The Zapata Times 10/7/2015

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WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 7, 2015

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HIDALGO, MEXICO

BORDER PATROL

Former mayor killed

Citizen leads agents to driver

Hernandez, of Tamaulipas, was shot over the weekend THE ZAPATA TIMES

A former mayor from Villagrán, Tamaulipas, who was working as a musician, died after being shot over the weekend in Hidalgo, a state government report states.

The report states that the attack happened while Luis Javier Hernández Juárez, 46, was play-

ing with his band, Conjunto Privilegio, at a public dance on Sunday night as part of the Ejido San Francisco anniversary celebration.

Villagrán is located off the National Highway between Linares and Ciudad

HERNANDEZ

Victoria.

The Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office reported that the shooting took place at 11 p.m.

“An individual got near Hernández … and shot him three times with a .45-caliber, and immediately

left the scene,” authorities said.

Hernández, who was mayor of Villagrán from 2011-2013, was popularly known as “Javi.”

He fronted Conjunto Privilegio, a norteño and grupero band.

The Attorney General’s Office said authorities are searching to find those responsible of the attack.

By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES

LAREDO COMMUNITY COLLEGE

ART XCHANGE EXHIBIT Evelia Lucio looks at the piece of art "Scream Bomb"

by Eduardo Garcia on Thursday afternoon at LCC’s Fenstermaker Memorial Visual Arts Gallery during the Art Xchange exhibit which featured artwork by the South Texas College Visual Arts Faculty. The exhibition is on display until Oct. 29.

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8 to 11:30 a.m.

Photo by Danny Zaragoza | The Zapata Times

A tip from a concerned citizen led federal agents to a suspected human smuggler who has been removed from the country several times, according to court documents.

Identified as the suspect, Miguel Israel Martinez Moreno was charged with transporting illegal immigrants via a criminal complaint filed Oct. 1.

U.S. Border Patrol said they received a call at 8:40 a.m.

Sept. 29 from a concerned citizen. Records state the tip indicated that a small maroon sport utility vehicle had picked up undocumented people in the Salado Creek area, off U.S. 83.

Agents said they encountered a Dodge Nitro at the temporary traffic light on U.S. 83 near Dolores Creek. It appeared that the driver wanted to flee, records state.

Agents then activated their unit’s emergency lights.

Agents said they encountered five passengers who determined to be citizens of Mexico and Guatemala who had entered the country illegally.

Authorities identified the driver as Martinez-Moreno. He allegedly agreed to speak to authorities regarding the smuggling attempt.

Martinez-Moreno, a Mexican citizen illegally in the country, said a man he identified as “El Perico” asked him if he wanted to make some money.

The task was to pick up immigrants near the rest area in San Ygnacio, according to court documents.

"Martinez-Moreno stated that he accepted and agreed to receive $100 per person once they arrive to Laredo," states the criminal complaint.

Records state Martinez-Moreno has been previously deported six times.

(César G. Rodriguez may be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmtonline.com)

ZAPATA COUNTY

Jury charges man Man facing for guiding migrants conspiracy charge

By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES

A Mexican citizen accused of guiding a group of illegal immigrants near Falcon Lake in Zapata County has been indicted, records obtained this week show.

A grand jury charged Uriel Ramirez-Alvarado with one count of conspiracy to transport undocumented people within the United States and three counts of transport undocumented people for mon-

ey.

Each count carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

On Aug. 30, U.S. Border Patrol agents manning the lake area said they came across foot prints in a desolated desert area, which is rarely used by the general public since there are ticks, scorpions, poisonous snakes and spiders.

People encountered in that area are suspected of entering the country illegally, according to

court documents.

Agents said the foot prints led them to a group of 15 people in the brush area by a private cemetery, near U.S 83.

All admitted to being citizens of Mexico with no legal right to be in the United States. Agents took the group to the Zapata Border Patrol Station.

Records state the group identified Ramirez-Alvarado as their foot guide.

(César G. Rodriguez may be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmtonline.com)

By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES

A man caught transporting illegal immigrants in Zapata County was recently indicted in a Laredo federal court.

On Sept. 29, a grand jury charged Juan Feliz Rangel with one count of conspiracy to transport undocumented people within the United States and two counts transport undocumented people for money.

Rangel allegedly stated

he expected a $200 payment per immigrant. If convicted, Rangel could serve up to 10 years in prison.

The allegations date back to Sept. 3. U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to an area south of Zapata said they spotted three vehicles driving in tandem.

Records state two vehicles drastically reduced speed as a Dodge pickup kept driving. Agents said they observed the pickup abruptly turning into a parking lot. The driver

got off and walked into the store, according to court documents.

A supervisory agent went inside the store looking for the driver since 15 minutes had passed, records state.

Meanwhile, assisting agents approached the pickup and discovered six immigrants who had entered the country illegally.

(César G. Rodriguez may be reached at 7282568 or cesar@lmtonline.com)

PAGE 2A

Zin brief CALENDAR

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

AROUND TEXAS

TODAY IN HISTORY

Thursday, October 8

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Acclaimed author and Chicano/ Latino Literacy Prize winner Carlos Nicholás Flores will be signing his latest novel, "Sex as a Political Condition," during a special event in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month at Laredo Community College Kazen Student Center, West End Washington Street, from 5:30–7:30 p.m. Evening festivities will include a dramatic reading of an excerpt from the novel and a question and answer session.

The 36th Annual Texas Hispanic Genealogical and Historical Conference at La Posada Hotel, hosted by the Villa San Agustin de Laredo Genealogical Society. For more information call Sanjuanita M. Hunter at 722-3497 or Sylvia Reash at sjre0348@yahoo.com.

Depression screenings at Laredo Medical Center main foyer, 1700 E. Saunders St., from 11 a.m.–2 p.m. Border Region Behavioral Health Center will be conducting depression screenings and giving information about the services the center has to offer.

TAMIU Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium shows. 6 p.m.: Cosmic Adventures; 7 p.m.: Led Zeppelin. General Admission is $4 for children and $5 for adults. Admission is $4 for TAMIU students, faculty and staff. For more information call 956-326-DOME (3663).

The Laredo Area Retired School Employees Association will meet at Blessed Sacrament Parish Hall at 2219 Galveston St. at 11 a.m. Guest speaker will be Ruben Saenz.

Today is Wednesday, October 7, the 280th day of 2015.

There are 85 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History: On October 7, 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean. (The hijackers killed Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American tourist, before surrendering on October 9.)

On this date: In 1765, the Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up colonial grievances against England.

In 1849, author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore at age 40.

In 1858, the fifth debate between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Galesburg.

In 1949, the Republic of East Germany was formed.

In 1954, Marian Anderson became the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.

In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard Nixon held their second televised debate, this one in Washington, D.C. In 1979, Pope John Paul II concluded his week-long tour of the United States with a Mass on the Washington Mall.

In 1989, Hungary’s Communist Party renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism during a party congress in Budapest.

In 1991, University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments when she worked for him; Thomas denied Hill’s allegations.

In 2004, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney conceded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue, arguing that Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-forfood program.

Ten years ago: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Five years ago: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie canceled construction of a decades-in-the-making train tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan, citing cost overruns that had ballooned the price tag from $5 billion to $10 billion or more.

One year ago: North Korea publicly acknowledged to the international community the existence of its “reform through labor” camps, a mention that appeared to come in response to a highly critical U.N. human rights report.

Today’s Birthdays: Retired South African Archbishop and Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu is 84. Comedian Joy Behar is 73. Singer John Mellencamp is 64. Actress Christopher Norris is 62.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is 60. Gospel singer Michael W. Smith is 58.

Olympic gold medal ice dancer Jayne Torvill is 58. Recording executive and TV personality Simon Cowell is 56.

Rhythm-and-blues singer Toni Braxton is 48. Rock singer-musician Thom Yorke (Radiohead) is 47. MLB player Evan Longoria is 30.

Thought for Today: “Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.”

— Malcolm Forbes, American publisher (1919-1990).

Friday, October 9 The 36th Annual Texas Hispanic Genealogical and Historical Conference at La Posada Hotel, hosted by the Villa San Agustin de Laredo Genealogical Society. For more information call Sanjuanita M. Hunter at 722-3497 or Sylvia Reash at sjre0348@yahoo.com.

Movies on the Patio featuring “The Bride of Frankenstein” at 7:30 p.m. at the Villa Antigua Border Heritage Museum, 810 Zaragoza St. Free and open to the public. Outdoor seating and concessions. The event will be canceled if it rains. For more information, call 727-0977 or visit webbheritage.org.

TAMIU Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium shows. 7 p.m.: Ancient Skies, Ancient Mysteries; 8 p.m.: Live Star Presentation (observing will occur if weather permits). General Admission is $4 for children and $5 for adults. Admission is $4 for TAMIU students, faculty and staff. For more information call 956-326-DOME (3663).

Saturday, October 10 The 36th Annual Texas Hispanic Genealogical and Historical Conference at La Posada Hotel, hosted by the Villa San Agustin de Laredo Genealogical Society. Call Sanjuanita M. Hunter at 722-3497 or Sylvia Reash at sjre0348@yahoo.com.

TAMIU Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium shows. 2 p.m.: Accidental Astronaut; 3 p.m.: Secret of the Cardboard Rocket; 4 p.m.: Star Signs; 5 p.m.: Black Holes. General Admission is $4 for children and $5 for adults. Admission is $4 for TAMIU students, faculty and staff. Matinee Shows are $1 less. Call 956-326-DOME (3663).

Public Square Rosary coordinated nationally by America Needs Fatima to be held at Andrew Trautmann Park Pavilion (Rangel Field), 400 W Del Mar Blvd. at noon.

Trail Clean-Up and Open House.

