The Zapata Times 10/19/2016

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U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

Illegal immigration plummeting Texas would be focus of Trump’s ‘beautiful’ wall

By Jason Buch and Aaron Nelsen SA N A NT ONI O E XPRE SS-NEWS

EAGLE PASS – David Jimenez sees plenty of problems with U.S. border security, usually while playing a round of golf at the municipal course here on the Rio Grande.

Immigrants bed down in the vegetation along riverbanks, wait on an island in the middle of the river, take cover in brush

A&M SYSTEM

on the golf course or walk across the international bridge that looms over the links and jump down onto the No. 2 hole.

The 14-foot fence that separates the golf course from the rest of the city does little to stop them. Two gates are open all day, allowing access to the golf course. A large creek empties into the Rio Grande nearby, creating another gap. More gates are open to let families use a Wall continues on A11

Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-News

A U.S. Border Patrol unit makes its way along U.S. 281 by the border wall near San Benito, Texas, Oct. 2. The wall stretches in a series of broken links from Brownsville to Hidalgo County.

TEXAS

TAMIU Lawmakers could face tough names decision on border security funding likely president

By Julián Aguilar THE TEXAS TRIBUNE

S P ECIAL T O T HE T I ME S

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Tuesday named Dr. Ray M. Keck the sole finalist for the position of president of Texas A&M University-Commerce and Dr. Pablo Arenaz as the sole finalist for the position of president of Texas A&M International University. They Arenaz also approved the appointment of Dr. Kelly Quintanilla as interim president of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, effective Jan.1, 2017.

“This is a significant day for each of these excellent institutions,” said Cliff Thomas, chairman of the Board of Regents. “These outstanding leaders are highly qualified and each is well suited to his or her respective institution.

Dr. Keck, Dr. Arenaz, and Dr. Quintanilla give me great confidence in the future of the A&M System.”

“As we prepare for the upcoming legislative session, it is vital that each of our institution has solid, steady leadership,” said Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp. “These individuals have exactly what it takes to successfully guide our institutions through the legTAMIU continues on A10

The main architect of the state’s record-setting border security bill said on Tuesday he’s concerned lawmakers will find it hard to keep funding the effort when they reconvene in Austin next year.

In 2015, the Texas

Legislature approved $800 million for border security efforts largely in response to an influx of Central Americans breaching the TexasMexico border. The main component was House Bill 11 by state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, which funded 250 more state Department of Public Safety troopers on

the border and flooded the area with cameras and other detection equipment. The measure was meant to stop the agency from rotating officers from the rest of the state in and out of the border area for temporary stints.

During a joint Texas House and Senate Committee hearing at the

Capitol Tuesday, Bonnen raised doubts that lawmakers will have the appetite to again approve hundreds of millions dollars for border security as the budget tightens ahead of the next session.

Because of the drop in oil prices, budget writers will have less to work with than they originally hoped — though how

much less is still unknown.

“We’re heading into a budget where we don’t have billions of dollars in surplus,” he said. “I can’t speak for the entire legislature, but $800 million was a record. And it’s $800 million more than any other state in the entire nation has ever Funding continues on A10

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

FILM TELLS STORY OF SHOOTING Mass shooting took place 50 years ago

By Will Weissert ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Anonymous / AP file

In this Aug. 1, 1966, file photo, one of the victims of Charles Whitman, the sniper who gunned down victims from a perch in the University of Texas tower, is carried across the campus to a waiting ambulance in Austin.

AUSTIN, Texas — Neal Spelce was scrounging for news to fill his Austin station’s noon radio broadcast when he heard this announcement on the police scanner: “We have a report of a shot being fired at the University of Texas.”

That message, on Aug. 1, 1966, didn’t even begin to capture the magnitude of the tragedy about to rock the sleepy college town.

Charles Whitman, an architectural engineering major and U.S. Marine sniper, had climbed the

campus clock tower and launched a killing spree now considered the first “mass shooting” in modern American history.

A new documentary film, “Tower,” captures the sense of confusion and carnage that permeates many major acts of violence. But it also illustrates how unprecedented such events were back then — a stark contrast to more recent massacres that have become almost chillingly common.

Director Keith Maitland tells the story using animation spliced with news photographs and Film continues on A10

Zin brief A2 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

CALENDAR

AROUND THE WORLD

TODAY IN HISTORY

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19

ASSOCIATED PRE SS

1

Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 SRX Chess Club. Every Wednesday, 4–5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Learn the basics of chess and compete with friends.

Limited chess sets available for use.

1 Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America. 7 p.m. TAMIU Student Center Ballroom, 5201 University Blvd.

International Bank of Commerce Keynote Speaker Series presentation featuring Tamara Draut, author and vice president of policy and research, Demos, New York, N.Y. The event is free and open to the public.

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 19, the 293rd day of 2016. There are 73 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History: On Oct. 19, 1216, John, King of England, died, more than a year after affixing his royal seal to Magna Carta (”The Great Charter”).

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20 1

Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 Wii U Gaming. Every Thursday, 4–5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Game with friends on Wii U.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21 1

UISD’s annual Dyslexia Awareness Parent Festival. 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Student Activity Complex, Rooms 1 & 2, 5208 Santa Claudia Lane. The event is free and open to all United ISD parents interested in knowing more about dyslexia.

1 DUPLO Fun Time. Every Friday, 10:30–11:30 a.m. McKendrick Ochoa Salinas Branch Library, 1920 Palo Blanco Street. LEGOs for toddlers.

1 Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 Last day to RSVP for “Approaching the Healing Symbols in Art and Dreams.” 6:30–8:30 p.m., Oct. 28.

Falcon International Bank, Community Room, 3rd Floor, 7718 McPherson Road. $15. Presented by Volunteer Services Council for Border Region Behavioral Health Center. Anna Guerra, a depth psychotherapist in Houston, will give the presentation. To RSVP, contact Laura Kim at blaurak@borderregion.org or 794-3130.

Olamikan Gbemiga / AP

Family members of the Nigerian Chibok kidnapped girls depart to meet the Nigerian minister of women affairs in Abuja, Nigeria, Tuesday.

100-PLUS GIRLS WON’T LEAVE ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s government is negotiating the release of another 83 of the Chibok schoolgirls taken in a mass abduction two-and-a-half years ago, but more than 100 others appear unwilling to leave their Boko Haram Islamic extremist captors, a community leader said Tuesday.

The unwilling girls may have been radicalized by Boko Haram or are ashamed to return home because they were forced to marry extremists and have babies, chairman Pogu Bitrus of the Chibok Development Association told The Associated

Press in a telephone interview.

Bitrus said the 21 Chibok girls freed last week in the first negotiated release between Nigeria’s government and Boko Haram should be educated abroad, because they will probably face stigma in Nigeria.

The girls and their parents were reunited Sunday and are expected to meet with Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday or Wednesday, Bitrus said.

Buhari flew to Germany on an official visit the day of the girls’ release.

— Compiled from AP reports

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22 1

Pumpkin Patch. 7 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 United ISD’s annual Parent Lerning Summit. 7:30 a.m.–2 p.m.

United High School, 2811 United Ave. Free and open to all UISD parents.

The event will offer a wide range of informative sessions that will help parents with their children at home and in the classroom.

1 Glow in Pink Power Walk. 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. TAMIU Quad Area.

Register online at www.relayforlife.org/pinkwalkwebbtx

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23 1

Pumpkin Patch. Noon–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave.

Ecuador: We have restricted Assange’s internet QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador’s government acknowledged on Tuesday that it cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published a trove of damaging emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The foreign ministry said that while it stands by its 2012

decision to grant Assange asylum based on legitimate concerns he faces political persecution, it respects other nations’ sovereignty and doesn’t interfere or support any candidate in foreign elections.

“The decision to make this information public is the exclusive responsibility of the WikiLeaks organization,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. The recognition of the action comes less than 24 hours after WikiLeaks tweeted that Ecuador had cut off Assange’s access to the internet on Satur-

day after the publication of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In follow-up messages posted Tuesday, the group claimed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Citing “multiple US sources,” WikiLeaks said the request was made on the sidelines of a visit

by Kerry and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa last month.

— Compiled from AP reports

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24 1

Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 Chess Club. 4–6 p.m. Every Monday. Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete in this cherished strategy game played internationally.

Free. For all ages and skill levels.

Instruction is offered.

1 Movie and Popcorn. Every Monday, 4–5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Enjoy a family movie and refreshments.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25 1

Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 Rock wall climbing. 4–5:30 p.m.

LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.

1 LEGO Workshop. Every Tuesday, 4–5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Create with LEGOs, DUPLOs and robotics.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26

AROUND THE NATION Hawaii mayor used county card for Heineken, Crown Royal HONOLULU — The mayor of Hawaii County charged Heineken beer and Crown Royal whiskey to his government credit card at a drug store and passed off the purchases as official business, a state prosecutor said Tuesday.

The expense is one of 15 credit card transactions prosecutors are using as evidence in the felony theft trial of Mayor Billy Kenoi in Hilo.

Michelle Puu of the state attorney general’s office told jurors during opening statements that Kenoi didn’t provide the county with receipts for any of the purchases.

He reimbursed the county for some of the expenses but only months later after someone from the media filed a request seeking copies of the

1

Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 SRX Chess Club. Every Wednesday, 4–5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Learn the basics of chess and compete with friends.

Limited chess sets available for use.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27 1

Pumpkin Patch. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. First United Methodist Church lawn, 1220 McClelland Ave. 1 Business Growth Strategies Workshop. 11 a.m.–3 p.m. LCC’s De la Garza building, room 106 at the Fort McIntosh Campus. Open to the public. $80. This workshop will help participants understand and apply growth strategies for their own businesses.

Lunch provided. Register at www.laredo.edu.

Seth Wenig / AP file

In this June 5 photo, Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi, left, attends ceremonies to welcome a Hawaiian voyaging canoe.

mayor’s county card purchasing reports, she said.

“When you reimburse funds after you’ve been caught making illegitimate purchases, that’s not an innocent mistake.

That’s theft,” Puu said during her opening statement at the trial streamed live on Hawaii television station websites.

Puu also detailed a $600

charge by Kenoi to his county credit card in Washington, D.C. Kenoi didn’t provide a receipt and told his finance staff he took congressional staffers out to dinner, she said.

Puu said there didn’t appear to be any food on a receipt obtained by her investigators, just alcohol.

— Compiled from AP reports

AROUND TEXAS Warm water in Gulf blamed for bleached coral at sanctuary GALVESTON — Experts blame lingering warm water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico for significant bleaching of coral in a marine sanctuary 100 miles off the Texas coast.

Researchers this month determined that nearly half of the coral colonies in the East Flower Garden Bank were bleached

On this date: In 1765, the Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, adopted a declaration of rights and liberties which the British Parliament ignored.

In 1781, British troops under Gen. Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, as the American Revolution neared its end.

In 1789, John Jay was sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.

In 1864, Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early’s soldiers attacked Union forces at Cedar Creek, Virginia; the Union troops were able to rally and defeat the Confederates.

In 1914, the U.S. Post Office began delivering mail with governmentowned cars, as opposed to using contracted vehicles. The First Battle of Ypres (EE’-pruh) began during World War I. In 1936, H.R. Ekins of the New York World-Telegram beat out Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal and Leo Kieran of The New York Times in a round-the-world race on commercial flights that lasted 18 1/2 days.

