The Zapata Times 1/27/2018

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SATURDAY JANUARY 27, 2018

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MEXICO VIOLENCE

29,168 murders recorded in 2017 Highest homicide rate reported since record keeping began in 1997

By Mark Stevenson A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

MEXICO CITY — Mexico posted its highest homicide rate in decades, with the government reporting Sunday there were 29,168 murders in 2017, a 27 percent increase over 2016.

The number is the highest since comparable records began being kept in 1997 and is also higher than the peak year of Mexico's drug war in 2011, when there were 27,213 killings.

The Interior Department, which posted the number, reported the country's homicide rate was 20.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, compared to 19.4 in 2011.

But Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope said Mexico's murder rate is probably higher than the Interior Department statistics show, because the department does the per 100,000 count based on the number of murder investigations, not the number of vic-

tims, and a killing may result in more than one victim. Hope says the real homicide rate is probably around 24 per 100,000.

Despite U.S. President Donald Trump's tweet last week claiming Mexico is "now rated the number one most dangerous country in the world," there are several nations in Latin America with higher rates.

Brazil and Colombia had about 27 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, still well below Violence continues on A8

FRANCISCO ROBLES / AFP/Getty Images

A police officer stands guard as officials work next to a car which was found with three bodies inside in the outskirts of Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico on Jan. 25, 2018. According to a report released on Sunday, Mexico posted its highest homicide rate in decades with 29,168 murders in 2017, a 27 percent increase over 2016.

CRIME STOPPERS MENUDO BOWL

DA’S OFFICE PLACES IN THREE DIVISIONS

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL

1.8M would get pathway to citizenship

By Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin and Alan Fram ASSOCIATED PRE SS

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top Democrat dismissed President Donald Trump’s immigration proposal as a “wish list” for hard-liners on Friday as the plan drew harsh reviews from Democrats, immigration activists and some conservatives.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed satisfaction that Trump had clarified his immigration goals, which have befuddled members of both parties and hindered progress in Congress. The White House plan unveiled Thursday offers a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants living in the U.S. illegally in exchange for major restrictions on legal immigration and $25 billion in border security.

In a pair of tweets, Schumer expressed relief that Trump “finally acknowledged that the Illegal continues on A8

ZAPATA COUNTY

Courtesy photo / Zapata County Sheriff’s Office

The Webb and Zaptata County District Attorney's Office was recognized in three categories during the Laredo Crime Stoppers Menudo Bowl event at LIFE Downs last weekend Courtesy photo / Zapata County Sheriff’s Office

Menudo Saloon wins 1st place in open division

By César G. Rodriguez TH E ZAPATA T IME S

Zapata was well represented at the recent 23rd annual Laredo Crime Stopper’s Menudo Bowl held at LIFE Downs.

Webb and Zapata County District Attorney’s Office placed in three divisions. The D.A. Menudo Saloon won first place in open division, third place in showmanship and third place in people's choice.

“Congratulations to the ladies that helped prepare this year’s menudo,” said District Attorney Isidro R. “Chilo” Alaniz.

The DA’s Office has been participating in the Crime Stoppers Menudo Bowl since it began.

“The event is for a great cause, it brings the office together and it is lots of fun. It took 23 years, but we finally got the recipe right. I want to thank my team of dedicated employees and everyone that came by to taste the best menudo of 2018,” Alaniz said.

Zapata county authorities also took the trip to Laredo participate in the Menudo Bowl. For them, the event was about having a good time.

“Having a good time with friends and family at the Laredo Crime Stoppers 23rd Annual Menudo Bowl,” said Raymundo Del Bosque Jr., chief of the Zapata County Sheriff ’s Office.

Pictured from left to right are Roy Mealler, Raymundo Del Bosque Jr., John Jaeger and Joe Peña.

Local ministry donates teddy bears for kids

By César G. Rodriguez THE ZAPATA TIME S

Courtesy photo / Zapata County Sheriff’s Office

Chief Raymundo Del Bosque Jr., of the Zapata County Sheriff’s Office, prepares menudo during the annual Laredo Crime Stoppers Menudo Bowl.

A local ministry donated teddy bears to the Zapata County Sheriff’s Office.

On Wednesday, representatives from Iron Horse Disciples Motorcycle Ministries donated three boxes of teddy bears for the office’s Teddy Bear Program, an initiative that started in October 2015.

Deputies give out the bears to children who are in a stressful situation.

“The teddy bears help forge a bond between the officer and the child as well as minimize the psychological impact of a traumatic situation by Bears continues on A8

Zin brief A2 | Saturday, January 27, 2018 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

CALENDAR

AROUND THE WORLD

TODAY IN HISTORY

SATURDAY, JAN. 27

ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Holy Redeemer Church annual dance. Laredo Civic Center Ballroom.

Music by Calle 8. Person tickets are $25 per person. For more information call Amparo at 286-0862.

SATURDAY, FEB. 3 First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

Laredo Northside Farmers Market is at North Central Park from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The February market will feature a dog costume contest. Check the market's facebook page for contest registration times. There will be three prizes for the contest. Come see the new vendors including a pony ride and your returning favorites. More information at our facebook page.

SATURDAY, FEB. 10 Conference and Resource Fair for Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Disabilities, 8:30am-1:30pm, UT Health Regional Campus Laredo, 1937 E. Bustamante, This is a free resource fair for parents of children with special needs it is also open to the community. To register call Oda Garcia at 956-712-0037 email ogarcia@mrgbahec.org.

SATURDAY, MARCH 3 First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

SATURDAY, APRIL 7 First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

SATURDAY, APRIL 14 Habitat for Humanity Laredo major fundraiser Golfing For Roofs golf tournament. Max A. Mandel Municipal Golf Course. Hole sponsorships are title $10,000, platinum $5,000, diamond $2,500, gold $1,500, silver $1,000, bronze. For information, call 724-3227.

SATURDAY, MAY 5 First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

Evan Vucci / Associated Press

President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the World Economic Forum on Friday.

ALLIES PRAISE TRUMP AT DAVOS DAVOS, Switzerland — Snow was piled high outside, but inside the Davos summit, relations between President Donald Trump and the assembled global elites seemed to thaw.

Before Trump’s debut appearance at the World Economic Forum, critics speculated that the president would function as a protectionist bull in the free-trade-loving china shop. After all, this was a former reality television star who rode a wave of nationalist angst to the White House, blew up international trade deals and inflamed allies with his coarse rhetoric.

Mexican tourism secretary says legal marijuana idea was ‘personal’ MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s tourism secretary suggested that legalizing marijuana could help reduce drug violence at big tourist resorts but later said he wasn’t speaking in an official capacity when he made the comment.

Tourism Secretary Enrique de la Madrid said Thursday

SATURDAY, JULY 7

AROUND TEXAS

First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

Couple lose custody of 4-year-old after sister’s death

SATURDAY, AUG. 4 First United Methodist Church Used Book Sale. 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

1220 McClelland Ave. Hard cover $1, paperback $0.50, magazines and children’s books, $0.25. Public is invited. Proceeds are used to support the church’s missions.

Submit calendar items by emailing editorial@lmtonline.com with the event’s name, date and time, location, purpose and contact information for a representative. Items will run as space is available.

DALLAS — A couple facing charges over the death of their 3-year-old daughter adopted from India have lost parental rights to their 4-year-old biological daughter.

A judge in Dallas on Friday terminated the parental rights of Wesley and Sini Mathews of Richardson, who remain jailed.

Both had agreed to permanently relinquish their rights to their older child, who was placed with relatives following

That uncertainty was clear as Trump arrived at the modern conference center Thursday for his two-day stay in the Swiss Alps. A hush fell on the crowd of people snapping photos and then someone asked the president how he would be treated.

While there were scattered protests, some critiques and many panel discussions with Trump-wary titles — “Democracy in a Post-Truth Era” and “The Global Impact of America First” — the president’s visit also brought him praise from allies. — Compiled from AP reports

that legalizing pot could help reduce violence in states like Baja California Sur, which is home to the twin resorts of Los Cabos and has Mexico’s second-highest murder rate, and Quintana Roo, where the resort of Cancun is located.

Cancun, while relatively quiet, has had outbursts of shootings, some related to a struggle by the Jalisco New Generation cartel to move in to the city.

However, late Thursday, De la Madrid issued a Tweet saying “I want to emphatically say

that my opinion on legalizing marijuana was a personal comment.”

In fact, marijuana, like almost all drugs, is regulated by federal law in Mexico, and so it is highly unlikely any states could get exemptions.

Security analyst Alejandro Hope wrote in a column in the newspaper El Universal Friday that “when the law enforcement agenda is being set by the tourism secretary, something is not working. Seriously.” — Compiled from AP reports

the death of Sherin Mathews.

Sherin was found dead Oct. 22 in a culvert near the family’s Dallas-area residence. Her father had reported her missing Oct. 7. An autopsy determined Sherin died from homicidal violence. Wesley Mathews has been indicted on a capital murder charge in Sherin’s death. Other charges against him include injury to a child.

and Border Protection officers in South Texas have been sentenced in a marriage and citizenship scam.

A federal judge in Del Rio on Thursday sentenced 46-yearold Isabel Metzler to six months in prison. Officials say 37-year-old Luis Morales received five years’ probation.

Metzler pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud. Morales pleaded guilty to making a false statement to a federal agent.

Prosecutors say the couple arranged a sham marriage for a friend, Nancy Chan. — Compiled from AP reports

Former Customs officers sentenced in marital scam DEL RIO — A husband and wife who were U.S. Customs

AROUND THE NATION Cost of crisis at tallest US dam reaches $870M SAN FRANCISCO — The costs of dealing with last year’s near-disaster at the nation’s tallest dam have reached $870 million, California officials said Friday.

