The Zapata Times 6/8/2016

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MEXICO

Ruling party sees defeats PAN candidate wins governor election in Tamaulipas

By Lev Garcia and Mark Stevenson ASSOCIATED PRE SS Brennan Linsley / AP file

In this May 26 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Billings, Montana.

Trump’s comments called racist Republican peers denounce ideas

XALAPA, Mexico — Mexico’s ruling party was headed for stinging defeats in some of the 12 governorships up for grabs in state elections, according to preliminary vote counts Monday.

Hobbled by corruption scandals, violence and a weak econ-

omy, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party lost four states it had never lost before, including TaGarcia maulipas. According to preliminary results provided by the Electoral Institute of Tamaulipas, Francisco Javier Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, PAN

candidate for governor of Tamaulipas, won 50.13 percent of the vote, while Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa, candidate of the PRI, had received 35.94 percent of the total vote.

The party, known as the PRI, also lost in Veracruz, a state of 8 million that is the third mostpopulous in the country, and Quintana Roo, home to the resort of Cancun.

Entering Sunday’s elections,

the PRI held nine of the 12 states up for grabs. According to preliminary vote results, it won only five.

“Mexicans have been angered by several corruption scandals and worried about a sluggish economy, and they showed their frustration at the ballot box,” said Andrew Selee, a Mexico expert at the Wilson Center think tank in WashingMexico continues on A11

MISS USA PAGEANT

MISS TEXAS DOESN’T MAKE IT

By Erica Werner A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

WASHINGTON — Leading Republicans united Tuesday in an extraordinary denunciation of Donald Trump’s attacks on a federal judge, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling them the “textbook definition of a racist comment” though he stood by his endorsement of the presumptive presidential nominee.

Trump asserted that his comments were being “misconstrued” but did not back down or apologize for saying repeatedly that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel could not preside fairly over a case involving Trump University because of his Mexican heritage.

“I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial,” Trump said in a lengthy statement that repeated his claims that students at Trump University, far from being fleeced as some claim and as evidence suggests, were overwhelmingly satisfied.

Moments before Trump issued his defiant statement, a GOP senator who had previously indicated support for Trump withdrew his backing, as Republicans’ attempts to unite behind Trump looked at risk of unraveling.

“While I oppose the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, womTrump continues on A11

Darren Decker / Miss Universe Organization

Daniella Rodriguez, Miss Texas USA 2016, competes in her evening gown during the Preliminary Competition at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

Laredoan not among top 15; Army officer from DC wins

By Sally Ho ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Laredoan Daniella Rodriguez was not among the top 15 Miss USA pageant contestants revealed Sunday night during the competition's live telecast.

Rodriguez, Miss Texas USA, was the only Mexican-American vying for the title this year.

“I feel very lucky to have been put in this position because this is my chance to represent myself and my culture,” Rodriguez told LMT in late May.

The newly crowned Miss USA is a 26year-old Army officer from the District of Columbia who gave Barber perhaps the strongest answer of the night when asked about women in combat.

“As a woman in the United States Army, I think ... we are just as tough as men. As a commander of my unit, I’m powerful, I am dedicated,” Deshauna Barber said. “Gender does not

limit us in the United States.”

As the winner of Sunday’s 2016 Miss USA competition held at the T-Mobile Arena off the Las Vegas Strip, Barber will go on to compete in the Miss Universe contest.

Coming in second was Miss Hawaii, who punted during the question-and-answer segment when asked who she would vote for among the likely presidential candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton or former pageant owner Donald Trump, a Republican.

Chelsea Hardin acknowl-

edged that there was no way to correctly answer the question during the beauty pageant. The question was framed with Clinton’s likely status of being the first woman nominated by a major political party for the White House. Hardin responded that gender doesn’t matter when deciding the next commander in chief. The 24-yearold college student from Honolulu simply said the new president should push for what’s right for the country.

The other women in the top Miss USA continues on A11

TEXAS

Republicans ask Obama, Congress for Zika help

By Edgar Walters TEX A S T RIBUNE

Texas’ top Senate Republicans on Monday upped the urgency on federal policymakers to do something about the Zika virus.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sens. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, and Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, penned a letter to the state’s congressional delegation and the Obama administration, saying Texas desperately needs federal funding to combat the Zika virus after recent floods. Without federal assistance, they said, Texas could face “poten-

tially devastating effects.”

“States and local health departments need the assistance now,” the state lawmakers wrote. “Implementation of the state’s response is hampered by the uncertainty of federal funding.”

In pregnant women, the Zika virus has been linked to microcephaly, a birth defect causing babies to have abnormally small heads and serious developmental problems.

Congress is expected to take up a funding bill for Zika prevention this week. The Obama administration in February asked U.S. lawmakers to set

aside $1.9 billion to combat the mosquito-borne disease, but that’s reached a three-month stalemate as Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate hammer out the details of a proposal that would spend less.

A bill offered in the Senate would allocate about $1.1 billion; a House proposal offered roughly $620 million.

Notably, the state lawmakers’ letter did not take sides in the congressional debate.

“We urge you to help ensure a coordinated and robust response by the federal government to combat the spread of Zika,” they wrote.

Mario Tama / Getty

Aedes aegypti mosquitos are seen in a lab at the Fiocruz Institute on June 2 in Recife, Brazil.

Zin brief A2 | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

CALENDAR

AROUND TEXAS

TODAY IN HISTORY

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8

ASSOCIATED PRE SS

1

Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium shows. TAMIU. “Zula Patrol: Under the Weather” at 3 p.m., “Cosmic Adventure” at 4 p.m. and “A Starry Tale” at 5 p.m. General admission is $3. For more information, call 3263663.

Today is Wednesday, June 8, the 160th day of 2016. There are 206 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History: On June 8, 1966, the strongest of a series of tornadoes struck the Topeka, Kansas, area, killing 17 people. A merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970.

THURSDAY, JUNE 9 1

Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium shows. TAMIU. “Zula Patrol: Under the Weather” at 3 p.m., “Cosmic Adventure” at 4 p.m. and “A Starry Tale” at 5 p.m. General admission is $3. For more information, call 3263663.

FRIDAY, JUNE 10 1

Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetarium shows. TAMIU. “A Starry Tale” at 7 p.m. and live star presentation at 8 p.m., weather permitting. General admission is $4. For more information, call 326-3663.

SATURDAY, JUNE 11 1

Laredo Northside Farmers Market. 9 a.m.–1 p.m. North Central Park.

The market is located at the playground behind the trailhead facility.

There will be the usual lineup of vendors and a special Father's Day raffle. They will raffle 10 authentic German glass beer mugs with various German-themed coats of arms. There will also be the usual children's games and activities.

Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office / AP

Trace Keaton Ellison is shown. Former Texas Tech football players Ellison, Robert James Castañeda and Dakota Devon Allen are accused of breaking into a Lubbock home.

THREE PLAYERS INDICTED

By Betsy Blaney

MONDAY, JUNE 13 1

Laredo Stroke Support Group. 7 p.m. San Martin de Porres Church, Family Life Center. Meetings are held the second Monday of each month and are open to all stroke survivors, family and caregivers. Everyone is welcomed to share their story, encourage and support others, and hear informative speakers. For more information on the support groups, call 956-286-0641 or 956-763-6132.

TUESDAY, JUNE 14 1

Rock wall climbing. 4–5 p.m.

LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Free. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Must sign release form. For more information, contact John Hong at 795-2400 x2521.

ASSOCIATED PRE SS

LUBBOCK — A West Texas grand jury on Tuesday indicted three former Texas Tech football players on charges that accuse them of stealing seven guns worth more than $14,000 from a Lubbock home.

Robert James Castañeda and Dakota Devon Allen, both 20, and Trace Keaton Ellison, 18, are accused of breaking into the home between Dec. 20 and Jan. 9 and stealing a gun safe containing seven handguns and rifles, two digital cameras and a TV.

They were indicted on a charge of burglary, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Attorneys for Castaneda and Ellison did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Allen’s attorney, Guy Womack, said he can’t imagine a less likely person to be accused than Allen, who earned Big 12 academic honors in 2015.

“This is a terrible circumstance but we’ll look at the evidence and see what we can do with this case,” Womack said.

The trio was kicked off the team May 5.

1

Ex-parole officer admits producing child porn

Texan gets nearly 48 years, shot at BP agents

Police dog dies in hot vehicle, officer charged

SATURDAY, JUNE 18

CORPUS CHRISTI — A former Texas prison system parole officer has pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a child after she and her boyfriend were accused of producing child pornography.

Saralyn Ann Proschko admitted to texting boyfriend David Ray McGee photos of her sexually assaulting an underage girl.

DEL RIO — A West Texas man must serve nearly 48 years in federal prison for shooting at Border Patrol agents while fleeing after being suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend.

Carl Wayne Wiley of Midland was sentenced Monday in Del Rio. Jurors in February convicted Wiley of attempting to kill one or more agents, plus multiple counts of assault.

SAN JUAN — A South Texas officer is accused of leaving his police dog to die in a hot vehicle as temperatures outside rose into the 90s.

San Juan police Officer Juan Cerrillo Jr. was charged Friday with cruelty to non-livestock animals in the death of Rex, a Belgian Malinois. Cerrillo is free on $4,000 bond.

— Compiled from AP reports

THURSDAY, JUNE 16 Cancer Friends Meet. 6 p.m. Every third Thursday of the month. Laredo Medical Center, A.R. Sanchez Cancer Center, Tower A, 1st Floor. Having cancer is often one of the most stressful experiences in a person’s life.

However, support groups help many people cope with the emotional aspects of cancer by providing a safe place to share their feelings and challenges and learn from others who are facing similar situations. For more information, call Nancy Santos at 956-285-5410.

1

Elysian Social Club Father’s Day Scholarship Dance. 9 p.m.–1 p.m.

Laredo Civic Center Ballroom. For more information, contact Laura Rodriguez at 220-0485 or Sonia Merla at 235-4811.

TUESDAY, JUNE 21 1

Rock wall climbing. 4–5 p.m.

LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Free. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Must sign release form. For more information, contact John Hong at 795-2400 x2521.

MONDAY, JUNE 27 1

Laredo Parkinson’s Disease Support Group. 6:30 p.m. Laredo Medical Center, 1st Floor, Tower B in the Community Center. The meeting is open to anyone with Parkinson’s disease, a friend or family member of a PD patient, and primary care givers of patients with PD who are interested in learning more about the disease.

Pamphlets with more information in both English and Spanish are available at all support group meetings.

For more information, call Richard Renner at 645-8649 or 237-0666.

TUESDAY, JUNE 28 1

Rock wall climbing. 4–5 p.m.

LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Free. Take the challenge and climb the rock wall! Fun exercise for all ages. Must sign release form. For more information, contact John Hong at 795-2400 x2521.

Ex-astronaut charged with murder in wreck

Phillip Lucas / AP

Cars pass charred ground, Tuesday, a remnant of the scene of a fatal traffic accident in rural Tuscaloosa County, Ala.

they found an empty package of sleeping pills and an empty wine bottle in a motel room where Halsell had stayed before the crash.

