a Rio Grande Valley field hearing on the crisis, said the better deterrent would be showing photos of people being flown home. “This is not the first time we’ve had a surge,” he said. “You had the Brazilians in 2005, you had the Civil War from El Salvador in the 1980s,” Cuellar said. “And talking to Border Patrol (members) that have been in the process before ... the best deterrent is to detain and remove (them) as quickly as possible.”
BENGHAZI Continued from Page 1A “In my view, that time delay, that inability of the team to get off of the Benghazi airport and get to the annex and back I think allowed sufficient time for the second attack to be organized and conducted,” said Ham, who was in Washington at the time of the attacks. Two House panels — Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform — interviewed nine military officers earlier this year, and the testimony was released this week. For the military, the fog of war shrouded Benghazi even before the night of Sept. 11. The first assault, about 9:40 p.m. local time, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith, was the first news to some military leaders that the U.S. even had a diplomatic mission in the Libyan port city — and that Stevens was there even though Benghazi was considered a dangerous, near-lawless city after the fall of dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi. In a very short time, many in the military, including Ham, would then learn about the CIA annex. In his testimony, Ham said he was certain that someone in his command knew of the existence of the facilities in Benghazi, but he acknowledged that the crisis was “not the ideal time to become aware of such facilities.” Throughout the night, the information relayed to military officers in Tripoli, up the chain of command to AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Pentagon in Washington
was incomplete and often contradictory. And that complicated efforts to mobilize personnel and aircraft to get Americans out of Libya. “Omniscience is for God only,” said a member of the U.S. Army who was operations director for the Special Operations Command Africa, and whose name was omitted from the testimony. After the first attack, Ham and other military leaders were focused on a potential hostage situation, unaware that Stevens was already dead from smoke inhalation. They were under the impression that the Americans at the annex were safe, and none of the information they received suggested otherwise. Vice Adm. Charles “Joe” Leidig Jr., who was Ham’s deputy, said the Americans weren’t requesting military reinforcements to respond to the sporadic gunfire, but rather were seeking a plane to get out. “Once that indirect fire
was over, they said we’re going to get out of this annex, we’re going to get to the Benghazi airfield, and now what they wanted was lift capability at Benghazi airfield,” Leidig said. A U.S. defense attache in Tripoli, who was relaying information up the chain of command that night, said he didn’t learn of the nighttime gunfire until a day or two later. Americans at the CIA base were confident they could deal with the gunfire. The intelligence official who was the chief of base told the Senate Intelligence Committee in December 2012 that “until the mortar attack, we were pretty comfortable that we could stave off any type of ground assault on the annex.” Throughout the night, the military struggled to “level the bubble,” ensuring that all had the same information from the disparate sources of cellphone calls, drone details and word from Libyan officials.
At the time of the second attack, the few military officers in Tripoli were helping evacuate the U.S. Embassy there, figuring out who could drive the armored vehicles to a classified site. The testimony from nine military officials captures the difficulty for a military hamstrung by limited intelligence and far-flung U.S. forces. Officials grappled throughout the night with what they called the “tyranny of distance,” and, according to the former operations
director, the reality that “it was very foggy as to what were actual facts on the ground.” The testimony adds context to the bare-bones timeline the military released within weeks of the attack, but some questions remain unanswered. Libya, after months of a U.S.-led air campaign and the fall of Gadhafi, was a nation of militias battling for turf and other Libyans helping provide security to U.S. personnel.
Alerted to the first attack, the U.S. military repositioned an unmanned drone from Derna, Libya, to Benghazi, but the dark of night made it difficult for the Predator to provide reliable information. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered two special operations teams — the one in Croatia and another in the United States — to get ready to deploy. He also issued a similar order to an anti-terrorism team in Rota, Spain.