The figure for emergency response and repairs following the crisis at Northern California’s Oroville Dam should stand, said Erin Mellon, spokeswoman for the state Department of Water Resources. The total was pegged at $660 million in October.

Both spillways at the 770foot (230-meter) earthen dam collapsed in February, forcing evacuation orders for nearly 200,000 people downstream.

Officials feared massive, un-

Rich Pedroncelli / AP

Work continues to repair the damaged main spillway of the Oroville Dam on Thursday in Oroville, California.

controlled releases of water, but they did not materialize, and residents were allowed to return to their homes within days.

A report by independent

dam-safety experts blamed the crisis on state operators’ and regulators’ “long-term systemic failure” to recognize built-in design and construction flaws in the half-century-old dam.

Mellon says California still hopes federal emergency funds will cover three-fourths of the cost, which includes about a half-billion dollars the state is spending to repair and improve both spillways.

Friday’s jump in the overall price tag comes from expenses that include the removal of massive amounts of debris left by the torrents of water released from Oroville’s reservoir during the crisis, Mellon said.

Other new costs in the total include moving power lines connected to the dam’s hydroelectric system and building access roads for repair crews.

The price tag does not include more than $1 billion in legal claims filed by property owners downstream, Mellon said. — Compiled from AP reports

Today is Saturday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2018. There are 338 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History: On Jan. 27, 1943, some 50 bombers struck Wilhelmshaven in the first all-American air raid against Germany during World War II. On this date: In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

In 1888, the National Geographic Society was incorporated in Washington, D.C. In 1901, opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy, at age 87.

In 1913, the musical play "The Isle O' Dreams," featuring the song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" by Ernest R. Ball, Chauncey Olcott and George Graff Jr., opened in New York.

In 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

In 1951, an era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.

In 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

More than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the deploying of nuclear weapons in outer space.

In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.

In 1984, singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

In 1998, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC's "Today" show, charged the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, President Bill Clinton, were the work of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

In 2001, 10 people were killed when a plane bringing people home from Oklahoma State University's basketball game against Colorado crashed in a field outside Denver.

Ten years ago: Former Indonesian president Suharto, a U.S. Cold War ally whose military regime killed hundreds of thousands of left-wing opponents, died in Jakarta at age 86. Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died in Salt Lake City, Utah, at age 97. Novak Djokovic fended off unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (2) in the Australian Open final, earning his first Grand Slam title.

Five years ago: Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil, killing 242 people. The NFC blew past the AFC 62-35 in the Pro Bowl. Novak Djokovic beat Andy Murray 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2 to become the first man in the Open era to win three consecutive Australian Open titles. Max Aaron won his first title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Omaha, Nebraska.

One year ago: President Donald Trump barred all refugees from entering the United States for four months — and those from war-ravaged Syria indefinitely — declaring the ban necessary to prevent "radical Islamic terrorists" from entering the nation.

The politically ascendant anti-abortion movement gathered for a triumphant rally on the National Mall, rejoicing at the end of an eight-year Obama presidency that participants said was dismissive of their views.

Today's Birthdays: Actor James Cromwell is 78. Actor John Witherspoon is 76. Rock musician Nick Mason is 74. Rhythm-and-blues singer Nedra Talley (The Ronettes) is 72.

Ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov is 70.

Latin singer-songwriter Djavan is 69.

Political commentator Ed Schultz is 64. Chief U.S. Justice John Roberts is 63. Country singer Cheryl White is 63.

Country singer-musician Richard Young (The Kentucky Headhunters) is 63. Actress Mimi Rogers is 62. Rock musician Janick Gers (Iron Maiden) is 61. Actress Susanna Thompson is 60.

Political and sports commentator Keith Olbermann is 59. Rock singer Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is 57. Rock musician Gillian Gilbert is 57.

Actress Tamlyn Tomita is 55. Actress Bridget Fonda is 54. Actor Alan Cumming is 53. Country singer Tracy Lawrence is 50. Rock singer Mike Patton is 50. Rapper Tricky is 50. Rock musician Michael Kulas (James) is 49.

Actor-comedian Patton Oswalt is 49.

Actor Josh Randall is 46. Country singer Kevin Denney is 40. Tennis player Marat Safin is 38. Neo-soul musician Andrew Lee (St. Paul & the Broken Bones) is 32.

Thought for Today : "Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is — it is her shadow." — Gamaliel Bailey, American abolitionist (1807-1859).

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The Zapata Times

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Saturday, January 27, 2018 |

A3

STATE

Judge who gave jury God’s advice likely to keep job

By Ryan Autullo COX N EWSPAPE RS

AUSTIN — Despite complaints against a Texas District Court judge who said a visit from God led him to intervene in jury deliberations, court watchers predict only minor punishment, if any, will be handed down by the state agency tasked with prosecuting judicial misconduct.

The legal observers say Judge Jack Robison’s behavior at a recent sex trafficking trial in Comal County violates the code of ethics that requires jurists to maintain impartiality and is grounds for a review from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Robison, who has not returned calls for comment, twice interrupted deliberations on Jan. 12 to tell jurors he thought the defendant was not guilty.

He acknowledged what he did was improper but said he was at peace with it because he was directed by God to deliver the message, according to defense lawyer Sylvia Cavazos and members of the jury who have been interviewed by the media.

Unmoved by the judge’s assessment of the case, the jury returned a guilty verdict and later sentenced the woman to 25 years in prison, the minimum punishment for the first-degree felony.

Robison had previously denied Cavazos’ motion for a directed verdict of not guilty, which if granted would have acquitted the defendant without the jury’s input.

Robison removed himself during the trial’s

sentencing phase and was replaced by another judge.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct is tasked with judging judges and deciding any disciplinary action. Media coverage surrounding the incident is sufficient grounds to launch an investigation, as is the complaint a juror told the San Antonio ExpressNews that he filed with the commission.

The commission’s executive director, Eric Vinson, said he could not confirm or deny that Robison is the subject of an investigation, but he said the commission expects to soon file charges against a judge.

In cases involving the most serious allegations, the commission has in the past filed formal charges that can result in removal of the judge or involuntary retirement.

But such severe actions are uncommon. Reprimands or orders requiring judges to get training are more commonly imposed penalties.

No judge has been forcibly removed from office since 2004.

In recent years, judges have resigned before being forced out. One judge resigned after an investigation in 2017, four did so in 2016 and seven resigned after investigations in 2015.

Retired Travis County state District Judge Jon Wisser said it’s unlikely Robison will be forced out.

“But I’m not sure,” he said. “I think it’s certainly a possibility of removal. I don’t know if it’s a probability. I suspect they’re going to take it very seriously.”

’Judges policing themselves’ Judges who resign in lieu of dismissal are forever disqualified from returning to the bench.

Resignation agreements are made public on the commission’s website.

But Houston attorney Robert Fickman said the commission is notorious for going easy on judges.

In a 2012 interview with the Austin AmericanStatesman, Fickman, a past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, called the commission “a fraud on the good citizens of the state.”

“My opinion pretty much remains the same,” Fickman said this week.

“I don’t have a lot of faith that the commission will give serious sanctions to members of the judiciary that violate the canons.”

He’s particularly miffed over the four hours of training imposed against three Harris County criminal law hearing officers for violating a federal court ruling when they failed to release indigent defendants from jail without bail.

Fickman says the punishment was lighter than a speeding ticket.

“Four hours? That’s half of a defensive driving course,” Fickman said.

In 2017, the commission received 1,535 complaints and resolved 1,333, some of which carried over from previous years. Of the resolved cases, 708 were dismissed with little or no investigation. The remaining 625 triggered an investigation.

Local civil rights activist Jim Harrington said the commission is inherently flawed because

judges are tasked with ruling over their peers.

Harrington in 2011 filed a complaint against Robison for improperly jailing a grandfather who had approached the judge in the courthouse bathroom and called him a fool after a ruling Robison made in a child custody case involving the man’s granddaughter.

The grandfather was jailed without a hearing, which Harrington said is “worse than the God thing he did, which is crazy.”

The commission declined to file formal charges and issued Robison a private reprimand.

“Anybody that polices themselves is going to have this result,” Harrington said. “Judges policing themselves is absurd. ... He shouldn’t be on the bench right now. They should have kicked him off the last time.”

But criticism of a state’s judicial conduct commission is common, according to Cynthia Gray, director of the Center for Judicial Ethics of the National Center for State Courts.

“In every state, people think the commission is too easy and judges think the commission is too hard,” she said.

Robison still on the job Robison has remained silent as news of his advice to the jury received national attention. He did not return calls for comment left in the last few days with his court coordinator, Steve Thomas, or his campaign treasurer, William Mehrer, who also did not return calls or emails.

Robison, who presides over a district that in-

Robin Jerstad / San Antonio Express-News

Judge Jack Robison makes notes prior to the resumption of the capital murder trial of Lane Waldren in the Comal County Justice Center.

cludes Comal, Caldwell and Hays counties, was scheduled to be on the bench this week in Caldwell and Hays, but cases that were set for trial were resolved ahead of time. He’ll return next week, Thomas said.

If he does not draw an opponent in the November election -- no one has filed to run against him in the Republican or Democratic primaries -Robison could remain on the bench through 2022.

The judicial commission’s membership, as mandated by the state constitution, includes six judges appointed by the Supreme Court of Texas, two attorneys appointed by the State Bar, and five citizen members appointed by the governor. They serve six-year terms and are not paid. Seven appellate judges are appointed to hear the most serious cases that could result in dismissal.

Should the commission decide to act against a judge, charges cannot be filed until four weeks after the filing of a complaint. Robison disrupted jury deliberations two weeks ago.

