COULD COWBOYS TURN TO ROMO?
WEDNESDAYDECEMBER 14, 2016
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DALLAS OWNER JERRY JONES TALKS MAKING SWITCH FROM PRESCOTT TO ROMO, A7
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TRUMP PRESIDENCY
TEXAS
From ‘oops’ to DOE chief
Gov. Greg Abbott on proposed legislation
Trump picks Rick Perry to head Department of Energy By Matthew Daly and Will Weissert A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
WASHINGTON — He ran for president twice, but Rick Perry may be best known for two made-for-TV moments: uttering “oops” when he
forgot the Energy Department was one of the agencies he pledged to eliminate and being a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars.” The former Texas governor is Presidentelect Donald Trump’s choice to become energy
secretary, two people with knowledge of the decision say. If confirmed by the Senate, Perry is likely to shift the department away from renewable energy and toward oil and other fossil fuels that Perry continues on A11
Bathroom issue discussed Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg
Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, has been picked to head the Energy Department.
OIL AND GAS
EPA FRACKING REPORT OFFERS FEW ANSWERS ON DRINKING WATER Poses risk in some instances By Matthew Daly A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
W
ASHINGTON — Is hydraulic fracturing — better known as fracking — safe, as the oil and gas industry claims? Or does the controversial drilling technique that has spurred a domestic energy boom contaminate drinking water, as environmental groups and other critics charge? After six years and more than $29 million, the Environmental Protection Agency says it doesn’t know. A new report issued Tuesday said fracking poses a risk to drinking water in some circumstances, but a lack of information precludes a definitive statement on how severe the risk is. “Because of the significant data gaps and uncertainties in Fracking continues on A11
David McNew / Getty
Pump jacks are seen at dawn in an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California.
By Patrick Svitek THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
Gov. Greg Abbott is adopting a wait-and-see approach about anticipated legislation that would prohibit transgender people in Texas from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. “I have not seen any proposed legislation yet,” a characteristically cautious Abbott told reporters Tuesday at the Capitol. “I think we are in a situation where there are more Abbott unknowns than there are knowns.” Among those variables, Abbott said, is the legal challenge to President Barack Obama’s guidelines directing public schools to accommodate transgender students. The incoming administration of GOP President-elect Donald Trump could bring an end to that dispute, which was an impetus for the push for a so-called “bathroom bill” in Texas. While it was unclear whether Abbott viewed the issue as a priority, he nonetheless said it deserves attention. The concern that the bill would address, Abbott said, has “been expressed by many Texans,” and he added that the issue is “something that needs to be looked at.” While such legislation has not been released yet in Texas, Abbott continues on A11
GUERRERO, MEXICO
Tired of abductions, Mexican townsfolk kidnap drug boss’ mom By Mark Stevenson A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
MEXICO CITY — In one of the stranger chapters of Mexico’s drug war, angry people in a southern town kidnapped the mother of a gang leader to de-
mand the release of their loved ones. The government of Guerrero state said Tuesday that it was sending about 220 soldiers and police to try to defuse the situation in Totolapan. The town has been controlled
for years by a drug gang boss whose proper name is Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, but who is better known as “El Tequilero.” De Alamonte has lived up to his nickname, which translates roughly as “The Tequila Drinker.” In his only known public
appearance, he was captured on video drinking with the town’s mayor-elect. De Alamonte mumbles inaudibly and has to be held up in a sitting position by one of his henchmen. In recent months, his gang — also known as the Tequileros
—has been fighting turf battles with other gangs in the area. Last week, the Tequileros allegedly kidnapped several inhabitants of Totolapan who they wanted to extort or whom they suspected of supporting a rival. Kidnap continues on A11
Zin brief A2 | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
CALENDAR
AROUND THE NATION
TODAY IN HISTORY
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15
ASSOCIATED PRE SS
Spanish Book Club. 6-8 p.m. Jose A Guerra Public Library on Calton. For more information call Sylvia Reash at 763-1810.
Today is Wednesday, Dec. 14, the 349th day of 2016. There are 17 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History: On Dec. 14, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson vetoed an immigration measure aimed at preventing “undesirables” and anyone born in the “Asiatic Barred Zone” from entering the U.S. (Congress overrode Wilson’s veto in Feb. 1917.)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 Laredo Northside Farmers Market. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. North Central Park. Past Lives, Dreams and Soul Travel. 1-2:30 p.m. Fairfield Inn & Suites Meeting Room, 700 W. Hillside Road. Discover how past lives, dreams and soul travel can help you experience God. Free bilingual discussion. TAMIU Planetarium Christmas show. 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 7 p.m. TAMIU Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium. Take a break from crowded stores and the hustle and bustle of the season and enjoy a special Christmas season show, “Mystery of the Christmas Star.” General admission is $5.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 Memorial Bells 9th Annual Christmas Concert. 4 p.m. Sanctuary at First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClelland. The program will include both sacred and secular selections and will conclude with a “Ring-SingA-Long.” Free and open to the public. Donations accepted.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 Jedi Christmas. 3-5 p.m. McKendrick Ochoa Salinas Branch Library, 1920 Palo Blanco. Stormtrooper Santa, gaming, crafts, music and food. Star Wars costumes are encouraged. Movie and Popcorn. Every Monday, 4—5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Enjoy a family movie and refreshments.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520. LEGO Workshop. Every Tuesday, 4—5 p.m. Santa Rita Express Library, 83 Prada Machin Drive, on the corner of Malaga Drive and Castro Urdiales Avenue. Create with LEGOs, DUPLOs and robotics.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.
MONDAY, JANUARY 2 Ray of Light anxiety and depression support group meeting. 6:30—7:30 p.m. Area Health Education Center, 1505 Calle del Norte, Suite 430. Every first Monday of the month. People suffering from anxiety and depression are invited to attend this free, confidential and anonymous support group meeting. While a support group does not replace an individual’s medical care, it can be a valuable resource to gain insight, strength and hope.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 3 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 10 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.
Scott Takushi / AP
In this Monday photo, ice forms in Carl Bentson's beard and mustache as he clears sidewalks near Colborne Street and St. Clair Avenue in St. Paul, Minn.
ARCTIC AIR IN UPPER MIDWEST MINNEAPOLIS — The upper Midwest was in the deep freeze Tuesday, with the arctic air expected to shift eastward and affect millions of people as the week wears on. The National Weather Service posted advisories for the Dakotas and Minnesota on Tuesday, with wind chills from 10 to 20 below zero. Wind chill is the combination of air temperature and wind, and forecasters say wind chills this cold can cause frostbite to exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes. Dense morning fog over much of Texas
Dolly Parton gives support to wildfire victims, ‘my people’ NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Country music icon Dolly Parton’s home and businesses in East Tennessee were spared from deadly wildfires last month, but she’s pitching in to help her neighbors recover from the devastation. She was to headline a telethon Tuesday from Nashville, featuring performances from Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers,
on Tuesday slowed the commute for motorists and delayed flights at Dallas-area airports. Fog also impaired visibility in the Austin, Houston and San Antonio regions, and the National Weather Service issued a dense fog advisory for many parts of the state. In Indiana, snow falling at rates of more than an inch per hour on Tuesday caused poor travel conditions, including along the Interstate 70 corridor. The state Department of Transportation deployed nearly 500 snowplows and trucks statewide. — Compiled from AP reports
Hank Williams Jr., Chris Stapleton, Cyndi Lauper and more. The telethon was to be broadcast on Great American Country and streamed live on USAToday.com and affiliate newspapers in Tennessee. Parton set a lofty goal of giving $1,000 to every family that has lost their primary residence through the Dollywood Foundation My People Fund. “It doesn’t sound like a lot of money but we’re talking about thousands of people, hundreds and hundreds of people,” Par-
ton said Tuesday. “If we could give $1,000 a month for six months, that would give people a chance. And if we raise more money than we hope to, then we’ll just do more.” This Christmas, she’ll return home to East Tennessee to see the damage from the fires that spread to more than 2,500 structures in Sevier County and killed 14 people. Parton said she feels a kinship to all the hard-working mountain people who have lost so much around her. — Compiled from AP reports
Large protests in Poland as leader vows to stifle opposition
Czarek Sokolowski / AP
An effigy of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the powerful head of Poland's ruling conservative party, burns before the parliament building.
conservative streak has moved quickly since winning control of the government last year to solidify its power by weakening the judiciary and assuming more influence over state media, among other steps. The European Union and the United States have criticized the moves. “I don’t like the way things
Ten years ago: South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon was sworn in as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations. A British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in a 1997 Paris car crash were a “tragic accident,” and that allegations of a murder conspiracy were unfounded. Five years ago: President Barack Obama, visiting Fort Bragg in North Carolina, saluted troops returning from Iraq, asserting that the nearly nine-year conflict was ending honorably. One year ago: Bill Cosby fired back at seven women who were suing him for defamation, accusing them in a federal countersuit of making false accusations of sexual misconduct for financial gain. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” had its world premiere at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theater.