Troopers said a vehicle driven by Halsell collided about 2:50 a.m. with a Ford Fiesta in which 11-year-old Niomi Deona James and 13-year-old Jayla Latrick Parler were riding. The

Ten years ago: The Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil, a vaccine against HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer. Sheikha Haya Al Khalifa, a lawyer from Bahrain, was elected U.N. General Assembly president, the first woman from the Middle East to take the post.

Five years ago: Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania became the first Democratic House colleague to call for Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York to resign after he admitted sending a lewd photo of himself to a woman via Twitter and lying about it. OPEC unexpectedly left its production levels unchanged, causing oil prices to jump as senior officials reported their meeting in Vienna had ended in disarray.

Meredith Vieira ended her five-year run as co-anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, telling viewers her decision to go was “right, but it’s hard.”

One year ago: Acknowledging setbacks, President Barack Obama said at the close of a G-7 summit in Germany that the United States still lacked a “complete strategy” for training Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State. Siding with the White House in a foreignpolicy power struggle with Congress, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Americans born in the disputed city of Jerusalem could not list Israel as their birthplace on passports. The NCAA approved multiple rule changes to men’s basketball for the 2015-16 season, including a 30-second shot clock and fewer timeouts for each team.

AROUND THE NATION

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Astronaut James Halsell Jr. seemed the very definition of someone with the right stuff.

An Air Force Academy graduate and decorated test pilot, he commanded or piloted five space shuttle missions. NASA even turned to him for leadership as it was picking up the pieces after the Columbia disaster in 2003.

Now, a decade after his retirement from the space agency, the 59-year-old Halsell’s life has taken a shocking turn: He is charged with murder after an early morning car wreck Monday killed two young sisters on a lonely stretch of highway in Alabama.

State police said alcohol and speed may have been factors in the crash. The Tuscaloosa News reported that court documents showed troopers said

On this date: In A.D. 632, the prophet Muhammad died in Medina.

In 1845, Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for another term as president during the National Union (Republican) Party’s convention in Baltimore.

In 1912, the ballet “Daphnis et Chloe” was premiered by the Ballets Russes in Paris.

In 1915, U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned over what he viewed as President Woodrow Wilson’s overly bellicose attitude toward Germany following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

In 1948, the “Texaco Star Theater” made its debut on NBC-TV with Milton Berle guest-hosting the first program.

(Berle was later named the show’s permanent host.)

In 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks. Eight tornadoes struck Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, killing 126 people.

In 1967, 34 U.S. servicemen were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship in the Mediterranean. (Israel later said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian vessel.)

In 1972, during the Vietnam War, an Associated Press photographer captured the haunting image of 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc as she ran naked and severely burned from the scene of a South Vietnamese napalm attack.

In 1978, a jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled the so-called “Mormon will,” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan became the first American chief executive to address a joint session of the British Parliament.

In 1996, China set off an underground nuclear test blast.

girls were thrown from the car and died. Neither was wearing a seat belt. Halsell, who lives in Huntsville, was arrested and released from jail on $150,000 bail.

Court records weren’t available Tuesday to show whether the retired Air Force colonel has a lawyer.

— Compiled from AP reports

Today’s Birthdays: Former first lady Barbara Bush is 91. Actor-comedian Jerry Stiller is 89. Actress Millicent Martin is 82. Singer Nancy Sinatra is 76. Author Sara Paretsky is 69. Rock singer Bonnie Tyler is 65. “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams is 59. Actress Julianna Margulies is 49. Actor Dan Futterman is 49. Actress Kelli Williams is 46. Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., is 46. Contemporary Christian musician Mike Scheuchzer (MercyMe) is 41. Tennis player Lindsay Davenport is 40. Rapper Kanye West is 39. TV personality/actress Maria Menounos is 38. Folk-bluegrass singer-musician Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) is 35. Tennis player Kim Clijsters is 33.

Thought for Today: “Love hath no physic for a grief too deep.” — Robert Nathan, American author and poet (1894-1985).

THURSDAY, JUNE 30 1 Spanish Book Club. 6–8 p.m. Laredo Public Library – Calton. For more information, contact Sylvia Reash at 763-1810.

SATURDAY, JULY 2 1

Book sale. 8:30 a.m.–1 p.m. Widener Book Room, First United Methodist Church. No admission charge.

Everyone is invited.

MONDAY, JULY 4 1

Cancer Friends Meet. 6 p.m. Every first Monday of the month. Doctors Hospital at the Community Center.

Having cancer is often one of the most stressful experiences in a person’s life.

AROUND THE WORLD Puerto Rico left without air ambulance service SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s only active air ambulance company announced Tuesday that it has suspended its services, blaming a multimillion-dollar government debt amid a deepening economic crisis that has affected basic services in the U.S. territory.

Aeromed said in a statement

that it has been negotiating with Puerto Rico’s government for nearly three years, but that health officials last week rejected a deal to make a minimum payment of $4.4 million, a portion of a much larger overall debt.

“We acknowledge the government’s fiscal situation ... but there is no way we can continue to offer our services with inconsistent payments and fees that are unsustainable,” said Aeromed director Jose Hernandez. “This decision is a heavy

CONTACT US burden on us because for the past 22 years our mission has been to save lives, but this is also a complex commercial operation and requires income to continue operating.”

He noted that the fees paid per flight have remained the same for more than a decade.

A growing number of companies in Puerto Rico are suspending services because of mounting government debt amid a 10-year economic slump.

— Compiled from AP reports

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The Zapata Times

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 |

A3

LOCAL & STATE Pesticide applicator training scheduled S P ECIAL TO THE TI ME S

A private applicator license training for pesticides has been scheduled for Thursday, June 30 at the First National Bank Community Conference Room in Hebbronville.

The training will begin at 8 a.m. The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) will be in charge of testing and all participants will be responsible for scheduling the testing with TDA. “In Texas, the law requires people to be licensed as either a commercial or private applicator in order to use or supervise the use of restricted-use and statelimited use pesticides. A pesticide application is very complex. In fact, it requires more knowledge about safety and proper use than ever before. To make sure that all applicants learn safety precautions, the government requires them to undergo training and testing,” said Zar Rodriguez, county extension agent with Texas A&M Agrilife Extension in Zapata County.

The training fee will be $75 for individual producer or applicator.

The fee will include study materials. Study materials can be purchased prior to the training at the Zapata County Extension Office located at 200 E. 7th Avenue, Suite 249 (second floor of the courthouse) in Zapata.

For more information, contact the Zapata County Extension Office at 765-9820.

Cotton growers offered targeted assistance SPECIAL TO THE TIME S

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) will provide an estimated $300 million in cost-share assistance Vilsack payments to cotton producers through the new Cotton Ginning CostShare program, in order to expand and maintain the domestic marketing of cotton.

“Today's announcement

shows USDA continues to stand with America’s cotton producers and our rural communities,” said Vilsack. “The Cotton Ginning Cost Share program will offer meaningful, timely and targeted assistance to cotton growers to help with their anticipated ginning costs and to facilitate marketing. The program will provide, on average, approximately 60 percent more assistance per farm and per producer than the 2014 program that provided cotton transition assistance.”

Through the Cotton Ginning Cost-Share program, eligible producers can receive a one-time cost share payment, which is

based on a producer’s 2015 cotton acres reported to FSA, multiplied by 40 percent of the average ginning cost for each production region. With the pressing need to provide assistance ahead of the 2016 ginning season this fall, USDA will ensure the application process is straight-forward and efficient. The program estimates the costs based on planting of cotton in 2015, and therefore the local FSA offices already have this information for the vast majority of eligible producers and the applications will be prepopulated with existing data. Sign-up for the program will begin June 20

and run through Aug. 5, 2016 at the producer’s local FSA office. Payments will be processed as applications are received, and are expected to begin in July.

Since 2011, cotton fiber markets have experienced dramatic changes. As a result of low cotton prices and global oversupply, cotton producers are facing economic uncertainty that has led to many producers having lost equity and having been forced to liquidate equipment and land to satisfy loans. The ginning of cotton is necessary prior to marketing the lint for fiber, or the seed for oil or feed. While the Cotton Ginning CostShare program makes

payments to cotton producers for cotton ginning costs, the benefits of the program will be felt by the broader marketing chain associated with cotton and cottonseed, including cotton gins, cooperatives, marketers and cottonseed crushers and the rural communities that depend on them.

The program has the same eligibility requirements as were used for the 2014 Cotton Transition Assistance Program, including a $40,000 per producer payment limit, requirement to be actively engaged in farming, meet conservation compliance and a $900,000 adjusted gross income limit.

Judge delays order on ethics course in immigration case

By Juan A. Lozano ASSOCIATED PRE SS

HOUSTON — A federal judge in Texas who’s presiding over a lawsuit filed against President Barack Obama’s immigration executive action said Tuesday he will put on hold until Aug. 22 a ruling he had issued ordering Justice Department attorneys to attend an ethics course.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen last month had ordered the training for the attorneys, saying they misled him about whether the Obama administration had begun implementing one of the proposed measures.

After a group of 26 states filed a lawsuit in late 2014 challenging Obama’s proposed measures, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen issued a preliminary injunction that halted them. Before ordering the injunction,

Justice Department attorneys told Hanen one key part of Obama’s actions, an expansion of a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, hadn’t taken effect.

Federal officials later revealed they had given more than 108,000 people three-year reprieves from deportation and granted them work permits under the program. Justice Department attorneys had previously insisted the reprieves were granted under 2012 guidelines, which weren’t stopped by the injunction.

Obama’s proposed executive actions could shield roughly 4 million people from deportation and make them eligible to work in the United States.

Many Republicans oppose the actions, saying only Congress has the

Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald / AP

Representatives of the Texas Civil Rights Project leave the federal courthouse on Tuesday, in Brownsville, Texas.

right to take such sweeping action. A ruling on the lawsuit, led by Texas, is pending from the U.S. Supreme Court after the case was argued before the high court in April.

In a one-page order issued after Tuesday’s hearing in the South Texas city of Brownsville, Hanen wrote that he would revisit the issue at the August hearing, including any suggestions from the Justice Department regarding “an appropriate sanction for the misrepresentations.”

“This (stay) puts us well beyond the Supreme Court ruling. I wish I could wave a magic wand to say, ‘Let’s have a doover,’ but there’s not. Give me something to work with reasonably. Affidavits. Something,” Hanen told Justice Department attorneys at the hearing regarding evidence showing that he was not deliberately misled, The Brownsville Herald reported.

The Justice Department had said it “emphatically” disagrees with Hanen

that any of its lawyers acted in bad faith or with the intent to deceive.

In his May ruling, Hanen had also ordered that federal officials provide a list of the individuals who were mistakenly given the three year reprieves and that this information could be given to officials in states where these immigrants live.

Hanen’s decision on Tuesday also delayed the release of this information, which came as welcome news to immigrant advocates.

“The idea of handing (the states) the names and addresses and very private information of (immigrants) to do with what they would was very alarming to the DACA recipients,” said Nina Perales, vice president for litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, who spoke at Tuesday’s hearing.

Zopinion

Letters to the editor Send your signed letter to editorial@lmtonline.com

A4 | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

COLUMN

OTHER VIEWS

Let’s have a better culture war

“

DAVID BROOKS

The recent fight over transgender bathrooms represents the reductio ad absurdum of the culture war.