Gray, of the national

judicial ethics center, declined to comment on Robison’s case but said additional considerations will factor into the commission’s decision, including “if there’s a pattern, whether the judge shows remorse, or whether there’s something that isn’t revealed in the newspaper stories.”

The commission has ongoing cases against two judges, Zavala County Justice of the Peace Lucy Leal and Harris County Justice of the Peace Hilary H. Green.

Green is accused of refusing to recuse herself from the case of a defendant who did work on her house and also faces allegations brought up in her divorce that she abused prescription pills.

Leal is charged with approving unlawful arrest warrants against a man who had repossessed another judge’s truck.

The commission does not publicize a complaint unless the complaint turns into formal charges or results in punishment.

“Everything is confidential unless and until they take public action that allows the door to open,” Vinson said.

Bridge battle draws more attention, reviews in League City OCIATE D PRE SS

LEAGUE CITY, Texas — Residents in a quiet, almost rural, neighborhood in the Harris County section of League City see themselves as apart from, forgotten and ignored by officialdom in the otherwise booming community.

The Galveston County Daily News reports when it comes to putting a bridge over Clear Creek at Palomino Lane, they want to keep it that way.

Clear Creek Shores residents are objecting to a proposed bridge as they did in 2005 and again in 2009 when the city also broached the concept.

League City wants to develop plans to alleviate traffic congestion on FM 518 west of Interstate 45, including extending Palomino Lane with a bridge. It’s just one of about 80 projects in different stages of planning that city officials are

juggling to improve traffic conditions in the city.

But Clear Creek Shores residents want to stop any plans to extend Palomino Lane, they said.

“It would destroy one of the oldest neighborhoods in League City,” resident Victoria MaxeyHodgson said.

Clear Creek Shores, developed in the 1960s, is a quiet neighborhood just west of Harris County’s Challenger Park. A bridge would change all of that, residents said.

A bridge would ruin views, resident Skip Hartley said. It will hurt wildlife, resident Pamela Hale said. It will be noisy and add traffic, resident Edwin Benson said. And it will make property values go down, MaxeyHodgson said.

The neighborhood has a history with this bridge issue. More than 10 years ago, many of its residents fought the building of Clear Springs High

School on Palomino because of the traffic it would generate, adding to the existing traffic problems on FM 518.

And they suspected that building a high school at the end of a dead-end road at a creek would one day lead to a bridge, residents said.

“We were assured at that time there would be no bridge,” Maxey-Hodgson said.

In 2005, Clear Creek Independent School District unveiled plans to build a high school on dead-end Palomino Road.

Owners of waterfront houses in Clear Creek Shores and Creekside Estates argued the school would bring unwanted traffic and noise.

The city denied the school district’s request to build the school but the district sued and in July 2005 state District Court Judge Susan Criss ordered the city to give the school district a zon-

ing permit to build the new high school. Clear Springs High School opened in 2007.

The city, in turn, pulled the plug on plans to extend Palomino Lane north to Grissom Road.

But the Palomino Lane extension project stayed on the books.

In December 2009, the city council agreed to spend $525,000 for a consultant to study the possibility of building a bridge from Palomino Lane across Clear Creek and extending a fourlane road north either along West NASA Boulevard or through a chunk of ranch land sandwiched between neighborhoods. The road extension would help alleviate traffic congestion along FM 518 caused by the high school, city staff said at the time.

The study ignited a firestorm among homeowners and ranch owners who thought the proj-

ect was long dead.

As the years rolled by, the traffic intensified and the population grew to more than 104,000 residents. As League City officials now weigh solutions to ease the problems, two possible solutions that remain are extending Landing Boulevard and Palomino Lane across Clear Creek.

Both plans have been around a long time, City Manager John Baumgartner said.

“We need both of those projects to move forward,” Baumgartner said.

The League City council at its Jan. 9 meeting approved an $84,600 contract with Houstonbased Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. to prepare plans and paperwork so the city can compete in the spring for state and federal money to pay for the bridge project.

The city has a chance

to fund 80 percent of the Palomino Lane project with state and federal money, rather than the city paying 100 percent of the cost, Baumgartner said.

Clear Creek Shores residents would prefer the city wait until the Landing Boulevard extension is completed first to see whether that does enough to make traffic flow better before moving ahead with a Palomino bridge.

The city is just looking at options, Mayor Pat Hallisey said. It’s a process that takes a long time, he said.

“I don’t know if Palomino is a done deal,” Hallisey said.

Some officials have told Clear Creek Shores residents that it might be 15 years until the city can undertake the projects, but others have told them it might be as little as two years, Maxey-Hodgson said.

Zopinion

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A4 | Saturday, January 27, 2018 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

COLUMN

OTHER VIEWS

The economics of dirty old men

By Paul Krugman N EW YORK T I ME S

As a candidate, Donald Trump talked incessantly about international trade and how he was going to make America great again by renegotiating trade agreements, forcing foreigners to stop taking away our jobs. But during his first year in office, he did almost nothing on that front — possibly because corporate America managed to inform him that it has invested a lot of money based on the assumption that we would continue to honor NAFTA and other trade agreements, and would lose bigly if he broke them.

This week, however, Trump finally did impose tariffs on washing machines and solar panels.

The former tariff was, I think, more about looking tough than about any kind of strategic objective. The latter, however, fits in with an important part of this administration’s general vision. For this is very much an administration of dirty old men.

About washing machines: The legal basis of the new tariff is a finding by the U.S. International Trade Commission that the industry has been injured by rising imports.

The definition of “injury” is a bit peculiar: The commission admitted that the domestic industry “did not suffer a significant idling of productive facilities,” and that “there has been no significant unemployment or underemployment.” Nonetheless, the commission argued that production and employment should have expanded more than it did given the economy’s growth between 2012 and 2016 (you know, the Obama-era boom Trump insisted was fake). If this seems like a flimsy justification for an action that will significantly raise consumer prices, that’s because it is. But Trump decided to do it anyway.

The solar panel tariff is more interesting, and more disturbing, because it will surely destroy many more jobs than it will create.

The fact is that the U.S. is largely out of the solar panel-producing business, and whatever the reasons for that absence, this policy won’t change it. Like the washing-machine tariff, the solar-panel tariff was imposed using what’s known in trade policy circles as the “escape clause” — rules that allow temporary protection of industries suffering sudden disruption. The operative word here is “temporary”; since we’re not talking about sustained protection, this tariff won’t induce any long-term investments and therefore won’t bring the U.S. solar panel industry back.

What it will do, however, is put a crimp in one of the U.S. economy’s big

success stories, the rapid growth of renewable energy. And here’s the thing: Everything we know about the Trump administration suggests that hurting renewables is actually a good thing from its point of view. As I said, this is an administration of dirty old men.

Over the past decade or so there has been a remarkable technological revolution in energy production. Part of that revolution has involved the rise of fracking, which has made natural gas cheap and abundant. But there have also been stunning reductions in the cost of solar and wind power.

Some people still think of these alternative energy sources as hippy-dippy stuff that can’t survive without big government subsidies, but the reality is that they’ve become costcompetitive with conventional energy, and their cost is still falling fast.

And they also employ a lot of people: Overall, there are around five times as many people working, in one way or another, for the solar energy sector as there are coal miners.

But solar gets no love from Trump officials, who desperately want the country to stay with dirty old power sources, especially coal. (Wait — when I called them dirty old men, did you think I was talking about payoffs to porn stars? Shame on you.)

They’ve even rewritten Energy Department reports in an attempt to make renewable energy look bad.

They’ve tried to turn their preference for dirty energy into concrete policy, too. Last fall, Rick Perry, the energy secretary, tried to impose a rule that would in effect have forced electricity grids to subsidize coal and nuclear plants. The rule was shot down, but it showed what these guys want. From their point of view, destroying solar jobs is probably a good thing.

Why do Trump and company love dirty energy? Partly it’s about the money: what’s good for the Koch brothers may not be good for America (or the world), but it’s good for Republican campaign finance. Partly it’s about blue-collar voters, who still imagine that Trump can bring back coal jobs.

(In 2017 the coal industry added 500, that’s right, 500 jobs. That’s 0.0003 percent of total U.S. employment.)

It’s also partly about cultural nostalgia: Trump and others recall the heyday of fossil fuels as a golden age, forgetting how ghastly air and water pollution used to be. But I suspect that it’s also about a kind of machismo, a sense that real men don’t soak up solar energy; they burn stuff instead.

Paul Krugman is a New York Times columnist.

COLUMN

Why Christian Right group supports President Trump

By Michelle Goldberg NEW YORK TIME S

In 1958, the Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell, who would go on to found the Moral Majority, gave a sermon titled “Segregation or Integration: Which?” He inveighed against the Supreme Court’s anti-segregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education, arguing that facilities for blacks and whites should remain separate.

“When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line,” he wrote, warning that integration “will destroy our race eventually.” In 1967, Falwell founded the Lynchburg Christian Academy — later Liberty Christian Academy — as a private school for white students.

The Lynchburg Christian Academy, in Virginia, was one of many socalled seg academies created throughout the South to circumvent desegregation. In the 1970s, these discriminatory schools lost their tax-exempt status. Feeling under siege as a result, conservative Christians started organizing politically. This was the origin of the modern religious right, and it helps explain why a movement publicly devoted to piety has stood so faithfully by Donald Trump.

In his 2014 biography of Jimmy Carter, the Dartmouth historian Randall Balmer quotes the conservative activist Paul Weyrich: “What caused the movement to surface was the federal government’s moves against Christian schools. This absolutely shattered the Christian community’s notions that Christians could isolate themselves inside their own institutions and teach what they please.”

(This should sound familiar to anyone who has heard Christian conservative outrage over being forced to accommodate same-sex marriage.)