AROUND THE WORLD
WARSAW, Poland — Thousands of anti-government protesters marched Tuesday from the former Communist party headquarters in Warsaw to the offices of Poland’s current ruling party, a symbolic route chosen to underline the charge that the government is destroying democracy. The march, held under the slogan “Stop the Devastation of Poland,” marked the 35th anniversary of martial law being declared by the communist regime in 1981 to crush the Solidarity democracy movement. It was organized by the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, or KOD, a civic rights group that arose in reaction to the policies of the ruling Law and Justice party. The populist party with a
On this date: In 1799, the first president of the United States, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon, Virginia, home at age 67. In 1819, Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state. In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out a British expedition led by Robert F. Scott. In 1918, “Il Trittico,” a trio of one-act operas by Giacomo Puccini, premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. (The third opera, “Gianni Schicchi,” featured the aria “O Mio Babbino Caro,” which was an instant hit.) In 1936, the comedy “You Can’t Take It With You” by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart opened on Broadway. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N.’s headquarters in New York. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, ruled that Congress was within its authority to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against racial discrimination by private businesses (in this case, a motel that refused to cater to blacks). In 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan concluded their third and final moonwalk and blasted off for their rendezvous with the command module. In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in 1967. In 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. In 1996, a freighter lost power on the Mississippi River and barreled into the Riverwalk complex in New Orleans; miraculously, no one was killed. In 2012, a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, then committed suicide as police arrived; 20-year-old Adam Lanza had also fatally shot his mother at their home before carrying out the attack on the school.
are going in Poland,” said Joanna Grabowska, a 63-year-old taking part in the march as others around her whistled and waved Polish and European Union flags. “I am terrified that democracy and freedom of expression are being taken from us.” — Compiled from AP reports
Today’s Birthdays: Singer-actress Abbe Lane is 85. Actor Hal Williams is 82. Actress-singer Jane Birkin is 70. Pop singer Joyce Vincent-Wilson (Tony Orlando and Dawn) is 70. Entertainment executive Michael Ovitz is 70. Actress Dee Wallace is 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer Ronnie McNeir (The Four Tops) is 67. Rock musician Cliff Williams is 67. Actorcomedian T.K. Carter is 60. Rock singer-musician Mike Scott (The Waterboys) is 58. Singer-musician Peter “Spider” Stacy (The Pogues) is 58. Actress Cynthia Gibb is 53. Actress Nancy Valen (TV: “Baywatch”) is 51. Actor Archie Kao is 47. Actress Natascha McElhone is 47. Actress-comedian Michaela Watkins is 45. Actresscomedian Miranda Hart is 44. Rhythm-and-blues singer Brian Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 41. Actress KaDee Strickland is 41. Actress Tammy Blanchard is 40. Actress Sophie Monk is 37. Actress Vanessa Hudgens is 28. Rock/R&B singer Tori Kelly is 24. Thought for Today: “You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.” — Stanislaw J. Lec, Polish author (1909-1966).
TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 Rock wall climbing. 4—5:30 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Free. Bring ID. Must sign release form. Every Tuesday. For more information, call 795-2400 x2520.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6 Ray of Light anxiety and depression support group meeting. 6:30—7:30 p.m. Area Health Education Center, 1505 Calle del Norte, Suite 430. Every first Monday of the month. People suffering from anxiety and depression are invited to attend this free, confidential and anonymous support group meeting. While a support group does not replace an individual’s medical care, it can be a valuable resource to gain insight, strength and hope.
AROUND TEXAS Texas man in 2010 videotaped beating case accused of murder HOUSTON — A Houston man whose 2010 videotaped beating by police was cited by activists as an example of police brutality against minorities remained jailed Tuesday after being charged with capital murder. Chad Holley, 22, appeared in court during a brief
CONTACT US hearing in which prosecutors alleged he fatally shot a man in September during a robbery. Police have accused Holley of killing David Trejo-Gonzalez, 42, as the victim was walking from his vehicle to his apartment in north Houston. Court records didn’t list an attorney for Holley. Quanell X, a community activist who has worked with Holley and his family since the videotaped beating case, remained supportive. “At the end of the day is he guilty of capital murder? I
don’t know,” Quanell X said. “But the Chad Holley I do know, for years you might put some petty theft charge on him. But to turn him out to be a cold blooded killer, that’s not the Chad Holley I know.” In 2010, Holley was 15 years old when he was caught as a burglary suspect. Security video from a business showed officers appearing to kick and beat him. In that case, Holley was convicted of burglary in juvenile court and received probation. — Compiled from AP reports
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THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 |
A3
STATE Lawsuit challenges new Texas rules over fetal remains By Will Weissert A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
AUSTIN — Advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to prevent Texas from requiring hospitals and abortion clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains rather than disposing of them in a sanitary landfill, as they most often currently do with such remains and other biological medical waste. The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Austin by the Center for Reproductive Rights and other groups contends that the rules set to take effect next Monday serve no medical purpose and are meant to shame women who seek abortions and make it harder for doctors to provide them. “Texas has failed to provide any credible evidence of what health benefit this might serve because there aren’t any,” Nancy Northup, the Center for Reproductive Right’s president, said on a conference call. “Women do not want these laws. Doctors do not want these laws. And the Constitution does not allow them.” Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission, said the agency is reviewing the lawsuit and will respond “at the appropriate time.” Louisiana and Indiana have similar requirements, but they are on hold due to court challenges. Texas officials have denied that their new requirements are meant to shame women who get abortions or make things harder on abortion providers. In response to the more than 35,000 public comments it received about the proposed rule changes, the health department wrote it “believes the methods allowed by the rules will protect the public by preventing the spread of disease while also preserving the dignity of the unborn in a manner consistent with Texas laws.” The new rules were proposed to the health commission at the behest of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in July, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down antiabortion laws that would have left Texas with 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40 in 2012. They would require fetal remains from miscarriages and abortions, regardless of the state of gestation, to be treated like those of a deceased person by having them buried or cremated.
Experts at University of Texas lab concentrate on crazy ants By Marty Toohey AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATE SMAN
AUSTIN — Hoping to underscore his point about a new pestilence that has arrived in Central Texas, ant researcher Edward LeBrun pointed to a Mason jar in his office. The Austin AmericanStatesman reports the jar looked like it was filled with blackberry jam. But it was actually filled, top to bottom, with ants, roughly 181,000 of them. More specifically, tawny crazy ants — a bug causing such a problem that it has supplanted the fire ant atop the list of pests that researchers say Texas needs to get under control. Several Houston-area suburbs can attest to crazy ants’ destructive habits: swarming across the landscape, nesting in virtually every cavity they can find, along the way ravaging electronics, taking up residence in drywall and disrupting local ecosystems. Crazy ants are now one of the main topics of study at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory, a University of Texas facility on Lake Austin Boulevard where LeBrun works. His point with the jar full of crazy ants: All the researchers had to do was leave nine 50-milliliter tubes on the ground in an area infested with crazy ants, then collect them a day later. The ants swarm in such vast numbers that the researchers didn’t even have to bait the tubes. “An invasion of these can be so extreme,” LeBrun said, “that it’s hard to call it just a nuisance.”
Ralph Barrera / Austin American-Statesman
Haley Plasman, a research technician with the UT Fire Ant Project, studies crazy ants.
Have you ever heard anyone talk wistfully about fire ants? Some people in Pearland do. That was where crazy ants were first spotted in 2002. Exterminator Mike Foshee found them around the time his air conditioner stopped working. He fired up the ShopVac to clear the vents in his living room floor and, by the time he had finished, he had sucked out five gallons of ants. They got inside the television, making the picture go cattywampus, and streamed frantically across the kitchen floor.
He poisoned them, only to see them come streaming back. The subdivision remains overwhelmed by crazy ants. “When you talk to people who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back,” LeBrun said. Crazy ants are now found in more than two dozen Texas counties, including Travis, Hays and Williamson, according to Texas A&M’s Center for Urban and Structural Entomology. LeBrun named, off the top of his head, crazy ant populations near Briarcliff (west of Austin), the Met Center
(Southeast Austin), Convict Hill (South Austin) and McNeil High School (North Austin). Before you panic: crazy ant populations expand slowly, perhaps a couple of hundred yards a year. It’s humans who appear to be spreading them across vast distances, LeBrun said — first by bringing them up from South America, then letting colonies sneak into potted plants or plywood or hay bales and hitch a ride. Telling the story of the crazy ant requires bringing fire ants into the conversation. They are natural rivals in parts of Brazil and Argentina, and both probably came to the southeastern United States as stowaways on ships. Invasive fire ants arrived in the 1930s and spread at an alarming rate across the South, in part because their venom is so potent that most biological rivals have no chance. Crazy ant venom is far less toxic, and their bite at most causes “a minute of pain that quickly fades,” according to A&M’s experts. But crazy ants can wipe out fire ants. Researchers at UT found crazy ants do this by smearing themselves in a secretion that neutralizes fire ant venom, essentially rendering them invulnerable to it. No other Texas ants appear adapted to take on crazy ants, either. They drive out almost all other bugs, including spiders, through sheer weight of numbers, LeBrun said. Crazy ants are also remarkably difficult to drive out. When hurt, they emit a pheromone
that, like a battlefield radio, calls in nearby reinforcements. This means the ants will swarm into electrical sockets in which their cousins were just fried, or march across yards that pesticides had just turned into a crazy ant killing field. LeBrun said such efforts often just create “a tiny little gap in an ocean of ants.” Nature does have a way of keeping crazy ants in check in South America, though. Several other species of ants tend to kill crazy ants by outcompeting them for food. UT science writer Marc Airhart compares the situation to a game of rockpaper-scissors: crazy ants beat fire ants, fire ants beat other ants, and other ants beat crazy ants. The big problem in Texas is that no local species appears to beat crazy ants. Bringing in the South American ants would only create another problem, LeBrun said, because many of the ants in that habitat could turn out to be highly invasive. One type of fire ant spreads over great distances in part because, when a new queen is born, it flies off and either dies or establishes its own colony. But that colony doesn’t generally get along with other colonies. The single-queen fire ants tend to build their mounds and keep to themselves. That behavior limits cooperation between colonies, but it also buffers many fire ant populations against outbreaks of disease. Crazy ants are difficult for precisely the opposite reason: Their colonies get along. They’re like one big, happy family.