We argue about cultural and moral matters in the first place because we care about our characters and the characters of our children. We understand that a free society requires individuals who are capable of handling that freedom — people who can be counted on to play their social roles as caring parents, responsible workers and dependable neighbors.

Further, we know that this sort of character formation can’t be done just individually. It’s carried out in families, schools and communities. It depends on some common assumptions about what’s right and wrong, admired and not admired — a common moral ecosystem.

So we care intensely about the health of that ecosystem and we argue about how to improve it.

The laws commanding where transgender people go to the bathroom, on the other hand, show how the culture war has devolved into an overpoliticized set of gestures designed to push people’s emotional hot buttons.

These laws are in response to a problem that doesn’t seem to exist.

They are in response to a threat of sexual predators that has no relation to the existence of transgender people. They are about legislating a group, not about what constitutes good behavior.

They are an attempt to erect crude barriers when a little local consideration and accommodation could get the job done.

For some reason, some defenders of traditional values are addicted to sideshows that end with the whiff of intolerance.

At the same time, the larger culture itself has become morally empty, and therefore marked by fragmentation, distrust and powermongering.

The larger culture itself needs to be revived in four distinct ways: We need to be more communal in an age that’s overly individualistic; we need to be more morally minded in an age that’s overly utilitarian; we need to be more spiritually literate in an age that’s overly materialistic; and we need to be more emotionally intelligent in an age that is overly cognitive.

Rather than fighting endless losing battles over sexual identity, we need a better culture war. We need a new traditionalism.

A tradition, whether it’s Thanksgiving dinner, an annual family reunion or a burial ceremony, takes a physical activity and infuses it with enchantment. There’s a warmth to our traditions and rituals that is fueled by love and contact with the transcendent.

That has to be the opening assertion of a new traditionalism —

Rather than fighting endless losing battles over sexual identity, we need a better culture war. We need a new traditionalism. that we’re not primarily physical creatures.

There’s a ghost in the machine. We have souls or consciousness or whatever you want to call it. The first step of a new traditionalism would be to put the spiritual and moral implications of everyday life front and center.

If public life were truly infused with the sense that people have souls, we would educate young people to have vocations and not just careers. We would comfortably tell them that sex is a fusion of loving souls and not just a physical act. We’d celebrate marriage as a covenantal bond. We’d understand that citizenship is a covenant, too, and we have a duty to feel connected to those who disagree with us.

We’d see cloning and the death penalty as reckless acts that tamper with something mysterious. When we talked about foreign policy we’d talk not just about our material interests but also about what purpose we’ve been called to play in history.

If we talked as if people had souls, then we’d have a thick view of what is at stake in everyday activities. The soul can be elevated and degraded at every second, even when you’re alone not hurting anybody. Each thought or act etches a new line into the core piece of oneself.

The awareness of that constant process of elevation and degradation adds urgency to a bunch of questions. For example, what are we doing to a prisoner’s soul when we throw him in solitary? Can we really tolerate having so many people falling out of the labor force and unable to realize the dignity that comes with steady work?

In what ways do our phones lead to attachment or isolation? When is shopping fun and when is it degrading?

We’d also need a new political science. The old one was based on the model that we’re utilitymaximizing individuals, seeking power. That’s true, but love is the elemental desire of the spirit. People are desperately motivated to love something well, and be loved.

A core task of communities is to arouse and educate the loves, to widen and deepen the opportunities for love and to appraise people by how well and what they love.

Our culture is overpoliticized and undermoralized. This new traditionalism would shift the debate and involve a thicker way of seeing and talking about public life.

The debates that would follow would not be divided along the conventional lines.

David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times.

COLUMN

Memory jogged about those who gave me a leg up in life Some of us are blessed to have true blood brothers. I have three, all younger, and they each can give me a giant case of puffy chest.

If you have friends so cherished that you feel they are truly brothers, then you are doubly blessed as I am.

Sometimes, things happen in life that jog my memory concerning those who have made invaluable contributions to my life.

Two natural brothers — Rigby Owen Jr. and Steve Owen — have been major players for me all of my adult life. I have been in their employment and also in business as a partner with them. What I have gained from their friendship and “brotherhood” is immeasurable. And, thankfully, it continues.

“Big brother” Steve jogged my memory a little deeper recently when he sent me a book about a man — Don Reid Jr. — who was a major influence and helper in my college years.

Don was the longtime editor of The Huntsville Item and had what some would call the dubious

distinction of witnessing more men die on death row, in “Old Sparky,” the electric chair than anyone else. His reporting there was for the Associated Press news wire service and his bylines often appeared in newspapers across the country when someone of particularly great infamy was strapped in Old Sparky.

He was an extraordinarily gifted man and his life story is intriguing and much too long for this space. His daughter Donna Reid Vann has written and published a book, Dad, Man of Mystery (Silverfox Books), about his extraordinary life. I highly recommend the book to anyone, whether they have a newspaper connection or not.

My first two years of college were completed in Huntsville at what was then Sam Houston State Teachers College (now State University).

The Item was a weekly newspaper at the time.

Don didn’t need much help, but he managed to slip me a little work once in a while since he’d had to pursue his college degree in much more difficult circumstances than I had. Plus, whenever he heard of something where I could pick up a couple of extra bucks, he was quick to let me know.

After two years of college, I ran out of money and tucked my tail back to my hometown to work for a year to save enough cash to finish work on a diploma.

A summer later, I went back to school in Huntsville but discovered I’d “fallen out of favor” with the journalism director or so I was told by an inside source.

Here came Don to the rescue.

“Let’s you and I go to Houston,” Don said. “The University of Houston is looking for good journalism students.”

Don introduced me to Bruce Underwood, director of the journalism department, and to Billy I. Ross, assistant director.

They gave me a job as a secretary-receptionist for the department five mornings a week. That also included job placement for students, as well as producing a weekly column from Texas newspapers of the 1860s, 70s and 80s — The Texian Editor’s Frontier News Flashes — and syndicating it to about 150 Texas community newspapers.

Enterprising “Billy I.,” as those who came to know him well tagged the young prof, owned part of a weekly newspaper in a Houston suburb, Galena Park. The majority interest in the paper was Rigby Owen Sr., who was also had a major impact on my life and who is the father of Steve and Rigby Jr., my two “brothers” and lifelong friends. I long called Rigby Senior Pop. He was a second father to me.

And, I’d have to dub Don Reid a guiding light.

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

LETTERS POLICY Laredo Morning Times does not publish anonymous letters.

To be published, letters must include the writer's first and last names as well as a phone number to verify identity.

The phone number IS NOT published; it is used solely to verify identity and to clarify content, if neces-

sary.

Identity of the letter writer must be verified before publication. We want to assure our readers that a letter is written by the person who signs the letter. Laredo Morning Times does not allow the use of pseudonyms.

This space allows for public debate of the issues of the day.

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Via email, send letters to editorial@lmtonline.com or mail them to Letters to the Editor, 111 Esperanza Drive, Laredo, TX 78041.

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 |

A5

NATIONAL Defendant in church shootings faces November federal trial

By Bruce Smith A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The federal death penalty trial of a white man charged with shooting and killing nine black parishioners during a Bible study at their Charleston church will be held in Roof November, a judge announced Tuesday.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel set Nov. 7 to begin selecting jurors for the federal trial of Dylann Roof, 22, who faces numerous counts, including hate crimes, in the June 17 shootings at Emanuel AME Church.

That’s about two months before Roof’s state death-penalty trial. Roof faces nine counts of murder in state court in a trial set to begin in January.

Handcuffed and clad in a gray-striped prison jumpsuit, Roof attended Tuesday’s hearing but did not address the court.

But his attorneys reiterated previous comments that he would be willing to plead guilty if the death penalty were not on the table.

“Our plea offer has not been withdrawn and will never be withdrawn,” defense attorney David Bruck told the judge.

Setting a date for Roof’s federal trial had been delayed a number of times since last year as the Justice Department weighed whether to seek the death penalty.

The decision was announced last month by Attorney General Loretta Lynch who said she was compelled by “the nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm.”

On Tuesday, under questioning from the judge, both defense attorneys and federal prosecutors told Gergel they could complete their investigations, do the necessary legal research and be prepared to try their cases

by November. They said they expected the trial could take as long as six weeks. Gergel said that between 1,200 and 1,500 potential jurors might be summoned from throughout the state.

The church shootings, which occurred a year ago next week, reignited discussions about race relations and led to the removal of a Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina Statehouse.

Judge in Stanford sex assault case called fair, respected

By Paul Elias ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Chris O'Meara / AP

A woman takes a photo of flooded streets in the Shore Acres in St. Petersburg, Fla., Tuesday.

Remnants of Tropical Storm Colin continued to dump rain along Florida's gulf coast Tuesday.

Colin heads out to sea after drenching Florida with rain

By Jack Jones ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Colin headed out to sea Tuesday after dumping as much as 9 inches of rain on parts of Florida, forcing at least one city to pump partially treated sewage into the Gulf of Mexico ocean because the system was overloaded with rainwater.

Colin flooded roads and caused thousands of power outages in Florida and a team investigated a possible tornado related to the storm that damaged homes and toppled trees in Jacksonville. The city of St. Petersburg said it was pumping sewage into Tampa Bay because its sewer system has been overloaded with rainwater infiltrating leaky sewer pipes.

Although the storm was out to sea, forecasters said Colin is expected to produce additional rainfall of up to 2 inches across far eastern North Carolina, and as much as 5 inches across central Florida through Tuesday evening.

The U.S. Hurricane Center said Colin, which

formed Sunday, was the earliest a third named storm had developed during the Atlantic hurricane season, which officially began June 1.

In Dare County, North Carolina, which includes pencil-thin territories from Kitty Hawk down to Hatteras Island, Emergency Management Director Drew Pearson said rain had been falling nearly continuously since Tropical Storm Bonnie, which formed May 28. So far, there had been no major flooding.

“We’re really just seeing large amounts of water,” Pearson said, noting that many roads in the Outer Banks are at sea level, meaning that they can be quickly impacted by heavy rains. Traffic may be slow but hadn’t been stopped anywhere, he said.

Tropical storm warnings were discontinued on Tuesday as the remnants of Colin sped away from the mid-Atlantic coast and out to sea.

Maximum sustained winds are at 68 mph with higher gusts.

SAN FRANCISCO — A judge who sentenced a former Stanford University swimmer to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman used to play lacrosse at the school a few miles down the road from his courtroom, where attorneys said that he is respected and fair.

On campus and on social media, however, Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky has been vilified as too lenient on a privileged athlete from a top-tier swimming program in a case that captured the national spotlight. Some are urging he be removed from the bench.

Persky said in court Thursday that he was following the recommendation of the county’s probation department by sentencing Brock Turner, 20, to six months in county jail and three years’ probation. The judge cited Turner’s clean criminal record and the effect the conviction will have on his life. Turner, of Dayton, Ohio, also must to register for life as a sex offender after a jury convicted him of three felony counts of assault and attempted rape.

The case first gained national attention after prosecutors released a poignant statement addressed to Turner and Persky that the 23-yearold woman read in court before the sentence was announced.