In 1944, the U.S. Navy began accepting black women into WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). The play “I Remember Mama” by John Van Druten opened at the Music Box Theater on Broadway.

In 1951, President Harry S. Truman signed an act formally ending the state of war with Germany.

In 1960, the United States began a limited embargo against Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.

In 1977, the supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York City.

In 1987, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value, to close at 1,738.74.

In 1994, 22 people were killed as a terrorist bomb shattered a bus in the heart of Tel Aviv’s shopping district.

Entertainer Martha Raye died in Los Angeles at age 78.

Ten years ago: Gunmen ambushed a car carrying Afghan civilians working for a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, killing eight of them execution-style.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 12,000 for the first time, ending at 12,011.73. The St. Louis Cardinals won the NL pennant, beating the New York Mets 3-1 in Game 7 of their championship series.

Five years ago: Authorities in the Zanesville, Ohio, area started wrapping up their hunt for wild animals unleashed by a private farm owner who’d taken his own life; sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a total of 48 animals.

One year ago: Canadians voted for a sharp change in their government as the Liberals led by Justin Trudeau, the son of a former prime minister, won a landslide victory to end Conservative Stephen Harper’s near decade in office. Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teenager arrested after a homemade clock he’d brought to school was mistaken for a bomb, capped a whirlwind month with a visit to the White House, where he met with President Barack Obama for “Astronomy Night.”

The Toronto Blue Jays roughed up Johnny Cueto for an 11-8 victory over the Royals that cut Kansas City’s AL Championship series lead to 2-1.

Today’s Birthdays: Author John le Carre is 85. Artist Peter Max is 79.

Author and critic Renata Adler is 79.

Actor Michael Gambon is 76. Actor John Lithgow is 71. Feminist activist Patricia Ireland is 71. Singer Jeannie C. Riley is 71. Rock singer-musician Patrick Simmons (The Doobie Brothers) is 68. Talk show host Charlie Chase is 64. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is 58. Boxer Evander Holyfield is 54.

Host Ty Pennington (TV: “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”) is 52. Actor Jon Favreau is 50. Amy Carter is 49.

“South Park” co-creator Trey Parker is 47. Comedian Chris Kattan is 46. Rock singer Pras Michel (The Fugees) is 44.

Actor Omar Gooding is 40. Country singer Cyndi Thomson is 40. Writerdirector Jason Reitman is 39. Actor Benjamin Salisbury is 36. Actress Gillian Jacobs is 34. Rock singer Zac Barnett (American Authors) is 30.

Singer/actress Ciara Renee (TV: “Legends of Tomorrow”) is 26. Actress Hunter King is 23.

Thought for Today: “To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something.” — Walker Percy, American author (1916-1990).

CONTACT US or paling, according to the Galveston County Daily News.

This year’s bleaching problem is considered the worst in the marine sanctuary’s history, with the next highest from 2005, when about 45 percent of the corals paled during a similar incident.

Flower Garden Banks Superintendent G.P. Schmahl said the bleaching is caused by the coral’s expulsion of the algae that gives it pigmentation.

Experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-

ministration, who attribute the bleaching to climate change, said sea surface temperatures were recorded at more than 86 degrees for 85 days over four months. The water temperatures should be between 68 and 84 degrees for coral to grow comfortably, according the Flower Garden Banks’ website.

Schmahl said the algae should return when water temperatures cool in the winter.

— Compiled from AP reports

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The Zapata Times

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 |

A3

LOCAL & STATE

Xtreme Bugs exhibit draws Border Region attention at South Texas museum expands office

By May Ortega THE MONITOR S P ECIAL T O T HE T I ME S

Border Region Behavioral Health Center is opening an addition to their Zapata office.

The nonprofit will be hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony and a tour of the new addition, located at 101 South U.S. Highway 83, on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 10 a.m.

Border Region Behavioral Health Center is a nonprofit organization that provides quality

services to children and adults who are diagnosed with mental illness or an emotional or behavioral impairment within four counties to include Zapata, Webb, Jim Hogg and Starr counties.

“We welcome all community partners, respective agencies, and the general public to visit the facilities along with viewing and touring the new addition to the building,” a news release states.

Healthy cooking event slated S P ECIAL T O T HE T I ME S

The Texas A&M Agrilife Extension invites Zapata residents to a healthy cooking school night.

The event takes place Thursday from 6-8 p.m. at First Assembly of God, 6103 McPherson Road in Laredo. Doors open at 5 p.m. for health screenings.

“Are you looking for ways to prepare easy, nutritious and economical meals for your family?

Join us for a fun, engaging and educational culinary event of the year!” a news

release states.

Chef Bobby Gonzalez, who owns El Capataz and Tabernilla, will do a cooking demonstration with celebrity sous chefs Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina and City of Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz.

It costs $15 to attend this event, $20 for late registration. Register online at agriliferegister.tamiu.edu/DinnerTonight.

The first 300 people to register will receive free gift bags, food samples, health screenings, door prizes and more.

McALLEN — There is a 6,000-square-foot bug infestation inside the International Museum of Arts and Science. Hundreds of people are flocking to have a look.

The Monitor reports some of those invaders are more than 1,000 times larger than usual, including crawling tarantulas, biting ants and fluttering butterflies. But each and every one is more than welcome at the museum as a part of its newest exhibition: Xtreme Bugs.

There are 22 animatronic insects in the museum’s largest-ever exhibit as well as about 100 smaller, static ones. Their movements and real-life sounds are triggered by passing guests, bringing the area to life. Each giant bug also has its own informational plaque to educate visitors about what they are seeing and hearing.

Julie Johnson, president of IMAS, had the idea to bring the half-a-milliondollar exhibit to the Rio Grande Valley after meeting with one of her friends who is involved with the project.

“She started telling me about it and I thought, ‘What a wonderful thing to do,’ because (for one), we’re the butterfly migra-

Nathan Lambrecht / AP

Rylee Cantu, 8, looks into garden filled with oversized bugs at the Xtreme Bugs exhibit, Oct. 15.

tion center. All the butterflies migrate down this way through the Rio Grande. What a great way to incorporate what they already see,” she said.

“And almost every single one of those bugs lives down here, so why not let people get a better understanding of why the bugs are here, what they do for us, how they help us?”

Since its premiere Sunday, Oct. 9, attendance at the museum has doubled, she said. There were about 215 guests who went to see the larger than life bugs its opening day.

This is a Texas debut for Xtreme Bugs, which will remain at IMAS through March 21, 2017.

Before then, it was mostly shown around Canada and the northern United States. Because of its ori-

gins, the exhibits textual information was in English and French. To accommodate the local population, Johnson said the museum translated the information into Spanish so guests could learn in either language.

Manuel Ibarra, who was visiting from Reynosa, Mexico, on Sunday afternoon with his wife, two sons and newborn daughter, appreciated the translation.

“We sort of understand English and (the kids) are in the process of learning, but this is very nice,” he said in Spanish. “It opens the exhibit up to a wider audience.”

His sons, 4 and 2 years old, were working together to piece together a puzzle found between giant bug stations. That is one of five interactive

features included with the experience, one of many things Ibarra enjoyed.

“We like the way this is set up, how the bugs work and the information that’s provided,” he said. “The size of the bugs is very cool. We also like that there are many ways for the kids to interact with the exhibit to a certain degree. That is all good.”

Further down the exhibit’s path were two more little boys, brushing sand off of fossilized prehistoric insects inside a sand box. Their mother, Leslie Chavez, said they were enticed just by the sound of the opportunity.

“With boys particularly, they’re into gross things,” the McAllen resident said.

“We mentioned insects and they were excited.”

While she is not a fan of bugs herself, there were certain aspects of Xtreme Bugs that she liked.

“When you learn about them and how nature is so perfect and crazy, I was a shocked by so much,” she said. “There are bugs that I didn’t know about. I read the facts; it is intriguing and there is so much we can learn.”

Education was one factor of Johnson’s decision to bring the exhibit to the Rio Grande Valley.

She said it features all five categories of STEAM: Science, technology, engineering, art and math in various ways.

USDA issues safety net payments to Texas farmers S P ECIAL T O T HE T I ME S

USDA Texas Farm Service Agency Executive Director Judith A. Canales announced Tuesday that approximately $354 million will be paid to Texas farms that enrolled in safety-net programs established by the 2014 Farm Bill will receive financial assistance for the 2015 crop year. The

programs, known as Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage, are designed to protect against unexpected drops in crop prices or revenues due to market downturns.

“These safety-net programs provide help when price and revenues fall below normal, unlike the previous direct payments program that provided

funds even in good years,” said Canales. “These payments will help provide reassurance to Texas farm families, who are standing strong against low commodity prices compounded by unfavorable growing conditions.”

According to Canales, Texas producers of barley, canola, oats, peanuts, dry peas, sorghum, soybeans

and wheat in 180 counties have experienced a drop in price and/or revenues below the benchmark price established by the ARC or PLC programs and will receive payments. In the upcoming months, payments will be announced after marketing year average prices are published by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service

(NASS) for the remaining covered commodities.

These include long and medium/short grain rice which will be announced in November and remaining oilseeds and chickpeas, which will be announced in December.

Upland cotton is no longer a covered commodity.

“It’s important to remember that ARC and

PLC payments by county can vary because average county yields will differ,” said Canales.

More details on the price and yield information used to calculate the financing assistance from the safety-net programs is available on the FSA website at www.fsa.usda.gov/ arc-plc and www.fsa.usda.gov/tx.

Zopinion A4 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

COLUMN

OTHER VIEWS

What we need to see next Kathy Fletcher and David Simpson have a son named Santi, who went to Washington, D.C., public schools. Santi had a friend who sometimes went to school hungry. So Santi invited him to occasionally eat and sleep at his house.

That friend had a friend and that friend had a friend, and now when you go to dinner at Kathy and David’s house on Thursday night there might be 15 to 20 teenagers crammed around the table, and later there will be groups of them crashing in the basement or in the few small bedrooms upstairs.

The kids who show up at Kathy and David’s have endured the ordeals of modern poverty: homelessness, hunger, abuse, sexual assault. Almost all have seen death firsthand — to a sibling, friend or parent.

It’s anomalous for them to have a bed at home.

One 21-year-old woman came to dinner last week and said this was the first time she’d been around a family table since she was 11.

And yet by some miracle, hostile soil has produced charismatic flowers. Thursday dinner is the big social occasion of the week. Kids come from around the city. Spicy chicken and black rice are served. Cellphones are banned (“Be in the now,” Kathy says).

The kids call Kathy and David “Momma” and “Dad,” are unfailingly polite, clear the dishes, turn toward one another’s love like plants toward the sun and burst with big glowing personalities.

Birthdays and graduations are celebrated.

Songs are performed.

I started going to dinner there about two years ago, hungry for something beyond food. Each meal we go around the table, and everybody has to say something nobody else knows about them.

Each meal we demonstrate our commitment to care for one another. I took my daughter once and on the way out she said, “That’s the warmest place I can ever imagine.”