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A4 | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
OTHER VIEWS
COLUMN
Energy Secretary Rick Perry: The weirdness continues By Ken Herman AUSTIN A M ER ICAN-STAT E SMAN
AUSTIN, Texas — In case you’ve forgotten exactly how it went down, this was the deal on Nov. 9, 2011, on a presidential debate stage in Auburn Hills, Michigan. At the time, Rick Perry had been our governor since sometime shortly after Reconstruction. And, in his mind, he was White House bound. The debate moment was as sudden as it was magic, certifying the beginning of the end for Perry in a GOP primary campaign he had entered as a frontrunner. As Republican presidential candidates always do, Perry was talking about trimming down the federal government. On this night, at that moment, he was on a roll, calling for a fairer tax system, reduction in regulations and overall overhaul of government. “And I will tell you,” he said, brimming with characteristic confidence, “it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, Education and the — what’s the third one there? Let’s see.” A transcript of the debate at that point just says (LAUGHTER). And that was it. Poof, a presidential candidate who began at or near the top of the GOP polls had, in a moment of forgetfulness, sunk to Dan Quayle territory. As Perry struggled to recall the third agency, fellow candidate Ron Paul upped the ante by saying, “You need five.” “Oh, five, OK,” Perry said, moving his lips while trying to jump start his brain. “So Commerce, Education and the ...” “EPA?” a voice recorded on the transcript as “UNKNOWN”, but I recall as Mitt Romney’s, asked helpfully. “EPA,” Perry said, “there you go.” More (LAUGHTER) and some (APPLAUSE). Moderator John Harwood of CNBC asked Perry, “Seriously, is the EPA the one you were talking about?” “No sir, no sir,” Perry fessed up “We were talking about the agencies of government. The EPA needs to be rebuilt. There’s no doubt about that.” But it was not the third federal agency on his hit list. He hemmed and hawed and repeated the first two but couldn’t come up with the third. “Sorry. Oops,” Perry said in what could be among the most infamous
two words ever uttered by a presidential candidate very publicly watching his political life flash before him. And then the debate went on, with other candidates talking about other things. Perry’s turn next came when he was asked to name programs — such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — he would cut to accomplish long-term deficit reduction. “Well, every one of those,” he said. “And by the way, that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago.” The crowd applauded. Perry limped along until he gave up the ghost of his campaign in January 2012 on the eve of the South Carolina primary after poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. His 2016 White House re-run was even less successful. And now, thanks to a 2016 foe Perry had lambasted as a “cancer on conservatism ... (that) must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded,” our ex-gov, assuming the GOP-controlled Senate thinks it’s a good idea, is fixing to run the agency he was reaching for that night in Michigan, an agency he thought shouldn’t exist. Perry as a Donald Trump administration cabinet member — and particularly at this agency — is so perfect for an election year and transition that repeatedly, in different ways on different days, has us saying, “This is really happening?” Oh yes, this is really happening. We know this because you can’t make this stuff up, not Trump being elected president and not Perry heading an agency he forgot he wanted abolished. At the Department of Energy, Perry will replace Ernest Moniz, who’s had the gig since 2013. Moniz is a nuclear physicist. He succeeded Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winner for his groundbreaking work in using laser light to trap atoms. Perry’s got a bachelor’s degree in animal science from one of the finer institutions of higher education in the entire Bryan-College Station Aggieplex. Lest we jump to any conclusions about how Secretary Perry will do, let’s remember the familiar financial caveat: Past performance does not guarantee future results. Can this stuff get any weirder? Yes. Say this out loud: Secretary of Agriculture and presidential confidante Sid Miller.
EDITORIAL
Sleepy drivers kill: An impairment that cannot be brushed aside PITT SBURGH P O ST-GAZETTE
Society looks askance at the inebriated person who gets behind the wheel and the one who texts while driving. But no such opprobrium faces the groggy driver. Perhaps America is too tired to notice him. A new study by AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, however, provides a wake-up call, saying Americans who drive sleep-deprived are as dangerous as those who drive drunk. Among the findings: Those who slept for fewer than four hours in a 24-hour period had an
11.5 percent elevated risk of getting into an accident while those who slept six to seven hours had an increased risk of 1.3 percent. According to one AAA official, driving on four hours’ sleep is akin to getting behind the wheel with a blood-alcohol content of 0.12 or 0.15, well above the legal limit of 0.08. One can only imagine what the risk would be for sleep-deprived drivers who also are manipulating the car’s instruments, texting, talking on the phone or cruising along with limited visibility or
bad weather. Driving while tired is part of America’s on-thego culture and a trend not easily reversed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that adults get seven to eight hours of sleep per day, but many live chronically short on shuteye. However, "you cannot miss sleep and still expect to be able to function behind the wheel," said David Yang, the foundation’s executive director. The nation has cracked down on drunken driving and increased compliance with seat belt laws, so
EDITORIAL
Trump turns blind eye to Russia problem THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
President-elect Donald Trump has a Russia problem — and he alone can fix it. The longer he waits to do so, the more damage he’ll do to his own credibility and that of vital American institutions. That damage is already too great. American intelligence officials now firmly believe Russia was behind efforts not just to meddle in the recent presidential election but to try its best to boost Trump’s campaign over that of his rival, Hillary Clinton. To determine the scope of the intrusions, and the motives behind them, President Barack Obama has ordered a full-scale investigation be completed by Jan. 20. That’s appropriate, if well overdue. Republicans on Capitol Hill are now demanding a more thorough investigation, too. On Monday,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supported calls for a bipartisan Senate inquiry. “It defies belief that somehow Republicans in the Senate are reluctant to either review Russian tactics or ignore them. ... The Russians are not our friends.” Trump? Inexplicably, even bizarrely, he has refused to condemn Russia’s foreign intrusion in our elections. He has maintained his midcampaign insistence that it didn’t happen. He hasn’t even joined calls to investigate. Last week, when asked for comment on the conclusions by America’s intelligence agencies that Russia had indeed tried to influence the election, his transition team issued a statement ridiculing the nation’s spy services. “These are the same people that said Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” it stated. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’” Whom does such deception serve? Certainly not the nation, which relies on those agencies for its safety. Nor does it serve its new presidentelect. The mistakes about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were made nearly 15 years ago, before some of the agencies involved in the current assessment even existed. And, for the record, Trump’s Electoral College margin of victory was well below the historical average — among the lowest in history. Meanwhile, his strange defense of Russia has begun to cast a shadow over his international
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there is reason to believe that the behavior of sleepy drivers can be modified, too. Truckers are subject to federal rules mandating breaks for sleep and maximum driving periods to reduce driver fatigue. Public awareness, such as that provided by the AAA report, can help. Promotion of public transportation and ride-sharing programs is another option. New penalties may be something to consider, too. (AAA reports that at least some police departments already track fatigue as a factor in accidents.)
DOONESBURY | GARRY TRUDEAU
business dealings and that of some of those under consideration for his Cabinet. Several hawkish Republican senators have now raised questions about whether Rex Tillerson’s history of doing business in Russia as an Exxon Mobil executive should warrant special scrutiny. Trump has stirred concerns like those by his strange resistance to what ought to have been an immediate, bipartisan consensus that we quickly find out everything there is to know about Russia’s interference in the election. He has left Americans with an uncomfortable feeling that he’s willing to say just about anything to avoid calling out Russia. Whatever his reasons for doing so, he would serve himself, the nation, and the agencies that work to keep us safe, by changing his tone.
THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 |
A5
ENTERTAINMENT
Lawyers clash over use of accusers’ names at Cosby hearing By Maryclaire Dale and Michael R. Sisak A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Threatening to call in sheriff’s deputies, a judge repeatedly admonished lawyers on both sides of Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case Tuesday during a high-stakes hearing that will determine whether prosecutors can call as many as 13 accusers as trial witnesses. Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill twice warned the lawyers to maintain decorum after courtroom shouting matches that centered on the defense team’s practice of publicizing the names of the women accusing the comedian of sexual assault. Prosecutors want to be allowed to put some of the accusers on the witness stand, a key part of their strategy to show that a sexual encounter at Cosby’s suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 fit the 79-year-old entertainer’s decadeslong pattern of drugging and molesting women. Cosby’s lawyers want the accusers barred from testifying at the spring trial, attacking their credibility and relevance. The hearing, expected to last two days, was testy from the start. District Attorney Kevin Steele clashed with Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle over the defense’s insistence on identifying accusers by name in public documents and a court hearing. Steele suggested that Cosby’s lawyers were publicizing them in an attempt to intimidate the women. McMonagle said many
Matt Rourke / AP
Bill Cosby arrives for a pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Tuesday.
of the women had already gone public with their allegations. “These are witnesses in a trial. They are not children,” he argued. O’Neill ultimately ruled Cosby’s lawyers could identify 11 of the women by name since they’d already told their stories publicly. He said two of the women have remained out of the spotlight and shouldn’t be identified in court. Later, Steele blew up at the defense over the positioning of a projection screen, saying Cosby’s lawyers had it placed so the women’s names would be seen by dozens of reporters in the courtroom gallery. He again accused the defense of witness intimidation. McMonagle said courtroom staff positioned the screen, but he agreed to remove accusers’ names from a planned presentation. O’Neill said he’d be forced to call in sheriff’s deputies if the lawyers couldn’t conduct themselves properly. The case began a decade ago when Temple
University employee Andrea Constand filed a police complaint against Cosby, her friend and mentor, over an encounter at his home. A prosecutor at the time declined to file charges. But authorities reopened the case last year after scores of women raised similar accusations and after Cosby’s damaging deposition testimony from Constand’s lawsuit became public. The trial judge last week said the deposition was fair game at trial, arming prosecutors with Cosby’s testimony about his affairs with young women, his use of quaaludes as a seduction tool and his version of the sexual encounter with Constand the night in question. Cosby’s lawyers had hoped to question the women in person, but O’Neill rejected the idea. Some of the women had ongoing friendships or romantic relationships with Cosby — known as America’s Dad for his top-rated family sitcom, “The Cosby Show,” which ran from 1984 to 1992 —
while others knew him for only a few days after meeting him on a plane or at a casino. Some, like Constand, took pills knowingly — she thought it was an herbal drug; he later said it was Benadryl — while others believe he slipped something stronger in their drinks. McMonagle has petitioned to ask each accuser as many as 80 questions. The defense has also questioned the women’s motivation, noting many are clients of celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, who has suggested Cosby should put up a $100 million settlement fund for potential sexual assault and defamation claims. Allred told The Associated Press last week that her clients have a duty to testify if the court wants to hear from them. She called the defense’s dismissal of their accounts “out of context or just plain wrong.” O’Neill must walk a fine line in weighing their testimony, given a 2015 state Supreme Court ruling that threw out a Roman Catholic Church official’s child-endangerment conviction because the Philadelphia trial judge let too many priestabuse victims testify about the alleged church cover-up. Cosby greeted security officers with a joke before Tuesday’s hearing, quipping, “Don’t tase me, bro,” as they wanded him on his way into court. The AP doesn’t typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Constand has done.