The local prosecutor disagreed with the sentence, arguing for six years for crimes that could have sent Turner to prison

Dan Honda/Bay Area News Group / AP

In this June 2 photo, Brock Turner, right, makes his way into the Santa Clara Superior Courthouse in Palo Alto, Calif.

for 10 years. But lawyers who have appeared in Persky’s court call him a fair and conservative judge in the county in the heart of Silicon Valley.

“He is an absolutely solid and respected judge,” said Santa Clara County deputy public defender Gary Goodman.

“Persky made the right decision.”

Barbara Muller, a criminal defense attorney who works two weeks a month in Persky’s court, says he “is definitely one of the fairest judges” in the county.

“He considers all facts and is very thorough,” Muller said. “He plays it right down the middle.”

The judge is barred from commenting on the case because Turner is appealing his conviction, court spokesman Joe Macaluso said.

Some are urging for his recall in Change.org petitions, and Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, a friend of the victim, launched a campaign to remove Persky from the bench. Dauber didn’t return phone calls and email inquiries from The Associated Press seeking comment

Monday.

But Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, whose office argued for a prison sentence for Turner, said Persky should not lose his job because of the ruling.

“While I strongly disagree with the sentence that Judge Persky issued in the Brock Turner case, I do not believe he should be removed from his judgeship,” Rosen said in a statement Monday. His office would not comment further.

Persky, who has no record of judicial discipline, was previously a Santa Clara County prosecutor responsible for keeping sexual predators locked up. Democratic Gov. Gray Davis appointed him to the bench in 2003.

Persky earned two undergraduate degrees from Stanford in 1984 and 1985.

Criticism surrounding the case intensified when Dauber, the law professor, released a letter that Turner’s father wrote to the judge before sentencing, pleading for leniency and telling the court his son has already paid a steep price for “20 minutes of action.”

A6 | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

INTERNATIONAL

Brazil’s top prosecutor requests arrests of key politicians

By Mauricio Savarese A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s top prosecutor has asked the country’s highest court to arrest senior political allies of acting President Michel Temer for allegedly obstructing a corruption probe into state oil company Petrobras, a leading media outlet reported on Tuesday.

TV Globo said that Attorney General Rodrigo Janot is seeking the arrests of former president Jose Sarney, former planning minister and current Sen. Romero Juca, lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha and Senate head Renan Calheiros.

All four politicians belong to Temer’s centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, and performed key roles in suspending President Dilma Rousseff from office in early May. The Supreme Federal Tribunal Justice Teori Zavascki will decide on the request. Only the high court can arrest or try

elected officials.

Janot and the high court’s press office declined to comment on the media report.

The case is based on audio recordings in which the politicians allegedly discuss legislation that would limit the impact of the ongoing Petrobras investigation. That probe has already ensnared many of their colleagues across the ideological spectrum.

“It’s impossible to stop the Car Wash probe” at this point, said Sergio Praca, a political science professor at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, a university in Rio, referring to formal name of the Petrobras investigation.

“Brazilians have come to expect it will continue.”

Calheiros said the reported requests for him and the others to be arrested were “disproportional and abusive.” Speaking at the start of a Tuesday Senate session, he told colleagues that the body “will not be dragged into this crisis, it will be the solution.”

Eraldo Peres / AP

A demonstrator from the Avaaz organization wears a mask photograph of the former Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, as he holds up fake money outside Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday.

Sarney said in a statement that he has been left “stunned, outraged and upset.” Because of his age, the 86-year-old would be placed under house arrest with an ankle monitoring device if Zavascki decides the charges are valid. The other three would

be jailed.

Both Cunha and Juca have labeled the report as “absurd.”

Cunha was earlier suspended from his duties for obstruction of justice in the same case.

Juca was forced two weeks ago to take a leave of absence

because of the audios recorded in the case by an executive of another state owned oil company, Transpetro. The senator allegedly suggested in the recordings that Rousseff’s impeachment could help block the corruption probe at Petrobras.

Temer could struggle to hold on to power if Zavascki decides to arrest his allies.

At least 54 of 81 senators will have to vote in favor for Rousseff to be permanently removed from the presidency on the accusation that she broke fiscal laws.

Rousseff has repeatedly argued she did nothing wrong, insisting that the push to remove her was to tamp down the Petrobras investigation, which she had refused to do while in office.

The Senate impeachment commission says her trial could end in mid-August while Brazil is hosting the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski will make the final decision.

Car bomb attack targeting Medical aid group urges better police kills 11 people in Istanbul HIV treatment in West Africa

By Dominique Soguel and Suzan Fraser

By Carley Petesch ASSOCIATED PRE SS

A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

ISTANBUL — A car bomb hit a police vehicle in Istanbul during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, killing 11 people and wounding 36, the fourth bombing to hit the city this year.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Turkey has seen a recent increase in violence linked to Kurdish rebels or to the Islamic State group which has found recruits and established cells in the country.

Speaking at the scene of the blast in Beyazit district, Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin said a bomb placed inside a car detonated as a police vehicle passed by. The dead were seven police officers and four civilians. At least three of the wounded were in serious condition.

Sahin declined to comment on who may be behind the attack and authorities imposed a news blackout preventing media from reporting details of the probe in Turkey, citing concerns over security and police and forensic efforts to investigate the attack.

Such bans primarily affect the diffusion of graphic images on local television channels. Turkish citizens can access information from other sources via the internet or satellite dishes.

“We urge the government to hold off the news bans which are actually not effective at all,” said Ozgur Ogret, the Turkey representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, calling the bans a violation of press freedom and people’s right to be informed.

News bans became commonplace after a 2013 bombing attack in Reyhanli, near the border with Syria, which killed 52 people. Since then, Turkey has witnessed a resurgence of conflict with Kurdish rebels and growing spillover from the war in Syria.

In a sign of escalating conflict both on the Kurdish and IS front, the pace of violence has accelerated and shifted away from border areas to major cities, including Ankara, the capital. Istanbul alone has endured two bombings targeting security forces and two hitting tourism sites in 2016.

These attacks have contributed to a dip in tourism and taken a toll on the economy.

Tuesday’s bomb went off in a bustling Istanbul neighborhood just north of the iconic Golden Horn, where the Bosporus Strait meets the Sea of Marmara. The area is home to the offices of

Ozan Kose / Getty

Municipal workers clean the damages caused to a hotel and the road by a bomb in the Vezneciler district of Istanbul on Tuesday.

provincial authorities, three universities and ancient sites including Roman-era aqueducts.

The police bus was flipped over by the force of the blast, which also damaged nearby buildings, among them a closed hotel where the entrance appeared gutted and windows were blown out.

The blast also shattered the stained glass windows of a famous 16th-century Ottoman mosque, Sehzadebasi.

It wrecked several cars and forced the cancellation of some exams at nearby Istanbul University.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited some of the wounded at Istanbul’s Haseki hospital, where two people were undergo-

ing surgery.

“These (attacks) are being carried out against people whose duty it is to ensure the security of our people. These cannot be pardoned or forgiven. We shall continue our fight against terrorists fearlessly and tirelessly until the end,” he told reporters outside the hospital.

Hours after the explosion, police detained four suspects for possible involvement, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The private Dogan news agency said the four had hired the car used in the bombing. The reports made no mention of the suspects’ possible affiliation.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim promised a full investigation.

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DAKAR, Senegal — Governments need to improve access to HIV treatment in West and Central Africa, where critical medicines reach less than one-third of those in need, Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday.

The call by the group, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, came a day before a United Nations high-level meeting on ending AIDS. The group praised a global goal to curb the HIV epidemic by 2020 by providing life-saving treatment to 30 million

people, but said countries in regions with a lower prevalence of HIV are being overlooked.

“U.N. member states need to use this opportunity to recommit to people living with HIV in regions of the world that have been essentially neglected despite the tremendous advances in the last decade globally,” said Dr. Cecilia Ferreyra, the group’s HIV medical adviser. “While the number of people on lifesaving HIV treatment worldwide doubled over the last five years to nearly 17 million people, those living in West and Central Africa are missing out and in desperate

need of treatment.”

The report said 4.5 million of the 6.5 million people living with HIV in West and Central Africa don’t get treatment.

The goal should be to triple the number of people who start antiretroviral therapy in the next three years, the group said.

U.N. member states must donate to help such regions implement catchup plans to increase access to treatment, it said.

Challenges in West and Central Africa include service failures, the lack of trained health staff, stigma and treatment fees, the group said.

Zfrontera THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 |

TAMAULIPAS RIBEREÑA EN BREVE Encuesta para padres 1 Zapata County Independent School District está solicitando a los padres de familia con hijos que ingresarán al grado de “pre-k 4” que respondan una encuesta. La encuesta puede ser accesada visitando http:// tinyurl.com/zkcrahr

FALFURRIAS

Alcaldesa interina se declara culpable

Triunfa PAN en elecciones

ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Pregúntele al Cónsul 1 “¡Pregúntele al Cónsul!” es un programa del COnsulado de México en Laredo a través de Facebook.

Se informa acerca de visas, pasaportes, el perdón, castigos, entre otros temas.

Puede enviar sus preguntas. Se desarrollará el jueves 9 de junio de 3 p.m. a 4 p.m. en la página http:// tinyurl.com/jsr3nla

Torneo de Fútbol de Bandera 1 Se invita al primer torneo de fútbol de bandera por el Día del Padre, el 18 de junio y el día 19 de junio, en caso de ser necesario a partir de las 8 a.m. en el Zapata Boys & Girls Club, E 6th Ave y calle Lincoln en Zapata. Habrá dos categorías. Informes con Christopher Dávila al 956-251-9986 o escribiendo a chris_davila_2014@yahoo.com

Presentación de libro 1 Se invita a la presentación del libro “La música y el vértigo” de Daniel Baruc Espinal, el sábado 18 de junio a las 5 p.m. en Estación Palabra de Nuevo Laredo, México. Presentación a cargo de Baruc y de los escritores Jorge Santa Anna y Juan Miguel Pérez.

Academia Roma FC Soccer 1 Se invita a participar en la escuela infantil Academia Roma FC Soccer para niños de 3 años a 10 años de edad. Cuota de 40 dólares que incluye uniforme. Registro es martes y jueves de 6 p.m. a 8 p.m. en el Roma Park Soccer Field. Participan en juegos de fin de semana y torneos. Informes en el 956-4372700 o 956-437-9112.

Laboratorio Computacional 1 La Ciudad de Roma pone a disposición de la comunidad el Laboratorio Computacional que abre de lunes a viernes en horario de 1 p.m. a 5 p.m. en Historical Plaza, a un lado del City Hall. Informes en el 956-849-1411.

Caminata/Carrera 1 La Cuarta Caminata/Carrera y Competencia Infantil Anual de 5K PFC Ira “Ben” Laningham IV se realizará el sábado 16 de julio a partir de las 8 a.m. con salida del Palacio de Justicia (Courthouse) del Condado de Zapata.

Habrá trofeos para ganadores en cada categoría. Cuota de participación es de 15 dólares, si se inscriben con anterioridad visitando active.com o 20 dólares el mismo día. Precio especial para estudiantes y niños.