LCC’s Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center will host their trail day clean up from 8 a.m.–12 p.m. at the Paso del Indio Nature Trail. The center will be open from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Admission is $4 for adults and $2 for students and senior citizens.

Entrance is free for children 3 and under, and LCC and TAMIU students, faculty and staff with a valid ID.

Sunday, October 11 First day of the Pumpkin Patch, sponsored by the youth of the First United Methodist Church. 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the church lawn, 1220 McClelland. Public is invited; no admission fee.

Monday, October 12 Chess Club meets at the LBV–Inner City Branch Library from 4–6 p.m.

Free for all ages and skill levels. Basic instruction is offered. Call John at 7952400, x2521.

Tuesday, October 13 Take the challenge and climb the Rock Wall. Free. Bring ID and sign release form. 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at LBV–Inner City Branch Library.

Photo by Ross Ramsey | Texas Tribune

The publisher of a social studies textbook has agreed to change a caption that describes African slaves as immigrant “workers” after a Houston-area mother’s social media complaint went viral over the weekend. “The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States,” a caption read.

Textbooks under fire

By KIAH COLLIER TEXAS TRIBUNE

The publisher of one of Texas’ controversial social studies textbooks has agreed to change a caption that describes African slaves as immigrant “workers” after a Houston-area mother’s social media complaint went viral over the weekend.

Last Wednesday, Roni Dean-Burren posted a screen shot on Facebook of a text message exchange with her ninth-grade son who sent her a photo of an infographic in his McGraw-Hill World Geography textbook.

“The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations,” a caption on the infographic read.

“We was real hard workers wasn’t we,” Dean-Burren replied, including an irked

emoji. The next day, the mother — a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston — posted a video detailing more of the textbook. By Monday afternoon, it had garnered more than 1.7 million views.

“It is now considered immigration,” DeanBurren says of slavery in the video, noting that the section in her son’s textbook titled “Patterns of Immigration” describes “indentured servants who worked for little or no pay” but fails to describe the similar, if far worse, circumstances for slaves for who did not emigrate by choice.

The next day, publishing giant McGrawHill said in a Facebook post it had “conducted a close review of the content and agree(s) that our language in that caption did not adequately convey that Africans were both forced into migration and to labor against their will as slaves.”

Texas plans to gradually increase STAAR standards

Man kills boss, then self at Houston warehouse

Shark bites teen’s foot at a Galveston beach

AUSTIN — Texas is finally phasing in higher standards to pass its standardized tests — but will do so more gradually then initially planned.

Students began taking State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR tests, in 2012. But they proved so challenging that the state froze passing standards for the past four academic years, rather than having them get tougher over time.

HOUSTON — Police say an employee at a Houston grocery store shot and killed his supervisor in the warehouse attached to the rear of the store before killing himself.

Police on Tuesday identified the gunman as Thanh Duong and his victim as 35-year-old Hoang Vuong of Houston. Both were pronounced dead at the scene of Monday’s shooting at the Hong Kong Food Market.

GALVESTON — A 13-year-old West Texas boy has been hospitalized after a shark bit him in the back of his foot while he was wading along a Galveston beach.

The incident happened about 10 a.m. Monday as the Odessa boy and his brother waded in waist-deep Gulf waters. Lt. The pair reported feeling a school of fish swirl their legs when the 13year-old was bitten by a 4-to-5foot-long shark.

Bootleg silicone injections lands woman in prison

78-year-old woman dies after house fire

Texas set to buy 3 buildings near Alamo

MCALLEN — A South Texas woman has been sentenced to almost 1 1⁄2 years in federal prison for injecting customers’ buttocks with bootleg liquid silicone she had brought in from Mexico.

A federal judge in McAllen sentenced Maribel Quintero on Tuesday to 16 months in prison and ordered to pay $15,760 in restitution after she pleaded guilty.

TEXARKANA — A 78-year-old woman has died after a fire consumed her home in Texarkana.

Lisa Thompson, a spokeswoman for the city of Texarkana, Texas, tells the Texarkana Gazette that firefighters were able to pull Linda Roberson from her burning home on Monday but she later died from her injuries at the hospital.

AUSTIN — The state has agreed to buy three buildings near the Alamo as part of a revamp of the historic shrine and its surrounding plaza in San Antonio. The General Land Office said Monday that the agency expects to close on the Woolworth, Crockett, and Palace buildings by the end of the year.

— Compiled from AP reports

AROUND THE NATION Factory supervisor wins $310.5M Powerball ticket LANSING, Mich. — A supervisor at a Michigan fiberglass factory who won a $310.5 million Powerball jackpot said Tuesday that she immediately quit her one-time “nasty, dirty” job and will buy land to build houses for her family.

Julie Leach of Three Rivers said she was having a “really bad night” working the third shift when she took her lunch break at McDonald’s. She checked the six numbers in the drive-thru line around 1 a.m.

Thursday.

“I keep going to sleep and waking up with the same beautiful dream,” the 50-year-old said.

United co-pilot passes out, diverting flight ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A United Airlines flight carrying nearly 200 people from Houston

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Powerball winner Julie Leach, of Three Rivers, Mich., holds a ceremonial check during a news conference at lottery headquarters in Lansing, Mich., Tuesday.

Leach won $310.5 million in the Sept. 30 drawing. to San Francisco had to divert to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after the co-pilot passed out Tuesday.

Air-traffic controllers got word shortly after 8 a.m. that the plane would be landing after the first officer, who is second in command, had a medical epi-

sode, Albuquerque airport spokesman Dan Jiron said. The plane landed without incident.

The co-pilot regained consciousness and was able to walk off the plane to be transported to a local hospital, Jiron said.

— Compiled from AP reports

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The Zapata office is at 1309 N. U.S. Hwy. 83 at 14th Avenue, Suite 2, Zapata, TX 78076. Call (956) 765-5113 or e-mail thezapatatimes.net

Local & State

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

THE ZAPATA TIMES 3A

Texas executes convicted killer Rodeo for Inmate shot man in robbery yielding $8

By MICHAEL GRACZYK ASSOCIATED PRESS

HUNTSVILLE — A convicted killer in Texas was executed Tuesday for fatally shooting another man in a robbery that yielded just $8.

No late appeals were filed for Juan Martin Garcia, who was put to death for the September 1998 killing and robbery of Hugo Solano in Houston. Solano, a Christian missionary from Guadalajara, Mexico, had moved his family to the city just weeks earlier so his children could be educated in the U.S. Garcia, 35, was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. CDT. He acknowledged in an interview with the Associated Press last month that he shot Solano but denied the robbery, an accompanying felony that made it a capital case.

Garcia, who was linked to at least eight aggravated robberies and two attempted murders

in the weeks before and after Solano’s death, also insisted jurors had unfairly penalized him because he didn’t take the witness stand in his own defense at trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Garcia’s case in March. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a 5-2 vote, refused a clemency request from Garcia last week.

The lethal injection was the 11th this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.

Evidence at the 2000 trial and testimony from a companion identified Garcia, who was 18 at the time of the killing and a street gang member, as the ringleader of four men involved in Solano’s shooting and robbery. The slaying and string of other violent crimes tied to Garcia convinced a Harris County jury he should be put to death.

Garcia, his two cousins and another man had already carried out a carjacking when they spotted the 36-year-old Solano early on Sept. 17, 1998, getting into his van to go to work.

Eleazar Mendoza, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison for aggravated robbery, testified that Garcia approached Solano and pointed a gun.

Mendoza said Garcia ordered Solano to surrender his money then shot him when he refused.

Garcia told the AP that it was Mendoza’s idea to rob Solano and that Solano escalated the confrontation by resisting.

“He punches me,” Garcia said from a visiting cage outside death row. “First thing that came through my mind is that the dude is going to try to kill me. He grabbed the gun with both of his hands and it discharged.”

Solano was shot four times in the head and neck.

Garcia was arrested more than a week later when he dropped a gun while getting out of a car that police had pulled over for a broken headlight. He was released but arrested again when the gun was matched to Solano’s slaying.

Another defendant, Raymond McBen, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for aggravated robbery and paroled a

the Cure coming up SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Photo by Mike Graczyk | AP

Juan Garcia is photographed in a visiting cage at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas, during an interview on Sept. 2. year ago. The fourth man charged, Gabriel Morales, was given a life sentence for capital murder.

Three more Texas inmates are scheduled for executions in upcoming weeks. They include Licho Escamilla, who is set to die next week for the 2001 shooting death of Dallas police officer Christopher Kevin James.

School sent request to wrong lawyer ASSOCIATED PRESS

IRVING — The school district where a Muslim student was suspended for his homemade clock has called media coverage of the incident “very unbalanced” and needed permission from the boy’s family to release more information.

A month later, with critics questioning why the request had not yet been granted, the Irving school district acknowledges it sent the request to the wrong lawyer, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Ahmed Mohamed’s family canceled appointments to meet with city and school officials, prompting a school district attorney to send a letter dated Sept. 14 — three days after Ahmed was arrested — re-

questing permission to release records of the incident and the 14-year-old’s disciplinary history to the media.

The letter was sent to attorney Linda Moreno, who appeared with the family at its first news conference. But she says she told the district’s attorney soon after that she wasn’t representing him.

School district spokeswoman Lesley Weaver told The Associated Press that letters were then sent Sept. 30 to attorneys Thomas Bowers and Reggie London after the district saw media reports that the family had hired them.

Calls to Bowers and London for comment were not immediately returned Tuesday. The newspaper reported that Ahmed and his father are in

Qatar on a global celebrity tour.

Ahmed has said he brought his clock to MacArthur High School in Irving to show a teacher. Officials say he was arrested after another teacher saw it and became concerned it was a bomb. Ahmed wasn’t charged, but he was suspended from school for three days.

News of the arrest sparked an outpouring of support for Ahmed, including from President Barack Obama.

Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd had said that while the clock looked “suspicious in nature,” but there was no evidence the boy meant to cause alarm.

After the arrest, Weaver said at a news conference that the events described in the

media had been “very unbalanced” but that the district had to abide by the federal law protecting student information. She said that the school district would be happy to provide additional details to the media if given permission by the family.

When told about the mix up, Ahmed’s uncle, Aldean Mohamed, told the newspaper, “Why don’t they just send it to the house? They have the address on file.”

Weaver told the AP that when a family indicates that they have legal counsel, it’s appropriate to work through the attorney.

The boy’s family submitted paperwork to withdraw him from the suburban Dallas school district on Sept. 22.

The Brush Country Trail Riders Inc. presents Rodeo for the Cure on Friday, Oct. 16 and Saturday, Oct. 17 at L.I.F.E Downs on Highway 59 in Laredo.

All rodeo proceeds will go to Mercy Ministries Cancer Program of Laredo.

The 2nd annual Youth Ranch Hand competition starts at 7 p.m. on Oct. 16.

Competitors 7 and under may participate in the stick horse race, goat tap, and branding. For ages 8–10, the events are pony express, goat milking, and tail tying. For 12–15-year-olds, the events are branding, flank and tie, and a stampede race (roping events). There will be teams of four, and it is $100 per team. There will be prizes for first through fourth place winners.

On Oct. 17, the Pretty in Pink Wicked in Spurs! Women’s Ranch Rodeo will take place at 4 p.m. There will be trailer loading, sorting, rodeo ready and a stampede race. It is $400 to register a team, and there are four women per team. There will be prizes.

For more information, call Lisa at 7446606 or Joe at 489-7736.

Car show set at church Event will be held in Lopeno SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

St. Peter’s Church in Lopeno is hosting its first annual Show and Shine car show on Oct. 24 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

First, second and third place trophies will be given for the following categories: Best of Show Best Street Best Lifted Best Modern Best Classic There is a $20 entry fee per truck.

For more information, text 298-1143 or 265-4481.

PAGE 4A

Zopinion

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SEND YOUR SIGNED LETTER TO EDITORIAL@LMTONLINE.COM

COLUMN

OTHER VIEWS

How spirituality fits into the university Many American universities were founded as religious institutions, explicitly designed to cultivate their students’ spiritual and moral natures.

But over the course of the 20th century they became officially or effectively secular.

Religious rituals like mandatory chapel services were dropped. Academic research and teaching replaced character formation at the core of the university’s mission.

Administrators and professors dropped spiritual language and moral prescription either because they didn’t know what to say or because they didn’t want to alienate any part of their diversifying constituencies.

The humanities departments became less important, while parents ratcheted up the pressure for career training.

Universities are more professional and glittering than ever, but in some ways there is emptiness deep down. Students are taught how to do things, but many are not forced to reflect on why they should do them or what we are here for.

They are given many career options, but they are on their own when it comes to developing criteria to determine which vocation would lead to the fullest life.

But things are changing. On almost every campus faculty members and administrators are trying to stem the careerist tide and to widen the system’s narrow definition of achievement. Institutes are popping up — with interdisciplinary humanities programs and even meditation centers — designed to cultivate the whole student: the emotional, spiritual and moral sides and not just the intellectual.

Technology is also forcing change. Online courses make the transmission of information a commodity. If colleges are going to justify themselves, they are going to have to thrive at those things that require physical proximity. That includes moral and spiritual development. Very few of us cultivate our souls as hermits. We do it through small groups and relationships and in social contexts.

In short, for the past many decades colleges narrowed down to focus on professional academic disciplines, but now there are a series of forces leading them to widen out so that they leave a mark on the full human being.

The trick is to find a way to talk about moral and spiritual things while respecting diversity. Universities might do that by taking responsibility for four important tasks.

First, reveal moral options. We’re the inheritors of an array of moral traditions. There’s the Greek tradition emphasizing honor, glory and courage, the Jewish tradition emphasizing justice and law, the Christian tradition emphasizing surrender and grace, the scientific tradition emphasizing reason and logic, and so on.

“

DAVID BROOKS

Colleges can insist that students at least become familiar with these different moral ecologies.

Then it’s up to the students to figure out which one or which combination is best to live by.

Second, foster transcendent experiences. If a student spends four years in regular and concentrated contact with beauty — with poetry or music, extended time in a cathedral, serving a child with Down syndrome, waking up with loving friends on a mountain — there’s a good chance something transcendent and imagination-altering will happen.

Third, investigate current loves and teach new things to love. On her great blog, Brain Pickings, Maria Popova quotes a passage from Nietzsche on how to find your identity: “Let the young soul survey its own life with a view of the following question: ‘What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?’” Line up these revered objects in a row, Nietzsche says, and they will reveal your fundamental self.

To lead a full future life, meanwhile, students have to find new things to love: a field of interest, an activity, a spouse, community, philosophy or faith. College is about exposing students to many things and creating an aphrodisiac atmosphere so that they might fall in lifelong love with a few.

Fourth, apply the humanities. The social sciences are not shy about applying their disciplines to real life. But literary critics, philosophers and art historians are shy about applying their knowledge to real life because it might seem too Oprahesque or self-helpy.

They are afraid of being prescriptive because they idolize individual choice.

But the great works of art and literature have a lot to say on how to tackle the concrete challenges of living, like how to escape the chains of public opinion, how to cope with grief or how to build loving friendships.

Instead of organizing classes around academic concepts — 19th-century French literature — more could be organized around the concrete challenges students will face in the first decade after graduation.

It’s tough to know how much philosophical instruction anybody can absorb at age 20, before most of life has happened, but seeds can be planted.

Universities could more intentionally provide those enchanted goods that the marketplace doesn’t offer. If that happens, the future of the university will be found in its original moral and spiritual mission, but secularized, and in an open and aspiring way.

COLUMN

We read a bunch, but still have television favorites We try not to be TV addicts at our house. Reading occupies a significant portion of our time with newspapers heading the daily list, followed closely by books with the shrinking news magazine list a distant third.

Being able to access some of that reading material via computer is an addicting asset, both from a time and cost standpoint.

You can subscribe to newspapers and magazines online and you can buy Kindle and iBooks online as well. Plus, as community newspaper folks most of our lives, we tend to smudge our fingers with printers ink from as many of those as we can get our hands on. (We could be fingerprinted at almost any time of the day.)

Life Mate Julie and I have very similar tastes in both reading and in television viewing with some natural differences considering she’s a gal and I’m a guy. VIVE’ LA DIFFERENCE! But, I digress. We’re here to talk about television shows and the probable inordinate amount of time we all devote to the small screen. Besides, the “difference” topic could get “embarrasking” as one

of my heroes, Popeye, would say. So, let’s get serial.

We divide our viewing into two categories — (1) news and information; and (2) entertainment.

Obviously, entertainment provides more viewing hours than news, but we try to be selective there because we believe it is essential to stay informed.

Mysteries, detective shows and historical fiction seem to top our entertainment list considering the numbers of those shows on both prime time TV, re-runs and re-cycling via the non-network channels. Most people plow that same straight row. The TV folks make their very good living from viewership and the polls don’t lie, do they?

Two shows top my poll and, by the way, none of those TV polling people have ever asked us what we like (which is fine Network prezs, so don’t call).

And, uh, please check with us before changing the lineup.

I’d rate “Law & Order: SVU” (Special Victims Unit) and “Blue Bloods” as

tied for first for me and Julie lives for “Downton Abbey.”

“SVU” features Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer, Dann Florek and former rapper Ice-T. All are detectives in the unit, which focuses mainly on sex crimes (many of which, of course, lead to murders and other major crimes).

Hargitay has perhaps the most interesting background in that she is the daughter of the late glamour queen Jayne Mansfield and body-builder and Hungarian-born former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay. Almond-eyed beauty Hargitay plays detective Olivia Benson and does so in a manner that elicits very favorable comments from viewers, including some former sex-crime victims who choose to speak up because of the show.

“Blue Bloods” stars one of my TV favorites, Tom Selleck, as the leader of a family of policemen (with due respect to his retired former cop father, played

by Len Cariou). Bridget Moynihan provides beauty and sex appeal. Moynihan was once married to pro football quarterback Tom Brady who stupidly dumped her (Ich!) to mar-

ry some South American sex goddess. She is Selleck’s assistant district attorney daughter in the show. Donnie Wahlberg, who stole my hair-do and hairline, is another Selleck’s son following in Dad’s footsteps. Baby-faced Will Estes, who provides sex appeal for women viewers, plays Selleck’s youngest son, a young street cop.

I’ll watch Selleck in anything. And, Moynihan, I’ll just watch … and watch … and …

All of this is made with one other caveat.

Mystery and detective shows are fun to watch, unless there’s a good, relevant football or basketball game on the tube (baseball on TV puts me to sleep).

But, I’ll drop all of that to read a good historical treatise or a mystery novel anytime.

Now, if someone would just write a history-based mystery for TV show or movie pitting a football star versus a basketball star, I’d really be entranced.

Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher of more than 50 years experience. He can be reached by email at wwebb1937@att.net.

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National

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

THE ZAPATA TIMES 5A

Worries remain amid floods

By REEVES AND EMERY P. DALESIO ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo by John Locher | AP

Faculty members embrace as they are allowed to return to Umpqua Community College Monday, in Roseburg, Ore.

Gunman ranted about lack of girlfriend

By JONATHAN J. COOPER AND TAMI ABDOLLAH ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROSEBURG, Ore. — The gunman who killed nine people at an Oregon community college last week complained in writings he left behind that everyone else was crazy and ranted about not having a girlfriend, a law enforcement official said.

The mother of shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, has told investigators that he was struggling with some mental health issues, the official also said Monday. The official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to speak publicly because it is ongoing.