Will Smith channeled personal grief for his latest role By John Carucci ASSOCIATED PRE SS
NEW YORK — Will Smith had already begun researching his role for “Collateral Beauty” when he learned that his father was terminally ill. Smith said at the film’s world premiere in New York on Monday that he had to channel the emotions of that tragic news into a demanding film role. Smith’s father, Willard Carroll Smith Jr., died on Nov. 7. “My father was diagnosed and given six weeks, so you know, to be hit with that in the process and then what we decided to do was just use the preparation of the character to actually deal with what my father was experiencing,” Smith said. “It became our way of saying goodbye, essentially. It was a really beautiful confluence of art and life.” Smith stars in the film as a father who suffers a great tragedy and begins to question the point of existence. “It is such a beautiful concept. It’s a guy that experiences a loss and gets furious at the universe, and writes these letters to Love, Time and Death, and his mind is so twisted that he mails the letters. And then, Love, Time and Death respond. You know, it’s that beauti-
ful Christmas twist to it, but dealing with real issues,” Smith said. Smith The film also stars Helen Mirren in the role of Death. She admitted to loving the script, and felt it shared the same vibe as Christmas classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol.” “There was something very, very true in the center of it. And kind of as a Christmas movie, you know it’s kind of a pretty cool Christmas gift of a movie,” Mirren said. Edward Norton, who plays Smith’s best friend and partner in the film, also said he saw a strong similarity with the film to holiday classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” “They straddle this very difficult balance between, obviously being very heart-winning and heart-warming and hopeful. But if you think about it, they touch on very dark and difficult things. Jimmy Stewart is in such despair he’s going to a bridge to jump, right? But somehow they manage to be about deep and important things, while also being a lot of fun,” Norton said. “Collateral Beauty” opens in theaters on Dec. 16.
Zfrontera A6 | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
RIBEREÑA EN BREVE PAGO DE IMPUESTOS 1 A partir de diciembre, los pagos por impuestos a la propiedad de la Ciudad de Roma deberán realizarse en la oficina de impuestos del Distrito Escolar de Roma, localizado en el 608 N. García St. CURSOS DE LENGUAJE DE SIGNOS (ASL) 1 El Departamento de Educación Especial local está ofreciendo clases de Lenguaje Americano de Signos para el personal profesional y paraprofesional así como para padres, estudiantes o administradores del distrito Zapata County Independent School District, todos los jueves desde el 20 de octubre al 15 de diciembre (ocho semanas de duración). En el horario de 4:15 p.m. a 5:15 p.m. en el laboratorio de computadoras de la escuela primaria Zapata North Elementary School. Mayores informes al 956-285-6877 o a la Oficina de Educación Especial al 956-756-6130 antes del 13 de octubre. MUSEO EN ZAPATA 1 A los interesados en realizar una investigación sobre genealogía de la región, se sugiere visitar el Museo del Condado de Zapata ubicado en 805 N US-Hwy 83. Opera de 10 a.m. a 4 p.m. Existen visitas guiadas. Personal está capacitado y puede orientar acerca de la historia del Sur de Texas y sus fundadores. Pida informes en el 956-765-8983. LABORATORIO COMPUTACIONAL 1 La Ciudad de Roma pone a disposición de la comunidad el Laboratorio Computacional de lunes a viernes de 1 p.m. a 5 p.m. en Historical Plaza. Informes en el 956849-1411. SE SUSPENDE JUNTA 1 La Sociedad de Genealogía Nuevo Santander informa a sus socios y a la comunidad en general que no habrá reunión durante el mes de diciembre. MENUDO BOWL 1 El registro para participar en el Menudo Bowl está abierto para equipos que quieran concursar y para oportunidades de patrocinio. Menudo Bowl es patrocinado por Laredo Crime Stoppers en su batalla contra el crimen. Para mayores informes llame al 956-724-1876. El evento se realizará el 21 de enero de 2017 donde habrá comida, entretenimiento y música en vivo. CONFERENCIA 1 Past Lives, Dreams, and Soul Travel se realizará el 17 de diciembre de 1 a 2:30 p.m. en Fairfield Inn & Suites, ubicado en 700 de Hillside Road. Descubra como vidas pasadas, los sueños y el viaje del alma son claves para ayudarle a encontrar a Dios. Informes al 210-831-7113
SALUD
Reporte indica alza en obesidad Por Andrea Castañeda TIEMP O DE ZAPATA
Más del 30 por ciento de los residentes de Laredo están obesos, de acuerdo a la Clasificación de Salud del Condado 2015. Otras estadísticas incluían que el 17 por ciento de los residentes son fumadores, el 27 por ciento son físicamente inactivos y el 35 por ciento de la comunidad en Laredo no tiene seguro médico. Estas estadísticas de salud del 2015 son más altas que los promedios del estado de Texas y toda la nación. El alcalde Pete Sáenz junto con miembros de la comunidad en varios departamentos de salud han creado el Consejo de Bienestar del Alcalde Laredo Active Living para implementar y exhortar una vida saludable en toda la ciudad. El consejo se enfocará en promover los siguientes tres temas:
nutrición, actividad física y prevención a través de un número variado de programas y servicios. La presidenta del Departamento de Salud de la Ciudad de Laredo, Nora Martínez dijo que la coalición trabajará para apoyar las tres áreas prioritarias durante el año. Actualmente, la ciudad está trabajando en dos iniciativas para promover la nutrición. “El año que viene trabajaremos con jardines comunitarios para promover el consumo de más frutas y vegetales frescos”, dijo Martínez. “También trabajaremos con algunos de los comerciantes de abarrotes pequeños llamados Healthy Corner Stores, con el mismo concepto para ofrecer opciones más saludables”. En los esfuerzos para mantener a los laredenses activos, Martínez dijo que clases de zumba serán
agregadas a dos parques. “El parque North Central Park es una de las locaciones y estamos trabajando con Parques y Recreaciones para una segunda ubicación”, dijo Martínez. Los distritos escolares Laredo ISD y United ISD están también trabajando para implementar hábitos saludables en los ambientes escolares. Además de realizar pruebas de salud proporcionadas por los departamentos de servicios de salud en ambos distritos escolares, los departamentos están enfatizando la importancia de un estilo de vida saludable a través de eventos educacionales. En noviembre, el distrito Laredo Independent School District introdujo el programa “Lean & Green Days” a sus escuelas para promover alternativas saludables a la hora de la comida. Robert
Cuéllar, director del Programa de Nutrición Infantil en LISD, dijo que están tomando los primeros pasos para implementar la nueva iniciativa la cual ofrece entradas alternativas libres de carne. Una barra de ensaladas se ofrece actualmente en todas las secundarias de LISD y cinco primarias para promover la comida saludable. Cuéllar dijo que ha sido un éxito y que busca presentar una solicitud que incluya una barra de ensaladas en todas las escuelas. Una variedad de programas educativos y eventos están siendo proporcionados para exhortar a los estudiantes a comer saludable. Un programa de Fruta Fresca y Vegetales, financiado por USDA, no solamente sirve a un propósito educativo para que los estudiantes coman saludable sino que
ZCISD
también introduce diferentes tipos de frutas exóticas y vegetales. El distrito escolar ofrece programas interactivos para iniciar un estilo de vida saludable. Las competencias de cocina nutricional entre los estudiantes de arte culinario se han realizado con el platillo ganador incluido en el menú de comidas escolares. Cuéllar dijo que es importante ofrecer nuevas iniciativas con energía y motivación de tal modo que los estudiantes disfruten el aprendizaje y el bienestar. “En la actualidad, lo quieres hacer más emocionante. Estamos pensando más allá al hacer programas emocionantes para los estudiantes. El cielo es el límite, tenemos muchas cosas que podemos hacer para enfocarnos en la salud y en el bienestar”, dijo Cuéllar.
CORTE 341
DISFRUTAN TEMPORADA DE FIESTAS
Acusado recibe sentencia de 3 años Por Taryn Walters TIEMP O DE ZAPATA
Foto de cortesía | ZCISD
Los estudiantes de Zapata North Elementary esparciendo la dicha del espíritu decembrino en las oficinas administrativas de ZCISD.
UNITED WAY
Club Boys and Girls de Zapata apoya a dos generaciones Por Clara McMichael TIEMP O DE ZAPATA
Los tres hijos de Nancy Guerrero han asistido al club Boys and Girls de Zapata por siete años pero el legado de Guerrero dentro del club es mucho más extenso. La misma Guerrero asistió al club de Zapata cuando era pequeña. El club Boys and Girls, que también cuenta con una sucursal en San Ignacio, opera en Zapata desde 1996. Actualmente sirve a 350 niños y niñas por año. “Cuando estuve en el club me divertía”, dijo Guerrero. “Aprendí muchísimas habilidades. Quiero que mis hijos salgan, intenten practicar un deporte, jueguen y formen nuevas amistades”. La hija de Guerrero — quien aprendió a jugar ajedrez en el club — se unió al equipo de ajedrez en su escuela al comienzo del año escolar y obtuvo segundo lugar el campeonato de ajedrez de distrito. Guerrero no pudo
Foto de cortesía
Los hijos de Nancy Guerrero participan en actividades del club Boys and Girls de Zapata.
haberle enseñado a jugar ajedrez ya que ella misma no sabe hacerlo. Entre su trabajo de tiempo completo en IBC y el de su esposo en Platinum Chemicals, inscribió a sus hijos en el club porque quería asegurarse que tuvieran el mejor cuidado durante el verano o cuando salían de la escuela. El personal del club
incluye un empleado de tiempo completo, cuatro empleados de medio tiempo y 80 voluntarios que trabajan para servir a los niños y niñas de Zapata. Ramiro Hernández, el único empleado de tiempo completo funge como CEO de la organización. Durante el año escolar, el autobús deja a los niños en el club des-
pués de clases. En el club, los pequeños pueden esperar que sus padres pasen por ellos ya que cierra sus puertas hasta las 7 p.m. Durante el verano el club opera de 8 a.m. a 5 p.m. por lo tanto Guerrero no tiene que preocuparse por inscribir a sus hijos en una guardería o de contratar una persona que cuide a sus hijos. El club prove de comidas a los pequeños y desde abril implementó un programa en el que los niños se van a casa con alimentos en sus mochilas. Las mochilas con comida son muy útiles en el verano, ya que los niños pasan mucho tiempo en casa y comen snacks entre comidas. “Mis hijos son muy activos y siempre tienen hambre”, dijo Guerrero. “Me ayuda como madre porque puedo ahorrar un poco de dinero”. Para más información acerca del club Boys and Girls de Zapata, llame a la organización al 956-7653892.