In 1980, the nascent religious right overwhelmingly supported Ronald Reagan, a former movie star who would become America’s first divorced president, over the evangelical Carter. In doing so, it helped destigmatize divorce. “Up until 1980, anybody who was divorced, let alone divorced and remarried, very likely would have been kicked out of evangelical congregations,” Balmer, who was raised evangelical and is now a scholar of evangelicalism, told me.

Given this history, it is not surprising that the contemporary leaders of the religious right are blasé about reports that Trump cheated on his third wife with a porn star shortly after the birth of his youngest child, then paid her to be quiet. Despite his louche personal life, Trump, the racist patriarch promising cultural revenge, doesn’t threaten the religious right’s traditional values. He embodies them.

This week, Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, told Politico that Trump gets a “mulligan,” or do-over, on his past moral transgressions, because he’s willing to stand up to the religious right’s enemies.

Evangelicals, Perkins said, “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists.

And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”

On Wednesday, Jerry Falwell Jr., who inherited his father’s job as head of the evangelical Liberty University, defended Trump on CNN through

an acrobatic act of moral relativism.

“Jesus said that if you lust after a woman in your heart, it’s the same as committing adultery,” Falwell said. “You’re just as bad as the person who has, and that’s why our whole faith is based around the idea that we’re all equally bad, we’re all sinners.” To defend Trump, Falwell seems to be taking the position that no Christian has the right to criticize anyone else’s sexual behavior.

The people who are most disturbed by such theological contortions are earnest evangelicals who fear the disgrace of their religion. Trump’s religious champions, Michael Gerson writes in The Washington Post, are “associating evangelicalism with bigotry, selfishness and deception. They are playing a grubby political game for the highest of stakes: the reputation of their faith.”

I sympathize with his distress. But the politicized sectors of conservative evangelicalism have been associated with bigotry, selfishness and deception for a long time.

Trump has simply revealed the movement’s priorities. It values the preservation of traditional racial and sexual hierarchies over fuzzier notions of wholesomeness.

“I’ve resisted throughout my career the notion that evangelicals are racist, I really have,” Balmer told me. “But I think the 2016 election demonstrated that the religious right was circling back to the founding principles of the movement. What happened in 2016 is that the religious right dropped all pretense that theirs was a movement about family values.”

This is one reason I find it hard to take seriously religious conserva-

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tives who say they are being persecuted for their defense of traditional marriage. People who are sympathetic to Christian, conservative Trump supporters — even if they don’t support Trump themselves — will say that they’ve been backed into a corner by the expansion of civil rights laws and policies protecting gay people. As they see it, liberals not only won the culture war on same-sex marriage but now are also demanding that private redoubts of resistance be brought into line.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s 2015 samesex marriage decision, Rod Dreher, a socialconservative Trump critic, wrote, “Post-Obergefell, Christians who hold to the biblical teaching about sex and marriage have the same status in culture, and increasingly in law, as racists.”

Dreher obviously thinks they deserve much better. He sees a fundamental difference between Christians who thought their religious freedom was trampled by desegregation and Christians who think their religious freedom is trampled when their business and charities have to serve gay people.

But it seems absurd to ask secular people to respect the religious right’s beliefs about sex and marriage — and thus tolerate a degree of antigay discrimination — while the movement’s leaders treat their own sexual standards as flexible and conditional.

Christian conservatives may believe strongly in their own righteousness.

But from the outside, it looks as if their movement was never really about morality at all.

Michelle Goldberg is a New York Times columnist.

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Saturday, January 27, 2018 |

A5

NATIONAL Cecile Richards stepping down as Planned Parenthood leader ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Charles Krupa / AP

Haitian activists and immigrants protest on City Hall Plaza in Boston on Friday.

Haitian community leaders complained last week that the Trump administration's delays in re-registering those living in the U.S. legally through the Temporary Protected Status program would lead to job losses, travel problems and other issues for Haitians.

Haitians march against Trump’s immigration policies A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

BOSTON — Haitian immigrants and their supporters marched and rallied in downtown Boston on Friday to decry President Donald Trump’s recent comments and policies concerning Haitians.

Roughly 200 people came out to City Hall Plaza waving Haitian flags and holding signs critical of the president before marching silently next door to the John F. Kennedy Federal Building that houses many federal agencies.

The gathering was meant as a rebuke of a vulgar comment Trump made about Haiti and African nations during negotiations with congressional leaders over immigration policy, organizers said.

“We can stand in the cold because we are fighting for what is right,” said Geralde Gabeau, a rally organizer.

“We are not going to repeat the words of the president because we are a people of character, grace and dignity.”

Organizers also called on the Trump administration to re-examine its decision to terminate temporary protected status for tens of thousands of Haitians. The special status allows foreign nationals to live and work in the United State temporarily when natural disasters or civil wars prevent them from returning to their home

countries safely.

Haitians were granted the status following a devastating earthquake that struck the Caribbean island nation in 2010.

It’s been renewed a number of times, to the consternation of opponents who say the humanitarian measure was never intended to allow immigrants to establish permanent roots in the U.S. The status was slated to expire Jan. 19 for Haitians, but the Trump administration automatically extended it through July 2019, after which those on the special status must return to Haiti.

The Rev. Dieufort Fleurissaint, chairman of Haitian Americans United and another rally organizer, said delays in re-registering Haitians for the remainder of the special status already are causing employment problems.

He said many companies are telling Haitian workers this week that they can’t return to work until they have updated work permits in hand, a process that federal officials say could take about three months.

“It’s a nightmare,” Fleurissaint said.

“There’s a lot of confusion.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Joanne Talbot said the agency wasn’t aware of any major problems.

It so far has received

“less than 10” queries from business owners about the renewal process, but didn’t immediately have an estimate for how many it questions or complaints it has fielded from Haitian immigrants, Talbot said.

The agency last week outlined the process for Haitians seeking to reregister for temporary protected status and receive updated documents.

It said that Haitians could simply provide their employers with a copy of the official reregistration announcement as proof their work status remains valid until their new papers arrive.

Dozens of the protesters also criticized Trump for pushing policies they see as a threat to family ties.

Trump has offered to protect young people brought into the country illegally as children in exchange for major changes to legal immigration. He also would eliminate hundreds of thousands of familyrelated visas. Immigrants would only be allowed to sponsor their spouses and underage children to join them in the U.S., and not their parents, adult children or siblings.

Trump also proposed to end the visa lottery program that benefits people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

NEW YORK — Cecile Richards, who led Planned Parenthood through 12 tumultuous years, is stepping down as its president.

Under her leadership, the organization gained in membership, donor support and political clout but found itself in constant conflict with social conservatives for its role as the leading abortion provider in the United States.

The organization provides a range of health services at clinics nationwide, including birth control, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

Republicans in Congress tried repeatedly to cut off federal funding that helps subsidize Planned Parenthood’s services to some patients, and several congressional committees

investigated the organization’s role in providing post-abortion fetal tissue to researchers.

In a statement Friday, Richards said she would remain engaged in political activism ahead of the November elections.

“There has never been a better moment to be an activist,” said Richards, who was a featured speaker in Las Vegas at one of last weekend’s largest women’s marches.

Richards, 60, is the daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Before joining Planned Parenthood, she was a union organizer and deputy chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, among other roles.

Reaction to Richards’ announcement reflected the divisive nature of the debate over Planned Parenthood’s role.

Pelosi, the House mi-

nority leader, hailed her as “a portrait of energy, intellect, and determination” whose impact transcended reproductive rights.

“As an organizer, activist, and leader, Cecile has helped launch a nationwide movement to defend and advance women’s rights, and in doing so, she has inspired countless women to march, vote, run, and win.” Pelosi said.

Anti-abortion activists seized the occasion to demonize Richards.

Many of the key battles for Richards and Planned Parenthood were waged in Congress, where Republicans repeatedly, though unsuccessfully, sought ways to cut off its federal funding.

There was no immediate word of a possible successor to Richards.

Planned Parenthood said it would be announcing future plans next week.

Zfrontera A6 | Saturday, January 27, 2018 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

RIBEREÑA EN BREVE Competencia de tiro al plato y carne asada 1 El club Boys and Girls de Zapata presenta el onceavo torneo de tiro al plato y competencia de carne asada el sábado 27 de enero en el rancho Ramírez a partir de las 8 a.m.

Para inscribirse entre a la página www.bgcazapata.com o llame a Mark Alvarenga al 956337-5751.

Junta 1 La reunión de la Sociedad Genealógica del Nuevo Santander se ha reprogramado para el sábado 27 de enero, con un recorrido histórico en San Ygnacio, a las 2 p.m.

Curso en línea 1 La ciudad de Miguel Alemán, México, invita al curso en línea “APP-Aprende” que la compañía TELCEL ofrece completamente gratis a niños, jóvenes y adultos para facilitar el aprendizaje en oficios tales como navegar en Internet, Técnico en Sistema e Informática, reparador de celulares, y tablets entre otros. El curso se ofrecerá en la plaza principal del 24 al 28 de enero desde las 4 p.m.

DEPARTAMENTO DE BOMBEROS CONDADO DE ZAPATA

Incendio fatal Fuego registrado en Año Nuevo continúa bajo investigación Por César G. Rodríguez TIEMP O DE LAREDO

Un incendio registrado el Día de Año Nuevo que dejó una persona muerta continúa bajo investigación, de acuerdo al Departamento de Bomberos de Zapata.

El Jefe de Bomberos J.J. Meza dijo que no se sospecha de un homicidio.

Los bomberos respondieron a un reporte de incendio el primer día de enero en la cuadra 400 de la avenida Díaz.

Los bomberos contuvieron las llamas a su ubicación original.