Imagen de cortesía | IETAM/PREP

Histórica victoria para partido de oposición Por Malena Charur TIEMP O DE LAREDO

Una jornada histórica fue la que vivieron los mexicanos en las elecciones 2016 para los cargos de gobernador, diputados y ayuntamiento, que se llevaron a cabo el domingo en 12 estados de la República Mexicana, incluyendo Tamaulipas.

Después de décadas de erigirse como el partido gobernante, el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), perdió algunos de sus últimos bastiones, entre ellos el estado Tamaulipas, a favor del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN).

El PAN, opositor al partido oficial desde 1939, logró hacerse del Poder Ejecutivo después de 71 años de militancia priista, con el triunfo de Vicente Fox, quien gobernó del 2000 al 2006, y que continuó con el sexenio de Felipe Calderón del 2006 al 2012.

Después de varios factores el electorado eligió a Enrique Peña Nieto, candidato del PRI a la presidencia de la república en las elecciones del 2012.

De acuerdo a los resultados preliminares, el PRI ganó apenas cinco de los 12 estados en disputa y con ello, la oportunidad de ganar las elecciones presidenciales en el 2018 se ve disminuida.

El líder nacional del PRI, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, reconoció en Radio Fórmula que tendrían que trabajar en mejorar las relaciones con el electorado.

“Tenemos que asumir el mensaje que nos ha dado el electorado al PRI y también a sus gobiernos, de que hay acciones y actitudes que hay que mejorar y cambiar para reconectarnos con la ciudadanía”, aseguró Beltrones.

A7

HINOJOSA

GARCÍA

Por su parte, Ricardo Anaya Cortés, Presidente Nacional del PAN, se mostró confiado en que con este triunfo podrían recuperar la presidencia de la república en 2018.

“Estamos de regreso”, afirmó en un comunicado Anaya Cortés en el sitio oficial de Internet del PAN. “Ganamos estados que nunca habían sido gobernados por un partido distinto del PRI”.

En Tamaulipas durante la jornada del domingo los ciudadanos eligieron a un gobernador, 22 diputados por el principio de mayoría relativa, 14 por el de representación proporcional y los integrantes de 43 ayuntamientos.

Además de los candidatos registrados por partidos políticos, participaron 23 candidatos independientes, uno al cargo de gobernador, 21 candidatos para la integración del ayuntamiento y un aspirante más al cargo de diputado.

De acuerdo a los resultados preliminares computados hasta el domingo a las 8 p.m., por el Instituto Electoral de Tamaulipas (IETAM), Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca, candidato del PAN a la gubernatura obtuvo el 50.13 por ciento de los votos, mientras que Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa, candidato por el PRI, alcanzó solamente el 35.94 por ciento de la votación total, sin que el resto de los candidatos hubieran alcanzado por-

centajes mayores a un dígito.

La lista nominal de electores en el estado de Tamaulipas, la integran 2.557.228, de acuerdo al sitio de Internet de IETAM. “Hoy hemos decidido el futuro de Tamaulipas… el futuro de toda una generación que merece crecer sin temor y con libertad.

Hoy no es el fin de un proyecto electoral… hoy es el comienzo de una esperada historia por todos los tamaulipecos que anhelamos recuperar nuestro estado”, escribió García Cabeza de Vaca en su página oficial de Facebook.

Agradeció la confianza que el electorado ha depositado en él y reconoció la oportunidad histórica que representa este cambio.

“Esta es una oportunidad histórica de mejorar nuestro estado y que nos pone en la mira del país...

No gané yo, ganamos todos.”, finalizó García Cabeza de Vaca.

Por su parte, Hinojosa Ochoa, agradeció el apoyo de su familia y la confianza que le otorgaron los ciudadanos que votaron por él. ”.

En las ciudades de Guerrero, Mier y Miguel Alemán, el triunfador también fue el PAN al obtener el ayuntamiento, mientras que en Camargo fue el PRI quien resultó ganador.

El PAN de Guerrero

obtuvo 789 votos para Beatriz Posada Noriega, candidata a la presidencia municipal, mientras que Olga Lidia Landa Zamora, candidata del PRI, logró obtener 689 votos.

En la ciudad de Mier, Roberto Gustavo González Hinojosa, candidato por el PAN para la presidencia municipal, obtuvo 1.126 votos, contra 596 recibidos por la candidata por el PRI, María Guadalupe Ramírez Guerra.

Rosa Icela Corro Acosta, candidata del PAN a la presidencia municipal de Ciudad Miguel Alemán, logró 5.421 votos contra los 3.427 otorgados a su opositora María Amanda Barrera González, abanderada del PRI. En el caso de Camargo, la vencedora fue Edelmira García Delgado, candidata a la presidencia por el PRI, con 2.434 votos, mientras que Diana Reyna Moreno, abanderada del PAN, obtuvo 2.039 El congresista Henry Cuéllar, (D-Texas), envío sus felicitaciones a los ganadores y dijo que buscaría trabajar en el futuro en proyectos conjuntos que beneficien a las familias de ambos lados de la frontera.

“Felicito al senador García Cabeza de Vaca...en sus triunfo (virtual)”, expresó Cuéllar en un comunicado envíado a Laredo Morning Times.

“Espero trabajar con él, al igual que con todos los representantes de la frontera, para crear más trabajos y oportunidades para las familias tanto de Estados Unidos como de México, a través de incrementar el comercio internacional, mejorar nuestra infraestructura comercial y en la lucha contra el crimen trasnacional”.

Localice a Malena Charur en el 956-728-2583 o en mcharur@lmtonline.com

TAMAULIPAS

Muere uno en ataque a militares E SPECIAL PARA TIEMP O DE LAREDO

CD. VICTORIA, Tamaulipas.- El Grupo de Coordinación Tamaulipas informó que el viernes, en una brecha que lleva a un rancho ubicado en el municipio de Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, elementos de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional fueron agredidos por civiles armados.

Al repeler el ataque en defensa de sus vidas, los militares abatieron a

uno de los agresores, que no ha sido identificado.

La agresión se suscitó cuando los militares realizaban reconocimientos terrestres en las inmediaciones de un rancho ubicado a la altura del kilómetro 160+500 de la carretera Nueva Ciudad Guerrero-Nuevo Laredo, en la región ribereña.

En ese punto civiles armados los atacaron sorpresivamente, por lo que tuvieron que repeler la agre-

sión, abatiendo a uno de los presuntos delincuentes que portaba un arma larga de alto calibre, mientras otros atacantes se daban a la fuga entre el monte.

En el lugar de los hechos los elementos de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional aseguraron más armas largas, cargadores, cartuchos útiles, equipo táctico, tres camionetas y poncha llantas metálicos, entre objetos.

CORPUS CHRISTI — La alcaldesa interina de un pequeño pueblo del sur de Texas se ha declarado culpable de ayudar y ser cómplice de una operación ilegal de apuestas.

Leticia Hernández Garza es la alcaldesa interina de Falfurrias. Ella se declaró culpable el lunes en una corte federal en Corpus Christi de ayudar y ser cómplice de un negocio ilegal de apuestas en Falfurrias, desde enero de 2009 a mayo de 2015.

Los fiscales dijeron que en el negocio participaban varios individuos que manejaban, financiaban, administraban, supervisaban, dirigían y poseían todo o parte del negocio, los cuales operaban continuamente por más de 30 días y producían ingresos brutos de más de 2.000 dólares al día.

Hernández Garza podría ser condenada hasta a cinco años de prisión federal y ser multada con hasta 250.000 dólares cuando sea sentenciada el 22 de septiembre. Ella se encuentra libre bajo fianza hasta entonces.

SALUD

Reportan alza en obesidad de mujeres Por Mike Stobbe ASSOCIATED PRE SS

NUEVA YORK — La epidemia de obesidad en los Estados Unidos continúa creciendo, encabezada por un alarmante aumento entre las mujeres. Por primera vez, más de cuatro de cada 10 mujeres son obesas, de acuerdo con estadísticas de salud del gobierno federal.

Las tasas de obesidad para hombres y mujeres en los Estados Unidos han sido virtualmente las mismas por aproximadamente una década. Pero en años recientes, las mujeres han sufrido más del padecimiento y ahora poco más de 4 por ciento de las mujeres son obesas, comparado con 35 por ciento de los hombres.

Los porcentajes fueron reportados por los Centros de Control y Prevención de Enfermedades en dos artículos publicados el martes en la internet por la revista Journal of the American Medical Association. Las cifras se basan en un pequeño sondeo del gobierno que es considerado la mejor medición del problema de obesidad en el país.

Aunque no es totalmente sorpresivo para los estudiosos que el país se ha estado volviendo cada vez más obeso, “asusta” que la estadística haya alcanzado 40 por ciento para las mujeres, dijo Dana Hunnes, una experta dietética que atiende a pacientes obesos en el Centro Médico de la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles.

“Es una cifra alarmante, y es alarmante que continúe creciendo pese a llamados de las autoridades a alentar la pérdida de peso y los hábitos saludables de alimentación”, dijo.

Sports&Outdoors A8 | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

MMA pioneer Kimbo Teams know Finals Slice dead at 42 can turn quickly

By Greg Beacham

By Tim Reynolds

A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Kimbo Slice, the bearded street fighter who parlayed his internet popularity into a mixed martial arts career and worldwide fame, has died. He was 42.

Slice, whose real name was Kevin Ferguson, was taken to a hospital in Margate, Florida, near his home Monday, Coral Springs Police Sgt. Carla Kmiotek said.

Slice’s death was confirmed by Mike Imber, his longtime manager.

“We lost our brother today,” Imber said in a text message to The Associated Press.

The cause of death was still unclear. Kmiotek said there is no active police investigation, and no foul play is suspected.

Born in the Bahamas and raised in the Miami area, Slice was a strip club bouncer and bodyguard who began competing in unsanctioned street fights in 2003. Videos of his violent knockout victories in those bouts became wildly popular online, both for Slice’s raw punching power and his distinctive, intimidating appearance.

After gaining viral internet fame at a time when the phenomenon was still relatively new, Slice studied MMA and eventually competed for several promotions, including the UFC and Bellator, which staged his two most recent fights.

While he went only 5-2 and never won a championship belt, the personable Slice became one of MMA’s best-known figures, attracting large television audiences and crowds to his growing sport.

Slice’s death also was confirmed by Scott Coker, the CEO of Bellator, which promoted his return to MMA last year after a five-year absence. Slice beat Dhafir “Dada 5000” Harris with a third-round knockout in February at Bellator 149 in Houston, but the result was overturned after Slice tested positive for steroid use.

“We are all shocked and saddened by the devastating and untimely loss of Kimbo Slice,” Coker said.

“One of the most popular MMA fighters ever, Kimbo was a charismatic, larger-than-life personality that transcended the sport. Outside of the cage he was a friendly, gentle giant and a devoted family

CLEVELAND — Golden State has won the first two games of the NBA Finals, both of those wins coming by double figures and with a few dominant stretches of basketball in there.

Strange as this sounds, that has the Warriors feeling a bit uneasy.

The champions know exactly how fast a series can change, having just pulled off a mathematically improbable comeback from 3-1 down against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals. And even with the odds now stacked high against Cleveland in these NBA Finals, the Warriors say they cannot fall into the trap of thinking this series that resumes with Game 3 on Wednesday night is already over.

“That’s a great analogy, one that we’ve already used,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Tuesday.