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
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Sports&Outdoors HIGH SCHOOL VOLLEYBALL: ZAPATA LADY HAWKS
All-City team Gutierrez recognized
YOUTH SOCCER: HEAT
Heat push for shot at the title Laredo 1-0-1 through a pair of tournament games
By CLARA SANDOVAL THE ZAPATA TIMES
COURTESY OF HEAT SC MEDIA RELATIONS
Our series in looking at the most versatile Zapata athletes from this year continues as we hit the hardwood during the fall season and a player who worked hard to lead the Lady Hawks to the promised land after battling through a tough district. The fifth member of the Zapata Times All-City sports team belongs to volleyball setter Gabby Gutierrez who ran the team with consistency and led the Lady Hawks to a District 31-3A title for the third consecutive year. "It is an honor to have been chosen by the Zapata Times as one of their recognized athletes," Gutierrez said. "I never imagined having an honor like this before and sharing my thoughts and feelings with my community, having the opportunity to thank them for all the support they gave me." Gutierrez was a catalyst on how the team fared on the court and had a hand in the offense. Her decision-making skills determined if Zapata went home with a victory or a loss, and Gutierrez made sure the Lady Hawks had enough wins to capture the title. "She was one of my captains who was able to bring the team together," Zapata head coach Rosie Villarreal said. "She worked hard to make the team believe in themselves. Each one of the team members added to help her stand out and get noticed by the other coaches in
File photo by Clara Sandoval | The Zapata Times
Lady Hawks setter Gabby Gutierrez is the fifth member named to the Zapata Times All-City sports team.
See HAWKS PAGE 2B
WORLD CUP
Greenville, SC (Friday, July 11, 2014): The Laredo Heat 00 Boys Red (Under 14’s) opened up play on Thursday, July 10th at the 2014 National Presidents Cup Tournament in Greensville, SC with a 2 – 1 victory over United States Youth Soccer Region IV Representative Oxnard (CA) Wave Soccer Club. Both Heat U-14 goals were scored by Alberto Martinez. The Laredo Heat 00 Boys Red (1–0–1) are representing the Laredo Area Youth Soccer Association, the South Texas Youth Soccer Association and the United States Youth Soccer Region III at the Under 14 Boys Division in South Carolina. Today, the Heat U-14’s gave up three goals in the second half after taking a 3–0 lead on the Region II Representatives Team Evanston (IL) Premier and had to settle for a 3–3 tie. The U-14 goals today were scored by Alberto Martinez, Nicolas Paez and Eduardo Vasquez. With today’s result, the Heat 00 Boys Red will now be playing in huge youth soccer match tomorrow Saturday, July 12th at 8AM versus Montgomery (PA) Arsenal, Region I Representatives. Current Standings (two games played): Montgomery (PA) Arsenal (1– 0– 1, 4 points, + 1 goal differential) Laredo Heat (TX) 00 Boys Red (1– 0– 1, 4 points, + 1 goal differential) Team Evanston (IL) Premier (0– 0– 2, 2 points, 0 goal differential) Oxnard (CA) Wave Soccer Club (0–2–0, -2 goal differential)
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION: CLEVELAND CAVALIERS
HOMECOMING KING Photo by Natacha Pisarenko | AP
Lionel Messi and Argentina take on Germany at 2 p.m. on Sunday in the World Cup finals.
Rich history in the finals By NESHA STARCEVIC ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTO SEGURO, Brazil — Diego Maradona was reportedly so struck by stage fright that he called for his mother’s help as Argentina players sat in silence in their changing room before the 1986 World Cup final against West Germany. But it was Maradona who provided the moment of brilliance that decided the game and gave Argentina its second title before 114,800 fans at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City. Four years later, Maradona was in tears as the Germans lifted the title in Rome’s Olympic stadium. Argentina and Germany have a long and emotional World Cup rivalry involving some of the best players to grace the game. When they face each other again on
Sunday in Rio De Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium, it will be the third World Cup final between the teams — something no other two nations have accomplished. The 1986 and 1990 finals are still two of the most talked about games in football history. In 1986, Maradona was at the summit of his career and scored all four of Argentina’s goals in the quarterfinals and semifinals — including the “hand of God” against England. Franz Beckenbauer was in charge of Germany in his first major tournament as coach. Germany’s camp was in disarray, and goalkeeper Uli Stein was sent home for insulting Beckenbauer. Journalists shared a hotel with the players and their nightly escapades became tabloid lore.
See WORLD CUP PAGE 2B
Photo by Phil Long | AP
After LeBron James announced he was returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers, fans celebrated in front of his house in Bath, Ohio, by mimicking his pregame ritual of tossing powder into the air.
LeBron James returning to Cavs By MARK GILLISPIE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CLEVELAND — Suddenly Cleveland is hotter than the blast furnaces that still line the Cuyahoga River. First there was the arrival of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel in May’s NFL draft. On Tuesday, the national Republican Party all but handed Cleveland its 2016 national convention and hundreds of millions of dollars in business. And on Friday the city landed what many would call the biggest prize of all
— the return of its prodigal son: four-time NBA MVP and Akron native LeBron James decided to leave glamorous Miami for gritty Cleveland. Nobody knows what good news is next for this long suffering city built on steel mills and blue-collar labor, but whatever it is, formerly downtrodden Clevelanders would surely embrace it. When you’ve had — and still have — as many problems as Cleveland, you take what you can get. When word got out that
See LEBRON PAGE 2B
File photo by Charles Cherney | AP
PAGE 2B
Zscores
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
Soto arrested for possession ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas Rangers catcher Geovany Soto was arrested Wednesday night on a charge of marijuana possession in the town of Grapevine in northeast Tarrant County. Soto, 31, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana under two ounces according to Sgt. Robert Eberling of the Grapevine Police Department. He was released on $500 bail. Soto has not played this season after injuring his left knee in March. In a statement released by the Rangers on Friday afternoon, Soto said, “I was stopped by Grapevine Police on Wednesday night. I am embarrassed and would like to apologize to my family, the Rangers organization and our fans that I was taken in on this charge. Because this is an on-going case, I cannot discuss this matter any further at the time.” The statement also said, “The Rangers organization is aware of Wednesday night’s incident involving Geovany Soto. We have spoken to Geovany, and he has apologized and expressed deep embarrassment for the situation. We have notified Major League Baseball of the incident. As this is an on-going case, this is the only comment we will have at this time.” Soto hit .245 with nine home runs and 22 RBI last season, his first full year with Texas after being acquired from the Chicago Cubs at the nonwaiver trading deadline in 2012.
Photo by Michael Conroy | AP
Chris Bosh agreed to a maximum contract with the Miami Heat on Friday after LeBron James announced he is returning to the Cavs.
File photo by Darron Cummings | AP
Texas Rangers catcher Geovany Soto, left, was arrested Wednesday for marijuana possession.
Bosh agrees to max contract with Miami By TIM REYNOLDS ASSOCIATED PRESS
Spieth not frazzled by fast rise By DOUG FERGUSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOYLAKE, England — Jordan Spieth was so caught up in the debate he never realized he might have been talking about himself. The topic was college football. Three days into the new year, Spieth was getting ready to play a practice round at Kapalua when he walked into a conversation about Oklahoma’s upset win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. A caddie was blaming Nick Saban for being so critical of the Crimson Tide leading up to the game that it rattled his players. Spieth, a football junkie and sideline guest during the OklahomaTexas game, shook his head.
“Listen you guys, 20-year-olds don’t get rattled by (anything) — trust me on that one,” he said before walking away. Spieth is 20. He gets angry at some of the shots he plays. He talks to himself so much on the golf course that he provides his own color commentary. But rattled? Not over a bunker shot on the final hole at the John Deere Classic that he made for birdie to get into a playoff for his first PGA Tour victory. Not in a final-round pairing with Phil Mickelson, when he shot 62 in a performance so impressive that Mickelson told Presidents Cup captain Fred Couples, “Dude, you’ve got to pick this guy.” Spieth wasn’t rattled as the
HAWKS
youngest American to play in the Presidents Cup, either. During a team match against Tiger Woods in a practice round, he won the 12th hole by making a hole-in-one. He became the first player since another 20-year-old — Woods — to start a season without status and reach the Tour Championship. Spieth is not the next Tiger Woods. But he sure got Woods’ attention. “For a person to have come out of college and done this well, this fast and been as consistent ... normally when you’re young, you come out and you may have two, three good weeks a year, maybe more,” Woods said. “It just seems like he’s having one every week. He’s always up there.”
Chris Bosh said all along that he wanted to stay with the Miami Heat, and the departure of LeBron James did not lead to a change of heart. Bosh agreed Friday to a five-year contract worth about $118 million, two people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the team nor Bosh had publicly announced the deal. It’s also unclear when Bosh will actually sign the contract. He’s expected to be in Ghana until next week. So now, the “Big 3” — who officially broke up earlier Friday when James
announced he was leaving the Heat for a return to the Cleveland Cavaliers — are looking to become at least the “Big 2.” The Heat are continuing to negotiate with Dwyane Wade, the other member of what was the star triumverate that led Miami to the NBA Finals in each of the last four seasons, winning two titles. Keeping Bosh was a huge part of Miami’s immediate reaction plan after learning that James was leaving. He’s an All-Star who averaged 16.2 points on 52 percent shooting last season, and now figures to potentially get many more shots in the Heat offensive scheme. For his career, Bosh has averaged 19.2 points in 11 NBA seasons.
WORLD CUP Continued from Page 1B
Continued from Page 1B our district." When Gutierrez was not busy playing the setter position, she was busy cramming the ball down the throat of opposing defenses as the team’s hitter. For all her hard work on the court Gutierrez was selected unanimously as the District 31-3A Most Valuable Player. "A setter position isn’t as easy as it looks," Gutierrez said. "You have to have good timing and have a good position to set the ball high enough or low enough for your hitter to get that kill. And every set is different for every hitter, so you have to adjust to your teammates. "As far as running a team, you have to have a positive look at the game and encourage all your teammates it can be done, and one thing I always followed was to believe in one enough, to surrender the me for the we. I wouldn’t have gotten this award without my teammates and my coach who was my mentor. Without their dedication we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did" The Lady Hawks took home the district and bi-district titles and made it to the area round of the state Class 3A volleyball playoffs. "I feel honored to have been able to lead my team to a district and bi-district title and to be an area finalist," Gutierrez said. "I am glad I was able to represent such a small community with such a big honor as MVP." Clara Sandoval can be reached at sandoval.clara@gmail.com
But the Germans plodded on and beat France 2-0 in the semifinals, even though the Michel Platini-led French team had been widely expected to face Argentina in the final. And so, in the noon-time heat of the awe-inspiring Azteca, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Maradona led their sides out. The Germany captain was playing injured throughout the tournament and had not scored. Jose Luis Brown’s header and Jorge Valdano’s goal on a counterattack gave Argentina a 2-0 lead and Maradona’s team appeared to be cruising. Then the Germans struck back. Rummenigge and substitute Rudi Voeller scored from Andreas Brehme’s free kicks and suddenly it was 2-2 with eight minutes to play. Maradona had been marked by Lothar Matthaeus, who did a good job throughout the match. But with the Germans trying to use the momentum and grab the winner, the ball took a weird bounce in midfield and Maradona sent Jorge Burruchaga racing with a deft left-foot flick. Burruchaga beat the offside trap and Argentina had the title. Years later, Valdano told Germany’s Spiegel magazine that Maradona was so nervous before the final that he called for his mother, Tota.
“’Tota, come and help me, I am afraid, you must help me,”’ Valdano described the scene as Maradona broke the pre-match silence in the dressing room. Four years after that game, Beckenbauer became the first man to win the World Cup as both player and coach. Germany dominated the final, outshooting Argentina 23-1 but the South Americans held on despite having two men sent off, Pedro Monzon and Gustavo Dezotti, a first for a World Cup final. The match was decided by a disputed penalty in the 85th minute that was converted by Brehme with a low shot inside the post. Matthaeus had been the designated penalty taker, but he did not trust his shoes and left it for Brehme. Matthaeus began the match with a pair of shoes he got as a gift from Maradona. But the right shoe came apart during the first half and Matthaeus had to get a new pair during the break. He did not feel comfortable enough to take the penalty. A furious Maradona broke into tears as he blamed the referee for the loss. Beckenbauer walked alone on the grass of the Olympic stadium in a reflective mood as his players celebrated. In 2010, Maradona was in charge of the Argentina team when it lost 4-0 to Germany in
the quarterfinals, ending his second career as national team coach. After the 1990 match, Beckenbauer predicted that a reunited Germany would be virtually unbeatable. However, Germany is still waiting for its fourth title, having lost the 2002 final to Brazil. Argentina hasn’t been back on this stage until now — and again faces a familiar opponent. Netherlands looking to finish World Cup unbeaten BRASILIA, Brazil — Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal is trying to motivate his players for the third-place match against Brazil by giving them the mission of becoming the only Dutch squad to finish a World Cup unbeaten in regular play. After being eliminated by Argentina on penalties, the Netherlands has the chance of ending the tournament without a loss in seven matches. The Dutch won its first four games, then drew Costa Rica 0-0 in the quarters and Argentina 0-0 in the semis. Van Gaal had been saying the thirdplace game was pointless and he would rather not play it, but “we are realizing that there is something else we need to defend and we have to go for it. Never a Dutch team returned home unbeaten, and that has to be the next target.”
LEBRON Continued from Page 1B James was bringing his considerable talents back to Cleveland, cheers and beeping car horns could be heard echoing downtown. People stared at their cell phones with expressions of glee and, perhaps, slight disbelief that it was true, King James really was headed home. The ultimate hope among many sports fans is that James can quench the inexhaustible thirst Cleveland fans have for a championship after a drought of 50 years. It was in 1964 that all-world running back Jim Brown and quarterback Frank Ryan carried the Browns to the city’s last championship. “It’s surreal,” said a smiling Larry Boothe, 25, who had just purchased a celebratory six-pack.
“I never thought it would be a reality.” Lynn Taylor, 51, lovingly mopped ribs, barbecue and Polish boys — the city’s signature kielbasa sandwich — with her secret sauce outside her Hough Avenue deli on the east side. She said the GOP convention and James would help bring much-needed cash into the city, although she called James a drama queen for the way he left back in 2010. But she’ll take him back. “Just bring us a championship,” she said. John Dennison drove in from one of the far eastern suburbs to buy a season-ticket package, ready for the season to start and see James play side-by-side with Kyrie Irving, the first overall pick in
2011, “This is great for our area,” Dennison said. The phone number for the Cavaliers’ ticket office boasted of James’ return in a recorded message but noted that single-game tickets aren’t yet available. The extension for season ticket inquiries, not surprisingly, rang busy. Dave Nelson, 49, had just been wheeled into the recovery room at Fairview General Hospital in Cleveland after knee surgery on Friday when his surgeon approached. Nelson said he doesn’t remember what the doctor said about his knee, but recalled: “He said, ‘More importantly, LeBron has come back to the Cavs.” “This is where he can come to be great,” Nelson said a few hours
later. “You can go anywhere to win championships. But if he can do something like that in this city, he’ll be remembered forever.” James’ return had Cleveland Indians’ slugger Nick Swisher fired up. “I can’t wait to meet him,” Swisher said. “A guy like that, with the talent he has, singlehandedly that guy can win you a championship.” Before the announcement, Gordon Hewitt, 67, and a buddy were headed into a suburban Cleveland theater to catch a movie. Hewitt said he hoped that when they emerged they would learn that James had indeed come home. A few hours later, Hewitt said he was elated and that James’ heartfelt words about returning to
Cleveland had done much to assuage his longstanding resentment. Hewitt recalled childhood evenings on the front porch with his father listening to radio broadcasts of Indians games. Every year, Hewitt said, his optimistic father would proclaim that this could be their season. Maybe James’ return will seal the deal on such a proclamation at last. The rebuilding of downtown Cleveland, the forthcoming Republican convention, and the addition of “Johnny Football” to the Browns all give Cleveland hope, he said. “We have a lot of things going for us,” Hewitt said, “and we should be proud.”
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014
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HELOISE
Dear Heloise: I bought a roll of red plastic wrap to gift-wrap a big basket. I did that and left it on our oak table. When I went to take it off, it was stuck. I pulled it off, and it left a red stain on our beautiful oak table. How can I get this off without ruining the finish on the table? — Sarah in Maryland P.S.: I read your column religiously in The Washington Post. Sarah, first, do no harm! Make a paste of baking soda and a little water, and rub it in the direction of the grain of the wood. Wipe with a damp cloth, then dry. This should remove the color. If not, use a good commercial wood cleaner — not wood polish — to clean the stain. You should be able to find it
THE ZAPATA TIMES 3B
at a home-improvement store. Do follow directions carefully, and don’t overdo it. If some of the stain is removed, but not all, try repeating the steps to see if you can remove the rest. — Heloise MUDDY BOOTS Dear Heloise: My husband works a construction job and is often stepping in mud. He takes our leftover grocery bags and sticks them in his truck. When his boots are muddy, he slips a plastic bag over them before getting into his truck. This way, his truck is protected and stays clean. — P.T. in Texas PENCIL ERASERS Dear Heloise: I hate it when the erasers on my pencils stop working while the pencil is still good. I solved the problem with sandpaper. Take a piece of sandpaper and gently rub the pencil eraser. It will renew the eraser, and you won’t have to get a new pencil. — A Reader, via email
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SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014