Entonces, ellos descubrieron el cuerpo de Antonio Zavala Jr., de 34 años de edad.

“Desafortunadamente, lo en-

contramos en otra recámara que no tenía una salida”, dijo Meza.

Una autopsia está pendiente.

Se solicita que cualquier persona con información sobre este caso se comunique al 765-9942.

A Zavala le sobreviven sus tres hijos, dos hijas y otros familiares.

Una colecta de fondos para beneficio de la familia se está llevando a cabo.

Se solicita a las personas que donen ropa y artículos no perecederos en Brush Country Insurance Agency, ubicado en 702 Hidalgo Blvd. Suite 4. Los donativos serán aceptados hasta el 31 de enero.

Para mayores informes llame al 956-750-3600.

Conferencia sobre aves 1 Roma Bluffs World Birding Center presentará a los maestros naturalistas Volker Imschweiler y Sally Merrill, en el seminario “Nurturing Native Plants Butterflies and Birds Need to Live Here”, a la 1 p.m., el sábado 3 de febrero.

Courtesy photo

Zavala Jr.

LAREDO CRIME STOPPERS

DESTACAN EN MENUDO BOWL

Día de Aprecio a Adulto Mayor 1 Acompañe a celebrar y mostrar su aprecio por los Adultos Mayores y Winter Texans, que serán honrados por sus logros y por lo que siguen haciendo a favor de su comunidad, el jueves 22 de febrero.

Genealogía 1 Reciba ayuda personalizada para investigar a sus ancestros utilizando recursos en línea.

Voluntarios entrenados le ayudarán todos los martes de 6:30 p.m a 8 p.m., en Roma Birding Center.

Evento patrocinado por la Iglesia de Jesús de los Santos de los Últimos Días.

Aviario 1 La Ciudad de Roma invita a visitar el aviario Roma Bluffs World Birding Center en el distrito histórico de Roma de jueves a domingo de 8 a.m. a 4 p.m. Mayores informes al 956-8491411.

Foto de cortesía

La Oficina del Fiscal de Distrito para los Condados de Webb y Zapata logró destacarse en tres categorías dentro del evento Menudo Bowl de Laredo Crime Stoppers en los terrenos de LIFE Downs, el pasado fin de semana.

Oficina del fiscal obtiene premios en tres categorías Por César G. Rodríguez TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

Zapata estuvo bien representada en el reciente evento Menudo Bowl, en su 23ava. edición, organizado por Laredo Crime Stoppers en los terrenos de LIFE Downs.

El fiscal de distrito para los Condados de Webb y Zapata logró colocarse en tres divisiones.

El D.A. Menudo Saloon ganó el primer lugar en división abierta, el tercer lugar en maestría escénica y tercer lugar en la preferencia

del público.

“Felicidades a las damas que ayudaron a preparar el menudo de este año”, dijo el fiscal de distrito Isidro R. “Chilo” Alaníz.

La Oficina del Fiscal de Distrito ha estado participando en el Menudo Bowl de Crime Stoppers desde su inicio.

“El evento es por una gran causa, hace que la oficina se una y hay mucha diversión. Nos llevó 23 años, pero finalmente tenemos la receta correcta. Quiero agradecer a mi equipo de empleados y a

Consideran riesgoso viajar a Tamaulipas TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

Nota del editor: Esta es la segunda parte de un reportaje sobre una serie de eventos relacionados al narcotráfico que se han suscitado en Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.

Después de eventos que muestran una fractura en los cárteles y el arresto de una sobrina del ex líder de los Zetas, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, en relación con el homicidio de un fiscal de rango superior en la ciudad fronteriza de Nuevo Laredo, otros hechos violentos como el homicidio de un periodista, fueron cometidos durante los primeros días del 2018.

Exámenes de salud 1 La Ciudad de Roma invita a la realización de exámenes de salud cardiovascular Life Line Screening con tecnología avanzada de ultrasonido que proporciona una visión en el interior de las arterias, en el Centro Comunitario de la Ciudad de Roma, de 8 a.m. a 3 p.m., el 31 de enero, patrocinado por Peripheral Vascular Associates. Se requiere registro previo llamando al 1-888653-6450.

DEPTO. DE ESTADO

todos los que se detuvieron a probar el mejor menudo del 2018”, dijo Alaníz.

Las autoridades del Condado de Zapata también viajaron a Laredo para participar en el Menudo Bowl. Para ellos, el evento se trata de pasar un buen rato.

“Pasar un buen rato con amigos y con la familia en el Menudo Bowl en su 23ava. edición de Laredo Crime Stoppers”, dijo Raymundo Del Bosque Jr., jefe de la Oficina del Alguacil del Condado de Zapata.

Homicidio de periodista Unos días después de que el Departamento de Estado de EU revisara sus advertencias de viaje, el periodista mexicano Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez fue apuñalado fatalmente en Nuevo Laredo. Viajaba con cuatro familiares, incluidos dos menores, cuando los sospechosos se acercaron al vehículo en el que estaban y lo mataron.

Domínguez escribía una columna política como periodista independiente y anteriormente había trabajado para El Diario en Nuevo Laredo, según informes de prensa.

Las autoridades de Tamaulipas están ofreciendo hasta 2 millones de pesos por información que conduzca al arresto de los sospechosos. El homicidio fue el primer homicidio registrado de un periodista en México en 2018.

A mediados de diciembre, un reportero de experiencia en el estado mexicano de Veracruz, Gumaro Pérez, fue muerto a tiros mientras asistía a una fiesta de Navidad en la escuela de su hijo de 6 años, supuestamente por hombres armados de una pandilla rival.

Al menos 10 periodistas mexicanos fueron muertos en 2017 en lo que los observadores llaman crisis de la libertad de expresión, y el riesgo es especialmente alto para aquellos que operan sin editores, directores de empresas o colegas que podrían apoyarlos o guiarlos hacia las instituciones que los protegerían.

Según varios periodistas locales entrevistados por The Associated Press, Pérez también aparentemente tenía un trabajo diferente: vigilar de cerca lo que publicaban sobre los Zetas e intentar influir en su cobertura o silenciarlos mediante la intimidación.

Dos reporteros en Acayucan le dijeron a la AP, hablando bajo condición de anonimato debido a preocupaciones por su seguridad, que ellos y otros habían recibido llamadas amenazantes de Pérez.

Los reporteros no se quejaron con las autoridades.

COLUMNA

¡Corran, atacan los bárbaros!

Por Raúl Sinencio Chávez TIEMP O DE ZAPATA

Innumerables calamidades marcan el arranque del México independiente. Las empeoran aún más comanches y apaches, sobre todo.

De carácter nómada e insumiso, pueblos autóctonos ocupan las praderas norteamericanas desde tiempos inmemoriales.

Dominan el arco y la flecha. Del corcel y los fusiles, introducidos por los europeos, sacan inmediato provecho. Tropas novohispanas los vuelven objeto de persistentes ofensivas y al declinar el virreinato negocian la paz con ellos.

Enfrentadas por lo general entre sí, tales etnias originarias viven de la caza, en que destaca el bisonte; rastreándolo, atraviesan EU hasta el amplio septentrión mexicano. Aparte de pieles y artesanías, comercian bovinos, armas, caballos y rehenes tomados a los oponentes, foráneos o nativos. En remotos puntos saquean ranchos, haciendas y poblaciones establecidas por quienes buscan someterlos.

De rivalidades mutuas, en 1822 apaches y comanches suscriben por separado compromisos amistosos con el imperio que regentea Agustín de Iturbide, recién abierta la independencia nacional.

Los nativos pactan entonces al margen de coerciones. Por lo demás, sobrevienen periodos de carencias y problemas internos que impiden al gobierno imponer el cumplimiento de los acuerdos.

Lampazos, Nuevo León –publica en 1824 la prensa–, ha resentido “frecuentes incursiones de los indios, que no ha dos años” castigaron “las villas de … Laredo y Revilla (hoy Guerrero, Tamaulipas) extendiendo sus estragos” a las inmediaciones de “Monterrey … y Saltillo”, escribeel doctor Francisco Arroyo por esas fechas.

Apoderándose de medio territorio mexicano al cabo de injusta guerra,

mediante el Tratado Guadalupe Hidalgo los gringos aceptan contener “por medio de la fuerza” a las “tribus salvajes”. Pero reculan cinco años después.

Los tamaulipecos estrenan Constitución propia en 1857. No obstante existir graves conflictos políticos, el ordenamiento concede al gobernador “celebrar alianzas con estados fronterizos para hacer la guerra a los bárbaros”, previa anuencia “del Congreso”.

Derrotado Maximiliano de Habsburgo, en 1871 Tamaulipas renueva su Carta Magna. Ahí ratifica lo de “la guerra a los bárbaros”. Quizás medie el incentivo de partidas

federales destinadas a las operaciones relativas.

Durante la dictadura porfiriana el norte de México todavía reporta embestidas de este tipo.

Chihuahua les pone término en 1886. Tras largo proceso de exterminio y despojos, el Tío Sam ubica a las últimas “tribus salvajes” en reservas o centros de confinamiento.

“Los ladridos de los perros, o … la fuga de la caballadas, (…) era seguro anuncio de la proximidad de aquellos hombres” aguerridos “que eternamente se vengan (…) del menosprecio con que nosotros, hombres de frac y levita, los miramos”, reconoce en 1839 Manuel Payno.

Sports&Outdoors THE ZAPATA TIMES | Saturday, January 27, 2018 |

NCAA ATHLETICS: MICHIGAN STATE

MARK HOLLIS RETIRES AMID ABUSE SCANDAL

A7

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: DALLAS COWBOYS

Al Goldis / Associated Press file

Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis, right, retired Friday amid the Larry Nassar scandal two days after president Lou Anna Simon, left, stepped down.