“It doesn’t matter what the scores are, doesn’t matter if you win by 25 or lose by 25, it’s one game in the series. And we got blown out twice in a row in OKC, down 3-1, and we were able to come back.

We know we’re playing against a great team.

They’re coming home.

They can change the momentum around with just one win.”

Cleveland hopes he’s right.

The Cavs might be without concussed Kevin Love for Game 3, but they are 7-0 at home in these playoffs — winning by an average of 20.9 points.

“It’s a do-or-die game for us,” Cavaliers forward LeBron James said. “We can’t afford to go down 3-0 to any team, especially a team that’s 73-9 in the regular season and playing the type of basketball they’re playing.”

When the Warriors were on the brink of elimination against the Thunder, history suggested that they had a 3.9 percent chance to win the series — 232 previous NBA teams were down 3-1 in a best-ofseven, and only nine won.

Compared to that, Cleveland’s chances look fabulous.

“We’re not in that bad of shape as they were — 3-1 is worse than 2-0,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. “And they came back and took it one game at a time, like we have to do.”

Matt Sayles / AP file

Kimbo Slice, the bearded street fighter who parlayed his internet popularity into a mixed martial arts career and worldwide fame, died Monday at age 42.

man. His loss leaves us all with extremely heavy hearts.”

Slice was scheduled to headline the Bellator 158 show in London next month in a bout against James Thompson.

He was the star of the first MMA show broadcast on network television, beating Thompson by third-round knockout in May 2008 on CBS with the defunct EliteXC promotion. With Slice and pioneering featherweight Gina Carano as the top attractions, EliteXC’s two CBS shows drew big television ratings and introduced millions of viewers to MMA. Although Slice never reached the sport’s competitive heights, his aura never waned among MMA fans: His bout with Harris four months ago drew the largest television ratings in Bellator’s history.

The UFC issued a statement praising Slice, who appeared on a highlyrated season of their longrunning reality competition show, “The Ultimate Fighter,” in 2009. Slice also fought at UFC 113 in Montreal, losing to Matt Mitrione before taking his five-year break from MMA. “He carried himself as a true professional during his time in our organization,” the UFC’s statement read. “While he will never be forgotten for his fighting style and transcendent image, Slice will also be remembered for his warm personality and commitment to his family and friends.”

American Top Team, the prominent South Florida gym where Slice trained for many years, mourned his passing.

“The ATT Family and South Florida community lost a legend today,” the team said in a post on its Twitter account.

Slice also had a pro boxing career between stints in the cage, going 7-0 with six knockouts from 2011-13.

For all of his glowering in-cage swagger and outsized fame, Slice was extraordinarily honest about his fighting abilities.

He acknowledged being an MMA newcomer with much to learn, never claiming to be anything but a big puncher providing for his family while constantly working to learn the sport’s other disciplines.

“The guys who are holding the titles, heavyweight and light heavyweight, these guys are awesome,” Slice told the AP in a 2010 interview before his second UFC fight. “I’m really just having happy days in the midst — being among them, fighting on the undercards, just contributing to the UFC and the sport. That’s really what I want to do. I’m not looking ahead to winning a title or anything like that.

I’m just enjoying each fight as it comes.”

Slice is survived by six children, and he credited his MMA career for allowing him to send them to college. One of his three sons, Kevin Ferguson Jr., made his MMA debut in March.

Ben Margot / AP

LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers trail the Golden State Warriors 2-0 in the NBA Finals. Game 3 is Wednesday in Cleveland.

Teams that have fallen behind 2-0 in the NBA Finals have rallied to win 9.7 percent of the time, with three of them getting it done in 31 past opportunities. The 1969 Boston Celtics, 1977 Portland Trail Blazers and 2006 Miami Heat all lost the first two games of the finals on the road before winning the title — the Celtics doing so in seven games, the Blazers and Heat getting it done in six.

“History,” Lue said, “is something that’s made to be broken.”

Despite their predicament, the Cavaliers certainly seemed confident and loose on Tuesday.

During the open portion of practice, James was laughing with teammates and tossed up the occasional underhanded 60footer — reacting with mock disbelief when the low-percentage shot didn’t fall. Point guard Kyrie Irving played a long game of 1-on-1 with Cavs assistant coach James Posey, who was on that Heat team that rallied from 2-0 down in the finals against Dallas and hit a huge shot in the clinching game.

Their thinking is simple: Take care of home court Wednesday and Friday, knot the series and see what happens in a best-of-three.

“When they go on their runs, we have to be able to

withstand those punches,” Irving said. “And Game 1 and Game 2, we’ve done it at times. We’ve shown that we’re capable of doing it, but we’re just constantly on our heels.”

That’s what the Warriors do against everyone, not just the Cavs.

Cleveland’s biggest lead in the series so far is six points. Golden State’s is 33. In four games this season, including the two regular-season matchups, the Warriors have held the lead for a staggering 87 percent of the time.

And in last year’s finals, Golden State won twice in Cleveland — more than proving that it can handle the Cavs’ raucous home crowd.

“We know they’re going to make adjustments,” Warriors star and twotime NBA MVP Stephen Curry said. “We know they’re going to come out with a sense of urgency in the moment. But we need to have that same mentality, because for what’s at stake, if we’re able to go up 3-0, that is a great position to be in. That is the opportunity in front of us.”

And no one has ever come back in an NBA series from 3-0 down, either.

“We can’t relax,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. “No time to relax.”

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 |

A9

BUSINESS

Adviser’s serial firings show ‘big problem’ at brokerages

By Michael Rubinkam ASSOCIATED PRE SS

Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press / AP file

This May 27, 2013 photo shows the head office and logo of Valeant Pharmaceuticals in Laval, Quebec.

Valeant loses money in 1Q, cuts outlook, shares plunge A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

LAVAL, Quebec — Valeant tumbled to a loss in its first quarter and the embattled drug maker, squeezed by higher costs, cut its profit and revenue expectations for the year.

Shares, which have plunged almost 90 percent in the past year, fell more than 14 percent Tuesday.

The Canadian pharmaceutical disclosed last week that it had been served with default notices from two lenders because the first-quarter earnings report had been postponed.

Swamped by government investigations into its business and accounting practices, Valeant posted long-overdue results from 2015 in April.

That same month, CEO J. Michael Pearson was excoriated in a congressional hearing, where lawmakers accused Valeant of gouging patients to reward Wall Street investors.

Valeant’s stock price surged for years, fueled by a strategy of gobbling up smaller companies and raising prices on niche drugs — bypassing the huge research and development investments typical of the drug industry.

But the company’s approach has drawn scrutiny from federal prosecutors, Congress and its own investors.

Shares that traded above $260 around this time last year, fell $4.21 to close at $24.64.

For the three months ended March 31, Valeant lost $373.7 million, or $1.08 per share. That compares with a profit of $97.7 million, or 28 cents per share, a year earlier.

Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were $1.27 per share, but that’s well below the $1.42 that Wall Street had expected, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.

Selling, general and administrative expenses climbed to $620.2 million, from $507.9 million, while research and development costs increased to $103.1 million from $55.8 million. Amortization and impairments surged to $694.5 million from $365.2 million.

Revenue rose to $2.37 billion from $2.17 billion, mostly because of acquisitions it completed last year. The results beat the $2.35 billion that Wall Street predicted.

Valeant now anticipates a full-year adjusted profit in a range of $6.60 to $7 per share on revenue between $9.9 billion and $10.1 billion. Its prior guidance was for an adjusted profit in a range of $8.50 to $9.50 per share on revenue between $11 billion and $11.2 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected full-year earnings of $8.43 per share on revenue of $10.9 billion.

SCOTRUN, Pa. — He was fired from one company, then another, then another. And still Anthony Diaz continued handling other people’s money.

The smooth-talking securities salesman affiliated with 11 investment firms in 15 years, getting booted from five of them and resigning from another amid customer complaints and rules infractions.

Yet his checkered employment history never seemed to slow him down on his way to earning millions by pushing high-fee, high-risk “alternative investments.”

Now under federal criminal indictment for fraud — he has pleaded not guilty — and with dozens of former clients lodging complaints, Diaz illustrates what can go wrong when investment firms hire problem brokers.

It happens with alarming frequency. An academic study from March found that 15 to 20 percent of the brokers at some of the largest financial services firms in the country, including one that employed Diaz, have disciplinary records. Moreover, nearly half of financial advisers fired for misconduct find a new job in the industry within a year — and are at greater risk of reoffending, according to researchers at the universities of Chicago and Minnesota.

The researchers also found that brokers with a propensity for ripping off their customers tend to migrate to certain firms, suggesting the firms “specialize” in misconduct and “cater to unsophisticated consumers.”

“A lot of these guys are real hustlers,” said Jacob Zamansky, a securities lawyer who represents investors, explaining why firms would take a chance on an unethical broker. “It’s all about the money, and it’s a risk-reward. ... This is a big problem, perhaps one of the biggest.”

The issue has caught the attention of federal lawmakers and regulators.

“It’s disappointing that some of these hiring practices continue to take place within the industry,” said Nancy Condon, spokeswoman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self-policing body.

‘A total, total rip-off’ Pennsylvania retiree Vincent Sylvester, 69, said he invested nearly all of his $500,000 nest egg with Diaz after the financial adviser guaranteed him returns of 8 percent and more. Sylvester said Diaz inflated his net worth to qualify him for the

Michael Rubinkam / AP

In this May 26 photo, an exhibit in an arbitration case against former financial adviser Anthony Diaz is seen at Bruce Kilby’s home in Scotrun, Pa. Kilby and his wife, Gail, won a $220,000 arbitration award against Diaz.

investments, didn’t explain the risk and failed to tell him his money would be tied up for years.

Now he and his wife are making barely $400 a month on their savings — a return of less than 1 percent — and their retirement is less comfortable than it might have been. Sylvester is dealing with bladder cancer on top of his financial stress.

“The whole thing was a total, total rip-off,” said Sylvester, who worked in the real estate department of a homebuilder. “It took me a lot of years to save this money, and a lot of hard work, and unfortunately you’ve got guys like him who don’t really care.”

Federal prosecutors allege Diaz advised his clients to put their money in real estate investment trusts and equipment leasing partnerships, types of higher-risk, illiquid “alternative investments” geared to wealthier, more sophisticated investors.

He had them sign blank documents, then he falsified their net worth, income and risk tolerance to make it appear they met the suitability requirements of the products, according to a grand jury indictment.

“I had no idea they were super high-risk,” said Bruce Kilby, 67, of Scotrun, a retired pharmaceutical company worker who invested about $350,000 with Diaz. The financial adviser, Kilby said, “was a very fast talker, and when you asked questions that he didn’t want to answer, he more or less talked down to you.”

Kilby won a $220,000 arbitration award against Diaz, who has challenged it in state court.

Diaz’s attorney, Darren Gelber, said his client rejects the allegations.

“It is his very, very strong and fervent belief that everything he did was proper and legal,” Gelber said.

Seeking answers Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Tom

Cotton of Arkansas have asked Wall Street regulators to address what they’re doing about firms that routinely employ brokers with a history of fleecing clients.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has until June 15 to respond, but agency chief Richard Ketchum has already warned investment firms that routinely employ high-risk advisers to expect “searching questions” about “the special supervisory steps they have taken to ensure no further bad actions.”