In the writings that spanned a couple of pages, Harper-Mercer seemed to feel like he was very rational while others around him were not, the official said.

He wrote something to the effect of: “Other people think I’m crazy, but I’m not. I’m the sane one,” the official said.

Harper-Mercer killed nine people and wounded nine others, then killed himself after a shootout with police.

On Monday, some faculty, staff and students returned to Umpqua Community College for the first time since the shooting, while President Barack Obama announced he will travel to Oregon to visit privately with victims’ families.

Classes do not resume until next week, but some students came to the campus to pick up belongings they left behind when they fled the attack Thursday.

Others met with professional groups to work through their trauma and grief.

A memorial was growing on the driveway leading to Snyder Hall, where Harper-Mercer opened fire.

“It was hard not to fo-

cus on Snyder Hall,” student Joel Mitchell said.

“When we got back, I think a lot of people were probably ... looking at it, checking it out, seeing what it looked like.”

A group of eight held hands and bowed their heads in prayer in front of the building. Elsewhere, clusters of people chatted at picnic tables.

In a courtyard near the center of campus, a therapy dog sat on a blanket with its handler. A woman, crouched down, wiped away a tear.

School officials designated an outdoor amphitheater as a makeshift memorial, open only to staff and students for now.

Flowers and balloons were positioned on tables, and markers were available for people to write messages on a banner that says, “UCC Strong.”

“I needed to be here,” student Madysen Sanchez said. “I needed to come and see my friends, make sure they’re OK.” At least one student injured in the shooting was among those who returned Monday, college President Rita Cavin said. She did not identify the student.

Chaplains who had been on campus said they were both helping with and participating in the healing process.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The family of Miss South Carolina 1954 found her floodsoaked pageant scrapbook on a dining room floor littered with dead fish on Tuesday, as the first sunny day in nearly two weeks provided a chance to clean up from historic floods.

“I would hate for her to see it like this. She would be crushed,” said Polly Sim, who moved her 80-year-old mother into a nursing home just before the rainstorm turned much of the state into a disaster area.

Owners of inundated homes were keeping close watch on swollen waterways as they pried open swollen doors and tore out soaked carpets. So far, at least 17 people have died in the floods in the Carolinas, some of them drowning after trying to drive through high water.

Sim’s mother, known as Polly Rankin Suber when she competed in the Miss America contest, had lived since 1972 in the unit, where more than 3 feet of muddy water toppled her washing machine and turned the wallboard to mush.

“There’s no way it will be what it was,” said Sim. “My mom was so eccentric, had her own funky style of decorating, there’s no way anyone could duplicate that. Never.”

Tuesday was the first dry day since Sept. 24 in South Carolina’s state capital, where a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew was in effect. But officials warned that new evacuations could come as the huge mass of water flows toward the sea, threatening dams and displacing residents along the way.

Of particular concern was the Lowcountry, where the Santee, Edisto and other rivers make their way to the sea. Gov. Nikki Haley warned that several rivers were rising and had yet to reach their peaks.

“God smiled on South Carolina because the sun is

Photo by Gerry Broome | AP

Gil Lastrapes makes a phone call as he paddles his canoe in the floodwaters from the Lynches River in Effingham, S.C., Tuesday. out. That is a good sign, but ... we still have to be cautious,” Haley said Tuesday after taking an aerial tour.

“What I saw was disturbing.”

“We are going to be extremely careful. We are watching this minute by minute,” she said.

Georgetown, one of America’s oldest cities, sits on the coast at the con-

fluence of four rivers. The historic downtown flooded over the weekend, and its ordeal wasn’t over yet.

“It was coming in through the kitchen wall, through the bathroom walls, through the bedroom walls, through the living room walls. It was up over the sandbags that we put over the door. And, it just kept rising,” Tom Doran

said, bracing himself for the next wave. “If I see a hoard of locusts then I’m taking off.”

In Effingham, east of Columbia, the Lynches River was at nearly 20 feet on Tuesday — five feet above flood stage. Kip Jones paddled a kayak to check on a home he rents out there, and discovered that the family lost pretty much everything they had, with almost 8 feet of standing water in the bedrooms.

“Their stuff is floating all in the house,” Jones said.

“Once the water comes in the house you get bacteria and you get mold.”

The South Carolina National Guard planned to drop 1-ton sandbags from Chinook helicopters to bolster a major breach between a canal and the Congaree River in Columbia.

“These are big sandbags,” Maj. Gen. Robert Livingston said.

Haley said it was too soon to estimate the damage, which could be “any amount of dollars.”

National

6A THE ZAPATA TIMES

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

New auto safety technologies bewilder drivers

By JOAN LOWY ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Many Americans buying new cars these days are baffled by a torrent of new safety technology.

Some features will automatically turn a car back into its lane if it begins to drift, or hit the brakes if sensors detect that it’s about to rear-end someone else. There are lane-change and blind-spot monitors, drowsiness alerts and cars that can park themselves.

Technologies once limited to high-end models like adaptive cruise control, tirepressure indicators and rear-view cameras have become more common.

The features hold tremendous potential to reduce deaths and injuries by eliminating collisions or mitigating their severity, safety advocates say.

But there’s one problem: Education on how to use them doesn’t come standard. Bewildered drivers sometimes just turn them

off, defeating the safety potential.

“If people don’t understand how that works or what the car is doing, it may startle them or make them uncomfortable,” said Deborah Hersman, president of the National Safety Council. “We want to make sure we’re explaining things to people so that the technology that can make them safer is actually taken advantage of.”

The council and the University of Iowa, along with the Department of Transportation, are kicking off an education campaign Wednesday to inform drivers on how the safety features work. The effort includes a website, MyCarDoesWhat.org, with video demonstrations.

In a survey by the university, a majority of drivers expressed uncertainty about the way many of the safety technologies work. About 40 percent reported that their vehicles had behaved in unexpected ways. The least understood technology was

Photo by Dan Huff | AP

This image from video, taken Oct. 1, shows an electronic display on the dashboard at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center. adaptive cruise control, which can slow or speed up a vehicle in order to maintain a constant following distance. That technology has been available in some models for at least a decade.

The features vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, from model to model and from one options package to another.

Joe Kraemer, 70, a retired accountant from Arlington, Virginia, said the first time he drove his wife’s 2015 ESeries Mercedes he nearly

jumped out of his seat. He was beginning to change lanes when suddenly there was a piercing “beep beep beep beep. ...”

Now when that happens, his wife tells him: “Relax.

It’s just that you have somebody in your blind spot and you’re about to kill us.”

Kraemer’s wife, who has been driving for 50 years, has been back to the dealer twice for hour-long lessons on how to use the car’s features.

“She’s really learning a

US admits to hospital airstrike

By DEB RIECHMANN ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan recommended on Tuesday that President Barack Obama revise his plan and keep more than 1,000 U.S. troops in the country beyond 2016, just days after a deadly U.S. airstrike “mistakenly” hit a hospital during fierce fighting in the north.

Gen. John F. Campbell told Congress that conditions on the ground have changed since Obama announced his plan in 2014 to cut the current U.S. force of 9,800 to an embassy-based security contingent of about 1,000 in Kabul post-2016. Obama has vowed to a war-weary nation to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan and get American troops out by the time he leaves office in January 2017.

Campbell said, however, that Afghanistan remains engaged in a violent battle against the Taliban, military operations in Pakistan have pushed fighters, including those linked to al-Qaida, into eastern and northern Afghanistan and the emergence of Islamic State fighters has further complicated the conflict.

Campbell, the top commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, said that dropping to 1,000 troops

Photo by Doug Mills | New York Times

Army Gen. John Campbell, commander of forces in Afghanistan. would leave the United States with limited ability to train and assist the Afghan forces and even less capacity to conduct counterterrorism operations. He said the different options he has provided to his superiors are for troop levels beyond a normal embassy presence of about 1,000.

Campbell refused to discuss the numbers of troops he is recommending. But when Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, asked Campbell if he thought the president should revise his troop withdrawal plan, Campbell replied: “I will stomp my foot. Yes, sir.”

Both Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry have stressed the importance of continuing counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan, even into 2017.

In his opening remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Campbell offered

details about the airstrike on a medical clinic that Doctors Without Borders ran in Kunduz. He said a U.S. Special Operations unit that was close by was “talking to the aircraft that delivered” the firepower, which killed at least 22 people.

“To be clear, the decision to provide (airstrikes) was a U.S. decision, made within the U.S. chain of command,” Campbell said. “The hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility.”

Carter issued a statement promising a full and transparent investigation. “We will do everything we can to understand this tragic incident, learn from it and hold people accountable as necessary,” he said. Anti-war protesters sat in the front row of the hearing with red coloring, depicting blood, on their faces. They carried signs that read: “Health care not warfare” and “Kunduz victims: RIP.” A woman who shouted “Bombing hospitals is a war crime!

Stop the bombing now!” was escorted from the room.

The airstrike occurred as Afghan forces were retaking Kunduz from the Taliban. The insurgents staged a surprise attack from multiple sides of the city and held it for three days before Afghan security forces recaptured it with help from the U.S.-led coalition.

computer,” he said.

But as the technologies become more available in lower-priced models, dealers may not be willing to spend as much time with drivers as Mercedes has with Kraemer’s wife.

Owner’s manuals are also falling short, safety advocates say. They have become “documents written by lawyers for lawyers,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director at the Center for Auto Safety.

“From perhaps a 50-page understandable document 20 years ago, they have gone to a 500-page opus that is intimidating to all but the most studious car buyer,” he said.

Some manufacturers offer CDs or DVDs on how to use safety systems, but “most of the time drivers don’t actually take the time to review them,” said Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

A study by the foundation of early safety technology adopters found that

some drivers believed collision warning systems would brake to stop their vehicles for them, when actually the systems only alert drivers to an impending collision. It’s still up to the driver to hit the brakes.