MSU AD steps down 2 days after president

By David Eggert and Larry Lage A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University’s athletic director retired Friday, two days after the university president resigned over the school’s handling of sexual abuse allegations against its disgraced former sports doctor, Larry Nassar.

Mark Hollis, who had been in the job for 10 years, disclosed the move during a meeting with a small group of reporters on campus. He was asked why he would not stay on.

“Because I care,” Hollis said, holding back tears.

“When you look at the scope of everything, that’s the reason I made a choice to retire now. And I hope that has a little bit, a little bit, of helping that healing process.”

Hours later, the university named its vice president to serve as acting president after the departure of President Lou Anna Simon. Bill Beekman is expected to serve briefly in the role until the board of trustees can hire an interim president and then a permanent leader.

Also Friday, USA Gymnastics confirmed that its entire board of directors would resign as requested by the U.S. Olympic Committee. The USOC had threatened to decertify the organization, which

besides picking U.S. national teams is the umbrella organization for hundreds of clubs across the country.

Some of the nation’s top gymnasts, including Olympians Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles and Jordyn Wieber, said they were among Nassar’s victims.

At the university board’s meeting, Chairman Brian Breslin said it was “clear that MSU has not been focused enough on the victims.” The trustees, he said, want to resume discussions with those who have sued the school to “reach a fair and just conclusion.” Talks broke down last year.

The board plans to ask an independent third party to review health and safety at the school, and it wants state Attorney General Bill Schuette to consider appointing a neutral investigator to conduct an inquiry of the Nassar matter “to promote bipartisan acceptance of the results.”

Trustee Brian Mosallam said: “I am so truly sorry. We failed you.”

Beekman is vice president and secretary of the board. He began working at the university in 1995 and previously led the MSU Alumni Association. He has an undergraduate degree from MSU. “I think our culture here at Michigan State

clearly needs to improve,” he said. “We need to be able to make everybody that comes on our campus feel safe.”

Simon submitted her resignation Wednesday after Nassar, a former Michigan State employee, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young girls and women under the guise of medical treatment.

Several of the 150-plus victims who spoke at his sentencing hearing were former athletes at the school, and many victims accused the university of mishandling past complaints about Nassar.

“I don’t believe that I’ve ever met him,” Hollis said of Nassar. He insisted he did not know about complaints of abuse until an Indianapolis Star report in 2016.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos confirmed Friday that her agency is investigating the Nassar scandal. She said in a statement that what happened at the school is “abhorrent” and “cannot happen ever again — there or anywhere.”

The Education Department was already reviewing separate complaints about the school’s compliance with Title IX, the law that requires public schools to offer equal opportunities to both genders, and compliance with requirements about providing campus crime and security information.

The board expressed support for Simon before her resignation, but she faced pressure from many students, faculty and legislators. While there has been no evidence that Simon or Hollis knew of Nassar’s sexual abuse, some of the women and girls who accused him said they complained to university employees as far back as the late 1990s.

Board members, who are elected in statewide votes, have also come under intense scrutiny.

Two announced they will not seek re-election. Another, Joel Ferguson, apologized at the meeting for conducting an interview in which he said there was more going on at Michigan State than “this Nassar thing.”

The university faces lawsuits from more than 130 victims. Ferguson previously had said victims were ambulance chasers seeking a payday.

The school resisted calls for an independent investigation before asking Schuette for a review a week ago.

Students planned a Friday evening march and protest.

In a recent filing, Michigan State asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuits on technical grounds. The school says it has immunity under state law and that the majority of victims were not MSU students at the time of the alleged assaults.

NCAA FOOTBALL

Mayfield doesn’t want Manziel comparisons

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

MOBILE, Ala. — Baker Mayfield and drama appear to be inseparable these days. The Heisman Trophy quarterback is always making headlines for one reason or another.

Much like another former Heisman Trophy winner - Texas A&M great Johnny Manziel.

The Mayfield and Manziel comparisons have been prominent and haven’t gone away this week at the Senior Bowl.

Mayfield defended himself earlier in the week, saying the "bad boy" image is false, and his teammates and college coaches echoed similar

sentiments Thursday.

"I don’t know where that narrative came from, you know?" Oklahoma defensive end Ogbonnia Okoronkwo said. "Baker is a great guy. He does great things in the community. He’s a great leader. He’s a great competitor. He’s a great teammate.

"All that stuff about Johnny Manziel? That’s all fabricated. He’s a great guy. I love him. Hardest working guy on the team for sure."

Manziel had a sensational college career, too, winning the 2012 Heisman Trophy. The Cleveland Browns drafted him 22nd overall in 2014, but he flamed out after just

two seasons with a number of off-field issues.

Manziel played in just 15 games in his brief career. He started eight games, going 2-6 in those contests.

Mayfield is coming off a sensational senior season in which he led the Sooners to the college football’s playoffs and earned Heisman honors.

He finished the season throwing for 4,627 yards on 285 of 404 passing (70.5 completion percentage) with 43 touchdowns and six interceptions.

He’s projected as a first-round pick in the upcoming NFL draft, although teams are worried about his size (6feet3/8 inches and 216

pounds) and possible off-field distractions. The draft is April 26-28 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

But Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley downplayed any concerns when it comes to his quarterback.

"I think he can do anything he wants," said Riley, who attended Thursday’s practice at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

"It’s a fit league. He’s going to have to get in a system where people believe in him and let him be him.

"He’s a great player, very cerebral player and loved coaching him. Whoever gets to coach him next is going to love him too."

Brynn Anderson / Associated Press

Defensive end Ogbonnia Okoronkwo had 17 sacks and 29.5 tackles for loss in his final two seasons at Oklahoma.

Prospect wants to be in Dallas Sooners DE expresses interest in Cowboys

By Drew Davison FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

MOBILE, Ala. — The Dallas Cowboys are always looking to bolster their pass rush, and they’re doing their due diligence on this year’s class.

That includes Oklahoma’s Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, who will play in Saturday’s Senior Bowl.

Okoronkwo said he met with Cowboys southwest area scout Sam Garza before practices.

"He told me everything he wanted to see this week," Okoronkwo said.

"He wanted to see power moves and continue to see speed around the edge. He just wanted to see me in the run game show up a little bit more and I feel like I did all of that."

Okoronkwo had a standout college career with the Sooners, coming on strong his final two seasons. He had nine sacks and 12 tackles for loss as a junior and eight sacks and 17.5 tackles for loss this past season.

OU coach Lincoln Riley believes Okoronkwo has enough versatility to succeed in a 4-3 scheme like the Cowboys run under Rod Marinelli.

"Just because he has game-changing athleticism," Riley said Thursday from Senior Bowl practices. "We dropped him a lot at Oklahoma and he did a nice job there. He’s probably more comfortable in a 3-4 scheme."

Okoronkwo agreed that he has the ability to play in either system.

He’s modeled his game after several standouts in the NFL, including Kansas City’s Justin Houston, Denver’s Von Miller and veteran Dwight Freeney.

"I have a great first step," Okoronkwo said.

"My bend around the edge is second to none."

Okoronkwo believes he has a "very high ceiling" because he didn’t start playing football until his junior year at Alief Taylor High School in Houston. He described himself as a work-inprogress and his productivity the final two years in college suggests he’s grown in time.

And Okoronkwo didn’t hesitate in answering a question about what coaches might say about him after a practice.

"That guy doesn’t quit," he said. "He has a relentless motor. He’s not going to stop unless you kill him."

Oh, and he’d be thrilled if that happened to be Cowboys’ coaches talking about him in that manner. As stated, the Cowboys are always in the market for pass rushers. They tied for 15th in the league in sacks last season with 38, including 14.5 by Pro Bowler DeMarcus Lawrence.

Plus, plenty of Sooners fans are also Cowboys fans.

"That would be really cool (to play for the Cowboys)," Okoronkwo said.

"If you’ve ever been in Norman, Saturdays it’s all about OU. And, on Sundays, it’s all about the Cowboys. So that would be pretty cool."

A8 | Saturday, January 27, 2018 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

FROM THE COVER VIOLENCE From page A1 Venezuela's 57 per 100,000, according to a World Bank report. El Salvador reported a rate of 60.8 for 2017.

Several U.S. cities, including St. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans and Detroit, also had higher rates.

But some parts of Mexico were singularly violent: The Pacific coast state of Colima had a rate of 93.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Baja California Sur, home to the twin resort towns of Los Cabos, had a rate of 69.1. Guerrero, home to the resort town of Acapulco, had a rate of 64.2.

While President Enrique Pena Nieto campaigned on a pledge to end the violence that occurred during his predecessors' 2006-2012 offensive against drug cartels, there was only a temporary drop in killings between 2012 and 2014.

ILLEGAL From page A1 Dreamers should be allowed to stay here and become citizens,” a reference to those young immigrants. But he said Trump’s plan “uses them as a tool to tear apart our legal immigration system and adopt the wish list that anti-immigration hardliners have advocated for for years.”

Trump shot back with his own tweet, accusing Schumer of complicating the process. “DACA has been made increasingly difficult by the fact that Cryin’ Chuck Schumer took such a beating over the shutdown that he is unable to act on immigration!” he wrote.

The opposition was shared by some on the right, including conservative figure Richard Viguerie, who labeled the White House proposal the “Trump Amnesty Disaster” in an email. Roy Beck, the president of NumbersUSA, which seeks to limit legal immigration, called it a framework for “a mass amnesty.”

Senior White House officials cast the plan as a centrist compromise that

By 2015, killings began rising again, and 2017 was the bloodiest year, probably since the early 1990s.

This year promises to be even bloodier. During the first few days of 2018 in just the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, nine people were killed, dismembered and had their body parts stuffed into a van in the state capital of Xalapa.