Un hombre de Río Bravo involucrado en una persecución vehicular que resultó en la incautación de 300 libras de marihuana fue sentenciado a tres años de libertad condicional el jueves en la Corte de Distrito 341. John Henry Romero se declaró culpable a posesión de marihuana ante la Juez de la Corte de Distrito 341 Beckie Palomo, indican registros de la corte. Palomo sentenció a Romero a tres años en prisión, con tres años de libertad condicional, como parte del acuerdo de culpabilidad. Romero debe participar en un programa de educación para crímenes relacionados con las drogas y efectuar 200 horas de servicio comunitario como parte de su sentencia, de acuerdo con documentos de la corte. El 24 de abril del 2015, oficiales de la Oficina del Alguacil del Condado de Webb ayudaron a la Patrulla Fronteriza en una persecución de un Chevrolet Cavalier modelo 2002 en Mines Road. La persecución terminó cuando el conductor del Cavalier se detuvo. El conductor fue identificado como Romero, de 24 años de edad, en la cuadra 1600 de Centeno Lane en Río Bravo. Después de una investigación, Romero admitió haber estado involucrado en el contrabando de varios paquetes de marihuana recuperados en un estacionamiento comercial cercano, dijo la oficina del alguacil. Seis paquetes fueron recuperados. Romero fue arrestado y acusado de posesión de marihuana en segundo grado. Taryn Walters puede ser localizada en el 956-728-2528 o en twalters@lmtonline.com
Sports&Outdoors THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 |
A7
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: DALLAS COWBOYS
Cowboys’ Jones addresses if Dallas could go back to Tony Romo at QB Could Dallas bench Prescott? By Drew Davison FO RT WORT H STAR-T E LE GRAM
FRISCO — The Dallas Cowboys didn’t face much of a decision in sticking with rookie quarterback Dak Prescott in the middle of what became an 11-game winning streak even as veteran quarterback Tony Romo became an option. They didn’t want to stop their own momentum. Similarly, owner Jerry Jones said it would become another no-brainer decision should the team opt to go to Romo instead of Prescott down the stretch run. Prescott is coming off his worst game of the season against the New York Giants on Sunday, and has not passed for more than 200 yards in the past three games. But that has yet to become a "definitive situation," as Jones put it after Sunday’s loss, which would necessitate a change. "I don’t have a defini-
Ben Solomon / NYT
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones addressed ideas that Dallas could turn to Tony Romo at quarterback if the offense struggles once again next Sunday against Tampa Bay.
tion for it, but you’ll know it when you see it," Jones said on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday. "It’s kind of like a definition I heard one time of another issue, trying to define a negative topic. They said, ’I don’t know how to say it, but it’s just something that when you see it, you know it’s there.’ We’ll see it." For now, though, Pres-
cott has earned the right to bounce back from a poor outing. The fourthround pick completed 17 of 37 passes for 137 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions against the Giants. He had only thrown two interceptions in the first 12 games. Prescott also had quarterback rating of 45.4, by far his worst of the season.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: HOUSTON TEXANS
A few more games of that nature and it’ll be easy for the Cowboys to try and salvage their season by making a quarterback change. Or a change would become necessary should Prescott get injured. "You don’t want either of those to occur, so they’re unmentionables," Jones said. "But it’ll be pretty obvious that when
you see it with Romo sitting there and playing at the level that he’s playing right now, practicing at the level he’s practicing, got the experience . We’re going into these last three games as well as the playoffs, we’re really going into it at good shape, good depth at quarterback." The Cowboys’ offensive struggles of late can be
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: OAKLAND RAIDERS
Oakland, county weigh $1.3B Raiders stadium financing deal By Janie Har ASSOCIATED PRE SS
Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle
Houston wide receiver Braxton Miller is consoled by Green Bay’s Randall Cobb after suffering an injury during the second quarter of last week’s game against the Packers.
Texans place WR Braxton Miller on IR By Aaron Wilson H OUSTON CHRONICLE
Braxton Miller's rookie season officially ended Tuesday when the Texans placed the former Ohio State star quarterback on injured reserve. Miller was dealing with a sprained and bruised shoulder. The third-round draft pick got hurt against the Green Bay Packers two games ago when he landed hard on his right shoulder and didn't return. He was in a sling after the game. Miller was replaced on the active roster by rookie wide receiver Wendell Williams, who was promoted from the practice squad. Miller was the Texans' starting slot wide receiver. He started six of 10 games played, also missing two games earlier this season with a hamstring injury. The former Big Ten Conference Offensive Player of the Year finished his first NFL season with 15 catches for 99 yards and one touchdown, three runs for zero yards and three kickoff returns for 41
yards and one punt return for one yard. The Texans now have four wide receivers on the active roster, including starters DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller, third receiver Keith Mumphery and Williams. They can also utilize hybrid rookie tight end Stephen Anderson in the slot. Williams spent training camp and the offseason with the Texans after going undrafted. He auditioned for multiple NFL teams since being released, including the Tennessee Titans, New England Patriots and Chicago Bears, before being signed to the Texans' practice squad. Williams signed with the Texans as an undrafted free agent in the spring out of the University of the Cumberlands, where he was an NAIA track All-American. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.19 seconds unofficially for an official time of 4.32 seconds. He has registered a 45-inch vertical leap. The Texans could use Williams' speed on special teams in the return game.
blamed on several factors, including the passing game. Prescott had 195 passing yards against the Washington Redskins on Thanksgiving Day; 139 passing yards against the Minnesota Vikings on Dec. 1; and 137 passing yards on Sunday night. The Cowboys were also 1-of-15 on third downs against the Giants, and just 1 of 9 against the Vikings. Romo, of course, has a proven track record and is the franchise leader in passing yards (34,154), passing touchdowns (247), passer rating (97.1), completion percentage (65.3) and most 3,000yard passing seasons (seven). For the time being, though, the Cowboys are sticking with Prescott, who has them off to an 11-2 start and still in position to be the top-seed going into the playoffs. "We’re so fortunate to have that legitimate discussion," Jones said of the quarterback decision. "Most teams, as a matter of fact I don’t know of any, that if they lost their starter right now that they’ve got an alternative who could take them as far as they can go as a team. So I think it’s a beautiful position to be in."
SAN FRANCISCO — City and county officials are expected to vote Tuesday on a deal for a new $1.3 billion stadium that supporters hope will keep the Oakland Raiders in town. Approval by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the Oakland City Council will allow administrators to negotiate a formal agreement for a $1.3 billion stadium project that includes $350 million in public money by way of land and future revenue. Earlier this year, team owner Mark Davis committed to moving the Raiders to Las Vegas, where a $1.9 billion stadium project has been approved. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf vowed to continue working on a counter-proposal for the Raiders to stay at the Oakland Coliseum. “If we don’t do this, we have no shot. It’s game over,” said Jim Zelinski, co-founder of Save Oakland Sports, a nonprofit organization seeking to keep the Raiders and other professional sports teams in the city. A move to Nevada is not certain, although a vote by the NFL on whether to allow the move is possible as soon
Ben Margot / Associated Press
Former Raider Marcus Allen, right, shakes hands with Alameda County Board of Supervisors president Scott Haggerty on Tuesday.
as January. Nevada will raise $750 million from a hotel tax to fund the stadium with billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson contributing $650 million and the Raiders and NFL kicking in $500 million. The Raiders must get approval from 24 of the 32 NFL owners to move. The Raiders also have the option of moving to the Los Angeles area, where they could share a facility with the recently relocated Rams. In Oakland, approval from the city and county Tuesday would allow negotiations to begin with an investors’ group managed by football Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and the Fortress Investment Group. “We know there is a
lot of work left to do, but we also believe strongly in our city and that the Raiders belong here in the original home of the Raider Nation,” Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid said in a statement issued last week, announcing the plan. The parties have identified $1.25 billion in potential financing for a project that may cost upward of $1.3 billion for a 55,000-seat stadium project that could include mixed-use retail in the future. Lott’s group would contribute $400 million, with the NFL and the Raiders contributing $500 million. The city of Oakland would contribute $200 million for infrastructure such as storm drains and roadway
parking. The money would be generated from bonds paid back from revenue created from the stadium and its surrounding commercial development. The city and county would also contribute at least 100 acres of land, valued at $150 million. One of the issues to be determined, assistant city administrator Claudia Cappio said, is whether the land would be sold or leased. Alameda County and Oakland also need to determine how to retire nearly $100 million in debt incurred for remodeling the current stadium to woo the team back from Los Angeles in 1995. Fan support for a new stadium appeared to be high. The Oakland Coliseum, which also hosts the MLB’s Oakland Athletics, is aging and lacks the amenities found in newer stadiums. Shawn Wilson, chief of staff to Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, said in an email Monday that the office has received nearly 340 calls and emails in support and one in opposition. Investors would start working with Davis and the NFL once the boards sign off Tuesday, said Sam Singer, a spokesman for investors.
A8 | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
NATIONAL
Oklahoma court tosses abortion law on hospital privileges
Jonathan Hayward / AP
This July 10, 2008 file photo made with a fisheye lens shows ice floes in Baffin Bay above the Arctic Circle.
By Ken Miller
Arctic’s year of crazy extremes as warming hits overdrive
A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a law requiring abortion clinics to have doctors with admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, saying efforts to portray the measure as protecting women’s health are a “guise.” The law would require a doctor with admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles be present for any abortion. The court found it violates both the U.S. and Oklahoma Constitutions. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year struck down a similar provision in Texas. “Under the guise of the protection of women’s health,” Oklahoma Justice Joseph Watt wrote, “(the law) creates an undue burden on a woman’s access to abortion, violating protected rights under our federal Constitution,” referring specifically to the Texas case. Republican Gov. Mary Fallin signed the measure, Senate Bill 1848, into law in 2014, but courts had blocked it from taking effect. Tuesday’s ruling overturns a lower court’s decision in February that upheld the law. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the law on behalf of Dr. Larry Burns, a Norman physician who performs nearly half of Oklahoma’s abortions. Burns
By Seth Borenstein ASSOCIATED PRE SS
Sue Ogrocki / AP
Katherine Hunter, right, holds her son as she stands with anti-abortion activists at the state Capitol.
has said he applied for admitting privileges at hospitals in the Oklahoma City area but was turned down. The other clinic in the state that does abortions is in Tulsa. “Today’s decision is a victory for Oklahoma women and another rebuke to politicians pushing underhanded laws that attack a woman’s constitutionally guaranteed right to safe, legal abortion,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously has said that bill was passed to protect the health and safety of Oklahoma women. The court also found that the law violates the Oklahoma Constitution’s ban on measures containing more than one
subject, a practice known as logrolling. The law included “12 separate and unrelated subsections,” the court said. “The sections in SB 1848 are so unrelated and misleading that a legislator voting on this matter could have been left with an unpalatable all-or-nothing choice,” according to the ruling. The court’s ruling came the same day that the Oklahoma Board of Health approved new requirements for hospitals, nursing homes, restaurants and public schools to post signs inside public restrooms directing pregnant women where to receive services as part of an effort to reduce abortions in the state. The provision mandating the signs was tucked into a measure the Legislature passed this year that requires the state to develop informational material “for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society.”