“That’s a dangerous scenario,” Kissinger said.

Some collision mitigation systems, increasing in availability, do more than warn, actually applying the brake if the driver doesn’t act quickly enough. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced last month that it has reached voluntary agreements with 10 automakers to make automatic braking standard in their cars, although there is no timeline yet.

Ray Harbin, 67, AARP’s state volunteer coordinator for driver safety courses in Montana, said the frustration seniors experience learning new-car technology is similar to what they feel when they are forced to adapt to software changes in computers.

California passes right-to-die legislation

By JULIE WATSON ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN DIEGO — It will soon be legal for the terminally ill to end their own lives in the nation’s most populous state, and right-to-die advocates expect other states to follow California’s example.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Monday that allows such physicianassisted deaths, marking a major victory for proponents who spent decades and millions of dollars pushing through such a measure.

California marks a turning point, and its legislation includes more safeguards than the other four states where the practice is legal, the law’s supporters say. They are now focusing on New Jersey, where the state Senate is slated to debate a similar bill this fall, and Massachusetts, where a legislative hearing on the issue is set for this month.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook with people who now want to bring forth bills,” said Jessica Grennan at Compassion and Choices, a national advocacy group leading the fight. “I think what happened in California is definitely going to inspire people across the country to honor these options at the end of life.”

But opponents say they will be beefing up their fight as well.

Legislation introduced this year in at least two dozen other states stalled, but California has proven to be a

trendsetter, legal experts say. Doctors in Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana already can prescribe lifeending drugs.

“A significant part of the country now has a right to physician-assisted death,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “I think this reflects growing public support for a right to death with dignity.”

The Catholic Church and advocates for people with disabilities say measures like California’s legalize premature suicide and put terminally ill patients at risk for coerced death.

“The impact of what happened in California may be a lot more limited than some people think because other states really have paid a lot more attention to the objections and concerns of the disability community,” said Marilyn Gold, a senior policy analyst with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

Those voices were drowned out in California by assisted-suicide supporters who spent millions on their campaign, Gold said. But she doesn’t expect that to happen elsewhere.

“In state after state after state, there have been multiple attempts, and these measures have failed,” Gold said.

Gov. Brown, a lifelong Catholic, said he consulted a Catholic bishop, two of his own doctors and friends “who take varied, contradictory and nuanced positions.”

NOTICE of PUBLIC MEETING

NOTICE of PUBLIC MEETING

TO SUMMARIZE ZAPATA COUNTY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRIC’S IMPROVEMENT REQUIRED

TO DISCUSS ZAPATA COUNTY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT’S State FIRST Rating

Zapata County Independent School District Public Meeting

Zapata County Independent School District Public Meeting

Wed., October 21, 2015 at 5:45 p.m.

Professional Development Center (PDC) 702 E. 17th Avenue Zapata, Texas 78076 The purpose of this meeting is to summarize and discuss Zapata County Independent School District’s Status of the Intervention required for all campuses rated 2nd year “Improvement Required,” for Fidel and Andrea Villarreal Elementary School

Wed., October 21, 2015 at 5:50 p.m.

Professional Development Center (PDC) 702 E. 17th Avenue Zapata, Texas 78076 The purpose of this meeting is to discuss Zapata County Independent School District’s rating on the State’s FIRST system

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

ON THE WEB: THEZAPATATIMES.COM

Sports&Outdoors NCAA FOOTBALL: TEXAS LONGHORNS

Longhorns pointing fingers At 1-4, Texas assigning blame

By JIM VERTUNO ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUSTIN — Texas coach Charlie Strong spent nearly a half-hour Monday insisting his team was unified and would rebound from a 1-4 start.

Within minutes after he left the podium, Strong’s players put those promises to the test, publicly exposing a rift between some of the team’s veterans and a talented group of freshmen that have forced their way onto the depth chart with scant success on the field.

“People need to grow up and take things more seriously. A lot of people aren’t preparing,” said junior safety Dylan Haines, a former walk-on who earned a scholarship last season. “They just want to go out and play the game on Saturday. They don’t want to put in the work on (the other days).”

Freshman defensive end Charles Omenihu apparently didn’t like this kind of chatter and swiftly responded on Twitter.

“Lol,” said a tweet from Omenihu’s account, which seconds later added, “People get in front of the cameras and just talk they

File photo by Jay Janner | AP

Members of the Texas football team have started to blame each other as players look for answers following a 1-4 start. heads off. Always remember think before you speak.”

A school spokesman confirmed the account belongs to Omenihu.

The second tweet was quickly deleted, but not before the divide in the locker room had taken over the day from Strong’s message of unity ahead in Saturday’s showdown with No. 10 Oklahoma (4-0, 1-0 Big 12), a game that has taken on even more urgency with Texas

off to its worst start in nearly 60 years.

Strong is 7-11 in his second season and the Longhorns have lost six of their last seven games dating to last season.

Several older players tried to diminish talk of a split locker room, but even they ended up reinforcing the message that some of their teammates haven’t been putting in the work need to succeed.

“Sometimes people have to suck it up and understand where it’s coming from,” junior defensive tackle Hassan Ridgeway said.

None of the older players identified any teammates and no freshmen came to the media availability. The Longhorns had 13 freshmen in the two-deep lineup for last week’s 50-7 loss at TCU, including starting quarterback Jerrod Heard and six linebackers

and defensive backs.

The Longhorns were already dealing with the embarrassment of freshman defensive back Kris Boyd tweeting from the locker room during halftime of Saturday’s blowout loss. He retweeted what amounted to an invitation from an apparent supporter of Texas A&M, a rival the Longhorns don’t play anymore. The tweet read, “Whenever ya’ll (sic) are ready to transfer ... we’re ready. #Gig’em.” Boyd later said he apologized and insisted he is “100 percent committed” to the Longhorns.

Two days later, his teammates clearly were still bothered by the episode.

“Everyone felt disrespected ...

He didn’t think anything was wrong with it,” senior defensive back Duke Thomas said. “I told him you can’t do that here. It’s not the same thing as (in high school).”

Thomas refused the call the locker room divided, but said there “may be a little disconnect with the way (the freshmen) feel they need to play.”

The freshmen have read and heard on social media they are the best players in the program, but they need to learn how to earn playing time and victories, Thomas said.

Freshman DeAndre McNeal’s Twitter account later posted a message that said “us ’FRESHMAN’ are go getters ... we are here to pull Texas out of the drought so you so can either get with it or get lost.”

International

8A THE ZAPATA TIMES

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

Guatemala eyes mudslide

By SONIA PEREZ D. AND KATHERINE CORCORAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

SANTA CATARINA PINULA, Guatemala — The warning signs were everywhere in the canyon neighborhood of Cambray on the outskirts of Guatemala City, where a mudslide buried hundreds of people last week. Residents lived with regular falling rocks and flooding from the adjacent Pinula River.

Evelyn de Cifuentes said her mother-in-law was killed in a smaller slide in 2010 next to her own house. A November report

by Guatemala’s National Disaster Reduction Commission said there were “fractures in blocks of material that can indicate future slides,” and people should be moved out.

But the area wasn’t declared uninhabitable until Monday, four days after hundreds of people almost certainly perished when a hillside buried acres of the neighborhood. The official

Photo by Majdi Mohammed | AP

A Palestinian throws a Molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli troops at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday.

Photo by Moises Castillo | AP

A man prays during the burial of five mudslide victims at the Santa Catarina Pinula cemetery on the outskirts of Guatemala City, Tuesday. death count stood at 161 Tuesday, with 300 people still believed to be missing.

The Guatemala prosecutor’s office announced it will conduct an investigation into who was responsible for allowing the dangerous conditions to exist.

“We will establish the degree of responsibility as best we can — who authorized construction in that area, and whether someone didn’t take appropriate action to avoid this tragedy,” said prosecutor Rotman Perez of the political crimes section.

2 win Nobel Prize in physics

By KARL RITTER AND MALCOLM RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS

STOCKHOLM — Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for key discoveries about a cosmic particle that whizzes through space at nearly the speed of light, passing easily through Earth and even your body.

Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada were honored for showing that these tiny particles, called neutrinos, have mass. That’s the quality we typically experience as weight.

“The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe,” the Royal

MCDONALD

Swedish Academy of Sciences said in awarding the prize.

The work dispelled the long-held notion that neutrinos had no mass.

Neutrinos come in three types, or “flavors,” and what the scientists actually showed is that neutrinos spontaneously shift between types. That in turn means they must have

mass.

Kajita, 56, is director of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research and professor at the University of Tokyo. McDonald, 72, is a professor emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

McDonald told reporters in Stockholm by phone that the discovery helped scientists fit neutrinos into theories of fundamental physics.

Kajita, who initially told a news conference at his university that “my mind has gone completely blank. I don’t know what to say,” went on to stress that many people had contributed to his work.

“The universe where we live in is still full of unknowns,” he said. “A major discovery cannot

be achieved in a day or two. It takes a lot of people and a long time.”

The existence of neutrinos was first proven in 1956. They come from a variety of sources in the cosmos, on Earth and in Earth’s atmosphere. Most that reach Earth were created by nuclear reactions inside the sun. Trillions pass through your body every second.

Kajita showed in 1998 that neutrinos created in Earth’s atmosphere and captured at the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan had changed “flavors.”

Three years later, while working at Canada’s Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, McDonald found that neutrinos coming from the sun also switched identities.

Young Palestinians Generation of disillusioned citizens drives unrest

By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH AND KARIN LAUB ASSOCIATED PRESS

SURDA, West Bank — A new generation of angry, disillusioned Palestinians is driving the current wave of clashes with Israeli forces: Too young to remember the hardships of life during Israel’s clampdown on the last major uprising, they have lost faith in statehood through negotiations, distrust their political leaders and believe Israel only understands force.