During this election season of viciousness, vulgarity and depravity, Thursdays at Kathy and David’s has been a weekly uplift, and their home a place to be reminded of what is beautiful about our country and what we can do to bring out its loveliness.

The kids need what all adolescents need: bikes, laptops and a listening heart. “Thank you for seeing the light in me,” one young woman told Kathy after a cry on the couch. David and Kathy have set up a charitable organization called AOK, for All Our Kids, to help each of the kids come into

“

DAVID BROOKS

his or her own fullness.

Four started college this year, and one joined City Year, the national service organization.

Poverty up close is so much more intricate and unpredictable than the picture of poverty you get from the grand national debates. The kids can project total self-confidence one minute and then slide into utter lostness the next.

The college application process often seems like a shapeless fog to them; nobody’s taught them the concrete steps to move along the way. One young woman lied on her financial aid forms because she didn’t want to admit that her father was dead, her mother was on drugs — how messed up her home life actually was.

There’s no margin for error for these kids, and she would have lost her college dreams if not for a squad of adults ready to mobilize around her.

The adults in this community give the kids the chance to present their gifts. At my first dinner, Edd read a poem from his cracked flip phone that I first thought was from Langston Hughes, but it turned out to be his own.

Kesari has a voice that somehow emerged from New Orleans jazz from the 1920s. Madeline and Thalya practice friendship as if it were the highest art form. Jamel loses self-consciousness when he talks of engine repair.

They give us a gift — complete intolerance of social distance. When I first met Edd, I held out my hand to shake his. He looked at it and said, “We hug here,” and we’ve been hugging and hanging off each other since.

Bill Milliken, a veteran youth activist, is often asked which programs turn around kids’ lives. “I still haven’t seen one program change one kid’s life,” he says. “What changes people is relationships. Somebody willing to walk through the shadow of the valley of adolescence with them.”

Souls are not saved in bundles. Love is the necessary force.

The problems facing this country are deeper than the labor participation rate and ISIS. It’s a crisis of solidarity, a crisis of segmentation, spiritual degradation and intimacy.

Throughout this ugly year, AOK has been my visit to a better future, more powerful than any political tract about what we need next.

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times.

OP-ED

Help fight breast cancer through a smarter diet

By Linda deGraffenried THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Every October, the influx of pink shows up everywhere — from ribbons to clothing to pen ink — as the designated color for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This extra attention helps save lives as people focus on prevention strategies such as regular mammograms and genetic testing.

But although these measures are critical, incidences of breast cancer remain high. About 12 percent of American women will cope annually with a breast cancer diagnosis, according to the National Cancer Institute.

One prevention and survival strategy needs more attention: diet.

Doctors, as well as those they diagnose with breast cancer, must focus more on what patients eat because making simple changes in diet can significantly improve one’s odds against developing breast cancer.

Right now, Americans’ dependence on processed foods and convenient, budget-friendly fast foods contributes to cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

Because the Western diet is high in omega-6 fatty acids like corn and soybean oil — as well as simple sugars — many people experience lowgrade inflammation linked to obesity. This increases the risk of breast cancer, especially in women past the age of menopause.

Inflammation interferes with cancer treatment. Numerous studies have shown that obesity, coupled with a Western diet, induce changes in the body that make surviving breast cancer

Right now, Americans’ dependence on processed foods and convenient, budget-friendly fast foods contributes to cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Because the Western diet is high in omega-6 fatty acids like corn and soybean oil — as well as simple sugars — many people experience low-grade inflammation linked to obesity. This increases the risk of breast cancer, especially in women past the age of menopause. Inflammation interferes with cancer treatment.

Numerous studies have shown that obesity, coupled with a Western diet, induce changes in the body that make surviving breast cancer more difficult.

more difficult.

The immune system can’t respond as it usually would, so many cancer therapies, including hormone and radiation therapy, have a harder time working effectively. This gives cancer more of a chance to progress, spreading throughout the body.

The good news is that researchers now know more about how certain foods affect the body, including how they can improve survival chances after a devastating cancer diagnosis.

We have known for years that food is medicine. In fact, many of our current pharmaceutical drugs have a natural compound — a plant part that could otherwise be food — as a key component. Clinicians and researchers are using what’s known about food to improve patients’ responses to therapy.

For example, several recent studies have found a link between decreasing chronic low-

grade inflammation in the body and helping patients improve their odds against developing cancer. This is why making simple changes to the diet can have a major impact on breast cancer development and survival.

Although the body needs food with omega-6 fatty acids for brain function, bone health and normal metabolism, many Americans get almost four times as much omega-6 fat as people need to be healthy. Compounding the problem, most people don’t ingest enough antiinflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.

These factors contribute greatly to inflammation that leads to cancer and other health problems. Not only does decreasing the amount of omega-6 fat and increasing the amount of omega-3 fat in the diet improve chances of surviving breast cancer, it also improves heart health and decreases complica-

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DOONESBURY | GARRY TRUDEAU

tions associated with immune disorders like arthritis and Type 2 diabetes.

Patients can also take action, without forgoing taste and convenience, by paying attention to how they cook and eat. Instead of cooking with vegetable oils such as corn oil, they should opt for olive oil. Instead of grabbing the can of tuna packed in oil for a sandwich, select tuna packed in water.

At restaurants and at home, people should be more mindful of dressings — margarine, mayonnaise and spreads — as these often contain many omega-6 fatty acids and are derived from soybeans or corn. Instead, seek out alternatives made with olive or macadamia oil.

People must challenge themselves to add more cancer-fighting foods to their diet. Ask questions such as: Can I eat two more servings of fish each week instead of beef ? Can I make a practice of finding foods enriched with DHA and EPA (the two most common forms of omega-3 fatty acids), or buy freerange or pasture-fed meats (omega-3s are higher when livestock eats grass instead of grain)? These tactics support a healthier, antiinflammatory diet.

Doctors and patients alike can do a better job of talking frankly about how certain foods can function as medicine.

When that happens, more people will be taking advantage of a powerful strategy that helps the fight against cancer become easier to win.

Linda deGraffenried, Ph.D., is an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 |

A5

NATIONAL

FBI: Total number of officers killed on duty drops A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

WASHINGTON — The number of law enforcement officers killed as a result of criminal acts decreased in 2015 from the year before, dropping from 51 to 41, the FBI said Tuesday.

The report covers officers who were killed during ambushes, traffic pursuits, tactical situations, domestic disturbance calls and while handling prisoners and individuals with mental illness, among other situations.

More than half of the

More than half of the officers killed were on vehicle patrol when they died. Most who died — 38 — were killed with firearms.

officers killed were on vehicle patrol when they died. Most who died — 38 — were killed with firearms.

In addition, more than 50,000 officers were assaulted last year while performing their duties, the FBI said. And the report says 45 law enforcement officers died accidentally in the line of duty, many during automobile and motorcycle accidents.

The report includes the cases of a Philadelphia police officer who was killed during a robbery attempt; a New York City police officer fatally shot while investigating a suspicious person; and an Omaha, Nebraska, officer who was slain while pursuing a fugitive just as she was about to go on maternity leave.

It’s too early to know what the 2016 tally will be, but there have already been a series of highprofile police deaths this year, including the five officers in Dallas who were slain by a sniper over the summer and three law enforcement officers who were killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

‘Stop whining,’ Obama tells Trump, chiding for fraud talk

By Kevin Freking and Kathleen Hennessey ASSOCIATED PRE SS

WASHINGTON — “Stop whining,” President Barack Obama rebuked Donald Trump on Tuesday, speaking out as seldom before on next month’s election and chiding the Republican for sowing suspicion about the integrity of America’s presidential vote.

Obama also accused Trump of cozying up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to a degree “unprecedented in American politics.”

The president said Trump’s intensifying pre-emptive warnings about voter fraud are unheard of in modern politics. The rhetoric is not based on any evidence, Obama said, but is simply aimed at discrediting the outcome before the first votes are counted.

“You start whining before the game is even over?” Obama said at a Rose Garden news conference. “If whenever things are going badly for you and you lose you start blaming somebody else — then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job.”

Campaigning in Colorado, the GOP candidate repeated his assertions about “corrupt” elections but did not respond directly to the president.

Trump vowed to “drain the swamp” in Washington, and for the first time promised to push for a constitutional amendment

to impose term limits on all members of Congress.

The president’s remarks came as Trump and his Republican allies look for ways to regain momentum after a damaging few weeks in the campaign. Heading into the third and final debate Wednesday night, Trump is trailing in the polls and running out of time for a comeback before Nov. 8.

Obama waded into the race to elect a successor, speaking at the White House where he was hosting his final state visit. Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at his side, the president initially said he would pull his punches when it came to politics, respecting the official setting. But when he was asked about Trump’s rhetoric, he hardly held back.

“I would invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes,” he said.

The GOP candidate has ramped up warnings about potential fraud.

That’s drawing criticism not only from Democrats but from his own party, particularly the state and county officials who run local elections, who fear the rhetoric will give losers license to dispute any results.

“They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booth, where so many cities are corrupt and you see that and voter fraud is all too common,” Trump said at a rally in Colorado Springs.

Susan Walsh / AP

President Barack Obama points back toward the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, after being asked a question about Donald Trump.

Independent studies and election officials in both parties say they see no evidence that voter fraud — individuals impersonating others to cast ballots — is a widespread problem.

Asked about Trump’s claims on Tuesday, running mate Mike Pence dodged and suggested Trump’s point actually was about the “overwhelming bias in the national media.”

Pence spoke after touring the burned-out offices of the Republican Party in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The GOP office was firebombed over the weekend in what Pence called an “act of political terrorism.” Trump pointed at Clinton supporters, but Pence did not assign blame. Police are investigating.

Clinton held no public events Tuesday while she prepared for the debate.

She has her own troubles and is certain to be asked about the latest revelations involving her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

New FBI documents released Monday revived questions about whether she received classified information and whether State Department allies sought to protect her from criticism over the email

arrangement.

The FBI notes show a State Department official asked the FBI to lower the classification of a sensitive email found on her server.

The email was related to the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The documents revealed discussion of a “quid pro quo” in trying to get the email reclassified, though it’s not clear who first raised the issue.

Both State and FBI officials deny any bargaining took place, and the email was not declassified.

Trump called it an “elaborate and deliberate cover-up” and called for the State Department official, Undersecretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, to be fired.

The Republican is hoping to turn the conversation away from the allegations of sexual misconduct that partly dominated his last debate against Clinton.

In an interview with Fox News aired Tuesday, Melania Trump vouched for her husband and blamed the accusations on political rivals: “They want to damage the presidency of my husband, and it was all planned, it was all organized from the opposition.”

Her comments carried echoes of Clinton’s allega-

tions of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” organized to raise similar allegations against her husband two decades ago. Trump notably tried to revive Bill Clinton’s history by inviting his accusers to the last debate. His guest list for Wednesday’s faceoff in Las Vegas includes Pat Smith, whose son, Sean Smith, was killed in the attack in Benghazi. Smith was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention, where she delivered an emotional speech blaming Clinton for her son’s death.

As for Russia, Obama accused Trump of showering praise and modeling his policies on Russian President Putin to a degree that is “unprecedented in American politics.”