WASHINGTON — Warming at the top of the world has gone into overdrive, happening twice as fast as the rest of the globe, and extending unnatural heating into fall and winter, according to a new federal report. In its annual Arctic Report Card , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday tallied record after record of high temperatures, low sea ice, shrinking ice sheets and glaciers. Study lead author Jeremy Mathis, NOAA’s Arctic research chief, said it shows long-term Arctic warming trends deepening and becoming more obvious, with a disturbing creep into seasons beyond summer, when the Arctic usually rebuilds snow and ice. Scientists have long said man-made climate change would hit the Arctic fastest. Mathis and others said the data is showing that is what’s now happening. “Personally, I would have to say that this last year has been the most extreme year for the Arctic that I have ever seen,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who wasn’t part of the 106-
page report. “It’s crazy.” NOAA’s peer-reviewed report said air temperatures over the Arctic from October 2015 to September 2016 were “by far the highest in the observational record beginning in 1900.” The average Arctic air temperature at that time was 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1981-2010 average. It’s 6.3 degrees (3.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than 1900. Other extremes the report detailed: 1 Ocean temperatures were 9 degrees (5 degrees Celsius) higher than the 30-year average off the coasts of Greenland. 1 Arctic sea ice didn’t set a record for the annual minimum, but in October and November when sea ice normally starts growing back, it didn’t. Sea ice from mid-October through November was the lowest on record. Dartmouth University professor Donald Perovich, author of the chapter on sea ice, said sea ice conditions have sunk from a B-plus grade 11 years ago to a D-minus grade “and that’s because I’m an easy grader.” 1 Snow cover in North America reached a record low for spring, falling below 1.5 million square miles in May for the first time since satellite observations began in 1967. 1 Though not a record,
Greenland’s ice sheet continued to shrink , starting early, on April 10. It was the second earliest start of the Greenland melt season on record. What’s happening is due to both man-made warming and a large El Nino that just ended, Mathis said. “Not only is it extreme in any number of measures — air temperature, loss of sea ice and on and on — but there are so many things we haven’t seen, particularly this extremely warm fall,” said study co-author Brendan Kelly, executive director of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. In 1979, Kelly cruised the Bering Straits region with a native hunter who told him dozens of Yupik words for sea ice. One was tagneghneq, for a charcoal grey thick multiyear ice. That ice is pretty much gone, Kelly said. This is more than an Arctic problem, because the cold air escaping changes weather conditions, such as weakening the jet stream, Mathis said. “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” Mathis said. “The Lower 48 may have to deal with more extreme weather events in the future.”
THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 |
A9
BUSINESS
Google’s car project gets a new name: Waymo By Michael Liedtke A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
SAN FRANCISCO — The self-driving car project that Google started seven years ago has grown into a company called Waymo, signaling its confidence that it will be able to bring robotcontrolled vehicles to the masses within the next few years. “We are getting close and we are getting ready,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik said Tuesday after unveiling the company’s identity. To underscore his point, Krafcik revealed the project had hit a key milestone in the journey to having fully autonomous cars cruising around public roads. In a trip taken in October 2015 , a pod-like car with no steering wheel and brake pads drove a legally blind passenger around neighborhoods in Austin, Texas without another human in the vehicle. It marked the first time one of the project’s cars had given a passenger a ride without a human on
hand to take control of a self-driving car if something went wrong. Krafcik called that trip taken by Steve Mahan, former director of the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center, an “inflection point” in the development of self-driving cars. It came a year before a Budweiser beer truck equipped with self-driving technology owned by ride-hailing service Uber completed a 120-mile trip through Colorado while being steered by a robot while a human sat in the back of trailer. In doing so, Krafcik and other supporters of self-driving cars believe the technology will drastically reduce the number of deaths on the roads each year because they contend robots don’t get distracted or drunk, nor ignore the rules of the road, like humans do. While Google’s selfdriving cars were still in the research-and-development stage, its leaders indicated the vehicles would be commonplace by 2020. Krafcik declined to update the timetable Tuesday, saying only that
Eric Risberg / AP
A skylight is reflected in the rear window of a Waymo driverless car during a Google event Tuesday in San Francisco.
“we are close to bringing this to a lot of people.” Waymo’s transition from what once was viewed as a longshot experiment to a fullfledged company marks another step in an effort to revolutionize the way people get around. Instead of driving themselves and having to find a place to park, people will be chauffeured in robot-controlled vehicles if Waymo, automakers and Uber realize their
vision within the next few years. Waymo’s name is meant to be shorthand for “a new way forward in mobility.” The newly minted company will operate within Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which was created last year to oversee far-flung projects that have nothing to do with Google’s main business of online search and advertising. Those projects, which
Alphabet CEO Larry Page likens to “moonshots,” have lost $8 billion since 2014, with the research into self-driving cars accounting for a significant chunk of that amount. Google began working on its self-driving technology in 2009 in a secretive lab called “X” run by company co-founder Sergey Brin. Since then, its fleet of cars has covered more than 2.3 million miles in the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Arizona and Washington state. In their travels, the selfdriving vehicles have been involved in 35 traffic accidents. Google has said its self-driving vehicles were at fault in only one collision with a bus earlier this year. The self-driving project had been expected to be spun out of the X lab since Krafcik, a former Hyundai USA executive, was hired as its CEO 15 months ago. As its own company, Waymo will now face more pressure to generate a profit under Alphabet’s management
instead of simply focusing on research. Rather than make its own cars, Waymo intends to license its technology to traditional automakers and trucking companies. “We are not in the business of making better cars,” Krafcik said. “We are in the business of making better drivers.” Earlier this year, Waymo’s precursor licensed its self-driving technology to Fiat Chrysler for 100 Pacifica minivans currently in production. Financial terms of that deal haven’t been disclosed. The pressure to make money risks alienating some of the engineers who worked on the selfdriving cars as a project that didn’t have a mandate to turn a profit. As it headed down the road to becoming Waymo, several key players quit the project. The defectors included its former director, Chris Urmson, and a co-founder Anthony Levandowski, who is now working on selfdriving technology for Uber.
Dow nears 20,000 as energy companies and tech stocks climb By Marley Jay A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
NEW YORK — Major U.S. stock indexes set records again Tuesday as energy companies continued to climb following international deals that will cut oil production. Big-name technology companies like Apple and IBM also traded higher as the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 19,900 for the first time. The Dow finished at an all-time high for the seventh consecutive trading day. The biggest gain went to IBM, while Apple and Exxon Mobil also finished near the top. Energy companies rose for the ninth day out of the last 10 as investors anticipated steadier oil prices and larger profits. Technology companies also jumped. They had mostly lagged the market during its post-election rally, but have moved higher in the last few days. J.J. Kinahan, TD Ameritrade’s chief strategist, said stocks have surged since the presidential election because after a long campaign, investors have a better idea which policies the country will
adopt. “The biggest questions hanging over us are gone,” he said. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 114.78 points, or 0.6 percent, to 19,911.21. The blue-chip index went as high as 19,953. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index picked up 14.76 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,271.72. The Nasdaq composite climbed 51.29 points, or 0.9 percent, to 5,463.83. Energy companies rose for the fifth consecutive day. Exxon Mobil climbed $1.60, or 1.8 percent, to $92.58 and Noble Energy advanced $1.80, or 4.5 percent, to $41.64. OPEC countries agreed on Nov. 30 to trim oil production next year, and over the weekend a group of 11 other nations also agreed to make cuts. Those reductions are intended to prop up the price of oil following a two-year slump. U.S. crude is up 17 percent since the OPEC deal was announced, which has taken it to its highest price in almost a year and a half, and the S&P 500 energy index is up 10 percent. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 15 cents to $52.98 a barrel in New York. Brent
Richard Drew / AP
Trader Michael Milano works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday.
crude, the international standard, added 3 cents to $55.72 a barrel in London. Technology companies jumped as a group of tech executives, including the CEOs of Apple and Microsoft, prepare to meet with President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday. Kinahan said investors in technology companies may be looking forward to tax changes that will encourage them to bring more cash back to the U.S. and invest it in their businesses or return it to shareholders. On Tuesday Apple added $1.89, or 1.7 percent, to $115.19. IBM was the biggest gainer on the Dow, as it picked up $2.79, or 1.7 percent, to $168.29. Consumer-focused
companies rose more than the rest of the market. Online retailer Amazon rose $14.22, or 1.9 percent, to $774.34 and home improvement retailer Home Depot jumped $1.96, or 1.5 percent, to $136.54. Newell Brands, which owns brands including Rubbermaid, Elmer’s and Mr. Coffee, picked up 82 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $47.30. Some companies that have performed very well over the last five weeks lost ground. Basic materials and industrial companies traded slightly lower. Banks, which have soared since the election, rose less than the rest of the market. Larger companies did much better than smaller
ones. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks, which has soared since the election, was essentially flat. Japanese brewer Asahi Group said it will pay $7.8 billion to buy five beer brands in Eastern Europe from Anheuser-Busch InBev, the maker of Budweiser. The brands include Pilsner Urquell. In October AB InBev bought rival SABMiller, and during those negotiations Asahi bought a group of Western European brands including Peroni and Grolsch. AB InBev picked up $1.36, or 1.3 percent, to $105.05. Investors expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates when it ends a policy meeting Wednesday. The central bank last raised interest rates a year ago. It’s kept rates very low since the 2008 financial crisis, but its leaders have suggested the U.S. economy is improving enough that it is time to start gradually raising rates. Low interest rates have helped drive stock prices higher, but they punish savers who look for income from bank accounts and bonds. U.S. government bond prices rose slightly. The yield on the 10-year Trea-
sury note dipped to 2.47 percent from 2.48 percent, its highest level since June 2015. The dollar rose to 115.23 yen from 115.12 yen. The euro fell to $1.0622 from $1.0630. In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline edged up 1 cent to $1.55 a gallon. Heating oil remained at $1.67 a gallon. Natural gas lost 3 cents to $3.47 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gold fell $6.80 to $1,159 an ounce. Silver lost 21 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $16.98 an ounce. Copper fell 2 cents to $2.60 a pound. The FTSE MIB in Italy jumped 2.5 percent and UniCredit, the largest Italian lender, soared 16 percent after it said it will unload $18.8 billion in soured loans, raise billions in cash, and cut thousands more jobs. Germany’s DAX rose 0.8 percent and the French CAC-40 was gained 0.9 percent. In Britain, the FTSE 100 rose 1.1 percent. Blue-chip stocks also led the way in Europe. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent. The Kospi in South Korea climbed 0.4 percent and the Hang Seng of Hong Kong added 0.1 percent.