The grisly scene — literally a jumbled pile of human limbs and torsos topped by a threatening note apparently signed by the Zetas drug gang — was reminiscent of the mass dumping of bodies in the state in 2011.

Earlier in the new year, five severed heads were found arranged on the hood of a taxi in the tourist town of Tlacotalpan, Veracruz and four others found in another city in the same state.

Experts say drug violence and other factors, such as bloody turf battles sparked by the expansion of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, played a role in Mexico's rising murder

rate.

But Hope says the problem is complex.

"The violence in Mexico has many causes. Drug trafficking is one of them, of course, but it is not the only one," said Hope.

"There are social triggers, institutional ones, historical ones, issues of land rights, it is complex."

In fact, Hope argues, the period from 1997 to 2007, when murder rates in Mexico plunged to as low as 9.3 murders per 100,000, was in fact the exception.

"What we have seen in the last decade is regression to the mean" that prevailed throughout much of the 20th century, he said. "The anomaly is the decade before this one."

Hope says murder rates now are about where they were in the mid-20th century.

"The violence was different then, no doubt, but your possibility of being murdered in the 1930s was considerably higher than it is now."

could win support from both parties and enough votes to pass the Senate.

The plan would provide a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 690,000 younger immigrants protected from deportation by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — as well as hundreds of thousands of others who qualify for the program, but never applied.

Trump announced last year that he was doing away with the program, but he gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.

The plan would not allow parents of those immigrants to seek lawful status, the officials said.

In exchange, Trump’s plan would dramatically overhaul the legal immigration system. Immigrants would only be allowed to sponsor their spouses and underage children to join them in the U.S., and not their parents, adult children or siblings. The officials said it would only end new applications for visas, allowing those already in the pipeline to be processed. Still, immigration activists said the move could cut legal immigration in half.

It would end a visa lottery aimed at diversity, which drew Trump’s attention after the New York City truck attack last year, redirecting the allotment to bringing down the existing backlog in visa applications.

It also includes other measures, such as more money for enforcement and proposed rule changes that would make it easier for the government to deport other groups— measures that advocates argue trade the fate of some immigrants for others.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the plan before its release.

Under the plan, recipients could have their legal status revoked due to criminal behavior or national security threats, the officials said, and eventual citizenship would require still-unspecified work and education requirements — and a finding that the immigrants are of “good moral character.”

Trump ended the DACA program in September, setting a March 5 deadline for Congress to provide new legal protections. The officials said

Trump sees ‘good chance’ on NAFTA as talks continue

diverting the child’s attention from the stress of the incident to the comfort of the teddy bear,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think we have a good chance, but we’ll see what happens.”

Trump’s comments came as his trade representative Robert Lighthizer held a detailed NAFTA meeting at the Swiss ski resort with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo gave their own signals of cautious optimism during a Davos panel discussion. Freeland said talks on complex issues shouldn’t be rushed, and Canada is prepared for any eventuality on NAFTA. Guajardo reiterated a willingness to compromise on the key issue of automobiles.

“Today we are in much better standing than a year ago to try to find those creative solutions that will mean a win-win-

win for the three countries,” Guajardo said.

Read more about where the NAFTA talks stand on key issues The ministers spoke as their negotiating teams worked in Montreal during the the sixth round of NAFTA talks. Lighthizer, Freeland and Guajardo will meet in Montreal on Monday to close out the round, a pivotal gathering where progress will determine the likelihood of reaching a deal to prevent Trump from abandoning the pact.

Speaking from Montreal during a break in talks on Thursday, Canada’s chief negotiator Steve Verheul said discussions “went reasonably well” with the U.S. on automotive rules of origin, which govern what share of a car must be made in the three countries to be traded freely within the zone.

their plan is the only one Trump will sign and that, if a solution is not found, former DACA recipients who come into contact with law enforcement will be subject to deportation.

Trump earlier this month had deferred to a bipartisan group in the House and Senate to craft an immigration proposal, saying he would sign whatever they passed. But as talks on Capitol Hill broke down — in part because of controversy Trump ginned up using vulgar language to describe African countries — the White House decided to offer its own framework.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others had also complained the president had failed to sufficiently lay out his priorities, leaving them guessing about what he might be willing to sign. One official said the Thursday release represents a plan for the Senate, with the administration expecting a different bill to pass the House.

McConnell in a statement thanked the president for providing the outline and said he hoped members from both parties would look to it “for guidance as they work

towards an agreement.”

Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, echoed the sentiment saying: “We’re grateful for the president showing leadership on this issue and believe his ideas will help us ultimately reach a balanced solution.”

Rep. Tom Cotton, RArk., an immigration hard-liner, called Trump’s plan “generous and humane, while also being responsible” and said he’d work toward its passage.

He said that besides protecting DACA recipients, “It also will prevent us from ending up back here in five years by securing the border and putting an end to extended-family chain migration.”

But some of Congress’ more conservative members seemed unwilling to open the citizenship door for the Dreamers.

“DACA itself didn’t have a pathway to citizenship,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who battled Trump in 2016 for the GOP presidential nomination. “So I think it would be a profound mistake and not consistent with the promises we made to the voters to enact a pathway to citizenship to DACA recipi-

ents or to others who are here illegally.”

Democrats were also raging. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., blasted the plan as “part of the Trump administration’s unmistakable campaign to make America white again.”

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., urged Republicans to join together with Democrats to reach a bipartisan alternative.

“Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump’s crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall,” he said in a statement.

Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said the White House was using DACA recipients “as bargaining chips for sweeping anti-immigrant policies.”

Immigration advocates have also blasted the plan as a “white supremacist random note.”

“Proposals that seek to trade one set of lives for another just cannot be a starting point for this,” Katharina Obser of the Women’s Refugee Commission said on a Friday call.

By Josh Wingrove BL OOMBERG NEWS

U.S. President Donald Trump joined Canadian and Mexican officials in striking an upbeat tone on the North American Free Trade Agreement, with one country’s top negotiator saying talks have been constructive on divisive issues.

“Will it be renegotiated?

We’re trying right now,” Trump said in an interview on CNBC Thursday from the World Economic

BEARS From page A1

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Saturday, January 27, 2018 |

A9

BUSINESS

Economy grows 2.6 percent in fourth quarter

By Martin Crutsinger A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at a solid rate of 2.6 percent in the final three months of last year, helped by the fastest consumer spending since the spring of 2016 and a big rebound in home construction.

The fourth quarter advance in the gross domestic product, the country’s total output of goods and services, followed gains of just above 3 percent in the second and third quarters, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The slowdown in the October-December period reflected a worsening trade deficit and less growth in inventory restocking by companies.

For all of 2017, the economy grew 2.3 percent.

That is a significant improvement from a 1.5 percent gain in 2016 but little changed from the modest 2.2 percent average growth rate turned in since the Great Recession ended in June 2009.

Economists are looking for even better growth this year, propelled by the $1.5 trillion tax cut that President Donald Trump pushed through Congress in December. The Trump administration contends that its economic program

of tax cuts, deregulation and tougher enforcement of trade laws will lift economic growth to sustained rates of 3 percent or better in coming years.

Trump has said his tax plan will serve as “rocket fuel” for the economy by prompting Americans to spend more and businesses to step up investment.

Economists, however, believe the growth spurt will be short-lived.

“Deficit-financed tax cuts will provide some near-term juice to the economy but it will prove to be temporary because we are already at full employment and the Federal Reserve will respond by raising interest rates more aggressively,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Michael Pearce, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said that the imports surge that widened the trade deficit reflected a pay-back from port disruptions caused by hurricanes in the third quarter. He forecast solid growth in coming quarters.

“The U.S. economy had plenty of momentum even before the tax cuts take effect this year,” Pearce said.

Treasury Secretary

Steven Mnuchin, interviewed on CNBC, described the modest slowdown in the fourth quarter as a short-term aberration.

“We’re not concerned about any one quarter which could be revised up or down,” he said. “I think people now expect we’re getting to 3 percent GDP.” Mnuchin said the administration was very happy with the initial reaction from U.S. companies to the new tax bill, which he said had already generated pay bonuses for more than 2.5 million Americans, amounting to “literally hundreds of billions of dollars of commitments.”

The president, speaking Friday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, also touted the benefits of the tax overhaul, saying, “America is open for business and we are competitive once again.”

Trump said that because of the tax plan, which had reduced individual and corporate tax rates, Apple had announced it planned to bring $245 billion in overseas profits back to America.

Zandi said he believed the tax cuts would add as much as 0.4 percentage

points to growth this year, pushing total GDP to 2.9 percent. He said growth would fall back to 2.2 percent in 2019 as the impact of the tax cuts fades, then slow further to a tiny 1 percent gain in 2020 as rising interest rates from the higher budget deficits and Fed rate hikes begin to drag growth.

Friday’s GDP report showed that the fourth quarter growth was spurred by a 3.8 percent surge in spending by consumers, who account for 70 percent of economic activity. That was up from a 2.2 percent rise in the third quarter and was the fastest quarterly advance since the spring of 2016.

Business investment in new plants and equipment was also strong, rising at a 6.8 percent rate in the fourth quarter.

Spending on home construction surged at a rate of 11.6 percent after two quarters of declines.

The areas of strength were offset somewhat by a big increase in the country’s trade deficit, which subtracted 1.1 percentage points from growth, and a slowdown in business spending to restock their inventories, which trimmed growth by 0.7 percentage point.

Gene J. Puskar / AP

A KitchenAid oven and microwave are on display in the appliance section of a Lowes in Wexford, Pa. on Monday. Orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose 2.9 percent in December, the fastest pace since June.

Durable goods orders up 2.9 percent

By Paul Wiseman ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Paul Sancya / AP

A chassis assembly line supervisor checks a vehicle on the assembly line at the Chrysler Jefferson North Assembly plant in Detroit. The U.S. economy grew at a solid rate of 2.6 percent in the final three months of last year, helped by the fastest consumer spending since the spring of 2016.

WASHINGTON — Orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose 2.9 percent in December, the fastest pace since June and another sign of strength for American industry, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Orders were lifted by a 15.9 percent surge in demand for civilian aircraft and aviation parts, which can bounce around from month to month. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, orders increased 0.6 percent in December.

Overall orders for durable goods, which are meant to last at least three years, have risen in four the last five months and were up 5.8 percent for the full year 2017, best in six years.

Still, a category that measures business investment — orders for

nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft — dipped 0.3 percent in December.

American manufacturers are benefiting from a pickup in global economic growth and a weaker dollar, which makes U.S. goods less expensive in foreign markets.

Details: 1 The Commerce Department upgraded the November increase in durable goods orders to 1.7 percent from the 1.3 percent gain it originally reported.

1 Orders for computers dropped 4.4 percent, second straight monthly drop.

1 Machinery orders rose 0.6 percent last month after being flat in November.

1 Orders for cars, trucks and auto parts rose 0.4 percent, decelerating after gains of 2 percent in November and 1.5 percent in October.

A10 | Saturday, January 27, 2018 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Saturday, January 27, 2018 |

X3

X4 | Saturday, January 27, 2018 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

ENTERTAINMENT

Cosby lawyers claim prosecutors withheld, destroyed evidence

By Michael R. Sisak A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

PHILADELPHIA — Bill Cosby’s lawyers have accused prosecutors of withholding and destroying evidence that they say could have helped the 80-year-old entertainer defend himself against charges he drugged and molested a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

Cosby’s lawyers said in court papers Thursday that prosecutors waited until last week to tell them about an interview last year with a former Temple University colleague who said Andrea Constand told her she wasn’t sexually assaulted but could make up allegations to sue and get money.

The lawyers said they learned of the interview with Marguerite Jackson from a prosecutor during a Jan. 17 conference call.

Detectives destroyed their notes from the interview, which was conducted before Cosby’s

first trial that ended in a hung jury in June, the lawyers said.

Now, Cosby’s lawyers are asking a judge to throw out the case before prosecutors get a chance to retry him in April, saying their actions have deprived Cosby of “any meaningful right to a fair trial.”

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said there were inaccuracies in the papers filed by Cosby’s lawyers and that prosecutors would be responding in their own filing within 10 days.

One of Cosby’s lawyers, Sam Silver, said Friday he was withdrawing from the case. He declined to discuss his departure.

Judge Steven O’Neill blocked Cosby’s lawyers from calling Jackson to the witness stand at his first trial, ruling her testimony would be hearsay after Constand testified that she didn’t know the woman. O’Neill also is handling Cosby’s retrial.

Michael R. Sisak / AP

Bill Cosby performs comedy at the LaRose Jazz Club in Philadelphia on Monday. Cosby’s lawyers have accused prosecutors of withholding and destroying evidence that they say could have helped the 80-year-old entertainer defend himself against molestation charges.

Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, later read a statement from Jackson to reporters on the courthouse steps.

Jackson recalled Constand commenting to her about setting up a “highprofile person” after they saw a television news report about a celebrity who was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women.

Jackson said Constand claimed something similar happened to her.

When pressed, Jackson said, Constand backed

off and said she could “say it happened and file charges, file a civil suit, get the money, go to school and open up a business,” Jackson said.

According to Cosby’s lawyers, Jackson told detectives in the interview last year that she and Constand had worked closely together, had been friends and had shared hotel rooms several times.

In their filing, Cosby’s lawyers said Jackson’s conversation with Constand happened in 2003

or 2004. She said in her statement that it was while they were on a road trip with Temple’s women’s basketball team.

Constand was the team’s operations director.

Cosby’s lawyers faulted prosecutors for keeping those details to themselves and not speaking up when Constand testified she didn’t know her or when the defense tried to persuade O’Neill to let Jackson testify.

Constand’s lawyer, Dolores Troiani, has said Jackson is “not telling the

truth.”

Jackson told the Associated Press last June that she had spoken with the prosecution and with Cosby’s legal team prior to Cosby’s first trial.

Jackson stood by her account and said she told Constand to contact authorities if she had been assaulted.

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

Dead Poets Society founder dies after ordering tombstone A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

ELKINS PARK, Pa. — The founder of the Dead Poets Society of America suffered a fatal heart attack little more than a month after commissioning his own tombstone.

Walter Skold enlisted the son of novelist John Updike to carve a unique tombstone that will be topped with a dancing skeleton and a quill. Michael Updike, who received the poet’s deposit last month, said he never expected to be carving the monument so soon.

There was no indication of any premonition of an untimely death before Skold’s passing at age 57 on Jan. 20 in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, Updike said Friday.

“He was a sweet soul,” said Updike, of Newbury, Massachusetts. “He was a kind person with this quirky predilection to poets’ graves and death and the macabre.”

Known as the “Dead Poets Guy,” Skold visited the final resting places of more than 600 poets after launching the Dead Poets Society in 2008 in Maine, drawing inspiration for the name from the 1989 Robin Williams movie.

Along the way, Skold drew attention to bards and poetry while producing a massive repository of information on poets’

Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images

Steve Wynn and his wife, Andrea, attend an announcement in Washington, D.C. Dozens of people have accused Las Vegas casino billionaire Steve Wynn of decades of sexual misconduct in which he allegedly pressured staff to perform sex acts.

Wynn Resorts shaken by misconduct claims against founder Robert F. Bukaty / AP

Walter Skold, the founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, reads a poem while posing in Eastern Cemetery in 2010 in Portland, Maine. Skild suffered a fatal heart attack little more than a month after commissioning his own tombstone.

final resting places.

He also had a sense of humor.

He traveled in a cargo van he dubbed the “Dedgar the Poemobile,” sometimes embellishing the dashboard with an Edgar Allan Poe bobblehead.

But he was serious about honoring poets, and he launched a move-

ment to create Dead Poets Remembrance Day on the Sunday closest to Oct. 7, the date Poe died.

“It takes a little chutzpah to say we’re starting a holiday,” he said in 2010. “But we believe it’s a really good idea, and we hope it catches on.”

Skold was living in Freeport, Maine, when he left his job as a public

school technology teacher to pursue his passions of poetry and photography and to launch the society.

A celebration of Skold’s life is being held Saturday in York, Pennsylvania, where his family burial plot is located.

There also will be a smaller remembrance in Maine at a later date.

Melania Trump’s rep blasts ’false’ reports A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

WASHINGTON — First lady Melania Trump’s office is fed up with speculation about marital strife in the White House.

Mrs. Trump’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, took to Twitter Friday to blast “flat-out false reporting” about the first lady that has emerged in recent days.

“BREAKING,” she wrote. “The laundry list of salacious & flat-out false reporting about Mrs. Trump by tabloid publications & TV shows

has seeped into ‘main stream media’ reporting.”

Grisham added that Trump Mrs. Trump is focused on her family and role as first lady, “not the unrealistic scenarios being peddled daily by the fake news.”

The tabloid Daily Mail reported Friday that Mrs. Trump has spent a number of nights at a D.C. hotel in the wake of reports of allegations by adult film star Stormy

Daniels that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, shortly after he married Melania.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s personal lawyer brokered a $130,000 payment to Daniels in October 2016 to prohibit her from publicly discussing the alleged affair before the election. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has scheduled an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” following the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday.

Mrs. Trump had origi-

nally been scheduled to join her husband at an economic summit in Davos, Switzerland, this week. But her office said Tuesday, the day before Trump’s departure, that Mrs. Trump would not be going, citing unspecified scheduling and logistical issues.

On Thursday, the first lady paid a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. She has joined her husband on his other foreign trips.

By Damian J. Troise ASSOCIATED PRE SS

NEW YORK — Wynn Resorts is denying multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault by founder Steve Wynn detailed in a Wall Street Journal report that sent shares of the casino company tumbling more than 10 percent Friday.

The paper reported that a number of women say they were harassed or assaulted by the casino mogul and finance chair of the Republican National Committee.

One case led to a $7.5 million settlement with a manicurist, the paper reported. The detailed report relies on interviews with dozens of people who corroborate a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct with female employees.

The company says it is committed to operating with the “highest ethical standards and maintaining a safe and respectful culture.” In a statement sent to The Associated Press, it called the allegations part of a smear campaign related to divorce proceedings from Wynn’s ex-wife.

Wynn also denied the allegations personally.

Wynn, who is chairman and CEO of the company he founded, is a titan in Las Vegas and played a major role in the revitalization of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1990s.

It was Wynn’s company that built the Golden Nugget, The Bellagio and Mirage Resorts in the heart of the town.

A wave of sexual misconduct claims against prominent figures in entertainment, media and politics gained momentum last fall in the aftermath of articles detailing movie producer’s Harvey Weinstein’s decades of alleged rape and harassment. But Wynn is the first CEO and founder of a major publicly held company to come under scrutiny since the Weinstein allegations surfaced.

There appeared to be immediate business implications for the casino magnate. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission said Friday it is launching a review following the allegations published by the Journal.

Spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said the commission’s investigations and enforcement bureau will conduct a regulatory review to determine the appropriate next steps, adding “the suitability and integrity of our gaming licensees is of the utmost importance.”

Wynn is building a roughly $2.5 billion resort in the Boston suburb of Everett.

In a lengthy statement, Wynn and his company both attributed the allegations to a campaign led

by Wynn’s ex-wife, Elaine Wynn.