The recent re-election of hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu to a fourth term as prime minster has only deepened the sense of paralysis.

Some young Palestinians say they want to emulate those killed or wounded in confrontations or attacks on Israelis — like Mohannad Halabi, the 19year-old law student from the West Bank who stabbed to death two Israelis in a bloody rampage in Jerusalem’s Old City over the weekend before being shot dead by police.

“We are all impressed with what he has done,” said Malik Hussein, a 19-year-old friend and fellow law student at Al-Quds University near Jerusalem. “The day after the attack, university students took to the streets and clashed with Israeli soldiers. Mohannad’s way is the only way to liberate Palestine.”

Despite such fervor and a rise in violence, it’s not clear if con-

ditions are ripe for a new uprising against the Israeli military occupation that began in 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Marked by Palestinian bombings and shootings, the last revolt erupted in 2000 and ebbed after Mahmoud Abbas, an opponent of violence, replaced the late Yasser Arafat as Palestinian president in 2005.

Abbas now walks a thin line.

He is trying to prevent an escalation that he believes will cost the Palestinians international sympathy, but can’t be seen as cracking down on what Palestinians view as legitimate resistance to occupation. On Monday, Abbas ordered his security commanders to switch tactics and not use force to prevent Palestinian protests.

Much will depend on the severity of Israel’s response. The most recent attacks killed four Israelis last week — the two Israeli men stabbed by Halabi and a Jewish settler couple killed in a West Bank shooting ambush, in view of their four children.

Netanyahu has threatened a tough crackdown, saying he is sending thousands more police and soldiers to the West Bank and east Jerusalem, with a mandate to take “strong action” against anyone throwing stones or firebombs. In the past, such clampdowns often led to more Palestinian casualties which, in turned, fueled new protests and more bloodshed.

MIÉRCOLES 7 DE OCTUBRE DE 2015

Agenda en Breve TEMPORADA DE CAZA Tamaulipas comenzó con la temporada de casa de la Paloma Ala Blanca, anunciaron autoridades del Estado. La temporada concluirá el 18 de octubre.

Igualmente, de acuerdo al calendario aprobado para la práctica de ésta actividad deportiva, también inició el periodo de caza de la Paloma de Collar y la temporada de caza de la Paloma Huilota. La temporada de caza de la Paloma Collar termina el 18 de octubre, mientras que la temporada de la Paloma Huilota, terminará el 8 de noviembre.

SEMANA DE INUNDACIONES El Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, con base en Corpus Christi, dio a conocer que se está celebrando la Semana de Seguridad ante Inundaciones en Texas. A decir del organismo, cada año un promedio de más de 50% de fatalidades ocurridas durante una inundación están relacionadas con vehículos.

“Solamente se necesitan 12 pulgadas de agua para llevarse un carro pequeño y 18 pulgadas de agua para barrer con un vehículo grande”, indica un reporte del SMN.

Zfrontera

PÁGINA 9A

TAMAULIPAS

Acribillan ex alcalde TIEMPO DE ZAPATA

Un ex presidente municipal de Villagrán, Tamaulipas, quien se dedicaba actualmente a la música, murió tras ser baleado en el municipio de Hidalgo, confirmó el Gobierno del estado mexicano.

El ataque ocurrió mientras Luis Javier Hernández Juárez, de 46 años de edad, participaba con su grupo “Conjunto Privilegio” en un baile popular el domingo, en el marco del aniversario de la comunidad Ejido San Francisco.

La comunidad se ubica aun costado de la Carretera Nacional, en el tramo de Linares a Ciudad Victoria.

El reporte de la Procu-

Foto de cortesía

Integrantes del Grupo Privilegio, cuyo dueño y ex alcalde de Villagran, Tamaulipas, Luis Javier Hernández Juárez, a la extrema derecha, muriera tras recibir tres balazos el domingo por la noche. raduría General de Justicia de Tamaulipas informó que los hechos ocurrieron

a las 11 p.m.

“Las investigaciones realizadas hasta el momen-

to establecen que un sujeto se le acercó a Hernández Juárez y le disparó en tres

ocasiones con una pistola automática calibre 45, dándose a la fuga inmediatamente”, indica un comunicado de prensa del Gobierno del estado.

Hernández Juárez, quien fuera presidente municipal de Villagrán en el trienio 2011-2013, era conocido como “Javi” en el municipio.

Era dueño del “Conjunto Privilegio”, un grupo que interpreta música norteña y grupera, y estaba encargado del sonido y equipo en general, de acuerdo a la página oficial en Facebook de la agrupación.

La PGJE indicó que fueron abiertas varias investigaciones para dar con él o los responsables.

EDUCACIÓN

ESTÍMULOS EDUCATIVOS

ACCIONES ESTATALES El Gobierno de Tamaulipas sostuvo que han invertido más de 350 millones de pesos en infraestructura especializada relacionada a la detección oportuna del cáncer de mama. “(Se ha hecho inversión en) el crecimiento del 200 por ciento en ultrasonidos y más del 80 por ciento en dotación de mastógrafos para unidades hospitalarias”, indica un reporte del Gobierno del Estado.

La entidad dio inicio a las jornadas intensivas para la sensibilización, diagnóstico oportuno y tratamiento del cáncer de mama, una enfermedad que puede ser curable si se detecta a tiempo, agrega el reporte.

Foto de cortesía

El Sistema para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia de Tamaulipas entregó los estímulos educativos anuales correspondientes al ciclo escolar 2015-2016 a 900 niñas, niños y adolescentes beneficiarios del programa PANNARTI. El apoyo busca evitar la deserción escolar en los municipios de Jiménez, Soto la Marina, Tula, Mante, Tampico, Madero, Altamira, González, Mier, Miguel Alemán, Camargo, Reynosa, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, San Fernando, Río Bravo, Valle Hermoso, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz y Victoria, Tamaulipas.

RIBEREÑA

NUEVO LAREDO, MX

Solicita remover permisos

FIESTAS DEL PUEBLO MIGUEL ALEMÁN, México — Brenda Idail Flores será coronada como la Reina Brenda I, al inicio de las fiestas del pueblo el 9 de octubre, cuando se celebra la emancipación política del municipio.

La 65ª fiesta anual tendrá la ceremonia de coronación en el Teatro del Pueblo.

La Corte Real de Brenda I quedó conformada por Princesa Shaden Hernández Hernández y Duquesa Rosabel Sáenz Cruz.

REINA INFANTIL DEL DIF MIGUEL ALEMÁN, México — Karime Yolet Garza López fue electa como Reina Infantil 2015-2016 en esta ciudad fronteriza de Tamaulipas.

Andrea Aguirre de Cortez, presidenta del Sistema para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, sostuvo que “el reinado infantil es una experiencia gratificante para quienes trabajan en el Sistema para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, porque le gusta trabajar con ellos, y porque se tiene el compromiso de enaltecer las actividades familiares”.

CIERRE CONSULADOS El viernes 9 de octubre, debido a una actualización de los sistemas consulares, las operaciones consulares de la embajada de EU en la Ciudad de México y los nueve consulados en toda la República Mexicana, permanecerán cerrados al público.

Ciudadanos estadounidenses que requieren asistencia de emergencia deben llamar al 867-714-0512.

TIEMPO DE ZAPATA

Foto de cortesía

Carlos Enrique Canturosas Villarreal, al centro de pie, celebró reunión el fin de semana en la ciudad de Miguel Alemán, México, con representantes del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) en la frontera chica.

Habla de logros en reunión Carlos Canturosas Villarreal se reunió con líderes de PAN TIEMPO DE ZAPATA

Líderes del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) en la frontera ribereña sostuvieron reunión el fin de semana con el Presidente Municipal de Nuevo Laredo, México, en Miguel Alemán, México.

El nombre de Carlos Enrique Canturosas Villarreal ha sido mencionado de forma constante como posible candidato del PAN a la Gubernatura de Tamaulipas. La ley mexicana permite que funcionarios municipales realicen actividades privadas y/o personales durante los fines de semana.

Dirigentes de Miguel Alemán, Camargo, Mier, Nueva Ciudad Guerrero y Díaz Ordaz invitaron al edil con el objetivo de conocer el trabajo que ha realizado a través del gobierno municipal, de acuerdo a un reporte de la empresa Boletín Informativo.

“Nuevo Laredo, Mier y Miguel Alemán han demostrado que las cosas pueden cambiar, que con un buen liderazgo, trabajo de sociedad

La ley mexicana permite que funcionarios municipales realicen actividades privadas y/o personales los fines de semana. y gobierno podemos juntos reformar el rumbo de Tamaulipas”, dijo Canturosas.

Destacó aspectos como el desarrollo económico, obra pública y seguridad; también tocó el tema del empleo, instalación de industrias y nuevas empresas.

El Presidente Municipal de Miguel Alemán, Herón Osvaldo Sáenz Cantú, expresó que Canturosas representa “una de las propuestas más sólidas que tiene Acción Nacional en la entidad para encabezar un proyecto con el que se pinte de azul a Tamaulipas”, de acuerdo con el comunicado.

En la reunión también participa-

ron los panistas Jorge Luis Martínez Cantú, Humberto Gutiérrez de la Garza, Irasema Garza Benítez, Juan José García Guel, Jaime Hinojosa Peña , Patroclo Treviño Ramos, Roel Ramírez Guerra, Gustavo Gómez Stringel, José Gilberto Sánchez Hernández, Carlota Ortega, la síndico municipal Lilia Gabriela Medina Rodríguez, los regidores Martha Cruz Velázquez, Jenny Zapata Martínez y Mónico Garza; el comisionado del PAN en Ciudad Mier, José Martín Esparza Aranda, y los presidentes municipales del PAN, Abel Carmona, de Camargo; y Rodrigo Espinoza Martínez, de Díaz Ordaz.

El Diputado Enrique Rivas Cuellar (Distrito I – Nuevo Laredo, México) demandó que sean retiradas las concesiones a empresarios en la ciudad fronteriza por haber incrementado las tarifas del transporte sin tener la autorización previa.

“Nadie puede estar por encima de las instituciones y desafiar a las autoridades. Así no podemos tener el Tamaulipas que se dice fuerte”, expuso RIVAS Rivas Cuellar durante la sesión ordinaria de la LXII Legislatura en el Congreso del Estado. “Demandamos atención inmediata al problema y el retiro de las concesiones a las empresas involucradas”.

A partir del 1 de octubre, concesionarios del transporte urbano en Nuevo Laredo empezaron a aplicar un cobro mayor por usuario de los camiones, subiéndolo de 8 pesos a 10 pesos. Igualmente, el fin de semana suspendieron parcialmente su servicio afectando a aproximadamente 40.000 usuarios.

“Las instituciones del Estado y la población de Nuevo Laredo es rehén de un grupo de concesionarios del Transporte Urbano”, afirmó el congresista. “Urge un freno serio y contundente a empresarios que lucran con las necesidades de los tamaulipecos”.

Concluyó diciendo que al retirar las concesiones actuales se abriría un abanico de oportunidades para que otros empresarios puedan empezar a ofrecer el servicio a los neolaredenses.

International

10A THE ZAPATA TIMES

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

European nations work to secure borders

By PABLO GORONDI ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Several Eastern European countries are cooperating on controlling the flow of migrants at the external borders of the European Union — a program a top Hungarian official said Tuesday could set an example for the rest of the 28-nation bloc.

Zsolt Nemeth, head of the Hungarian parliament’s foreign relations committee, said his country is working jointly with the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia to help protect Hungary’s border with Croatia, which is also an external border for the EU’s passport-free Schengen travel zone.

“We want to return traffic at the external border to its normal course,” Nemeth told The Associated Press in an interview. “We want (migrants) to enter the Schengen zone only at the checkpoints.”

The Czech Republic on Monday decided to send 25 soldiers to Hungary to help protect its borders with Croatia and was considering sending more troops and police, while Poland’s Border Guard sent a helicopter with eight crew members and one liaison officer to Hungary.

On Thursday, the interior ministers of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland will discuss further ways to help Hungary, which has seen over 318,000 people

seeking safety arrive this year. The four countries form the so-called Visegrad Group.

Nemeth said Hungary wants to spur the EU into protecting the external borders of Greece, where most of the tens of thousands of migrants reaching Hungary first enter the EU. “If we, the Visegrad Countries, can set an example for Europe, then there is a chance that the EU will follow this example,” Nemeth said. “We should defend the Greek border together.”

Hungary has built a razor-wire fence on its border with Serbia, which is not in the EU, and is rapidly completing a similar barrier on the Croatian border as well.

Photo by Muhammed Muheisen | AP

In this Sept. 17 photo, Afghan refugees sleep next to razor-wire barrier at the Serbian side of Hungary’s border fence with Serbia, in Asotthalom, southern Hungary. Tens of thousands of people trying to escape conflict and poverty have been making their way across Europe this summer and fall.

Rebels face new reality Russia continues airstrikes against Syria’s opposition

By SARAH EL DEEB ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo by Rebecca Blackwell | AP

A man rides his bike in circles to exercise his leashed dog, inside Parque Mexico in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, Tuesday.

Mexico eyes reports of dog poisoning

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEXICO CITY — A popular dog run in a picturesque Mexico City park remained closed Tuesday following reported cases of dog poisoning.

Orange tape surrounded the fenced-off dog area at Parque Mexico in the well-to-do Condesa neighborhood in the central part of the capital. Large banners hung on the fence warning of a “Red Alert” that dogs are being poisoned. The shady area where dogs usually play was empty and unusually silent.

Smaller paper signs posted throughout the park by the local government advised dog owners to keep their pets on leashes while an investigation into the poisoning continued.

Several police officers standing outside the dog run said they did not know when it would reopen. One sign posted by a Facebook group on the gate had photos of nine dogs that it said had been poisoned since Sept. 29.

Javier Hidalgo, director of the environmental and mobility department for the local government, said 12 dogs had died in veterinary clinics with symptoms that could indicate poisoning and officials received reports of six other suspicious deaths.

One of those was “Daisy,” described as a “mutt of the best sort” by her owner, Caroline Owen. Owen said she and her husband were aware of reports about poisoning around Parque Mexico when they were out Friday night walking their three dogs.

She said they were vigilant

and kept the dogs on leashes while limiting the walk to the park’s perimeter. But at 3 a.m., they awoke to find Daisy convulsing and foaming at the mouth. The other two dogs showed no symptoms. Owen had her dead pet’s body frozen and it is undergoing toxicology tests at a lab at Mexico’s national university.

“It can’t be a coincidence that all of a sudden there are so many ill dogs,” Owen said. She said she had heard of similar cases at nearby Parque Espana as well.

Information spread rapidly on social media. The Facebook page “Cuidando Nuestros Perritos,” or “Taking Care of Our Dogs,” posted photos of pets and testimonials by distraught owners.

Alberto Franco Paz, who lives in the neighboring Escandon neighborhood, sat outside the dog run with his yellow Labrador retriever Jackie on Tuesday.

He said he first heard about the situation Saturday when he brought Jackie to the park and saw the signs.

But he played down the threat, saying he thought people who did not like dogs coming to the park were trying to blow it out of proportion in hopes that fewer would come. He said city officials had inspected and cleaned the dog area without finding anything. He said authorities were also reviewing footage from security cameras.

“Really I’m not certain,” Paz said. “But I don’t know why they would do it.”

A couple dozen people walked their dogs through the park Tuesday morning, but all the animals were on leashes.

BEIRUT — The U.S.-backed rebel group Tajammu Alezzah has been fighting the Syrian military outside the city of Hama for months, but a new player has joined the fray: Russian warplanes, which have repeatedly hit their front-line positions, followed by airstrikes from government planes.

Russia’s bombing campaign, now a week old, has created a new reality for Syria’s opposition. The rebels say the airstrikes are meant to weaken the rebellion against President Bashar Assad, not just crush the Islamic State and other militants as Moscow contends.

The Russian airstrikes, more powerful than those by the Syrian military, have hit along several key fronts, even attacking rebel bases along the border with Turkey. That’s an area the opposition had considered to be relatively safe because Syria’s air force has avoided it.

Rebel factions — moderates, Islamists and radicals alike — have had to evacuate some bases and move ammunition stores, according to opposition activists and rebel commanders. The rebels are calling for their regional backers, such as the Gulf countries and Turkey, to boost their support, including more sophisticated weapons like anti-aircraft missiles.

Many warn that the Russian intervention will only strengthen extremists like the Islamic State and al-Qaida’s branch in Syria by rallying people to their side, while the already beleaguered moderate forces are weakened further.

Maj. Jamil al-Saleh, the leader of Tajammu Alezzah, said his forces have had to redeploy to safer areas after 22 of his fighters were wounded in the airstrikes, but they have not withdrawn from the front-lines at Latamneh, a town north of Hama. The airstrikes were clearly intended to tip the area to the government’s favor, he added.

“The regime would like to reclaim this area after many losses,” al-Saleh, a defector from the Syrian military, told The Associated Press. He added that the military wants to achieve victories and “lift the spirits of the regime forces and Shabiha” — a reference to the pro-government militia.

Russia, a longtime ally of Assad, insists its campaign is solely intended to roll back Islamic

Photo courtesy of Rased News Network | AP

In this Monday photo released by the Rased News Network, a Facebook account affiliated with Islamic State militants, people gather at the site of an airstrike in Al-Bab on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. militants, saying it is targeting the Islamic State group and other radicals like al-Qaida’s branch, the Nusra Front, and hard-line rebel groups such as Ahrar al-Sham.

Some of the airstrikes have indeed targeted IS militants. On Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said Russian jets in the past 24 hours had carried out 34 airstrikes in and around the central city of Palmyra, which is held by IS, and outside the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa.

An Islamic State operative denied there were any Russian hits on his group’s locations.

“We benefit from this war and these (rival) coalitions,’ he said in a conversation via Skype, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk on the group’s behalf.

In more than 100 sorties before Monday, the Russians focused on areas in the northwestern province of Idlib and the central provinces of Homs and Hama — all strategic zones in fighting between rebels and the Syrian military. The Observatory and activists in Syria say most of the airstrikes have hit positions of Jaish al-Fatah.

That umbrella group includes the Nusra Front and other rebels with hard-line Islamic ideologies, but also moderate factions, such as the Westernbacked Free Syrian Army.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova underlined that the campaign was hitting only militant groups. But she also seemed to include a spectrum of factions in that category.

“These groups are fluid and they mutate all the time,” she said in Moscow. “If he talks like a terrorist, acts like a terrorist and fights like a terrorist, he is a terrorist,” she said, echoing a

statement that her boss, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, used last week at the United Nations.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, in an interview broadcast Monday by the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, pointed to U.N. Security Council resolutions that denounce the Islamic State group, the Nusra Front and “al-Qaida-affiliated groups” as justification for the targets in the Russian campaign, although the resolutions don’t authorize military action against them.

“If you hit (IS), Nusra Front or Ahrar al-Sham, you are still working within the Security Council resolution,” he said.

The resolutions don’t specifically name Ahrar al-Sham, but the Syrian government considers all rebel factions to be “terrorists,” suggesting he was making the argument that a broad range of groups would be considered targets under the resolutions.

Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper, which has close contacts with the Syrian government, quoted an unidentified senior Syrian military official as saying, “All those who carry weapons against the Syrian army are targets” for the Russians.

He said the airstrikes were going after insurgent bases in areas that link Idlib, Hama and Homs provinces, and that the campaign had secured Latakia — a coastal city and province that is an Assad stronghold and the heartland of his family’s Alawite sect of Shiite Islam.

A Russian naval base with an estimated 3,000 personnel, is located to the south in neighboring Tartus province.

Retired Lebanese army Gen. Hisham Jaber, who is familiar with the Syrian military, said the Russian aim is to clear the central area of rebels to protect the coastal regions.

Transplanting tissue helps women have babies

By MARIA CHENG ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON — The biggest study ever of women who had ovarian tissue removed, frozen and transplanted suggests the experimental technique is safe and can help about one third of them to have babies.

The procedure is intended for women with cancer who wish to preserve their fertility, since cancer treatments can harm the ovaries. Scientists typically remove one ovary and cut it into strips before freezing them. Years later after the woman has recovered

from cancer, doctors typically graft some of the thawed-out tissue onto the remaining ovary.

Researchers followed 41 women in Denmark who underwent the procedure from 2003 to 2014.

Among the 32 women in the study who wanted children, 10 later got pregnant and gave birth.

Globally, more than 36 babies have been born to women who had ovary transplants, with 14 in Denmark.

Unlike most countries, Denmark offers the treatment free to all women who qualify. The technique is not part of routine cancer care in Britain, but is avail-

able at some clinics there and in Europe, including Belgium and Germany.

“Once we transplant the ovarian tissue, it takes about four to five months for the ovary to get restarted,” said Dr. Claus Yding Andersen, the study’s senior author. The paper was published online Wednesday in the journal, Human Reproduction.

In some cases, the transplanted tissue lasted for up to 10 years, much longer than scientists had predicted.

The ovarian tissue that kept working so long probably had more eggs to begin with, said

Mark Fenwick, a lecturer in reproductive and developmental medicine at Sheffield University.

He said mothers and babies required close monitoring although no potential problems linked to the technique have been spotted so far.

In the study, three women later had a cancer relapse, but Andersen said that didn’t appear to be linked to the transplant.

“This technique still needs to be further validated, but the results are reassuring,” said Dr. Yacoub Khalaf, director of the Assisted Conception Unit at Guy’s Hospital in London, who is also

working to refine the procedure.

“It offers hope to people who have no other alternative.”

Dr. Jane Stewart of the British Fertility Society said the technique wouldn’t be suitable for everyone and that doctors need to be careful about selecting which patients to treat. At the moment, women preparing for cancer treatment might have eggs or embryos frozen for later use.

“I think patients would definitely want (the option of transplanted ovarian tissue) and there is a lot of future potential, but this isn’t ready to be rolled out tomorrow,” she said.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

THE ZAPATA TIMES 11A

US trade deficit widens to $48.3B in August

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit jumped sharply in August as exports fell to the lowest level in nearly three years while imports increased, led by a surge in shipments of cellphones from China.

The deficit increased 15.6 percent to $48.3 billion, the biggest deficit since March, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Exports of goods and services dropped 2 percent to $185.1 billion, the lowest level since October 2012. Imports rose 1.2 percent to $233.4 billion.

Exports have been hurt this year by the rising value of the dollar, which makes U.S. goods less competitive on overseas markets, and weaker economic growth in China and other major export markets.

Economists say they expect these trends will combine to push the deficit higher and make trade a drag on overall growth this year.

Canada, America’s large-

Photo by Nick Ut | AP file

In this Feb. 12 file photo, trucks move containers at the Port of Los Angeles. The Commerce Department reported on the U.S. trade gap for August 2015 on Tuesday. st trading partner, is in a recession. And China, the world’s second largest economy, is growing more slowly. Meanwhile, many emerging market economies are being battered by a plunge in commodity prices.

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said that the August trade performance showed that trade will

be a “significant drag” on growth in the July-September quarter. Shepherdson said he looked for trade to subtract 0.75 percentage point from third quarter growth.

The overall economy grew at a 3.9 percent rate in the second quarter, but many analysts expect that trade and other factors will slow growth to perhaps as

little as 1.5 percent in the third quarter.

The United States on Monday reached agreement with Japan and nine other Pacific Rim nations on what would be the largest regional trade pact in history. But the Obama administration will face a major challenge winning congressional approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership

trade deal against opponents who argue that it will expose American workers to more unfair foreign competition.

The critics point to America’s huge trade deficits to bolster their argument that other nations are manipulating their currencies and pursuing other unfair trade practices that are costing U.S. jobs.

For August, the U.S. deficit with China rose 10.7 percent to $35 billion, the highest level in 11 months.

So far this year, the deficit with China, the largest with any trading partner, is running 9.5 percent higher than a year ago. It is on track to set another annual record.

The deficit with the European Union rose 9 percent in August to $13.6 billion, while the imbalance with Japan fell 9 percent to $5.2 billion.

The drop in exports reflected lower sales of manufactured goods such as computers, industrial machinery and autos. Shipments of U.S. energy products also fell 9.3 percent to $8.1 billion, reflecting the slump in oil prices.

The rise in imports reflected a $2.1 billion jump in the category that covers cellphones, with many of those imports coming from China. Imports of telecommunications equipment and food products were also up, but imports of oil dropped 11.7 percent to $15.1 billion.

Cybercrime Wall Street profits hit $11.3B costs climbing for companies

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN ASSOCIATED PRESS

By BREE FOWLER ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Cybercrime costs are climbing for companies both in the U.S. and overseas amid a slew of high-profile breaches, according to research released Tuesday.

A sixth-annual study by the Ponemon Institute pegged the average annual cost of cybercrime per large U.S. company at $15.4 million. That’s up 19 percent from $12.7 million a year ago.

It also represents an 82 percent jump from Ponemon’s inaugural study six years ago.

Individually, cybercrime costs for the U.S. companies surveyed varied dramatically, ranging from $1.9 million to $65 million. And the average cost of a cyberattack on a U.S. company rose 22 percent to $1.9 million from $1.5 million.

Globally, the average annualized cost of cybercrime increased 1.9 percent from last year to $7.7 million.

“As an industry we’re getting better, but attacks are becoming much more

invasive and sophisticated,” said Andrzej Kawalec, chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard Co.’s HP Enterprise Security, which sponsored the study and sells cybersecurity services to businesses.

The study examined the total cost of responding to cybercrime incidents, including detection, recovery, investigation and incident-response management. It also looked at after-the-fact expenses designed to prevent additional costs stemming from the potential loss of business or customers.

Recent expensive and embarrassing breaches at companies including Target, Home Depot and Sony Pictures have prompted many companies to boost their cyberdefenses.

The study looked at a sample of 58 U.S. companies with at least 1,000 connections to its computer network. Globally, the study analyzed data from 252 companies in the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, Russia and Brazil.

ALBANY, N.Y. — The securities industry in New York City tallied $11.3 billion in profits during the first half of 2015, higher than in the past three years, while also adding jobs last year for the first time since 2011, the state comptroller reported Tuesday.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the analysis shows that despite current market volatility, Wall Street may be positioned for a good year overall.

It had 174,000 jobs in August, having added 2,300 last year, and was on pace to add another 4,500 this year before recent market downturns.

The securities industry remains 9 percent smaller than it was before the 2008 financial crisis, the report said.

The average salary, including bonus, rose 14 percent last year to a record $404,800 — the third highest on record after accounting for inflation.

“After a very strong first half of the year, the securities industry faces volatile financial markets and an unsteady global economy,” DiNapoli said.

“After years of downsizing, the industry has been adding jobs in New York City, but it may curtail hiring to bolster profits. We’re hopeful that Wall Street’s robust first half will result in a good year.”

Despite new regulations and legal

settlements related to the financial crisis, securities industry profits were strong in the past two years, averaging $16.3 billion annually, the report said. Profits in the first half of 2015 were stronger, rising 29 percent compared to the same period last year as the cost of settlements declined.

Industry performance was measured by the results of the broker/ dealer operations of New York Stock Exchange members.

Current market volatility was attributed in the analysis to weakness in the global economy, particularly China, and concerns over the Federal Reserve’s plan to raise short-term interest rates and possible timing.

US stocks close moderately lower

By KEN SWEET ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks paused Tuesday, closing moderately lower after five straight days of gains. DuPont and energy companies rose sharply, but the overall market was weighed down by health-care stocks, especially biotechnology companies.

Investors remain mostly in standby mode, with the closely watched minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September meeting coming out on Thursday and third-quarter company earnings just around the corner.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 13.76 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,790.19. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 7.13 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,979.92 and the Nasdaq composite lost 32.90 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,748.36.

The biggest gainer in the S&P 500

and Dow was chemical giant DuPont, which rose $3.93, or nearly 8 percent, to $55.21. DuPont’s CEO Ellen Kullman announced she would retire effective next week. DuPont’s profits have lagged in recent years, and the company has been a target of activist investors like Nelsen Peltz.

Biotechnology stocks were hit hard. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell nearly 4 percent after the recently announced 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal provided only eight years of certain kinds of drug patent protection, less than the 12 years that the industry was lobbying for.

Biotech stocks have been hammered in recent months because of investor concerns that the industry might face more scrutiny from Washington over its drug pricing practices.

The index is down 24 percent from its peak in late July.

Barring some geopolitical crisis or massive company news, the next major move for the market will likely come Thursday, when investors will get the minutes from the Fed’s latest policy meeting in September.

Investors are increasingly confident the Federal Reserve will hold off for longer than previously expected on raising interest rates following last week’s jobs report, which showed that the U.S. economy was creating fewer jobs.

Securities that allow investors to bet on which way the Fed will move interest rates now show the market expects the next rate hike will come in March 2016. The minutes, which break down the issues the Fed addressed at their last meeting, should provide clues on whether policymakers still feel confident about raising interest rates.

12A THE ZAPATA TIMES

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015