New federal regulations, meanwhile, would require brokers to put their clients’ interest ahead of their own when giving retirement investment advice. Wall Street lobbying groups sued last week to block the rules, arguing they’re too burdensome and subject brokers to too much liability.

Even with so many rulebreaking brokers still in business, Diaz’s serial firings stand out. He’s the only one of the nation’s 650,000 licensed brokers to have been fired more than three times, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press by Securities Litigation and Consulting Group Inc. Why was he able to land on his feet so many times?

“It’s about greed,” said attorney Albert Murray Jr., who represents about 30 former clients of Diaz.

“Here’s a guy who’s making lots of money and has a big portfolio of clients all over the country. That’s why they did it.”

First Allied Securities Inc., the firm with which Diaz was affiliated when prosecutors say he began committing fraud a decade ago, said in a statement that it thoroughly vets prospective hires and expects them to be ethical and professional.

But the company routinely employs advisers who have been disciplined for misconduct — nearly one in five, according to the Chicago and Minnesota researchers. First Allied called the study flawed.

Why hire him?

After First Allied permitted Diaz to resign in 2009, Diaz was fired from several other firms before his last stop at IBN Financial Services, a brokerage in Liverpool, New York. Its CEO, Richard Carlesco, said in an interview that Diaz’s big roster of clients made him an attractive hire.

Given his employment history, “it was a stretch for me,” said Carlesco, whose small brokerage had a squeaky-clean record. “I’d not had a rep like this before.”

But Carlesco said he thought Diaz had been terminated by his earlier firms for “stupid reasons” that largely related to issues of customer service, not because he was selling clients on bad investments. At the time of his 2012 hire by IBN, Diaz had no open consumer complaints against him, Carlesco said.

He said he called FINRA, the industry regulator, about Diaz, and FINRA officials advised Carlesco to put Diaz on “heightened supervision.”

Carlesco installed a staffer in Diaz’s office in the Pocono Mountains and sent his compliance officer there every week.

“Trust me, I just didn’t jump into this blind,” he said.

In retrospect, Carlesco said, he regrets getting involved. The financial adviser cost the firm more in legal and compliance fees than it earned from his clientele, Carlesco said.

Most of the other companies that affiliated with Diaz after he resigned from First Allied did not return messages from the AP. With Diaz now barred from giving investment advice, he has entered another sales profession — real estate.

He was licensed in November and works for a commercial real estate firm.

His staff biography touts his “solid background” in finance.

“Anthony has his (clients’) best interest at heart,” the biography says.

A10 | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES

ENTERTAINMENT

Zika and her pregnancy keep As Ali’s funeral nears, NBC’s Guthrie out of Brazil Louisville remembers the Lip

By David Bauder A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS

NEW YORK — Savannah Guthrie of the “Today” show put a public face Tuesday on what NBC says is a “small handful” of employees who will not travel Guthrie to Rio de Janeiro this summer for Olympics coverage because of concern over the Zika virus.

The co-host of the morning news show, who is 44, announced she was pregnant with her second child. Brazil is the country hardesthit by the mosquitoborne virus, which can cause severe birth defects, including babies born with abnormally small heads.

NBC is sending more

than 2,000 employees to Brazil to cover the Olympics, which take place Aug. 5-21. The company advises anyone concerned about the virus to check with their own doctors, and said no one will be required to travel if they believe their health would be at risk.

The network would not specify what it meant by a “small handful” of employees, NBC Sports spokesman Chris McCloskey said. Guthrie is the first employee to drop out of the trip to identify herself publicly.

It’s an important trip for the “Today” show, which is a close second to ABC’s “Good Morning America” in the ratings.

NBC plays up the Olympic connection for its morning news program, in the hopes of drawing new viewers who will stick with the program after the games are over.

“You’ll have to go to female beach volleyball

without me, Matt,” Guthrie said to co-host Matt Lauer on Tuesday.

Many of the employees who won’t make the trip to Rio are assigned instead to NBC Sports’ facility in Stamford, Connecticut, just outside New York. The network runs its digital operation from there, and even has broadcast teams that work on some of the lesser-watched sports from the Stamford offices. All of the Olympic competition is streamed online.

The World Health Organization said in Geneva on Tuesday that it will convene a special Zika emergency committee to examine the present stage of the virus. It is believed the Zika virus has been spotted in some 60 countries.

The WHO’s directorgeneral asked the committee to examine the risks of holding the Olympics in Brazil.

Review: ‘Conjuring 2’ is a terrifyingly solid sequel

By Peter Hartlaub SA N FR ANCISCO CHRONI CLE

“The Conjuring 2” is such a solid horror film, you won’t even think to pick it apart while it’s happening.

Of course, this family should have moved out the moment they realized their house was haunted.

Certainly, it makes more sense to sleep together in one spot like a pile of puppies, instead of maintaining separate bedrooms. Hell yes, someone should have thrown that haunted garage sale recliner in a Dumpster the moment it started rocking on its own.

James Wan gets a pass on all of the above, because he is a careful director, who understands and respects his audience.

Rules are followed, patience is rewarded and the scares are earned in his movies. And most importantly, the family being haunted in “The Conjuring 2” is filled with enough recognizable and subtle details, that audience members will start to feel, most terrifyingly, what it’s like to be in their shoes.

It’s too early to call Wan the Steven Spielberg of mainstream horror films, but he’s starting to build that kind of resume. The 39-year-old directed or co-directed the groundbreaking “Saw,” both “Insidious” movies and the superb and outstanding “The Conjuring.” (He also directed the flawed 2007 ventriloquist dummy film “Dead Silence” — James Wan’s “1941.”)

“The Conjuring 2” is a

Warner Bros. / AP

This image released by Warner Bros. shows, from left, Frances O’Connor, Madison Wolfe and Lauren Esposito in a scene from the New Line Cinema thriller, “The Conjuring 2.”

half step below its predecessor, but it’s still better than any mainstream horror film since “It Follows.” The drama returns “The Conjuring” exorcists Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real-life paranormal investigators tied to “The Amityville Horror.” The narrative makes brief reference to that case, before relocating to London in 1977, where a new demonic possession has occurred.

Wan and his co-writers take their time fleshing out the Hodgson family, to the point where it’s easy to forget that scares are coming. There’s single mother Peggy (Frances O’Connor) and four children bullied and living near poverty, the nicest of which (Madison Wolfe) gradually becomes overtaken by a demonic presence.

It’s a completely preposterous situation happening on screen, but the narrative still makes perfect sense in its own fictional universe. This family is earnest and loving, but also desperate, frayed and vulnerable. If you

were a demon, the Hodgsons are exactly the type of family you might choose to terrorize.

“The Conjuring 2” leans on more computer-generated scare-building than “The Conjuring,” but there is still an emphasis on practical effects. Use of shadows, camera focus and sound design are as important as any creature that appears on screen.

And even as things go off-the-rails horrifying, Wan always keeps one foot anchored in the humanity of the situation.

The police response, for example, is wisely played for comedy. Bonding between the Hodgsons and Warrens occurs naturally, with time for an impressive (and emotionally lifting) Elvis imitation by actor Patrick Wilson playing Ed. “The Conjuring 2” feels about 20 minutes too long, with one too many twists.

But the complaints are small, and easy to ignore in “The Conjuring 2.” And the rewards are plentiful.

This isn’t just a good horror film. It’s a good film.

By Bruce Schreiner and Claire Galofaro ASSOCIATED PRE SS

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The most famous man in the world sat down in a busy airport terminal with a little girl he’d never met, and the pair played pat-acake for 10 minutes.

That was 19 years ago.

Muhammad Ali was waiting for a flight in Charlotte, North Carolina, when he noticed the 3year-old girl and offered a hug. The child’s father, Louisville Metro Police Maj. Kelly Jones, still marvels at the encounter: Ali’s massive hand clapping his daughter’s tiny one.

Such stories spread this week across the city that raised the Louisville Lip, as dozens visited memorials or waited in line for tickets to services to say a final farewell to Ali, who died Friday at 74.

They recounted brushes with him at baseball games and at the barber shop; how he held them as a baby or wrapped his giant arms around their children. Even the tiniest moment seems tremendously special to the person who experienced it.

They touched The Greatest, they say. And in some way, it made them greater, too.

For 40 years, two black and white photos have hung on Joan Carter’s living room wall. In one, her 9-year-old daughter, her hair tied in pigtails and a spoon in her hand, looks over her shoulder as she reaches out to Ali, crouched on his knees.

The second photo captures the moment that came next: The handsome boxer swept the child up in his arms and kissed her cheek.

In October 1975, Ali stopped by the housing project where they lived in Louisville’s west end. A

John Rooney / AP

In this May 25, 1965, file photo, heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, stands over challenger Sonny Liston, in Lewiston, Maine.

crowd gathered to greet him, and the thrill of seeing him in the flesh is captured on the faces in the background of Carter’s framed photos.

The girl in the picture, Cheryl Carter Daniels, said she’s told the story again and again. “I always say, ‘and we’ve got the pictures to prove it.”’

Many people lined up Tuesday morning to get one of the 14,000 tickets to the Jenazah, a traditional Muslim funeral to be held Thursday at Freedom Hall. Someone had scribbled “Ali is love” in chalk with a heart around it on the pavement outside the box office. Tauhdedah El-Saadiq read the Quran as she waited for the office to open, while others napped. Tickets were handed out on a firstcome, first-served basis.

People will begin lining up at 6 a.m. Wednesday for tickets to Friday’s memorial at the KFC Yum! Center, where former President Bill Clinton will deliver the eulogy. The box office will open at 10 a.m. and close when all 15,000 tickets are claimed.

Sean Waddell Jr., Ali’s distant cousin, last saw Ali in September.

Ali was in town for a

ceremony at the Muhammad Ali Center. The 15year-old wasn’t sure if he’d ever see him again and wanted to leave nothing unsaid. So he went up to Ali, threw his arms around him and declared, “If there’s anybody I want to be like, it’s you.”

Ali’s wife, Lonnie, noticed the boy’s handsome face.

“Doesn’t he look just like you when you were young?” she asked her husband. “He’s so pretty.”

Ali, who battled Parkinson’s disease for decades, struggled to speak. But Waddell said he smiled.

“It was the coolest moment of my life.”

Jole Burghy didn’t realize her family’s place in history until she was in the second grade and her teacher gave them a reading assignment. The story was about Muhammad Ali, and it included a picture of her grandfather, a Louisville police officer who first taught a young Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, how to box.

Ali’s bicycle had been stolen and he wanted to find and whip the culprit.

He was introduced to Officer Joe Martin, who doubled as a boxing coach at a local gym.

THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 |

A11

FROM THE COVER MEXICO From page A1 ton.

Enrique Gutierrez Marquez, a political science professor at Mexico’s Ibero American University, said what occurred has to be seen as “a punishment vote.”

“There is a public perception that conditions in the country are getting worse, in terms of corruption and public safety,” he said.

The ruling party was particularly punished in states like Quintana Roo — where PRI governors built up one of the highest state debt levels in Mexico — and Veracruz, where more journalists have been killed in recent years than any other state.

“Some PRI governors have acted with such impunity that they resemble feudal lords in their realms,” said Gutierrez Marquez.

President Enrique Pena Nieto reacted philosophically, saying “anybody who competes in a democracy knows that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”

“As leaders, we should listen to and act on the message from the voters,” Pena Nieto said.

The big gains were for the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, which alone or in coalition picked up seven governorships.

The PAN wins included the border states of Chihuahua and Tamaulipas, and the central states of Aguascalientes and Puebla.

An unusual alliance between the PAN and the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, resulted in wins in the northern state of Durango, Quintana Roo and Veracruz.

“We’re back!” crowed PAN national leader Ricardo Anaya Cortes, referring to the party’s poor performance since losing the presidency to the PRI in 2012. In a statement, the party called the results “a firm and resounding step toward recovering the presidency in 2018.”

The number of states the party controls heading into 2018 will have a significant impact on the amount of resources it has and the

number of votes it can muster in the presidential contest.

PRI party leader Manlio Fabio Beltrones appeared resigned to the changing of the guard in states dominated by the PRI since 1929.

“The PRI celebrates the intense competition that is happening in the majority of the states, it’s a sign of the times,” Beltrones said.

But it was the PRI’s own weaknesses that spelled its doom in many states, like the narco-violence in Tamaulipas, where several ex-PRI governors have been implicated in money laundering scandals. The nationwide economic situation doesn’t help: the peso continues to devalue, and economic growth remains weak at around 2.5 percent.

The PRI lost the presidency in 2000 for the first time in 71 years and won it back in 2012. But Pena Nieto is suffering from low approval ratings, intense narco violence in parts of the country and what some see as a lack of commitment to fight corruption.

The PRI appeared to have won five of the governorships, in Sinaloa, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas and Oaxaca. However, they weren’t resounding victories. In two of the five states, the PRI won with only about a third of the vote.

The PRD was the biggest loser, winning no states outright, while the young, upstart Morena party made a healthy start, gaining votes but winning no governorships.

Voters were also deciding local races in Baja California. And in Mexico City, voters were selecting 60 members of a constituent assembly who will write a constitution for the capital.

In that race, the young, upstart Morena party won the most votes. Morena, started by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, replaced the PRD as the main left force in many states.

But it remains to see whether the opposition will remain so divided between one conservative party, two leftist ones, and several smaller parties — that it could allow the PRI to hold on to the presidency in 2018.

Trump takes New Jersey; Clinton, Sanders look to California

By Julie Pace and Ken Thomas ASSOCIATED PRE SS

LOS ANGELES — Already the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton pressed for victory in California and five other states Tuesday, while Bernie Sanders hoped a strong showing would raise doubts about her historic achievement and spur superdelegates to rally around him instead.

The Democratic race was coming to an end amid new turmoil in the Republican Party. GOP leaders recoiled at Donald Trump’s comments about a Hispanic judge, with one senator even pulling his endorsement of the presumptive GOP nominee. Trump insisted his words had been “misconstrued” as an attack on people of Mexican heritage.

Clinton secured the 2,383 delegates she needed for the nomination on the eve of Tuesday’s voting, according to an Associated Press tally. Her total is comprised of pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses, as well as superdelegates — the party officials and officeholders who can back a candidate of their choosing.

“We are at the brink of a historic, historic unprecedented moment,” she said during a rally in California on Monday.

Both Democratic candidates campaigned vigorously in California, each eager to capture the primary’s biggest prize. If the primary turned out to be close, the results might not be known Tuesday night; more than half of Californians vote by mail, and the deadline for returned ballots isn’t until Friday, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Clinton, a former New York senator, was favored in the night’s other big contest in neighboring New Jersey. Trump carried the Republican primary there, while it was too early to call the Democratic contest.

Elections were also being held in Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Clinton was waiting until most of the voting was complete before fully reveling in becoming the first woman nominated by a major U.S. political party. She was to address supporters at a victory party in Brooklyn, where her campaign planned to run a gauzy video highlighting the achieve-

Julie Jacobson / AP

Supporters for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hold up letters to spell the word, history, during a presidential primary election night rally, Tuesday in New York.

ments of women who helped clear a path.

Still, she was wasting no time moving toward the general election. Her campaign announced that she would make stops next week in Ohio and Pennsylvania, states that will be pivotal in November.

Sanders hoped a victory would help in his so-far-unsuccessful bid to get Clinton superdelegates to switch their support. Asked on NBC whether he was continuing that effort, he said, “We are. We’re on the phone right now.”

The superdelegates who were counted in Clinton’s total told the AP they were unequivocally supporting her.

Trump, after vanquishing his last opponents about a month ago, has continued to make controversial statements, frustrating party leaders.

The latest cause for GOP concern was his insistence that a judge handling a legal case involving the businessman was being unfair in his rulings. Trump has said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel can’t be impartial because the jurist’s parents were born in Mexico and Trump wants to build a wall along the border.

Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, who is locked in a close re-election fight, became the first lawmaker to pull his endorsement of Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan said the businessman’s assertion was the “textbook definition of a racist comment” but he would continue to support Trump.

Trump released a statement saying he does “not feel one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial.” But he still questioned whether he was receiving

MISS USA From page A1

TRUMP From page A1

five were asked about voting rights, income inequality and the recent death of sports icon Muhammad Ali. Fan favorite Miss California, Nadia Grace Mejia, had stumbled and paused when answering a question about social and economic inequality. The 20-year-old model, who is the daughter of the 1990s one-hit-wonder singer known as “Rico Suave,” had also talked about suffering from anorexia and wanting to promote body confidence earlier in the show.

The Fox network carried the three-hour broadcast.

Last year, the show aired on cable’s Reelz network.

The beauty pageant organization is bouncing back from a series of controversies last year, including a breakup with former owner Donald Trump and the mistaken crowning of Miss Universe.

At the start of Sunday’s show, Steve Harvey made a cameo in a video to poke fun of the Miss Universe crowning that he botched in December.

Harvey was hosting that event, also held in Las Vegas, and had mistakenly named Colombia’s Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo the winner before correcting himself on the stage. Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach of the Philippines was then given the crown. Officials later said it was due to human error. The talk show host said he had re-read the card and noticed it said “first runner-up” next to the Colombia contestant’s name before clarifying with producers his mistake.

As for Trump — who didn’t appear at Sunday’s Miss USA pageant — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee wasn’t

en and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for president regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party,” Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who is in a competitive reelection race, said in a statement.

“I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world,” Kirk said.

Kirk was the first leading Republican to publicly disavow earlier support for Trump. Most others, including Ryan, reaffirmed their plans to support him, but the situation exposed the peril for Republicans with the volatile and unpredictable Trump as their standardbearer. Time and again, they are forced to answer for Trump’s latest divisive comment, distracting from their own agendas as well as their goals of winning back the White House and hanging onto Senate control.

On Tuesday, Republicans were squirming over what might have been the billionaire’s most incendiary stance to date — the claim that Curiel couldn’t preside fairly over the Trump University case because the U.S.-born judge is of Mexican heritage and Trump wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

“I regret those comments he made. Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment,” Ryan said at a morning news conference where his attempts to focus on a new House GOP poverty-fighting agenda were overwhelmed by questions about Trump. “I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

“But do I believe Hillary Clinton is the answer? No, I do not,” Ryan said.

Others avoided the word racist but made their disapproval crystal clear.

“My advice to our nominee would be to start talking about the issues

Ethan Miller / Getty

Miss Texas USA 2016, Daniella Rodriguez attends the 2016 Miss USA pageant at the T-Mobile Arena on Sunday, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rodriguez was the only Mexican-American vying for the title this year.

forgotten by viewers on social media.

Perhaps as polarizing as his policy views were the reactions to the Miss USA show on Twitter. Some commented that the event was less campy and more boring than previous years without the brash billionaire’s involvement, while others said they were glad to take in the guilty-pleasure show without supporting the businessman turned politician.

A year ago, Trump set off an ugly break up with The Miss Universe Organization, then co-owned by Trump and NBCUniversal. Trump offended Hispanics last June when he made anti-immigrant remarks in announcing his bid for the White House.

NBC, which had aired the pageant since 2003, quickly cut business ties with Trump and refused to carry the 2015 show it had already scheduled. The Spanish-language network Univision also pulled out of the broadcast for what would have been the first of five years airing the pageants.

Trump then sued both Univision and NBC. He settled with NBC in September. Trump’s $500 million lawsuit against Univision claimed his First Amendment rights were violated, as well as claiming a breach of contract. That dispute was eventually settled, too.

The Zapata Times contributed to this report.

fair treatment in the case involving the now-defunct Trump University.

If some Republicans harbored hopes of edging Trump off the Republican ticket at the party convention, that was likely to be dashed in Tuesday’s uncontested GOP primaries. Trump should end the night with enough delegates who are required by party rules to vote for him, whatever their personal views.

His shaky support among Republicans stands in stark contrast to the Democratic leaders mobilizing behind Clinton.

The former secretary of state, first lady and senator secured support Tuesday from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who represents a California district. And Clinton will soon have help on the campaign trail from President Barack Obama. Her 2008 foe is to endorse her as early as this week, a move meant to signal to Sanders and his supporters that it’s time to unify behind her.

Obama and Sanders spoke by phone Sunday. While the content of the call is unknown, Sanders’ campaign has appeared to slightly soften its rhetoric since the call.

Dianne Feinstein of California said Sanders and Clinton should “march on to a general election together,” and any Sanders plan to keep fighting until the Democratic National Convention “is going to make that much more difficult.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said that for Sanders “I think the math is unforgiving.”

Sanders’ achievements have been remarkable for a candidate who was unknown to most Americans before the campaign.

the American people care about and to start doing it now,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “In addition to that it’s time, to quit attacking various people that you competed with, or various minority groups in the country and get on message.”

Ron Weiser, one of the recently named top fundraisers for Trump and the Republican Party, said the nominee’s comments on the judge are “obviously making it more difficult” to raise money.

Stanley Hubbard, a Minnesota broadcast company billionaire, recently gave $100,000 to a pro-Trump group and describes himself as a reluctant Trump backer. He said of Trump’s judge comments: “It’s ridiculous. He’s out of line. You don’t attack a federal judge, and you certainly don’t attack him on the heritage of his parents. It’s totally off the wall, and I don’t even have words to explain it.”

Only his fear of Democrat Hillary Clinton picking Supreme Court justices is enough to keep him giving money to Trump, Hubbard said.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the only black Republican senator, called Trump’s comments on the judge “racially toxic” yet said, “He needs to get on to the general election and we need to win.”

“Let’s face it, meet the old Trump, just like the new Trump,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who has long opposed the billionaire’s candidacy.

“We’ve got what we’ve got. That’s not somebody who can win the White House.”

“Where there’s no talk of a convention challenge or anything else, this might spur it,” Flake added of Trump’s comments on the judge.

Democrats ridiculed Republicans for denouncing Trump’s comments yet continuing to back the mogul, in evidence of how much ammunition Trump is giving them as they try to boost their own deeply flawed presumptive nominee in Clinton.

“If Republicans believe that a man who believes in religious and ethnic tests for federal judges is fit to be president of the United States, they must explain why this is an acceptable position,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

A12 | Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | THE ZAPATA TIMES