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SOUTH TEXAS FOOD BANK
IBC BANK ZAPATA
$6,000 awarded to area students Scholarships help defray college costs SPECIAL TO THE TIME S
H-E-B / Courtesy photo
Rosemary Melody, Sergio Treviño and Lea Ramirez sort apples donated by H-E-B Grocery Company on Wednesday during a news conference at the San Antonio Food Bank.
H-E-B DONATES MORE THAN 1.5M APPLES Throughout summer, food banks see a surge in demand for food S P ECIAL T O T HE T I ME S
Summer break signals the end of the school year, which means children and families across Texas will struggle to avoid hunger. To help combat the problem, H-E-B will donate 1.5 million apples to the
South Texas Food Bank in Laredo and 16 others across the Lone Star State this week. “In Texas, one in seven households is at risk of hunger, and the need for food grows during the summer break,” said Winell Herron, H-E-B Group
vice president public affairs, diversity and environmental affairs. “H-E-B is committed to providing our communities and vulnerable families with nutritious food and the necessary resources to avoid hunger.” Throughout summer, food banks across Texas see a surge in demand for food. Without access to daily school lunches, children are especially at risk of facing hunger. H-E-B, through its Food Bank Assistance Program,
works directly with food banks that are affiliated with Feeding Texas, a member of Feeding America, the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief organization. Last year, Feeding Texas food banks distributed more than 300 million pounds of food to communities throughout the state. “We are incredibly grateful to H-E-B for this generous donation,” said Feeding Texas CEO Celia Cole. “Many food bank
IBC Bank-Zapata continues their support of higher education by awarding area students with the A.R. Sanchez, Sr. Memorial Scholarship as they venture into college and start a new chapter of their lives. Scholarships are granted to students who demonstrated a “Do More" attitude and leadership in student and community affairs throughout their years in high school. An event was held at IBC Bank-Zapata where $6,000 in scholarships were handed out to deserving students from four high schools. “The students who were selected to receive the scholarship award are examples of IBC Bank’s ‘We Do More’ philosophy,” said IBC Bank Vice President of corporate marketing Margarita Flores. “We are extremely honored to assist in the pursuit of their higher education goals.” Born into a humble family, Antonio R. Sanchez, Sr., the namesake of the scholarship award and the founder of IBC Bank, was a strong supporter of making higher education available to those interested in bettering their lives. SanIBC continues on A8
STAAR
Testing glitches negated CITY OF RIO BRAVO by TEA Border Patrol agent kills woman Apples continues on A8
Agency waives rules for 5th, 8th grade students
By Matthew Haag N EW YORK T I ME S
A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a woman who had crossed the border illegally near Laredo, Texas, on Wednesday after the officer came under attack, federal authorities said. The officer was searching for “illegal activity” in a culvert on a residential street in Rio Bravo, a border town about 7 miles south of Laredo, when a group of unauthorized immigrants started to hit him with “blunt objects,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. The officer, whose name was not released, fired at least one shot with his handgun, fatally striking the woman in the head. A woman who lives next door to the site of the shooting disputed the federal agency’s account of the events, saying that the property does not have a culvert and that she did not see any weapons that the group could have used. “They were on the very corner on that lot where there was a tree,” the wom-
By Jacob Carpenter HOUSTON CHRONICLE
hit record on her cellphone. She then peered over a chain-link fence to the adjacent lot, she said, and saw an officer flip over a woman’s body. “She was very young,” said Martinez, who estimated she may have been 20 years old. The left side of her face
Texas fifth- and eighth-graders will not be held back this year if their computers were affected by glitches during State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, exams, state education officials said this week. It is not clear precisely how many fifth- and eighth-grade students were disrupted while taking tests in recent weeks, but the two glitches impacted tens of thousands of students across the state. Texas Education Agency officials said an April 10 disruption hit about 41,700 students in grades four through 12 on 3,870 campuses statewide. A May 15 glitch impacted about 29,300 students in grades three through eight on more than 3,000 campuses. Some students may have been impacted by both glitches, TEA officials said. Texas is home to about 8,800 public schools. TEA records show Laredo-area and Zapata school districts were impacted in some way by the technology issues. Fifth- and eighth-grade students must pass the STAAR math and reading exams to advance to the next grade. A student who does not pass still can advance if members of a district committee agree the student is likely to meet state academic standards with more intensive instruction. However, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath has waived those requirements for students who dealt with technology delays on the state tests.
Border continues on A8
STAAR continues on A8
Tamir Kalifa / The New York Times
A portion of the border fence is shown in Laredo. A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a woman who had crossed the border illegally near Laredo after the officer came under attack, federal authorities said.
an, Marta V. Martinez, said in an interview Thursday morning. “There was no weapon. They were hiding.” The confrontation, which unfolded shortly before 12:30 p.m. on an empty lot about a quarter mile from the Rio Grande, came at a time when the Border Patrol agency is under intense pressure from President
Donald Trump to crack down on unauthorized immigration. Martinez said the gunshot rang out about 10 feet from her house. “I didn’t hear any yelling or ‘stop’ or ‘don’t run,’” she said. After the gunshot, she ran outside, saw Border Patrol agents swarming her block on Centeno Lane and