He said he has been “surprised and troubled”

by Republican lawmakers who he said are echoing their presidential nominee’s positions. Trump has praised Putin as a strong leader and criticized Obama and Clinton for Washington’s deteriorating relationship with Moscow.

In an interview Monday, Trump said Russia “can’t stand” either Democrat. He promised a closer relationship with Putin, if elected, starting with a possible meeting before Inauguration Day.

Zfrontera A6 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

RIBEREÑA EN BREVE FERIA DEL LIBRO 1 La escuela primaria Zapata North Elementary School estará realizando su Feria del Libro del 17 al 21 de octubre, en la biblioteca de ZNES de 8 a.m. a 3 p.m.

CENA ESTA NOCHE 1 La Escuela de Cocina Saludable de Texas A&M Agrilife Extension, invita al evento Cena esta Noche que se celebrará el jueves 20 de octubre en la iglesia First Assembly of God, ubicada en 6103 McPherson Rd., en Laredo. Habrá demostraciones culinarias presentadas por Chef Bobby González de los restaurantes Tabernillas y El Capataz. Las puertas se abrirán desde las 5 p.m. para realizar pruebas de salud.

Regístrese en línea en agriliferegistrer.tamu.edu/DinnerTonight

SISTEMA TEXAS A&M

Nombran finalistas E SPECIAL PARA TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

COLLEGE STATION— La Junta de Regentes del Sistema Universitario Texas A&M nombraron el martes al Dr. Pablo Arenaz como el único finalista para el puesto de Presidente de Texas A&M International University.

El ex-Presidente de TAMIU, Dr. Ray M. Keck también fue nombrado como el único finalista para el puesto de Presidente del Texas A&M University-Commerce.

También fue aprobado el

BORDER REGION 1 El Centro de Salud Border Region Behavioral Health Center realizará una ceremonia de corte de listón y un recorrido las nuevas adiciones a sus oficinas localizadas en 101 de US 83 el miércoles 26 de octubre a las 10 a.m.

FIESTA FAMILIAR DE HALLOWEEN 1 La Patrulla Fronteriza y el Departamento de Parques y Vida Silvestre invitan a la fiesta familiar del terror el viernes 29 de octubre en el Parque Municipal de Roma de 5 a 9 p.m.

Habrá concursos de disfraces, juegos, comida y mucho más.

FESTIVAL DE OTOÑO 1 La comunidad de Zapata invitan al 1er Festival de Otoño que se realizará el lunes 31 de octubre, desde las 5 p.m., en los terrenos de la feria del Condado de Zapata.

John Sharp. “Estos individuos tienen exactamente lo que se necesita para guíar exitosamente a nuestras instituciones por el proceso legislativo.”

Arenaz asumió el puesto de Presidente Interino de TAMIU después de la salida de Keck en junio.

Previamente se desempeño como rector de TAMIU y vicepresidente de Asuntos Académicos. En el 2008, antes de ser parte de TAMIU, Arenaz fue vicerector de los estudios de posgrado y decano de la escuela de posgrado de la Universidad de Texas en

adecuado para su respectiva institución.

Dr. Keck, Dr. Arenaz, y la Dra. Keck Quintanilla me dan una gran confianza en el futuro del Sistema A&M.” “Mientras nos preparamos para la próxima sesión legislativa, es importante que cada una de nuestras instituciones cuente con liderazgo sólido y estable,” dijo el Canciller del Sistema Universitario Texas A&M

El Paso. Originalmente de Nevada, posee un doctorado en Genética y Biología Celular por la Universidad de Washington State, así como una maestría en Biología y una licenciatura en Educación por la Universidad de Nevada-Reno.

Bajo la ley estatal, el consejo de la Universidad debe nombrar a los finalistas para el puesto de Presidente al menos 21 días antes de hacer un nombramiento oficial. La Junta de Regentes se reunirán otra vez para realizar el nombramiento oficial de Arenaz y Keck.

NINFA URIBE RAMÍREZ CUMPLE 101 AÑOS

CHRISTMAS LAREDO FOR ALL

RECONOCEN A EDUCADORA

Participarán en concurso de talentos

CURSOS DE LENGUAJE DE SIGNOS (ASL) 1 El Departamento de Educación Especial local está ofreciendo clases de Lenguaje Americano de Signos para el personal profesional y paraprofesional así como para padres, estudiantes o administradores del distrito Zapata County Independent School District, todos los jueves desde el 20 de octubre al 15 de diciembre (ocho semanas de duración).

En el horario de 4:15 p.m. a 5:15 p.m. en el laboratorio de computadoras de la escuela primaria Zapata North Elementary School.

EXHIBICIÓN DE ÁRBOLES FAMILIARES 1 El Museo de Historia del Condado de Zapata y la Sociedad de Genealogía Nuevo Santander invitan a la exhibición de árboles familiares y cocina en sartenes de hierro fundido el viernes 21 de octubre y sábado 22 de 10 a.m. a 2 p.m. El evento se llevará a cabo en el Museo de Historia del Condado de Zapata.

nombramiento de la Dr. Kelly Quintanilla como Presidenta Interina de Texas A&M Arenaz UniversityCorpus Christi, con efecto el día 1 de enero del 2017.

“Hoy es un día importante para cada una de estas excelentes instituciones”, dijo Cliff Thomas, Presidente de La Junta de Regentes.

“Estos líderes extraordinarios están altamente calificados y cada uno es

itación, participará bailando en el evento”, señaló. “Invitamos a niños con necesidades especiales y al público en general para que participen con nosotros”.

“Yes, We Got Talent” se realizará el miércoles a las 6 p.m. y todos los participantes recibirán un reconocimiento Agregó que estos artistas tendrán la oportunidad de presentar nuevamente sus números musicales y artísticos y de brindar momentos de alegría a una audiencia compuesta de adultos mayores.

“Definitivamente hemos crecido y ahora nuestros artistas se presentarán en el evento “¡Ánimo, Sheer Up!, que se realizará ante una audiencia compuesta de adultos mayores el 3 de noviembre, también en el Laredo Civic Center”, expresó.

“También en diciembre, en el Mall del Norte tendremos una presentación navideña”.

Por último, Esparza dijo que el evento final de este año será la entrega de regalos a niños que pertenecen a la iglesia San Francisco Javier el 10 de diciembre.

“Hemos pedido ayuda a la iglesia San Francisco Javier y entregaremos regalos a un grupo de cerca de 80 niños.

Haremos una gran fiesta: presentación de artistas, comida y regalos para estos pequeños. Queremos que los niños junto con sus padres tengan un momento agradable”, finalizó.

Por Malena Charur TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

/

Congressman Cuellar presents a Congressional Certificate of Recognition to his third-grade teacher from Buenos Aires Elementary (Don Jose Gallego Elementary), 101-year-old Ninfa Uribe of San Ygnacio, Texas, honoring her long career as an educator and writer on Monday. Pictured from left to right are Congressman Henry Cuellar, Ninfa Uribe Ramirez and her sons Amado Ramirez, Jr., and Victor M. Ramirez.

Celebran su labor como maestra y escritora E SPECIAL PARA TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

Un reconocimiento muy especial fue entregado a una mujer quien fuera maestra de primaria y que ha llegado a la edad de 101 años.

El Congresista Henry Cuéllar (D-Texas), presentó ayer un Certificado de Reconocimiento del Congreso a Ninfa Uribe Ramírez, quien fuera su maestra de tercer grado de primaria en la escuela Buenos Aires Elementary, (actualmente Don José

Gallego Elementary).

Uribe Ramírez nació y creció en San Ygnacio, Texas, la población más antigua que sigue en pie en el Condado de Zapata, el 4 de febrero de 1915. Ella es descendiente del fundador de esa ciudad, Jesús Treviño. Uribe Ramírez, quien actualmente vive en Laredo, fue una educadora de 1934 a 1940 en San Ygnacio, y de 1963 a 1978 en Laredo.

Ella también fue reportera para Laredo Morning Times de 1958 a 1961, donde cubría el área de San Yg-

nacio. Ella atribuye su lucidez a que cada mañana realiza crucigramas.

“La Sra. Uribe Ramírez es una de las muchas educadoras que moldearon mi vida y creyeron en mí”, dijo el congresista Cuéllar.

“Los grandes maestros pueden tener un impacto profundo en los corazones y en las mentes de la gente joven. Estoy agradecido por la educación que recibí de ella y la felicito por llegar a los 101 años de edad, al igual que por todos los logros en su vida”.

Un proyecto que surgió de una charla entre amigos cuyo fin era el auténtico deseo de ayudar, ha rendido sus frutos y ahora se han constituido como organización sin fines de lucro.

Se trata de la organización Christmas Laredo for All cuya misión es llevar sonrisas a los menores y a los ancianos a través de diferentes eventos durante la época más bella del año.

Pepe Estrada, voluntario y coordinador de eventos de la agrupación, dijo que han logrado concretar con éxito algunas de sus ideas y que como organización también buscan destacar el talento juvenil “Otro de nuestros objetivos es destacar el talento juvenil en la ciudad. El año pasado organizamos el evento “Yes, We Got Talent” y logramos reunir a cerca de 150 artistas en Plaza San Agustín”, señaló Estrada. “Este año realizaremos nuevamente nuestro concierto que demuestra el talento en la ciudad, pero ahora será en el Ballroom de Laredo Civic Center”.

Esparza dijo que niños y jóvenes desde 4 a 25 años presentarán sus dotes artísticas.

“Hemos lanzando una convocatoria que sigue abierta para que todos participen. Tenemos solistas, bailarines, grupos y un niño con Síndrome de Down que, como parte de su terapia de rehabil-

NUEVO LAREDO, MÉXICO

Invitan a evento contra cáncer de mama E SPECIAL PARA TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

Dentro del marco de la Lucha contra el Cáncer de Mama, Adriana Herrera Zárate presidenta del patronato del Sistema para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF), invita a las madres de familia a su celebración.

La Brigada Médico Asistencial “Está en tus manos”, se llevará a cabo el día de hoy en la Unidad Deportiva Solidaridad

Foto de cortesía | DIF

Adriana Herrera Zárate presidenta del DIF

ubicada en Eva Sámano y Lauro del Villar.

La esposa del alcalde de

Nuevo Laredo, México Enrique Rivas, mencionó que el evento iniciará a las 10:30 a.m., en éste habrá distintos servicios completamente gratuitos para los vecinos del sector, especialmente para las mujeres.

“Esta campaña la realizamos con el objetivo de sensibilizar a las mujeres en sus revisiones médicas periódicas y que cuiden su salud. Me siento muy contenta de poder contribuir con la ciudadanía,

tener ese acercamiento en forma directa y estar siempre atenta a lo que es la asistencia social”, comentó la primera dama.

Herrera Zárate dijo que se ofrecerán servicios en área médica como consultas de Papanicolaou, dental, presión arterial, medición de glucosa, exploración física de mama y asistencia pediátrica.

También agregó que se proporcionará asesoría jurídica, consultas psicológicas, corte de cabello,

así mismo estarán presentes los módulos de distintos centros asistenciales como lo son Unevig, Centro de Atención a la Mujer, CRI-DIF para cualquier información que los asistentes necesiten.

Los pequeños del hogar se podrán divertir en los brincolines que serán instalados en el lugar, además de poder jugar lotería y la oportunidad de ganar en la rifa de regalos que se ofrecerán a las madres de familia.

Sports&Outdoors THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 |

A7

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: DALLAS COWBOYS

Quarterback controversy in Dallas Jerry Jones says there’s no timetable to make decision

By Drew Davison FO RT WORT H STAR-T E LE GRAM

FRISCO — Owner Jerry Jones reiterated that the quarterback decision facing the Dallas Cowboys isn’t a problem.

It’s a great situation to be in with a rising star in rookie Dak Prescott and a veteran on the mend in Tony Romo.

Prescott has exceeded everyone’s expectations in leading the Cowboys to a surprising 5-1 start. Romo, meanwhile, is getting closer and closer to returning after sustaining a compression fracture in his lower back in the preseason.

But Jones didn’t have a timetable on when the Cowboys may have to make a decision on whether to stick with Prescott or insert Romo back into the starting lineup.

"I don’t have any idea, no one does as to what the situation will be a game or games down the road," Jones said on his weekly radio show on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday.

"We don’t have any idea. The main thing is we’re all looking at the same music and we all feel the same thing. The team is positive with each other. We feel like we can make mistakes and overcome them. Everybody feels good about all of what we’re doing.

"But we also feel equally good based upon the best thing you go in the past about Romo. So we don’t have to be definitive in drawing bright lines right now."

Prescott is coming off his most impressive performance in leading the Cowboys to a 30-16 victory over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at Lambeau Field. He completed 18 of 27 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns. He also had an interception, but it came after he passed Tom Brady and set a new record for most pass attempts without an interception to start a career with 176.

Romo has more experience.

He’s started 127 games and has gone 78-49 in those games.

Jones has repeatedly called it

Wesley Hitt / Getty Images

Dak Prescott, left, has led the Cowboys to a 5-1 record and ranks fifth in the NFL with a 103.9 quarterback rating, but Tony Romo, right, could reclaim his starting job when he returns from injury.

a great situation to be in and did so again.

"I don’t use the word ’problem’ in this conversation," Jones said. "This is a great situation.

To be sitting there with the team coming on the way that it is on both sides of the ball, improving like it is, then to have Romo with his ability sitting there healthy, ready to play. Then to have Dak Prescott playing at the

level he’s playing with the future standing there, motivating us. All of that is a great situation."

Jones went on to praise Romo and Prescott off the field and how well they are handling the situation.

"If you can’t get along with either one of those two men, you better look in the mirror hard," Jones said. "Both of them are

really individuals who are easy as an old shoe to be around.

They have a very down to earth touch about the way they go about things. Both of them love this game. You can hardly have any type of proximity to them without talking and completely dominating it with football.

"That’s the way it should be.

Both of them are equally hard workers."

NCAA FOOTBALL

MIDSEASON REPORT: PLEASANT SURPRISES, FLOPS, HALFWAY HEISMAN T FENSE (not named Lamar Jackson) Dede Westbrook, WR, Oklahoma Lots of good candidates here among receivers, most notably Cal’s Chad Hansen and Syracuse’s Amba Etta-Tawo. Westbrook was the Big 12’s offensive newcomer of the year last year so it’s not as if he is coming out of nowhere. His recent surge (26 catches for 574 yards), though, has him playing like an All-American and he has already surpassed last year’s numbers for receptions and yards.

he first half of the 2016 college football featured the emergence of a new star quarterback, the re-emergence of an old Pac-12 power and the end of an era at LSU. Texas is back! Nope.

Houston to the playoff! Nah. Tom Herman to LSU? Tom Herman to Texas? Tom Herman to the Chicago Bears?

This, unfortunately, has only just begun.

With seven weeks of the season in the books, we assess the best and the worst of the first half.

MOST SURPRISING UNDEFEATED TEAM No. 6 Texas A&M The Aggies were unranked and appeared to be an unsettled program to start the season. Assistant coaches made offseason headlines for the wrong reasons . The fivestar quarterbacks had fled and were replaced by former inconsistent Oklahoma quarterback Trevor Knight. There is no more hot-seat talk about coach Kevin Sumlin as the Aggies head to No. 1 Alabama for a game that could decide the SEC West on Saturday.

There is still potential for things to go sideways for Sumlin and the Aggies, but so far A&M has replaced the swag with substance.

MOST DISAPPOINTING TEAM Notre Dame There are some serious candidates here. Oregon, but the Ducks were showing signs for crashing coming into 2016.

Michigan State, but the Spartans were probably due for a reset season. Notre Dame, however, is a big hot mess .

Seven games in and coach Brian Kelly has fired his defensive coordinator and created an unnecessary quarterback controversy. Even allowing the Fighting Irish some leeway for over inflated expectations, 2-5 and scrambling to get bowl eligible is unacceptable.

BEST COACHING JOBHEAD COACH Nick Saban, Alabama, and Urban Meyer, Ohio State.

We often reward the coaches who exceed expectations and do the most with the least.

BREAKOUR PLAYER-DEFENSE Joe Mathis, LB, Washington Mathis has gone from solid player to an absolute force for the fifth-ranked Huskies in his senior season. He has already topped his career total for sacks with five and nearly doubled his career tackles for loss with 7.5 this season. Oregon coaches could still be searching game tape for play in which the Ducks handled Mathis.

David J. Phillip / Associated Press

Trevor Knight has thrown for 1,500 yards and nine touchdowns and rushed for another 502 yards and nine scores while leading No. 6 Texas A&M to a 6-0 start.

That’s all well and good, but sustained excellence is really where it’s at. No. 1 Alabama won the national championship last year and is better this season with a freshman quarterback . No. 2 Ohio State lost one of the great NFL draft classes from one school of all time and the Buckeyes have not missed a beat.

BEST COACHING JOBCOORDINATOR Justin Wilcox, defensive coordinator, Wisconsin.

Could go back to Alabama for Lane Kiffin or Ohio State for Greg Schiano, but Wilcox is the pick as he re-establishes himself as one of the better defensive coordinators in the country. He took over a wellstocked group after Dave Ar-

anda left for LSU, but the 10thranked Badgers are as feisty as ever.

BEST TURNAROUND Colorado It has been a long hard road back to relevance for the Buffaloes, but Mike MacIntyre has Boulder interested in its college football team again. CU has not won more than six games since 2004 and had just two Pac-12 victories in MacIntyre’s first three seasons. Now the Buffs (5-2) are a win away from bowl eligibility and 3-1 in conference with a legit chance to take the Pac-12 South. Props also to defensive coordinator and former USF coach Jim Leavitt for the most improved part of the team.

BREAKOUT PLAYER-OF-

BEST GAME Clemson 42, Louisville 36.

Two great quarterbacks doing spectacular things. Talented players everywhere.

Huge swings in emotion and momentum. Comebacks on both sides and clutch performances . All played in one of the best venues in college football. And it came down to 1 yard. Sure it was sloppy at times, but so much fun.

WORST GAME Michigan 78, Rutgers 0 Maybe the most noncompetitive conference game in the last 25 years of college football.

WORST OFFICIATING The officials who worked the Central Michigan-Oklahoma State.

It is one thing to blow a judgment call. It is quite another to badly misinterpret a rule and have that mistake cost a team a game. Both the MAC officials on the field and Big 12 replay officials earned suspensions.

WORST FIRING Les Miles, LSU

LSU athletic director Joe Alleva wanted Miles out last season, but botched it and allowed Miles to gain a groundswell of support. So at first chance this season, after an ugly loss at Auburn dropped the Tigers to 2-2, Alleva canned Miles before the coach could go out and save himself again. It was time for a change in Baton Rouge. And if handled properly it could have been done 10 months earlier.

HOT-SEAT COACHES Cooling contracts Mark Stoops, Kentucky. Has a $12 million buyout. With assistants, firing him could cost more than $17 million .

Steve Addazio, Boston College. Received an extension in 2014 that runs through 2020.

Warm Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech; Mark Helfrich, Oregon; Gus Malzahn, Auburn Warmer Charlie Strong, Texas Toasty David Bailiff, Rice Cooked Tim DeRuyter, Fresno State HOT COACHES-GROUP OF FIVE (not named Tom Herman) Jeff Brohm, Western Kentucky P.J. Fleck, Western Michigan Scott Satterfield, Appalachian State Willie Taggart, USF HALFWAY HEISMAN 1. Lamar Jackson, QB, Louisville 2. Jake Browning, QB, Washington 3. Greg Ward Jr., QB, Houston Three more to watch Dalvin Cook, RB, Florida State J.T. Barrett, QB, Ohio State Jalen Hurts, QB, Alabama TOP FOUR NOW (doesn’t matter) 1. Alabama 2. Ohio State 3. Michigan 4. Clemson TOP FOUR ON DEC. 4 (matters) 1. Alabama 2. Ohio State 3. Clemson 4. Washington

A8 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

ENTERTAINMENT

How does it feel? Nobel judges can’t reach Bob Dylan

By Karl Ritter A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

STOCKHOLM — Five days after Bob Dylan was named the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, no one knows how he feels about the prestigious award — not even the Nobel judges.

The Swedish Academy, which bestows the annual honor, says it hasn’t been able to reach Dylan since the award was announced last Thursday.

“We haven’t established direct contact with Bob Dylan yet, but I have spoken to one of his closest associates,” the academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius, told The Associated Press in

an email on Tuesday.

The academy hopes he will accept the invitation to collect his award at the annual Nobel ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

“It would be delightful if Dylan wanted to come to Stockholm in December, but if he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to,” Danius said.

She noted that literature laureates have skipped the ceremony before. Elfriede Jelinek stayed home in 2004, citing a social phobia.

Harold Pinter and Alice Munro missed the ceremony in 2005 and 2013, respectively, due to health reasons.

Only two people have declined a Nobel Prize in

literature. Boris Pasternak did so under pressure from Soviet authorities in 1958 and Jean-Paul Sartre, who declined all official honors, turned it down in 1964.

Dylan, who is currently on tour in the U.S., hasn’t mentioned the Nobel Prize during his concerts since the announcement.

As of Tuesday, his official webpage made no mention of the prize except in the “books” section, where a post dated Oct. 17 about his lyrics collection “The Lyrics: 1961-2012” noted in all caps that he was a Nobel Prize winner.

Dylan has accepted numerous awards over the years, including the

Presidential Medal of Freedom, for which he attended a White House ceremony in 2012. But he also has a history of taking his time acknowledging them. In 2013, he became the first rock star voted into the elite American Academy of Arts and Letters, which made him an honorary member. According to executive director Virginia Dajani, the academy informed Dylan of the decision — through his manager, Jeff Rosen — in January of that year. Only in May 2013 did Dylan respond, through his manager.

“I feel extremely honored and very lucky to be included in this pantheon

William C. Eckenberg / New York Times file

Bob Dylan is photographed in New York in 1963.

of great individual artists who comprise the (American) Academy of Arts and Letters. I look forward to meeting all of you some time soon,” Dylan, who did not attend the induction ceremony, said in his message.

If he travels to Stockholm for the pomp and circumstance of the Nobel ceremony, it won’t be the first time he receives an award from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf. In 2000, Dylan collected the Polar Music Prize from him.

‘Today’ show needs a host and Billy Bush needs job

By David Bauder A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

NEW YORK — The fallout over Billy Bush’s lewd conversation with Donald Trump has left NBC’s “Today” show unexpectedly looking for help in its third hour and Bush pondering how to resurrect his career.

Bush had been brought in only two months ago from “Access Hollywood” as “Today” looked for ways to bolster its 9 a.m. hour. The first two hours, hosted by Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie, are the show’s heart and the wine-drenched fourth hour with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb has developed its own clear identity.

Tamron Hall and Al

Roker were Bush’s cohosts; He came in this summer after Willie Geist moved to Sunday “Today” and Natalie Morales moved west.

NBC wasn’t talking Tuesday about potential replacements. Harry Connick Jr., the musician who launched his own talk show this fall, filled in Monday and Tuesday.

Actors Christian Slater and Eric Dane are booked as guest hosts later this week.

There’s no word on whether any of them would be interested in a permanent job, although “Today” made a point Tuesday of giving Hall a trivia quiz on Connick’s career — a getting-toknow-you step that seemed odd for a shorttimer.

Peter Kramer / AP file

In this Sept. 26 file photo released by NBC, Billy Bush appears on the “Today” show in New York.

The third hour features lighter fare: interviews with actors Nick Offerman and Ethan Hawke on Tuesday, a segment on the hosts of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” and another offering style advice to married couples.

One of the show’s com-

petitors, “Live!” with Kelly Ripa, has been involved in a host search of its own since the departure of Michael Strahan in May. The audience for the third hour of “Today” is 68 percent female, no doubt a factor in NBC’s decision that Bush had

no future there after wide dissemination of the “Access Hollywood” tape where Trump talked about groping women and Bush then asked an actress to give both men a hug.

Bush’s exit settlement with NBC did not include a standard “no compete” clause, meaning Bush is free to seek employment elsewhere immediately.

Some experts advised against that and suggested the settlement — Bush is widely believed to have received a sum of money from NBC because his contract with “Today” was new — would give him that luxury.

“Time is certainly on his side,” said Tom Goodman, owner of the Manhattan public relations firm Goodman Media

International. “He’s young enough to make a comeback and reverse the current narrative about him, but at the right time.”

Bush, who just turned 45, might be wise to start at an off-camera job, perhaps as a producer, he said. The internet could provide future opportunities, Goodman said.

Bush, nephew of former President George H.W. Bush, has a radio background. He hosted a nationally syndicated talk and music show that ended in 2014, an apparent victim of corporate restructuring. He did local radio in New Hampshire and Washington and hosted a short-lived “Let’s Make a Deal” remake for NBC in 2003.

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 |

A9

BUSINESS

A surprisingly high number of first-timers now buying homes

By Josh Boak A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

WASHINGTON — For years, the U.S. housing market looked bleak for young couples hoping to buy their first homes but struggling with high student debt, low pay and meager down-payment savings.

But a new survey by the real estate firm Zillow suggests that first-time buyers may be entering the market in greater numbers than industry watchers had assumed.

Over the past year, the survey found, nearly half of home sales have gone to first-timers. That’s a much higher proportion than some other industry estimates had indicated. And it comes as a surprise in part because ownership rates for adults under 34 are at their lowest levels since the government began tracking the figure in 1994.

Zillow’s survey results suggest that the trend is shifting, and that some of this year’s growth in home sales has come from a wave of college-educated couples in their 30s, who are the most common first-time buyers.

They are people like Natasja Handy, a 32-yearold lawyer and new mother. She and her husband, a doctor, are about to close on their first home in the Northeast section of Washington, D.C. — a row house with about 1,900 square feet that cost $720,000.

The couple worked with brokers at Redfin and made a 5 percent down payment after having lost two bids on other homes.

“We waited a very long time to purchase our first house,” Handy said. “We’ve always felt like we were giving someone else our money, instead of putting it into something we own.”

In suburban Minneapolis, few first-time buyers have enough savings for a down payment, and many rely on gifts or loans from relatives, said Marcus Johannes, an agent with Edina Realty.

“Most of my people, they get funds from family,” he said. “They get creative tapping 401(k)s.”

If the pattern in Zillow’s survey holds, it could raise hopes that today’s vast generation of 18-to-34-yearold millennials will help support the housing market as more of them move into their 30s.

The 168-page report that Seattle-based Zillow released Tuesday also found that home ownership is increasingly the domain of

David Goldman / AP file

In this Feb. 17 file photo, town homes stand under construction along the BeltLine in Atlanta.

Brian Davies / The Register-Guard/AP

the college-educated. And it reported that older Americans who are looking to downsize are paying premiums for smaller houses.

Here’s a breakdown of Zillow’s key findings: 1 Forty-seven percent of purchases in the past year went to first-time buyers.

Their median age was 33.

By contrast, surveys from the National Association of Realtors have indicated that first-timers account for only about 32 percent of buyers.

The difference between the two surveys may stem from their methodologies.

The NAR has used a mailbased survey for its annual figures. Zillow used an online survey that might have generated a greater response rate from younger buyers.

Zillow’s findings might help explain a persistent shortage of homes for sale: Unlike move-up buyers, first-time purchasers don’t have a home to list for sale, thereby depriving the market of supply.

Adam DeSanctis, an NAR spokesman, noted that his organization’s own survey, due out later this month, will show a rising share of first-time buyers, though it will remain below the historical average of 39 percent that’s prevailed since the organization began tracking this figure in 1982.

DeSanctis noted that government figures show home ownership among young adults remain at its lowest level in history, which is why his organization is skeptical that nearly half of sales go to first-time buyers.

1 No college? Dwindling chance of homeownership It’s become harder to realize the dream of home ownership without a college degree. Sixty-two percent of buyers have at least a four-year college degree.

Census figures show that just 33 percent of the U.S. adults graduated from college. The gap between the education levels of homebuyers and the broader U.S. population indicates

that workers with only a high school degree are becoming less likely to own a home. In 1986, just 12 percent of homeowners were college graduates, according to government figures.

1 Millennial home buyers are increasingly Hispanic Out of the 74 million U.S. households that own their homes, a sizable majority — 77 percent — are white.

But these demographics are changing fast. Only 66 percent of millennial homeowners are white. The big gains have come from Latinos, who make up 17 percent of millennial homeowners but just 9 percent of all homeowners.

Asians also make up a greater share of millennials. This means that as today’s millennial generation ages, the housing market may look considerably more diverse than it does now.

1 Older Americans aren’t just downsizing; they’re also upgrading.

The so-called “silent generation” — those ages 65 to 75— bought homes in the past year with a median size of just 1,800 square feet, about 220 square feet smaller than the homes they sold. But that smaller new home still cost more.

These retirement-age buyers paid a median of $250,000, nearly $30,000 more than the home they sold. In some cases, the higher purchase price likely reflects the profits from the sale of their previous home, in other cases a desire by upscale buyers for luxury finishes and amenities.

1 Starter homes are no longer popular.

When millennials buy, they’re leapfrogging past the traditional, smaller starter home. This younger generation paid a median of $217,000 for a 1,800square-foot house. That median is nearly identical to what older generations buy.

Across the United States, the typical home costs $222,000, has three bedrooms, 21⁄2 baths and 1,900 square feet.

Del Rose holds one of the bird houses he built at his Eugene, Ore., home.

Rose, 77, makes bird houses to supplement his Social Security income.

$4 a month? Social Security recipients to get tiny increase

By Stephen Ohlemacher ASSOCIATED PRE SS

WASHINGTON — Millions of Social Security recipients and federal retirees will get a 0.3 percent increase in monthly benefits next year, the fifth year in a row that older Americans will have to settle for historically low raises. The adjustment adds up to a monthly increase of less than $4 a month for an average recipient.

The cost-of-living adjustment, announced by the government Tuesday, will affect more than 70 million people — about 1 in 5 Americans.

For recipients, the average monthly Social Security payment now is $1,238.

Unfortunately for some seniors, even the small increase will probably be wiped out by an expected increase in Medicare Part B premiums, which are usually deducted from Social Security payments.

By law, rising premiums for most Medicare recipients cannot exceed their Social Security cost-of-living increase.

That’s known as the “hold harmless” provision. However, new enrollees and high-income retirees are not covered by that provision, so they could face higher Medicare premiums, which will be announced later this year.

There was no Social Security benefit increase this year, and next year’s will be small because inflation is low, driven in part by cheaper fuel prices. The low inflation

rate should help keep some older folks’ bills from rising very rapidly.

Don’t tell that to Millicent Graves, a retired veterinary technician, who says Medicare and supplemental insurance premiums eat up nearly a third of her $929 monthly Social Security payment. The 72-yearold from Williamsburg, Virginia, says her insurance premiums went up by $46.50 this year, and her cable TV, internet and phone bill went up, too.

“I just lose and lose and lose and lose,” Graves said.

More than 60 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children get Social Security benefits. The COLA also affects benefits for about 4 million disabled veterans, 2.5 million federal retirees and their survivors, and more than 8 million people who get Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for the poor.

Many people who get SSI also receive Social Security.

Since 2008, the COLA has been above 2 percent only once, in 2011. It’s been zero three times.

“This loss of anticipated retirement income compounds every year, causing people to spend through retirement savings far more quickly than planned,” said Mary Johnson of the Senior Citizens League.

“Over the course of a 25or 30-year retirement, it reduces anticipated Social Security income by tens of thousands of dollars.”

The cost-of-living

adjustment is based on a broad measure of prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education.

If prices go up, benefits go up. If prices drop or stay flat, benefits stay the same.

Gasoline prices have fallen by more than 6 percent over the past year, according to the September inflation report, while the cost of medical care has gone up by more than 5 percent.

For seniors who don’t drive much, they don’t get the full benefit of low gas prices, said Max Gulker, a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. Many seniors spend more of their income on health care.

Graves said she appreciates lower gas prices, but the higher medical costs are a problem.

“I just have to rely more each month on cashing in investments,” Graves said. “I’m lucky I can do that.”

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has embraced the idea of expanded benefits for certain lowincome retirees. She says the nation would pay for it by raising taxes on “the highest-income Americans.”

Breaking with other Republicans, GOP nominee Donald Trump has pledged not to cut benefits. However, he has offered few specifics on how he would address Social Security’s longterm financial problems.

A10 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

FROM THE COVER TAMIU From page A1 islative process.”

Keck has served as Interim President of Texas A&M-Commerce since June 1. Prior to that appointment, Keck has served for about 15 years as the fifth president of Texas A&M International University in Laredo.

Prior to serving as TAMIU’s president, Keck served as the university’s provost and vice president for academic affairs.

He holds his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University, where he also earned his Bachelor of Arts degree.

Arenaz assumed the role of Interim President at TAMIU following Keck’s departure in June.

He had previously served as TAMIU’s provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Before joining TAMIU in 2008, Arenaz was vice provost for graduate studies and dean of the graduate school at The University of Texas at El Paso. Originally from Nevada, he holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Cell Biology from Washington State University, as

FUNDING From page A1 spent in trying to meet the federal government’s job of securing the border.”