A10 | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
Syria to evacuate Aleppo in surrender deal
Residents of Syria’s Aleppo share tormented goodbyes online By Sarah El Deeb
By Zeina Karam and Jamey Keaten
ASSOCIATED PRE SS
A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
BEIRUT — First came the distress calls from doctors in underground shelters and morgues. Then residents under relentless bombardment in the few remaining blocks under rebel control in Aleppo began posting emotional goodbyes on social media and in widely circulated messages. They wanted to have the final say in the merciless civil war. “There is a problem with this planet,” said Monther Etaky, a 28-year old graphic designer. “This planet doesn’t want people to live as free or to live as humans.” The world’s view of the Syria conflict has been largely driven by YouTube, Twitter and Facebook — making it one of the world’s most documented wars through amateur videos and coverage. This has given the activists a major role in chronicling the war, and in lobbying for the world’s response. Nearly six years into the conflict, they complained the world has been looking the other way. “Why is this silence? People are being eliminated,” tweeted Abdulkafi Alhamdo, an English teacher who has been a vocal critic of President Bashar Assad’s government. Then, he wrote: “The last (message). Thanks for Everything. We shared many moments. The last tweets were from an emotional father. Farewell (hash) Aleppo.” Alhamdo later went live on the video-streaming Periscope to say government troops were ap-
BEIRUT — Syrian rebels reached a cease-fire deal to evacuate from eastern Aleppo in an effective surrender on Tuesday, as Russia declared all military action had stopped and the Syrian government had assumed control of the former rebel enclave. The dramatic developments, which appeared to restore the remainder of what was once Syria’s largest city to President Bashar Assad’s forces after months of heavy fighting and a crippling siege, followed reports of mass killings by government forces closing in on the final few blocks still held by the rebels. Damascus confirmed the evacuation deal and the U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told The Associated Press in a text message that the safe withdrawal of people from the besieged area was now “imminent.” He was at the Security Council where an emergency meeting for Aleppo was underway. Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin took to the floor near the end of the session at the U.N. Security Council to announce fighting had ended. “According to the latest information that we received ... military actions in eastern Aleppo are over,” Churkin said. “The Syrian government has re-established control over eastern Aleppo.” Minutes earlier, he had announced that “all militants” and members of their families, as well as those wounded in the fighting, were being evacuated through “agreed corridors in directions that they have chosen voluntarily,” including the rebel stronghold of Idlib province. As word spread of the deal, celebrations broke out in the governmentcontrolled western sector of Aleppo, with convoys of cars driving around honking their cars and waving Syrian flags from the windows. Retaking Aleppo, which has been split between rebel and government control since 2012, would be Assad’s biggest victory yet in the civil war. Aleppo, the country’s former commercial powerhouse, has long been regarded as a major gateway between Turkey and Syria and the biggest prize in the conflict. There were conflicting reports about the timing and route that the evacuation would take. Syria’s military media said the gunmen would be evacuated through the Ramouseh crossing and from there to rebel-con-
George Ourfalian / Getty
A general view shows Syrian pro-government forces walking in the ancient Umayyad mosque in the old city of Aleppo on Tuesday after they captured the area.
trolled areas of northern Idlib province. “Aleppo will be declared a secure and liberated city within the coming hours,” it said on its Telegram channel. Osama Abu Zayd, a Turkey-based legal adviser for an umbrella group of rebel factions known as the Free Syrian Army, said the cease-fire went into effect Tuesday evening and that the first groups of rebel fighters would begin evacuating later Tuesday. Yasser al-Youssef, a rebel spokesman, confirmed the deal, and another spokesman, Ahmed Karali, said those leaving the city would head to rural areas in western Aleppo province then head north. The agreement Tuesday came after world leaders and aid agencies issued dramatic appeals on behalf of trapped residents, and the U.N. human rights office said that pro-government forces reportedly killed 82 civilians as they closed in on the last remaining rebel areas. That and other reports of mass killings, which could not be independently confirmed, reinforced fears of atrocities in the final hours of the battle for the city. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the emergency meeting he had received “credible reports” of civilians killed by intense bombing and summary executions by pro-government forces. “Aleppo should represent the end of a quest for military victory,” not the start of a new brutal campaign, he said. Several residents and opposition activists told the AP that government forces carried out summary killings of rebels in neighborhoods captured on Monday, but the Syrian military denied the claim, saying such allegations were “a desperate attempt” to gain international sympathy. None of the residents witnessed the alleged killings, and the reports came amid deepening chaos in the remaining rebel-held areas. Mohammed Abu Rajab, the ad-
ministrator of the last remaining clinic in rebelheld parts of the city, said the dead and wounded were being left in the streets. Bashar al-Ja’afari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, denied any mass executions or revenge attacks, but added it was Syria’s “constitutional right” to go after “terrorists,” a reference to all opposition fighters. “Aleppo has been liberated from terrorists and those who toyed with terrorism,” he said. “Aleppo has returned to the nation.” The U.N. children’s agency said in a statement on Tuesday that it had received a report of more than 100 unaccompanied children trapped in a building under fire in eastern Aleppo. UNICEF is concerned over reports of “extrajudicial killings of civilians, including children,” said the agency’s regional director, Geert Cappalaere. The U.N. human rights office said it had received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians in four neighborhoods of the rapidlyshrinking rebel enclave, including 11 women and 13 children. Spokesman Rupert Colville, speaking to reporters in Geneva, said the reports described pro-government forces entering homes and killing civilians “on the spot.” He said the reports came in late Monday and he didn’t know exactly when the killings took place. A press release by the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said that multiple sources reported dozens of civilians were shot dead Monday by government forces and allied militiamen in the Kallaseh and Bustan alQasr neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo. Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hundreds of bodies were still under the rubble. A government win in Aleppo would significantly strengthen Assad’s hand but does not end the conflict.
Karam Al-masri / Getty
Syrians leave a rebel-held area of Aleppo toward the government-held side on Tuesday.
proaching. “I hope you can remember us,” he said. A local aid worker, who gave only his first name, Omar, sent an emotional recorded message that was widely shared on Whatsapp. “The government forces are at the end of the street. Forgive us,” he said in issuing a tormented apology for failing to protect the rebel enclave, once seen as the jewel of Syria’s rebellion. After four years of holding onto nearly half of what was once Syria’s largest city and commercial center, thousands of residents of rebel-held Aleppo had been cornered in a one-square-mile sliver of land for days as Syrian government troops, backed by Russia, resisted calls for a cease-fire, pushing into the territory as rebel defenses crumbled. Hospitals were knocked out and civil defense vehicles were bombed. Thousands of residents fled to government areas, but thousands more, likely die-hard government opponents, squeezed with the rebels into the evershrinking enclave.
Etaky said the fast buckling of rebel defenses shocked him at first. “But when I turned on my brain and thought about what is happening and the cause of what is happening, I knew,” he said. After months of siege imposed since July the rebels had no more power to go on, he said. With their families trapped in the city with them, many fighters left the front lines to tend to their relatives’ safety. But most importantly, he said, “it was the world silence.” Etaky said that as a witness of the grueling war, he thought he had become numbed by the violence years earlier. Since moving to the rebelheld sector in 2012, he said he had lost about 50 friends. “When I was saying the last goodbyes, this was the first time I was affected because it was the last time,” he said. He said he was proud of his role in documenting the war. There was no record, he said, of previous Syrian government crackdowns.
THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 |
A11
FROM THE COVER
Trump invites Senate clash with Tillerson State nomination By Erica Werner A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is inviting a clash in the narrowly divided Senate by choosing Rex Tillerson for secretary of State in the face of well-publicized concerns from several GOP senators over the oil executive’s ties to Russia. The likely confirmation
KIDNAP From page A1 In response, a few dozen men appeared this week in the streets of Totolapan waving shotguns and hunting rifles. In a video, the men carry banners calling for action against El Tequilero and identify themselves as a “self-defense” force, as vigilantes are known in the region. “We urgently demand the release of the kidnap victims,” a masked man says in a statement read on the video. “We are a
FRACKING From page A1 the available data, it was not possible to fully characterize the severity of impacts, nor was it possible to calculate or estimate the national frequency of impacts on drinking water resources” from fracking activities, the EPA said in a report that raises more questions than answers. The report removes a finding from a draft issued last year indicating that fracking has not caused “widespread, systemic” harm to drinking water in the United States. Industry groups had hailed the draft EPA study as proof that fracking is safe, while environmentalists seized on the report’s identification of cases where frackingrelated activities polluted drinking water. Fracking involves pumping huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals underground to split open rock formations so oil and
ABBOTT From page A1 business leaders have already lined up to voice their opposition, worried it could scare off investment in the same way a similar proposal did in North Carolina. Asked about those concerns, Abbott said his goal heading into this session is “ensuring the safety and security of the people of Texas.” “This is an issue that should be determined with a full evaluation, all the information,” Abbott said when pressed on the topic. “We are in the information-gathering stage right now.” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has called such a bill a priority. House Speaker Joe Straus has downplayed the urgency of Texas lawmakers pursuing such a measure. Abbott spoke with reporters for roughly an hour Tuesday, largely about the upcoming session. He listed “four pillars” that will factor into his consideration of any legislation: freedom, economic opportunity, educational advancement, and safety and security. Lawmakers are heading into the session with a tighter budget than usual, thanks in part to a downturn in oil markets. Abbott, however, did not appear alarmed by the fiscal picture, providing
fight could be an early test of Trump’s sway over Congress, and demonstrate how much appetite there is among Republicans to stand up to their president. For now, three Republican senators have publicly voiced concerns about the Tillerson nomination: Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Ru-
bio of Florida. All have cited the Exxon Mobil executive’s history of making deals in Russia and his close ties with Vladimir Putin, which include opposing sanctions sought by the U.S. and Europe against Russia after it invaded Crimea. However, none of the three has said thus far that he will oppose Tillerson. And only Rubio
sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold a confirmation hearing in early January to consider the nomination. “While Rex Tillerson is a respected businessman, I have serious concerns about his nomination. The next secretary of state must be someone who views the world with moral clarity, is free of potential conflicts of in-
terest, has a clear sense of America’s interests, and will be a forceful advocate for America’s foreign policy goals,” Rubio said. “I will do my part to ensure he receives a full and fair but also thorough hearing.” The committee currently has 10 Republican and 9 Democratic members, meaning Tillerson needs support from every Republican to get a suc-
cessful committee vote, presuming Democrats all oppose him. Yet even if the panel rejects him, there is precedent for the full Senate to take up his nomination. The Senate will be divided 52-48 next year in favor of the Republicans, meaning Tillerson could lose only two Republicans if all Democrats voted “No.”
legitimate self-defense force of the people.” Among the Tequileros’ kidnap victims was a local construction engineer, Isauro de Paz Duque, who was snatched on Sunday by men who had threatened to kill him. On Monday, a woman who identified herself as De Paz Duque’s wife said on a video that townspeople had El Tequilero’s mother and would exchange the woman for her husband. “We have your mother here, Mr. Tequilero,” she said. “I propose an ex-
change: I’ll give you your mother if you give me my husband, but I want him safe and sound.” The state government said in a statement that a negotiating team had been sent to establish contact with the family of the missing engineer and the vigilantes and to set up a search team. “The goal of the team is to ensure that no injury is done to the missing person, nor to the mother of the head of the Tequileros gang, who has apparently been taken by the selfdefense forces,” the statement said.
The government later confirmed that about five of the two dozen people being held by the vigilantes had been freed, but those freed did not include the gang boss’ mother. In late November, the Guerrero government said El Tequilero was believed to have been wounded and was hiding out with his kidnap victims in the mountains. The state attorney general headed an extensive manhunt using helicopters and troops on the ground in an unsuccessful effort to locate the gang leader.
The area is a hotbed of drug trafficking, killings and extortion. It is the foot of the mountains that produce much of Mexico’s opium poppy crop. Totolapan is considered so dangerous that many outlying hamlets in the township have been abandoned by fearful residents. In 2014, the battered body of the parish priest, the Rev. Ascension Acuna Osorio, was found floating in the Balsas river near the town. The emergence of vigilante groups, also known as self-styled “community
police,” has become a headache for Guerrero’s government. Authorities say they understand residents’ frustration but note the groups often wind up kidnapping suspects, fighting among themselves or preventing police from doing their work. “The truth is, they are not really community forces, nor are they police,” Gov. Hector Astudillo said. “They are armed groups that unfortunately carry out acts ... that generate more violence and confrontation, rather than help.”
gas will flow. The practice has spurred an ongoing energy boom but has raised widespread concerns that it might lead to groundwater contamination, increased air pollution and even earthquakes. The reactions were reversed on Tuesday. Environmentalists cheered the new report as proof that fracking threatens drinking water, while industry groups complained the Obama administration had yielded to political pressure on its way out the door. “We are glad EPA resisted oil and gas industry spin, followed the science and delivered the facts,” said John Noel, oil and gas campaigns coordinator for Clean Water Action, an advocacy group. An oil industry spokesman called the report an “absurd” reversal that changes a science-based conclusion to one “based in political ambiguity” just weeks before President Barack Obama leaves office.
“The agency has walked away from nearly a thousand sources of information from ... technical reports and peerreviewed scientific reports demonstrating that ... hydraulic fracturing does not lead to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources,” said Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group. The fracking study makes a mockery of frequent pledges by Obama and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to follow science as they make decisions, Milito said. “We look forward to working with the new administration to instill fact-based science back into the public policy process,” he said of President-elect Donald Trump. Tom Burke, EPA’s science adviser and a deputy assistant administrator, said in an interview that the removal of the phrase about “widespread, systemic” impacts came at the urging of the EPA’s
Science Advisory Board. “Data gaps did not allow us to quantify how widespread the impacts are,” Burke said. Environmental groups have claimed that the finding of no widespread harm was inserted into the draft report at the insistence of the White House. Obama supports fracking as part of a wideranging energy strategy. An EPA spokeswoman denied any political pressure. The final report found specific instances where poorly constructed drilling wells, improper wastewater management or other problems affected drinking water. Impacts generally occurred near drilling sites and ranged from temporary changes in water quality to rendering private drinking wells unusable, the report said. The number of contamination cases was small compared to the tens of thousands of wells that are fracked nationwide, the EPA said.
PERRY From page A1
a one-sentence response when asked if the state has enough money: “The answer is yes.” “What we all know is that every decade we’ve had some tight budgets and some flush budgets,” Abbott said. “What we know is that through every tight budget that we’ve had in the past, the sun has still risen after that session, and it’s not a miracle. It’s just life.” Despite the tight budget, Abbott said he still wants lawmakers to pursue tax relief, one of his orders to them last session. His “first choice of tax cuts,” he added, would be the business franchise tax. “As much as I can get,” he replied when asked by how much he would like to see the tax trimmed. The fiscal picture will not be the only consideration for lawmakers as they descend on Austin in January for the legislative session. For the first time in eight years, the GOP-controlled Legislature will be meeting under a Republican president, Donald Trump, who has vowed to tackle a perennial issue for lawmakers: border security. If Trump makes good on that promise, Abbott predicted it will allow Texas to “recalibrate” its role in border security, possibly freeing up state money for other uses. Abbott made clear, however, that Texas is “not
going to abandon post” in the meantime. On Trump’s signature proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Abbott said he anticipates that Trump administration will do so in a targeted way. “There are certain parts of the border where it’s more easy to build,” Abbott said, noting, for example, there are “serpentine regions of the Rio Grande where it would be extremely challenging to build a wall.” He also named Big Bend National Park as an area where a wall would not make sense. Beyond border security, education issues are expected to factor prominently into the next session. House Speaker Joe Straus has emphasized the need to fix the state’s public school finance system, while Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been more vocal about the need for private school choice legislation. “I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Abbott said when asked about balancing the two issues in the upcoming session. “I think both can be addressed, and they both should be addressed.” Patrick failed in a push to bring private school choice programs to Texas last session, though he is prioritizing it again ahead of January. Abbott said the lieutenant governor and other
school choice supporters will have his ear — and potentially his signature. “I will be interested in school choice solutions that are offered up, and I will be interested in signing the most proschool choice law that arrives on my desk,” Abbott said. Abbott’s Q-and-A with reporters came hours after Trump named Rex Tillerson, CEO of Irvingbased Exxon Mobil, his secretary of state and reports surfaced that Trump has picked former Gov. Rick Perry for energy secretary. Abbott said he was thrilled to see Texans in the administration but declined to weigh on the most contentious issue surrounding Tillerson: his close ties to Russia. “I see headlines on that and know nothing about that,” Abbott said. “I’m not going to engage in speculation about it.” Abbott struck a similar note on recent reports that the CIA has concluded Russia interfered in the presidential election to boost Trump. While Abbott said intelligence reports about any country should be taken seriously, he said he has “no information whatsoever about what the reports are about the election or anything else, so I’m not going to comment on that.”
Trump aides would not publicly confirm that Perry had been selected for energy secretary, but praised him for overseeing growth in Texas that was linked to the energy industry. “We’re big fans of Gov. Perry,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said. In his first presidential run, Perry flamed out after a series of missteps. The best-remembered one came during a presidential debate in 2011 when he couldn’t remember, despite repeated attempts, the third of three federal agencies he had promised to eliminate if elected. He finally muttered “Oops.” The one he forgot was, ironically, the Energy Department. The two others were Commerce and Education. Perry has drawn criticism from some environmental activists because he is on the board of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the company trying to build a 1,200mile Dakota Access pipeline that would carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline has sparked protests that have made national headlines. Perry also serves on the board of another energy firm, Sunoco Logistics Partners. He has been a vocal skeptic on climate change since before his first run for the White House. During his governorship, though, Texas became a major producer of wind powered-energy. Perry for years used economic incentive funds controlled by his office to offer tens of billions of dollars to wind producers and other companies promoting alternative energy. This year, Perry joined the board of a stem cell company where he underwent experimental back surgery before running for president in 2011. Perry had previously blamed chronic back pain for his “oops” moment and other gaffes that sunk his once-promising campaign, hinting that the procedure carried out by the Houston-based biotechnology company Celltex Therapeutics didn’t help him overcome it. But the former governor told The Associated Press this fall, after joining the company board, that his health was good and he was a big believer in adult stem cell therapy. Perry recently demonstrated his fitness with a brief appearance on this season’s “Dancing with the Stars.” He was the second contestant eliminated.
he championed during a record 14 years as governor. Perry, 66, left office in January 2015 and then launched his second illfated bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He was a harsh critic of Trump, even calling the billionaire businessman a “cancer to conservatism,” but Perry lasted only three months in the race for the 2016 nomination before dropping out. Perry later endorsed the Republican nominee and said he’d be willing to work in a Trump administration. He re-emerged in the public spotlight in a brief appearance on this season’s “Dancing with the Stars,” where he was the second contestant eliminated. Democrats and environmental groups derided Perry’s expected nomination, noting that he is on the record both forgetting about the Energy Department and then remembering he wanted to eliminate it. “It is deeply unsettling that our current secretary of energy, a renowned nuclear physicist, could be succeeded by a contestant on ‘Dancing with the Stars”’ said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Governor Perry is simply not qualified for this position and should be rejected.” Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, called it “an insult to our functioning democracy. Putting Perry in charge of the Department of Energy is the perfect way to ensure the agency fails at everything it is charged to do.” But supporters said Perry led a state that has long been a leader in energy production, first in oil and natural gas and now in wind power and other renewable energy as well. As governor, Perry embodied the “all of the above” approach to U.S. energy production that is backed by both congressional Republicans and President Barack Obama, said Salo Zelermyer, a former Energy Department official under President George W. Bush. “This approach is a big reason why Texas experienced such enormous job growth during Perry’s tenure. As Texas has shown, it is indeed possible to successfully balance appropriate environmental regulations with domestic energy production and use,” he said.
A12 | Wednesday, December 14, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES