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WAR ON DRUGS
BACK TO SCHOOL
Prison time
Tourney to help children Chamber of Commerce seeks donations of school supplies
Former Valley sheriff sentenced to 5 years
By MALENA CHARUR THE ZAPATA TIMES
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
McALLEN — A former South Texas sheriff who had pleaded guilty to money laundering was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday in what the judge called a sad day for the county. U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez departed from sentencing guidelines that topped out at less than four years to impose a stiffer penalty on former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño. Alvarez said many questions remained about how much money Treviño really took from a known drug trafficker. She said Treviño
admitted to accepting $20,000 to $25,000 — double the amounts in question that were recorded in his re-election campaign account. “You knew that this person was a drug trafficker,” Alvarez said. “You are contributing to the problem that we have in this county.” She said cases like Treviño’s diminish the public’s trust. Standing before the judge, Treviño made no excuses. “I’m sorry. It happened. I did it,” he said. Treviño apologized to his wife and children, “because our last name will al-
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US MILITARY
Photo by Delcia Lopez/The McAllen Monitor | AP
Former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño received 5 years in prison, pleading guilty to accepting illegal campaign contributions.
This is the fourth consecutive year the Zapata County Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the annual Children’s Back to School Fishing Tournament, and is looking for sponsors to furnish school supplies to 400 underprivileged children expected to participate in the event. Celia Balderas, membership services coordinator for the Chamber of Commerce, said the event has been known as “Children’s Fishing Tournament,” but it’s been changed to a time closer to the beginning of the school year. “We have been doing this event for a long time, since fishing is a popular
activity in the region,” Balderas said. “Four years ago we changed the date and name to do it before school started and help the community with school supplies.” The event will take place at Bravo Park Pond on Saturday, August 23, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The first group of students numbered 100, but over time that number has increased. “This is a free event and open to the public. We have children from throughout the area,” she said. “Now we are helping 400 children.” Balderas said there is no registration fee, and a parent or other responsib-
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IMMIGRATION OVERLOAD
FEWER KIDS CROSSING Flow of children slows By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Photo by Helen L. Montoya | San Antonio Express-News
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lucy Coffey and Queta Marquez, Bexar County veterans service officer, go through pictures taken while Coffey was in Japan.
Looking at ‘honor flight’ Oldest female veteran, 108, hopes to see World War II monument in D.C. By SIG CHRISTENSON SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
SAN ANTONIO — When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Lucy Coffey had left the farm in Martinsville, Indiana, spent time in Chicago and finally settled in Dallas, where she worked at an A&P supermarket. After quitting the A&P in 1943, she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, a call to service that would take her to Japan before she returned and settled in San
Antonio. Now, at 108, the nation’s oldest woman veteran has one more trip she wants to make, this time an Honor Flight, an all-expense-paid salute to World War II veterans. The destination: Washington, D.C. “I’d like to go to see things that are there that were not there before,” Coffey told the San Antonio Express-News. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Washington, but I would like to go to
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Photo by Eric Gay | AP
Protesters gather Friday outside the Mexican Consulate, in Austin. The flow of children crossing the border illegally and without their parents has slowed, officials say.
WASHINGTON — The flood of children crossing the Mexican border illegally and without their parents has slowed down in recent weeks, two senior Obama administration officials said Friday. Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas have found fewer than 500 children crossing the border illegally this week, the officials said. Last month, agents arrested as many as 2,000 child immigrants a week. The Obama administration has been struggling to deal with a flood of more than 57,000 children traveling alone since Oct. 1. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said earlier this month that as many as 90,000 unaccompanied child immigrants could be apprehended by the end of the budget year in September. Most of the children are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and El Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren will meet with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on July 25. Biden has been the point person for contacts with these Central American leaders. He last spoke to them by phone on July 9 and was in Guatemala for meet-
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