The hearing came after the DPS announced this summer that it would ask lawmakers for at least $300 million more to sustain the operation and hire hundreds more officers.

Bonnen argued more than once that the state wouldn’t be in a dilemma if the federal government took border security seriously. But he said there was no incentive for

FILM From page A1

well as an M.S. in Biology and a B.S. in Education from the University of Nevada-Reno.

Under state law, university governing boards must name finalists for president at least 21 days before making an official appointment. The Board of Regents will meet again to make the appointments for Keck and Arenaz.

In September, Dr. Flavius Killebrew, the current president at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, announced his plan to retire at the end of 2016.

Quintanilla, the university’s current provost and vice president for academic affairs, will become the interim president following his departure.

Quintanilla previously served as the chair of the Department of Communication and Theatre, and she became the dean of the College of Liberal Arts in 2009. She was also the director of the School of Arts, Media and Communication. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in communication from Pennsylvania State University.

footage, radio clips and testimonials provided chiefly by eight survivors.

Among them is Spelce, then news director for KTBC-TV, who soon after that initial report was in a station vehicle, broadcasting on radio as he drove toward the sniper.

“It was really an unbelievable scene, unlike anything anyone had ever seen before and you didn’t have any frame of reference,” Spelce, then 30, said in a phone interview.

“It wasn’t like today.

There was no police tape marking anything off. No authority saying ‘Stand back.’ We were able to go straight onto the campus.”

The documentary has begun opening in theaters nationally, five decades after an attack in which Whitman, then 25, killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen others.

He had killed his wife and mother prior to heading to the tower, one victim died a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001.

Rather than focusing on the sniper, though, the documentary explores what it was like on the ground during his ram-

page. Men, women and a newspaper delivery boy were shot without warning, before they even knew to be afraid — and some survived. Some scrambled for any cover they could find in the nearly 100-degree heat.

Police and ordinary Texans would eventually rush to get their own guns and fire back, in vain, at Whitman from the ground.

The sniper’s face doesn’t appear in animation; only his legs are shown after he’s killed by police and a store manager who made their way to the top of the clock tower.

Whitman’s name isn’t mentioned until more than hour into the film.

“I felt like really every other newspaper article, magazine article, the one bad TV movie and other kinds of basic-cable, truecrime investigations were always about the sniper and trying to unravel his motivations,” Maitland said, panning a 1975 Kurt Russell made-for-TV offering called “The Deadly Tower.”

“We would never know the answers to those questions,” he added. “But what was answerable was what it was like to survive.”

When the shooting started, a TV station near to the clock tower rolled a

Washington to change its tune if Texas kept handling the situation.

Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw told the committee he believes federal agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol have the state and country’s best interest in mind. But he agreed that the higher ups in Washington don’t consider border security a priority.

Though he said he understood lawmakers will have less money at their disposal, he said he wouldn’t hold back when the agency makes its request for additional funds.

“We recognize in terms of transportation, infrastructure, Child Protective Services there are many needs,” he told reporters after his testimony. “But at the same point and time if asked, in terms of what the DPS needs to be able to augment or continue or sustain (the operation), we’re going to be candid.

We’re going to be candid about what the threats are and we are going to be candid about what resources are needed. And the members will decide.”

Bonnen also said he would like a more definitive answer on when the

temporary trooper rotations will stop.

“We need to not harm the effort on the border but we’ve got to quit (the rotations),” he told the Tribune after McCraw’s testimony. “The legislature last session put the dollars that we were told (DPS) needed to stop sending local troopers out of our communities across the state to the border. That needs to be done as soon as possible, I think that needs to be done by the first of the year.”

McCraw told the committee that at last count, only 112 troopers were still

camera close — some say it was onto a balcony, others remember it as by an open window. The footage, which Maitland said hadn’t been previously accessed since the 1970s, appears in the documentary and provides the much of the visceral, seemingly endless sounds of booming gunfire throughout it. Authorities would later say Whitman had 700 rounds of ammunition, though how many times he fired between around 11:48 a.m., as the attack began, and when he was killed about 90 minutes later is unknown.

Claire Wilson James had just finished an anthropology test when she and her boyfriend, Tom Eckman, began walking through campus to put a nickel in the meter where their Volkswagen was parked. The 18-year-old was eight months pregnant and describes in the film being shot and feeling her baby stop moving — then lying on the blistering pavement beside Eckman’s body.

Bystanders carried James to safety eventually, knowing they too could be shot at any instant. Another of the documentary’s stars, John “Artly” Fox, said at Austin’s South

by Southwest Film Festival in March that the

rescuers figured they had a 75 percent chance of survival since the tower’s observation deck was four-sided. While Whitman was firing from all four, he couldn’t be more than one place at once.

James spent seven weeks in intensive care.

She resumed classes the following January and said she never felt “horror or trauma” returning to campus — but eventually left school anyway.

“It seems like you’re with the love of your life and I’m going to have a baby in another month or so, and then, all of a sudden, everything’s gone,” Jones, who now lives in Texarkana, Texas, said in a phone interview. “I just felt a lot of loneliness.”

Maitland said many mass killings prior to Whitman’s had clearer motives. What occurred at the University of Texas was targeting people with no connection to the sniper.

“These random public acts are the most terrifying because there’s nothing you can do to prevent them. There’s no amount of vigilance you can have with somebody, especially a long-range sniper,” Maitland said. “That’s where the real turning point is in the story of public crime.”

rotating in and out of the border area, mainly from Dallas and the panhandle, and that 250 new troopers will be trained by the end of the year. But he also said he’s reluctant to give lawmakers a definitive date for when the rotations, which he has called inefficient several times in the past, will end. That’s partly due to how much training the agents need after leaving the academy, he said.

“Until I look at the circumstances I’d hate to give you an exact date, but we’re going to try and get out of it as soon as pos-

sible,” he told Bonnen.

“This has been a strain not only on the agency but a strain on the men and women and they’ve maintained this tempo for over two years.”

Other lawmakers expressed more patience on the budget and the rotations. State Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, said backing away from or trimming down the state’s border commitment isn’t an option.

“It doesn’t make sense, with the investment that we’ve paid so far, to retreat,” he said. “And we’re not going to retreat.”

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 |

FROM THE COVER

The existing wall Seen from above, the state and federal border security infrastructure looks like pieces of a highstakes board game. Miles of fence and wall appear as though stitched across bucolic farmland in the Valley, a fleet of boats cruise the milky green waters of the Rio Grande, state and federal patrol vehicles are strategically positioned on country roads, and planes and helicopters provide air support.

With nearly 21,400 Border Patrol agents and 23,900 field officers, making CBP the largest federal law enforcement agency, the government spends more than $11 billion for its border operations and $30 billion more on homeland security.

Adding to this impressive investment, the Lone Star state has put more than 600 troopers and Texas Rangers on the border, and installed nearly 2,700 surveillance cameras.

“You hear the helicopters flying over my neighborhood at night,” said Jim Darling, McAllen’s mayor. “It reminds me of Vietnam.”

It was a decade ago this month that President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act into law, ratcheting up efforts to police the border with an ambitious plan for 670 miles of border fence and wall.

Because a treaty with Mexico prevented contractors from building along the Rio Grande, the 56 miles of fence in the Rio Grande Valley were built into the levee system, which runs a mile north of the river in some places.

Farmland, wildlife refuges and private property were bisected, and large tracts marooned in a virtual no man's land.

Most of the 115 miles of fencing in Texas are in the Valley or far West Texas,

Stemming the flow The situation on the southern border has shifted dramatically in recent years, said David Aguilar, the former acting commissioner of CBP who served as chief of the Border Patrol when most of the fencing was built. The Border Patrols’ needs then for manpower and physical infrastructure were based on a time when agents were apprehending more than 1 million immigrants a year with no idea of how many were getting away.

“The border enforcement system that was built, the 652 miles of fencing, the doubling of the Border Patrol, adding technology, enhancing intelligence, was built for a very specific border environment. The border environment we were addressing back then was heavy narcotics and an extremely heavy flow of people coming to the country illegally,” said Aguilar, now a principal with the consulting firm Global Security and Innovative Strategies. “What comprised that flow back then was the vast, vast majority were Mexican

Difficult, pristine terrain But the heavy federal presence thins out upriver.

If the Trump wall were to be completed, it would course through rugged ranch lands to the north, toward the pristine canyons of Big Bend National Park and beyond to El Paso.

Texas has more than 1,200 miles of border, more than New Mexico, Arizona and California combined. It also has the largest stretch of frontier not covered by the existing border fence. If Trump’s promise of an extended border wall becomes a reality, it’s here that the impact will be most felt.

Northwest of Del Rio is an unusual stretch of border. In the small Vega

The border wall Hundreds of miles of border fencing already exist. With the largest stretch of unfenced border, Texas would likely be most impacted by a new border wall.

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Phoenix

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Tijuana Pacific Ocean

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Tucson

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municipal park along the river.

“It doesn’t affect me at all,” Jimenez, a 37-year-old retired Marine, said of the fence. “It is not worth the effort. It’s like a burglar. If a burglar is going to get into your house, they’re going to get into your house. There’s so many openings.”

The border has become a flash point in the presidential campaign since Donald Trump pledged last year to build a “big, beautiful” wall along the full 2,000-mile length of the southern border — and make Mexico pay for it — and to deport 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has promised to reform the nation’s immigration laws and create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Rarely reported in the debate is that much of the border already is divided by 650 miles of fencing, walls and vehicle barriers, as well as a “virtual wall” of thousands of sensors, cameras and other features such as drones and aerostats to detect illegal crossings. Almost 60 miles of border wall was built in the Rio Grande Valley, where nearly half of all Border Patrol apprehensions occur, and where hundreds of Border Patrol and state troopers patrol as if it were an occupied zone.

With an almost unbroken stretch of fencing and barriers already in place from California to El Paso, the longest remaining open border is in Texas. To report on the state’s unique position, four San Antonio Express-News reporters and photographers traveled this month along the South Texas borderlands from Del Rio to Brownsville — more than 300 miles to the southeast — talking to residents about their concerns over security, the existing border fence and comparing life on the Rio Grande with the political rhetoric.

And the rhetoric often doesn’t match the reality.

Claims that a flood of immigrants is inundating the border are long outdated. Illegal immigration hit its high point in 2000 and has plummeted since, with apprehensions at a low of 331,333 last year, compared with 1.6 million in 2000. Immigrants from Mexico account for little more than half of those caught today, while apprehensions of Central Americans have been surging.

On the border, security often doesn’t receive the same intense scrutiny it does at political rallies.

Supporters of both Trump and Clinton said they’ll be casting their votes based on issues other than securing the border. Polling of border residents has found that the economy is the No. 1 issue here.

Much like the rest of the nation, people living on the border are as interested in jobs, education and transportation infrastructure as they are in security, said Dora Alcala, the former mayor of Del Rio. “We all want the American dream. We all want a good education for our children. We all want good jobs. And we want security,” said Alcala, a Republican who says she’s supporting Hillary Clinton this election. “That is what everyone in our country can agree with. It kind of sounds like old hat, but it’s the truth.”

The wall gets mixed opinions on the border, as it does nationally, but it is largely seen as ineffective.

Where fencing exists, it has become a part of life since it began to go up in 2007.

Last Sunday, the family of Edgar Granados picnicked in their back yard in Brownsville to watch the Cowboys game, with

nationals, 92, 95 percent of that flow was Mexican nationals.”

Immigrants from Mexico can be quickly deported. Immigrants from countries that don’t border the U.S. must be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Those that claim asylum must go before an immigration judge. Others are prosecuted for entering the country illegally. A court has ordered that ICE must hand children over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. All those agencies are now in need of more resources, Aguilar said.

Which isn’t to say the border is completely secure. Immigrants are still coming through and the U.S. drug addiction rate hasn’t changed in decades, despite ever increasing spending on narcotics interdiction. The Valley in particular, with its roads, irrigation canals and croplands running right up to the Rio Grande, is a center for confrontation between traffickers and private citizens.

One evening a few years back, two men carrying long rifles appeared on the banks of the Rio Grande at Ruperto Escobar’s farm in the eponymous town Escobares. The armed men informed a pair of field hands irrigating Escobar’s fields that needed the farm for their illicit activities that night.

Frightened, the field hands rushed to the Escobar home, where they fretted over the water pump. The state allotted Escobar a fixed draw from the river, and in their haste the field hands had neglected to turn off the pump. There was nothing to be done, Escobar decided.

“We let the pump run until the diesel ran out,” Escobar said.

The next morning a chorus of frogs croaked across the land. It wasn't the first time Escobar had been approached for the use of his property to smuggle, but he has resolved not to get involved.

“This is why we don't go out there at night, and that's why I never leave a single gate locked to hold them back.”

Ever since someone burned down the pump last month, he’s been thinking even more about security. His family has farmed and ranched here since before the United States was a nation. Their claim to the land was made official in 1767 by the King of Spain, and still holds today, but there is a sense of encroachment by forces beyond his control.

A wall might slow people down, said Escobar, 72, but it wouldn't stop them. Besides there isn't much activity, illicit or otherwise, that escapes the reach of the virtual wall.

“Border Patrol will be here in five minutes, you watch,” Escobar said.

Sure enough, within minutes a white SUV with the green stripe familiar to Border Patrol vehicles neared. An agent rolled down his window to check on the men standing at the river’s edge.

When asked his thoughts on a border wall, the agent shouted “good luck,” chuckling as he drove off.

TX Ciudad Juárez

f of Gul

WALL From page A1

the imposing 18-foot-high border fence looming over their table.

“This place used be filled with trees, they came down for the fence,” Granados, 30, said of property behind his childhood home. For all the fuss, the barrier has done little to deter immigrants, according to the family.

Where rabbits once scurried for cover, immigrants now “crawl over the fence like spiders,” he said.

Back in Eagle Pass, Jimenez laughs when asked if the wall is effective, but said he is frustrated with illegal immigration. He has a nephew in the Border Patrol, and he said he calls agents whenever immigrants cross into the U.S. illegally and dash across the golf course. He said he was incredulous when he learned that a regular citizen who tries to stop someone illegally crossing the border could be held liable if he injures one.

“We could get into trouble for hurting them,” he said. “Can you believe that?”

Yet Jimenez, who said he admires former President George W. Bush for his support of the military, said he’s voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson and hopes Clinton wins the election.

His golfing buddy Adair Ibarra, 48, a former soldier and Eagle Pass native, also sees problems.

It irks him that U.S. taxpayers are on the hook to pay medical care for immigrants who injure themselves jumping off the bridge and education costs for children from Mexico who cross the border every day to use Eagle Pass schools. Still, he doesn’t see the border as the dangerous war zone as it’s sometime portrayed.

“They just hear about all the murderers and the rapists,” Ibarra said.

“They automatically assume that it’s everybody.

I’ve never seen it. I’ve never been threatened by people walking through this golf course ever.”

with a few short stretches running through the downtown of Laredo, where a visitor could be forgiven for not realizing the fencing along a federal government parking lot and a community college campus are part of the same program that built the huge barrier in the Granados’ back yard, as well as short sections in Eagle Pass and near Del Rio. South of Del Rio’s international bridge where the border fence ends against a rancher’s barbed wire, Allen Ehlers, the pastor of Faith International Mission, said his ability to reach the poor in Ciudad Acuña across the river has dwindled because of changes in U.S. policies.

The mission used to hand out food to hundreds daily, but restrictions on who can enter the country legally, a construction project that cut off the most direct route to the bridge and the fence running along Frontera Road all have contributed to an incredible slowdown, Ehlers said. They get about 30 people for one service a week now.

Before the fence went up six years ago, Ehlers said he’d wake up in the morning to find immigrants hiding in his doghouse or his wood shed.

“The ones that were coming in in those days were very desperate people,” he said. “The people coming in these days, they’re different. They’re either carrying something of value or they’re being guided by someone to somehow make their way into the U.S. It’s a different group of people, it really is. We haven’t had any illegals come in since they put the fence up.”

Now part of daily life, the fence is no longer the hot-button issue it was when construction started and landowners and local officials were fighting with the federal government over where it would run.

When the government announced plans to build a wall through Granjeno, a village of fewer than 300 people near McAllen founded in 1767 on Spanish land grants, the locals were outraged. The government built a concrete wall nonetheless. Contempt for government interference in their lives has largely faded. Residents now hope plans to build a highway might bring a windfall to the town.

“At first people were against (the wall),” said Granjeno Mayor Yvette Cabrera. "Nobody talks about it anymore.”

As Cabrera left city hall one October evening, a Border Patrol bus filled with immigrants drove through a gap in the fence.

“The wall hasn't made a difference,” Cabrera said.

“The illegals are still coming.”

A11

Big Bend Ranch State Park

MEXICO

Existing border wall 1 652 miles of fence on the Southwest border 1 Congress appropriated $1.5 billion for initial construction 1 114.9 miles in Texas

Odessa

El Paso

Chihuahua

San Angelo Big Bend National Park

N 0

100 MILES

Austin

Del Rio San Ciudad Eagle Antonio Acuna Pass Parque Piedras Nacional Negras Laredo Corpus Cañon de Santa Christi Nuevo Elena Laredo McAllen

Torreón

Monterrey

Brownsville Reynosa

Sources: Center for Investigative Reporting, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Congressional Research Service Mike Fisher/San Antonio Express-News

Verde subdivision, limestone bluffs hang over the Rio Grande, which runs cool and clear from under the Amistad Dam upstream. The river here looks more like one of the Hill Country’s spring-fed streams than the wide, slow, green waterway in the subtropical Valley.

“I do not want Hillary,” said Dave Rosser, 76, as he plays fetch with Tippy, his lab mix. The dog lunges into the water to retrieve a stick, then climbs up the steps where Rosser said he bathes every day. “I’m a gun owner and hunter and a fisherman, but I’m not crazy about Donald Trump because I do not want a wall on this goddamn river.”

A poll by the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and the Dallas Morning News found that 65 percent of U.S. border residents are strongly opposed to the wall, and only 14 percent strongly favor a border wall.

Among the wall’s opponents is Javier Mancha, an Eagle Pass rancher who has property near the small community of El Indio downstream. A Vietnam War veteran, Mancha makes it clear he doesn’t feel a close connection to Mexico, a country his father left at age 8.

“I want to be considered an American. Not a Latino American. Not a Mexican American,” said Mancha, 69.

He sees immigrants regularly and leaves his ranch house unlocked so they can get to the water inside. Still, immigrants have torn the screens on his porch to enter. Standing near the river on a neighbor’s property, Mancha points to a marshy patch of ground. Building along the riverbank would be impossible because of the high water table and regular floods, he said.

Building above the floodplain would cut off property owners from the river where many pump water.

“Think about a wall here,” he said. “Where would you put the wall, if any? And if you’re going to put the wall so many miles, from the Valley to El Paso, what happens when it breaks? When we have a huge flood? Who’s going to fix it? And you know the people will go over, under. It doesn’t matter.”

The border in Texas presents a unique set of challenges for a building a large physical barrier.

Much of the land along the Rio Grande is privately owned. Texas has diverse topography along the border, from the fragile Chihuahua desert in West Texas to the rugged Tamaulipan thornscrub in South Texas and the gently sloping plains in the Valley.

The riverfront farms in Hidalgo and Cameron counties are easily traversed by vehicles, leading to pursuits and so-called splashdowns when traffickers drive their vehicles into the river in an attempt to save contraband. In the counties upstream, the river is only accessible by roads cut into the South Texas monte.

One of the most pristine stretches of South Texas border runs between El Indio and Laredo on the Mines Road, about 40 miles of which is still unpaved. Ranchers put ladders over their fence lines so they don’t get cut by immigrants crossing their property, and volunteers have put out blue barrels full of water with GPS coordinates written on their lids.

On the Laredo side of the Mines Road sits property owned by the Mandel family, who donated land for Laredo’s municipal golf course. Aside from being impractical to build, an unbroken wall would trap water going into the Rio Grande and put the U.S. at odds with Mexico over the countries’ water-sharing agreement, said Gary Jacobs, the son-in law of Max and Roslyn Mandel.

He said Trump’s promise to build a wall is just the latest in a series of misguided attempts to fence off the Rio Grande in South Texas.

“From El Paso, Texas, to Brownsville he can spend as much money as he wants to spend, and it’s a physical impossibility to construct,” Jacobs said.

“He can be the smartest constructor in the world.

He can’t build that wall, because the river will go dry. If he’s really smart he’d say, ‘We’ll drill well water.’ There’s no well water. There’s no potable well water. Before people open their dumb mouths, they really should look into things.”

The National Border Patrol Council, the union representing agents, endorsed Trump because of the attention he’s brought to border security more so than his promise to build a wall, said Shawn Moran, the group’s vice president and spokesman.

Obama administration restrictions on questioning people at transportation hubs and on bus routes, and executive actions that have given protection to some immigrants here illegally, have restricted agents from doing their jobs, Moran said. As far as the wall, Moran said it’s been effective in urban areas and at preventing vehicle traffic. “We’re in favor of the wall where it’s necessary and where it could be effective,” he said. “I think there’s areas that could use an improvement.”

When the fence was built, the chief of each Border Patrol sector was consulted about where they wanted barriers built, said Aguilar, the former head of the agency. That meant wrangling with environmental issues, like the migration of ocelot and jaguarundi wildcats in South Texas, and an international treaty that restricts construction the Rio Grande floodplain.

The existing fence has been “absolutely effective,” he said, but he’s not sure there’s need for more.

“At this point in time I think you would find it difficult for a chief in the field to say I definitely need an additional 12, 13 miles of fence out here,” Aguilar said. “I think, in fact I know, what the chiefs will be looking for now is technology. Technology that will extend their capabilities to have situational awareness along the border.”

The environmental issues are still present, said Tom Miller, director of the Environmental Science at Laredo Community College. The college worked closely with the Border Patrol to minimize the impact of the fence, and he credited the agency with being receptive to their ideas.

“Even our fence has probably reduced the biodiversity by half,” Miller said. “I can definitely say in 2000 we could walk from our center to the end and get 70 species of birds.

Now we’re looking at 35.”

A wall in untouched segments of border would have an even bigger impact, he said.

A12 | Wednesday, October 19, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES