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A suspected drunk driv-er crashed into the gate ofthe Zapata County Shopover the weekend, accord-ing to state authorities.

The Texas Departmentof Public Safety identifiedthe man as Norberto Gar-za Jr., 23.

He is the son of ZapataCounty Pct. 4 Commis-

sioner Norberto Garza.He opted not to comment.

The crash was reportedat about 2:20 a.m. Satur-day at the county shop,where county vehiclesand other machinery aremaintained between Tex-as 16 and 12th Avenue.

DPS said there was mi-nor damage to the fence.Authorities alleged theyfound drugs in the vehi-cle, according to DPS.

Garza Jr. was chargedwith driving while intoxi-cated and possession ofmarijuana.

He was taken to the Za-pata County Jail, wherehe was later released on a$3,000 bond, according tothe Zapata County Sher-iff ’s Office.

(César G. Rodriguezmay be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmton-line.com)

TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Alleged drunkdriver crashes

Man smashed into the gate of county shop

GARZA

By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZTHE ZAPATA TIMES

A man was arrestedthis week for allegedlystealing a saddle, author-ities said.

On Wednesday, the Za-pata County Sheriff ’s Of-fice announced the arrestof Orlando Rocha. He wascharged with theft ofproperty.

Deputies responded toa reported stolen saddlefrom a barn in the 900block of Fresno Street.Rocha was employedthere, the Sheriff ’s Officesaid.

Reports state the Zapa-ta Crime Stoppers re-ceived an anonymous tipon the stolen saddle.

“The tipled to twosaddlesand asmallweldingmachine,whichwere

pawned at the localpawn shop by the sus-pect Orlando Rocha …”states the report.

Investigators said Ro-cha was identified asthe suspect in the case.Rocha was charged withtheft of property andtaken to the ZapataCounty Jail.

(César G. Rodriguezmay be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmton-line.com)

SHERIFF’S OFFICE

Suspectedsaddle thief

arrested By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ

THE ZAPATA TIMES

ROCHA

DELL CITY, Texas —Right where the Chihua-hua Desert meets theGuadalupe Mountains be-tween El Paso and Carls-bad, the unobtrusiveturnoff to Farm Road1437 sports a new signannouncing the entranceto Dell City, “A GrowingCommunity.”

The wording on thesign might be little morethan symbolic for a townthat’s less than a dot onthe map.

That’s because thesmall, isolated town thathas weathered more thaneight decades of life inthe middle of the WestTexas desert is not grow-ing. It’s changing. Itmight be dying, some say.It might not, according to

others.But it is changing.And it’s that change

that has some residentswondering if the formerfarming community ischanging its way out ofexistence as its popula-tion declines and ages.

“People are not thesame,” said Gerald Gen-try after finishing a plateof enchiladas at the Span-ish Angel Cafe, the

town’s lone restaurant.“Nowadays all these new-er people are moving inand asking, ‘What’s in itfor me? What can you dofor me?’ and that’s thechange people are talkingabout.”

When the 65-year-oldfarmer, whose skin is atough as a tanned hide,was born in Dell City in

DELL CITY, TEXAS

THE DISAPPEARINGWEST TEXAS TOWN

In this Feb. 26, 2016, photo, a sign promoting Dell City sits at the turnoff from Highway 62/180 in Dell City, Texas. Some residents arewondering if the former farming community is changing its way out of existence as its population declines and ages.

Photo by Mark Lambie/El Paso Times | AP

Dell City changes as population shrinksBy JESSICA ONSUREZ

EL PASO TIMES

See DELL CITY PAGE 11A

MEXICO CITY — Chok-ing smog returned to theskies of Mexico City thisweek at levels not seen inmore than a decade,prompting fears of moreeye-watering days to comeas efforts to curb pollutionrun afoul of the courts andthe realities of life.

The haze that shroudedthe second-largest city inthe Western Hemisphere forfour days never reached theworst periods in the 1980sand 1990s, but ultimately re-sulted from the fact thatthere are still too many carson the crowded streets.

“You have to recognizethat we are doing better, butit’s still not ideal,” JavierRiojas, a specialist in envi-ronmental sustainability atthe Universidad Iberoameri-cana, said Friday.

Authorities declared thecity’s first Phase 1 pollutionalert since 2005 on Mondaydue to high ozone levelsblamed on a thermal inver-sion, which traps airbornecontaminants from releas-

ing upward into the atmo-sphere. Mexico City typical-ly sees its worst air smogduring the winter-springdry season when warm, stillair settles in the high-alti-tude basin ringed by volcan-ic mountains.

At one point on Monday,the pollution index edgedpast 200 — double the levelconsidered acceptable butfar short of the record of 398set in March 1992.

Since the 1990s, MexicoCity has become a vastlydifferent place. Factorieshave been cleaned up ormoved away, leaded gasolinewas banned and toughemissions standards havebeen imposed on cars.

Despite much grumblingthe government imposed arule that forced cars morethan eight years old to stayparked for at least six dayseach month even if theypassed smog checks.

But the Supreme Courtlast year overturned thatrule, putting an estimatedadditional 1.4 million vehi-cles back on the streets,

POLLUTION ALERT

Smog blankets skyscrapers along Paseo de la Reforma in MexicoCity, Thursday.

Photo by Rebecca Blackwell | AP

Mexico Citybraces for

more smogChoking haze returned in very high

levels not seen in over a decadeBy PETER ORSI

ASSOCIATED PRESS

See SMOG PAGE 11A

PAGE 2A Zin brief SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

Saturday, March 19Easter Egg Hunt. 3 p.m. Bruni

Plaza Branch Library, 1120 San Bernar-do Ave. Free. Easter egg coloring,crafts, face painting, Easter bunny pic-tures, Easter egg hunt, food.

El Centro de Laredo FarmersMarket. 9 a.m.–1 p.m. Jarvis Plaza,1353 Matamoros St. Free and open tothe public. Fresh, local, seasonal pro-duce available for purchase. Live musicby Nixon Boys & DJ The Pop Rocks.Baile folklorico with Gabriela Garcia-Mendoza.

Emmy Award-winning sopranoAdrienne Danrich with Laredo Philhar-monic. 7:30–9:30 p.m. Recital Hall, TA-MIU. $15–$20. They will perform Hei-tor Villa Lobos’ Bachianas BrasileirasNo. 5 and Henry Purcell’s Dido’s La-ment.

“Jesus Christ Superstar.” 8 p.m.Laredo Little Theatre, 4802 ThomasAve.

Discover TAMIU. University-wideprogram offered to everyone. Allows afirst-hand perspective on the idealsrepresented within campus. For moreinformation, contact Raquel Urrutia at956-326-2273 or email at raquel.urru-tia@tamiu.edu.

Sunday, March 20“Jesus Christ Superstar.” 3 p.m.

Laredo Little Theatre, 4802 ThomasAve.

Monday, March 21Chess Club. Every Monday from

4–6 p.m. LBV – Inner City Branch Li-brary. Free for all ages and skill levels.Basic instruction is offered. For moreinformation call John at 956-795-2400x2520.

World Down Syndrome DayEvent. 10 a.m.–12 p.m. UISD CherishCenter at the United High School 9thGrade Campus, 8800 McPherson Road.Information will be distributed and par-ents can get a tour of the center. May-oral proclamation of WDSD will be at10 a.m.

Tuesday, March 22Knitting Circle. 1–3 p.m. McKen-

drick Ochoa Salinas Branch Library,1920 Palo Blanco St. Please bring yarnand knitting needles. For more infor-mation, contact Analiza Perez-Gomezat analiza@laredolibrary.org or 795-2400 x2403.

Crochet for Kids. 4–5 p.m.McKendrick Ochoa Salinas Branch Li-brary, 1920 Palo Blanco St. Pleasebring yarn and a crochet needle. Formore information, contact Analiza Pe-rez-Gomez at analiza@laredolibrary.orgor 795-2400 x2403.

Rock wall climbing. 4–5 p.m.LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W.Plum St. Free. Take the challenge andclimb the rock wall! Fun exercise for allages. Must sign release form. For moreinformation, contact John Hong at795-2400 x2521.

Lamar Bruni Vergara Planetariumshow. 5–7 p.m. TAMIU. Showings in-clude “Back to the Moon.” Open to thepublic. Admission for children and TA-MIU faculty and staff is $4. Generaladmission is $5 for adults. For moreinformation, contact Claudia Herrera at956-326-2463 or email at claudia.her-rera@tamiu.edu.

Wednesday, March 23Spanish Book Club. 6–8 p.m. La-

redo Public Library – Calton. For moreinformation, call Sylvia Reash at 763-1810.

Holi: Festival of Colors. 2–5 p.m.TAMIU’s Senator Zaffirini Student Suc-cess Center Green. Open to the TAMIUstudent community. For more informa-tion, contact Triana Gonzalez at 956-326-2565 or email triana.gonzalez@ta-miu.edu.

Thursday, March 24Preschool Read & Play. 11

a.m.–12 p.m. McKendrick Ochoa Sali-nas Branch Library, 1920 Palo BlancoSt. Story time and crafts for preschool-ers. For more information, contact Pris-cilla Garcia at priscilla@laredolibrary.orgor 795-2400 x2403.

Family Story Time & Crafts. 4–5p.m. McKendrick Ochoa Salinas BranchLibrary, 1920 Palo Blanco St. For moreinformation, contact Priscilla Garcia atpriscilla@laredolibrary.org or 795-2400x2403.

Solo organ performance by Dr.Colin Campbell. 12:15–1 p.m. TAMIU’sCenter of Fine & Performing Arts Re-cital Hall. Free and open to the TAMIUcommunity. For more information, callDr. Campbell at 956-326-3071 or emailcolin.campbell@tamiu.edu.

CALENDARASSOCIATED PRESS

Today is Saturday, March19, the 79th day of 2016. Thereare 287 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in His-tory:

On March 19, 1966, the Tex-as Western Miners defeatedthe heavily favored KentuckyWildcats, 72-65, to win theNCAA Championship playedin College Park, Maryland;making the contest especiallynoteworthy was that TexasWestern became the first bas-ketball team to start five blackplayers in a national titlegame as it faced an all-whiteKentucky squad.

On this date:In 1891, future California

governor and Chief Justice ofthe United States Earl Warrenwas born in Los Angeles.

In 1918, Congress approveddaylight saving time.

In 1920, the Senate rejected,for a second time, the Treatyof Versailles (vehr-SY’) by avote of 49 in favor, 35 against,falling short of the two-thirdsmajority needed for approval.

In 1931, Nevada Gov. Fred B.Balzar signed a measure lega-lizing casino gambling.

In 1941, Jimmy Dorsey andHis Orchestra recorded“Green Eyes” and “Maria Ele-na” for Decca Records.

In 1951, Herman Wouk’sWorld War II novel “The CaineMutiny” was first publishedby Doubleday.

In 1976, Buckingham Palaceannounced the separation ofPrincess Margaret and herhusband, the Earl of Snowdon,after 16 years of marriage.

In 1979, the U.S. House ofRepresentatives began televis-ing its floor proceedings; thelive feed was carried by C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite PublicAffairs Network), which wasmaking its debut.

In 1987, televangelist JimBakker resigned as chairmanof his PTL ministry organiza-tion amid a sex and moneyscandal involving JessicaHahn, a former church secre-tary.

In 1991, Polish PresidentLech Walesa arrived in Wash-ington for his first state visitto the United States.

In 2003, President George W.Bush ordered the start of waragainst Iraq.

Ten years ago: PresidentGeorge W. Bush marked theanniversary of the Iraq war bytouting efforts to build democ-racy there, without ever men-tioning the word “war.”

Five years ago: PresidentBarack Obama arrived in Bra-zil for the start of a three-country, five-day tour of LatinAmerica.

One year ago: Days afterwinning re-election, IsraeliPrime Minister Benjamin Ne-tanyahu backtracked fromhardline campaign statementsagainst the establishment of aPalestinian state in the face ofa diplomatic backlash.

Today’s Birthdays: Ac-tress Ursula Andress is 80.Singer Clarence “Frogman”Henry is 79. Singer RuthPointer (The Pointer Sisters)is 70. Actress Glenn Close is69. Film producer HarveyWeinstein is 64. Actor BruceWillis is 61. Actress-comedianMary Scheer is 53. PlaywrightNeil LaBute is 53. Actor Con-nor Trinneer is 47. Rock musi-cian Gert Bettens (K’s Choice)is 46. Rapper Bun B is 43. Rockmusician Zach Lind (JimmyEat World) is 40. Actress AbbyBrammell is 37. Actor CraigLamar Traylor is 27. ActorPhilip Bolden is 21.

Thought for Today: “Theheaviest baggage for a traveleris an empty purse.” — Ger-man proverb.

TODAY IN HISTORY

BOSTON — After a mild winter, a week-end storm is bearing down on the Northeastjust as residents are looking forward to Sun-day’s official start of spring.

Over 6 inches of accumulation is possible,mostly in New England and along coastalparts of the region. New York and Philadel-phia should at least get a few inches, fore-casters say.

“I was thinking that winter was over, but Ihave learned there is always a surprisearound the corner,” said Pete Kusinski, a 32-year-old Cambridge resident. “If it’s Monday,it’s really going to screw up the commute.But if it’s over the weekend, it’s less of a bigdeal.”

The snow should start Sunday morning inmid-Atlantic cities like Washington, D.C,

Philadelphia and New York, but higher tem-peratures should help mitigate snow accu-mulations, said Thomas Kines, a Pennsylva-nia-based meteorologist for AccuWeather.

“We’re most concerned with New Englandwith this storm,” Kines said. “I don’t thinkthere will be many problems in the D.C./Bal-timore area. New York, New Jersey and Phi-ladelphia is a little bit iffier.”

New England, in contrast, won’t see thebrunt of the inclement weather until Sundaynight, when temperatures drop.

And the snow could stick around throughMonday morning in New England, possiblycreating a messy commute and promptingschool cancellations, says Frank Nocera, aMassachusetts-based meteorologist for theNational Weather Service.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty, still a lotof moving parts,” he said.

AROUND THE NATION

Mark Ross, of Robbinsville, N.J., takes a lunch break on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Friday, during a business tripto Boston. Weather forecasters say residents of the mid-Atlantic and New England states may see a few inches of snowstarting Sunday -- the first day of spring -- and possibly continuing into the Monday morning commute.

Photo by Bill Sikes | AP

More wintry weather By PHILIP MARCELOASSOCIATED PRESS

Man pleads guilty forattempting to join IS

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Anorthern Virginia man admittedFriday that he attempted to jointhe Islamic State, going so far asto check in at the airport on aflight to Jordan before being ar-rested in what turned out to be asting operation.

Joseph Farrokh, 28, of Wood-bridge, pleaded guilty in U.S. Dis-trict Court to a single count ofconspiring to support a terroristgroup. He faces up to 20 years inprison when he is sentenced July15.

At Friday’s plea hearing, Far-rokh admitted he made arrange-ments to join the Islamic Statewith three men he believed wereISIL facilitators. In reality,though, the men were part of agovernment sting.

Farrokh first discussed his in-terest in joining ISIL with one ofthe three government sources athis own wedding reception, pros-ecutor Dennis Fitzpatrick said atFriday’s hearing.

Farrokh was arrested in Janu-ary after checking in at the Rich-mond airport on a flight itiner-ary that would have taken him toJordan.

In conversations recorded bythe FBI, Farrokh said he wantedto die a martyr. According to acourt affidavit, Farrokh told hisown mother, when she expressedconcern about his anger, that hewanted Allah to destroy Chris-tians and “make their faces burnin hell’s fire.”

Court records indicate thatFarrokh was wary of a govern-ment sting and worried that hisstatements could be fodder for acriminal prosecution, but he stillagreed to pledge allegiance to theIslamic state in front of the menwho turned out to be govern-ment sources.

A second defendant who alleg-edly helped Farrokh by drivinghim to the airport, MahmoudA.M. Elhassan of Woodbridge, re-mains jailed awaiting trial. AtFriday’s hearing, Fitzpatrick re-vealed new details about Elhas-san’s alleged involvement, sayingthat Elhassan planned to eventu-ally follow Farrokh and join the

Islamic State as well. Elhassan’s lawyer, Ashraf Nu-

bani, did not return a phone callFriday seeking comment.

Farrokh had initially beenscheduled to plead guilty Thurs-day, but prosecutors sought aone-day delay, saying that JusticeDepartment supervisors had notfully signed off on the deal. Pros-ecutors and defense lawyerswere hammering out the finalwording of the plea in the min-utes leading up to Friday’s hear-ing. In the final deal, both sidesagree that a “terrorism enhance-ment” should be applied to Far-rokh under federal sentencingguidelines. The terrorism en-hancement will greatly increasethe prison term recommendedunder federal guidelines, thoughthe judge is not obliged to followthose guidelines when he handsdown his sentence.

Also this week, another north-ern Virginia man, Mohamad Ja-mal Khweis of Alexandria, turn-ed himself in to Kurdish forcesafter entering the Islamic Stateand deciding to defect.

— Compiled from AP reports

Pianist finds daughtersdead, wife to be examined

BENBROOK, Texas — Anaward-winning concert pianistarrived at his estranged wife’shome to pick up their two daugh-ters and found the girls slain intheir beds, police said Friday. Au-thorities say their mother faces amental health exam.

Vadym Kholodenko stoppedThursday morning at the homewhere he formerly lived to pickup Nika, 5, and 1-year-old Miche-la, Benbrook police Cmdr. DavidBabcock said. The Ukrainian-born musician found his wife,Sofya Tsygankova, in an “ex-treme state of distress” and dis-covered the dead girls. The pian-ist then called 911, police said.

Kholodenko, a previous win-ner of the Van Cliburn Interna-tional Piano Competition in FortWorth, is not a suspect and iscooperating with police, Babcocksaid. Police said no suspectswere being sought in the deaths

of the girls or the stabbing ofTsygankova, who was recoveringFriday at a Fort Worth hospital.

“At this time we don’t believethat there’s any immediate riskto anybody in the neighbor-hood,” said Babcock. The wifewas being held on a mental

health evaluation, he said. Autopsy results were pending

on the children, who had no vis-ible trauma, police said. Tsygan-kova’s wounds were from a knife,said Babcock. He declined to saywhether a knife was recovered.— Compiled from AP reports

AROUND TEXAS

In this 2014 file photo, award-winning concert pianist Vadym Kholodenko, poseswith his wife Sofya Tsygankova and daughters Nika, 4, and Michela, at theirhome. Police say the two daughters of Kholodenko have been found slain.

Photo by Joyce Marshall/Star-Telegram | AP file

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The Zapata Times is distributed on Saturdays to 4,000households in Zapata County. For subscribers of the LaredoMorning Times and for those who buy the Laredo MorningTimes at newsstands, the Zapata Times is inserted.

The Zapata Times is free.The Zapata Times is published by the Laredo Morning

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CONTACT US

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 Local THE ZAPATA TIMES 3A

Zapata arrests (Feb. 28 — March 8)Andres Botello Jr.,drug possession

Andres Perez Jr.,marijuana posses-sion

Coronado GabrielBarrera, assault

Daniela NicoleLongoria, drugpossession

Edgar Alaniz, as-sault by threat

Francisco ManuelRios, marijuanapossession

Homero Resendez,no driver’s license

Jaime David Teja-da Jr., liquor vio-lation

Jose Francisco So-lis, property theft

Mario Alonso Ra-mos-Sanchez, dis-orderly conduct

Mario Medina Jr.,terroristic threat

Michael JamesGarcia, assault

A man was arrested forallegedly breaking into ahome and stealing severalitems, county authoritiessaid this week.

The suspect, RigobertoBarrientos, was chargedwith burglary of habita-tion. Barrientos, 39, re-mained at the ZapataCounty Regional Jail onFriday.

Zapata County Sheriff ’sOffice deputies respondedto a burglary call March 7in the 1500 block of Wesla-co Lane in the SiestaShores neighborhood.

Reports state that some-one forced the back doorto gain access.

Items stolen included a55-inch Vizio TV and a 42-inch TV with a built-inDVD player, green weedeater, an HP printer andabout $300.00 in change.

Authorities said they re-ceived an anonymous tipregarding the stolen items.The Sheriff ’s Office saidthey identified the suspectas Barrientos.

Reports state Barrientostook a television, aniPhone, metal bracelets, agreen weed eater and a

computer printer from in-side the home.

Investigators said theywere able to recover a 55-inch television, an iPhone

and eight-assorted coloredmetal bracelets.

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

Man arrested forburglarizing home

By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZTHE ZAPATA TIMES

A man was arrested for allegedly breaking into a home and stealingseveral items, such as an iPhone, camera and metal bracelets.

Courtesy photo

A man who allegedlypicked up illegal immi-grants in the San Ygnacioarea has been indicted ina federal court in Laredo,according to court docu-ments.

Hector Ramon Ortiz Jr.was charged with con-spiracy to transport un-documented immigrantswithin the United Statesand attempt to transportundocumented people formoney.

Ortiz could serve up to10 years behind bars if heis convicted.

U.S. Border Patrol de-tained Ortiz on Feb. 22.

Prior to the detention,agents said they had re-sponded to reports of a

silver Chevrolet Ava-lanche loading illegal im-migrants in the high rest

area of San Ygnacio.Agents requested as-

sistance from the WebbCounty Sheriff ’s Office toperform a traffic stop onthe Avalanche. Recordsstate the deputy pulledover the vehicle for dis-playing an expired buyertag and failing to signal alane change.

Upon approach, thedeputy discovered Ortizand eight Mexican citi-zens suspected of enter-ing the country illegally,court documents state.

In post-arrest state-ments, Ortiz allegedly ad-mitted to picking up theimmigrants for financialgain.

(César G. Rodriguezmay be reached at 728-2568 or cesar@lmton-line.com)

Man allegedly pickedup immigrants

By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZTHE ZAPATA TIMES Upon

approach, thedeputydiscoveredOrtiz andeight Mexicancitizenssuspected ofentering thecountryillegally.

The Zapata CountyChamber of Commercewould like to invite thecommunity to the Zapata

Court located at 200 E.7th Street.

Registration begins at9 a.m. and the meeting isset to start at 10 a.m.

County Democratic Con-vention.

The convention startstoday, March 19 2016 atthe Zapata County Court-house Commissioners

Convention today THE ZAPATA TIMES

PAGE 4A Zopinion SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

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

The Kurds of Syria an-nounced on Thursdaythat they are setting up afederal region — a movethat could help defeat theIslamic State in the heartof its caliphate in theSyrian city of Raqqa.

Of course the Assad re-gime denounced themove. But so did the U.S.-backed Syrian opposi-tion, while a State De-partment spokesman alsoexpressed disapproval.

Having just visited theSyrian Kurdish region(known as Rojava) — andhaving just interviewedone of Rojava’s top lead-ers, Salih Muslim — Ithink the naysayers aremistaken.

Here’s why.The Kurds are practi-

cally the only ally theUnited States has to fightthe Islamic State in Sy-ria. After the start of therebellion against the As-sad regime, Kurdish ac-tivists organized self-gov-erning structures in theirnorthern heartland, nearthe Turkish border.

They created three sep-arate cantons and latelylinked up two of them byousting Islamic Statefighters from interveningtowns (inhabited mainlyby Sunni Arabs). Muslimtold me the Kurds feltthey needed to expandtheir governing systemin order to administerthe new territory. Theirself-declared region willbe called Rojava andNorth Syria, to empha-size that it doesn’t onlyinvolve Kurds.

This move will impactU.S. efforts to fight the Is-lamic State in Syria.

Washington linked upwith Syrian Kurds be-cause they were focusedon fighting the IslamicState, which threatenstheir region. Syrian Arabrebels backed by theUnited States, on the oth-er hand, were far moreinterested in battling As-sad than taking on the ji-hadis.

The more secular Syr-ian Kurds producedtough fighters, includingall-female units. So theObama administrationbegan supporting themwith air strikes, and sentin 50 U.S. special forces tocoordinate.

This gets complicated.NATO ally Turkey is neu-ralgic over U.S. help toRojava, because Kurdishleaders have historic tiesto Turkey’s Kurdish re-bels known as the PKK(Washington considersthe PKK a terrorist or-ganization, but not theSyrian Kurds, a distinc-tion I believe is correct.)

But if the West wantsto defeat the Islamic Stateit needs the Kurds of Ro-java. Which brings me towhy their creation of afederal region is a goodthing.

In order to liberateRaqqa (a Sunni Arabtown) from the IslamicState jihadis, Kurds needto ally with local Arabfighters. A purely Kur-dish force might scare lo-cal Sunnis into standingby the Islamic State.

Kurdish officials alsoneed to convince SunniArabs in the areas al-ready liberated, as wellas in Raqqa, that theKurds won’t seek revengeagainst them after the Is-lamic State is gone. Thereis also the question ofwho will govern liberatedSunni Arab areas to pre-vent the next variant onthe Islamic State from

taking root.Some Sunni Arab

fighters, along withChristians and other mi-norities, have joinedKurds in the so-calledSyrian DemocraticForces (SDF). But therearen’t enough Arabs for aRaqqa offensive.

"Our priority is to lib-erate Raqqa," Salah Mus-lim told me, in an inter-view at a forum spon-sored by the AmericanUniversity of Iraq, Sulai-mani. "But we need Arabfighters."

I asked whether thisnew federal arrangementmight encourage moreArab fighters to join theSDF. Muslim quickly re-sponded, "Surely."

"We also have to thinkwho will be there after-wards to govern," he add-ed. "We need Arab Sun-nis who would adminis-trate these areas."

At minimum, the fed-eral region will give localArabs a chance to testthe Kurds’ bona fides.Muslim told me that Syr-ian Kurds had just con-vened a conference with200 Sunni and other mi-nority leaders and chosena 31-person committee toset up an administrationfor new areas liberatedfrom the Islamic State.

On my trip to Rojava Ibriefly attended a prepar-atory meeting for thisconference. I asked oneSunni attendee, Mo-hammed Bonian, hisopinion about the newdispensation. "We want tokeep Syria united," hesaid, "but with a federalsystem where everyonehas their rights." He add-ed that Sunnis were "notfor division by ethnicgroup."

This new federal re-gion will test whetherKurds can live up to sucha promise, and whetherSunni Arabs will feeltheir rights are protected.Muslim told me that, ifthe system works, therecould be "another confer-ence to decide for all Sy-ria" whether a federalsystem would work forthe whole country.

The concept of federal-ism is already beingwidely discussed by Syr-ians as a possible way toend the fighting in the fu-ture. So even if no onepresently recognizes theKurds’ new region, theyare leading the way.

Skeptics have askedwhy the Syrian Kurdswould want to expendblood liberating Raqqa.After all, their first prior-ity has been to link uptwo of the three Kurdishcantons with the third,Afrin, which is under Is-lamic State (and Turkish)siege.

Muslim told me thatboth Afrin and Raqqa areKurdish priorities. "Raq-qa is important to us be-cause all the attacks onus come from Raqqa," hesaid. "Our people won’taccept that those extre-mists remain there. Wewant to be safe in ourhomes."

If declaring a federalregion can help SyrianKurds convince SunniArab fighters to jointhem in liberating Raqqa,it is a development Wash-ington should be support-ing.

Yes, the declarationmay be premature, butfederalism is probablywhere Syria is headed. Sotwo cheers for the federalregion of Rogava andNorth Syria, with a thirdreserved until we seewhether the Kurds canmake it work.

COLUMN

Supportingthe Kurdish

regionBy TRUDY RUBIN

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

OTHER VIEWS

The Zapata Times doesnot publish anonymousletters.

To be published, lettersmust include the writer’sfirst and last names aswell as a phone numberto verify identity. The

phone number IS NOTpublished; it is used sole-ly to verify identity andto clarify content, if nec-essary. Identity of the let-ter writer must be veri-fied before publication.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY

DOONESBURY | GARRY TRUDEAU

Could John Kasich besingle-handedly destroy-ing a political party?

Either by helping Do-nald Trump win the Re-publican nomination orby dragging the party intoan ugly contested conven-tion, Kasich seems to becausing a lot of trouble.

Serious presidentialcandidates normally leavethe race when they nolonger have a chance towin. This is an importantpart of how the nomina-tion system functions. Iflosers drop out, then vot-ers in subsequent states— voters who might notfollow politics enough toknow which candidatesare serious contendersand which aren’t — won’twaste their voters on thealso-rans.

Winnowing is how mostnomination fights are de-cided: Eventually, onlyone candidate, the winner,remains. That’s importanttoo, because (as we’relearning now) the nation-al conventions aren’t real-ly well-equipped to func-tion as decision-makingbodies. Decisions are sup-posed to be made in theprimaries and caucuses.

For a nomination sea-son that has seemedchaotic at times, winnow-ing has — with this oneexception — proceeded ex-

actly as one would expect.Fears that super PACs orsocial media or whateverelse would disrupt thenormal functioning of thesystem proved mostly un-founded. Scott Walker,Chris Christie, Jeb Bush,Ben Carson, Marco Rubio:All of them proved capa-ble of raising plenty ofmoney, but none of themsurvived defeats at thepolls.

Except for John Kasich.The Ohio governor

chose to campaign as amoderate, despite havingat least as conservative arecord as previous GOPcandidates such as JohnMcCain and Mitt Romney,or as Chris Christie andJeb Bush in the currentcycle. Kasich instead cam-paigned as if he were JonHuntsman, the formerUtah governor who ran in2012: by emphasizing hisdifferences with conserva-tive orthodoxy, instead ofpapering them over.

Kasich then chose toskip Iowa and focus onNew Hampshire. Thisstrategy has never pro-duced a nominee since theIowa caucuses became thefirst contest back in 1972.Candidates don’t have towin in Iowa, but they dohave to compete there.

After Iowa, there hasnever been a point wherehe should have remainedin the race:

In New Hampshire,

his 16 percent was disap-pointing: second place,but well behind DonaldTrump, and only match-ing the 17 percent Hunts-man won in 2016.

South Carolina (8 per-cent of the vote) and thenNevada (4 percent) werewipeouts.

On Super Tuesday, helost one state he cam-paigned in — Vermont —and was clobbered in theother, Massachusetts.Meanwhile, he won lessthan 10 percent of the votein the other nine states.

He targeted Michiganon March 8 and managedto finish third there,while ignoring (and los-ing) several other statesin the first half of themonth.

Even on March 15,when he won in his ownOhio, he failed to impressoverall, placing a distantthird in Illinois and worsein the other three states.

Yet Kasich’s choice tostay in the race has mat-tered. There’s a decent ar-gument that he single-handedly destroyed Rubio,who almost certainlywould have had manymore delegates if Kasichhad dropped out when itmade sense to.

And his current cam-paign makes no sense atall. Kasich inexplicablydeclined to debate TedCruz on March 21 afterDonald Trump dropped

out of that debate, thuscosting both candidates adecent-sized opportunityto impress voters.

Even weirder is his de-cision to campaign inUtah before that state’scaucuses on March 22.Utah has a 50 percent win-ner-take-all trigger, and isthought to be a good Cruzstate. If Kasich wants acontested convention, heneeds Cruz to get that 50percent and win all ofUtah’s delegates, therebylocking out Trump. TheOhio governor has otherstates where he should bedevoting his limited re-sources.

It’s as if his campaignstrategist was a Magic 8Ball.

If only Cruz and Trumpremained, it’s possibleTrump would just win.Cruz hasn’t shown theability to win the votes ofanyone but the most con-servative Republicans,and perhaps he can’t. The-oretically, Kasich andCruz could coordinatetheir efforts to focus oneach candidate’s strengths(even given that Kasich’sstrengths are still largelytheoretical at this point).But apparently neither ofthese would-be Trumpstoppers plays any betterwith others than does theman they’re chasing.

All in all, Trumpcouldn’t have asked for abetter opponent.

COLUMN

Kasich staying in the raceonly damages his party

By JONATHAN BERNSTEINBLOOMBERG VIEW

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 State THE ZAPATA TIMES 5A

SEALY, Texas — Joey Roma-no, a Houstonian who hasworked in real estate develop-ment and in the renewable en-ergy field, is combining the twoin his newest project: a 12-acresolar farm 50 miles west ofHouston.

Romano refers to his new en-deavor as “farm-to-market solarenergy,” borrowing a phrasetypically associated with coun-try roads or, in the foodie world,with organically grown fruitsand vegetables.

The recently completed solarplant stands in stark contrast tothe rural properties alongside itwhere horses roam amid stacksof hay.

“It’s on an FM road, but it’s asimilar model to farmers takingtheir produce to market,” Roma-no told the Houston Chronicle,squinting under the bright sunon a recent visit to the site.

Unlike traditional solar pro-grams, he said, the farm-to-mar-ket approach will give consum-ers the ability to buy electricityharvested from a local farm.The project has the capacity topower 300 homes within Center-Point’s distribution area.

Romano wants the farm to bea place where his customersand locals can visit. He plans tohold events there, partneringwith other like-minded busi-nesses or non-profits, and hosteducational tours though areaschools.

“We want to make it a spacewhere customers can come outand see where their electricityis produced,” said Romano,president of Harvest Moon Re-newable Energy Co., a family-run business. “We plan to havehoney bees out there and wild-flowers.”

Their farm is on FM 3013 justsouth of Interstate 10 in AustinCounty.

It was previously pastureland, like much of the propertyaround it.

“There are a lot of great siteslike this that would be primefor this type of low-impact de-velopment where it otherwisewould be farmland,” Romanosaid. “And that’s kind of the

model. When we call it farm-to-market solar energy we’re try-ing to take the model that’s outthere in terms of local farmers,family farms that are planting,harvesting and bringing it tomarket.”

Solar is booming across thestate amid lower costs and reg-ulations and growing consumerenthusiasm about the environ-ment.

While the biggest solar plantsare in West Texas, smaller onesranging from 15 to 30 mega-watts have been built in Austin,San Antonio, Dallas and FortWorth as local utilities have of-fered rebates and other incen-tive programs to encourage so-lar development.

Houston hasn’t seen those in-centives and therefore has hadlittle of the expansion, saidLuke Metzger, director of Envi-ronment Texas, an Austin-basedenvironmental advocacy group.

But with solar having be-come much less expensive, theincentives are no longer asmuch of an issue, he said. Plus,an investment tax credit was re-cently renewed on the federal

level.“With the new tax credit be-

ing renewed, and the fact thatsolar is cheap now and with thepublic appetite for solar, theycould make some money on itwhile also doing good,” Metzgersaid.

Harvest Moon’s solar arraywas installed and completed atthe end of last year. It includesabout 15,000 panels that camproduce 1.5 megawatts of power.

Robust transmission lines al-ready exist in the area, in partbecause of a large Wal-Mart dis-tribution center nearby.

The installation was remark-ably simple, Romano said.

The panels, each able to pro-vide about 100 watts of electric-ity, are relatively light. Theyclamp together and are mount-ed to 1,000 poles built into theground. The system is designedto sustain high winds of 150miles per hour.

All that’s left to do on theproperty, Romano said, is “dressit up.”

There will be parking addedfor visitors and room for peopleto gather. But there won’t be

any flashy signs or lights.Romano said he prefers to

keep it low key.He’s taken the same ap-

proach to other his projects.Before the Sealy project

came along, Romano spent sev-eral years developing solar-powered shipping containers.In 2011, he developed a smallapartment building in Mon-trose where he incorporated so-lar power, a rainwater collec-tion system and a green roof.

Harvest Moon partneredwith MP2 Energy, a retail elec-tricity provider based in TheWoodlands, to market the solarenergy through a fully renew-able power plan.

The plan is designed in partfor those who are interested inrenewable energy but can’t putsolar panels on their homes oroffices because they rent, orthey don’t want to commit tothe upfront costs in case theyhave to move.

“It’s a low-risk way to en-gage in solar,” said MauraYates, vice president of sustain-able solutions with MP2 Ener-gy.

The company is marketingHarvest Moon’s farm-to-marketprogram as a fixed-rate plan forfive years to hedge against fu-ture price increases. There’s nopenalty to cancel.

For consumers, the costworks out to be between 12 and13 cents per kilowatt hour, com-parable to other renewableplans. Commercial customerscan have plans tailored to theirneeds.

“While that’s higher thanwhat other retail electric pricesgo for today if natural gas pric-es go up again it’s possible youcould end up saving money byhaving locked in these rates,”Metzger said.

The way the system works isthat Harvest Moon sells thepower directly to MP3, whichthen blends it with other powerfrom renewable plants in Texasthat the retailer manages, in-cluding landfill gas plants, windfarms and biomass facilities.

Nationwide, solar is gaininghuge traction in the electricitymarket.

A recent report from the U.S.Energy Information Adminis-tration said that for the firsttime more large-scale solarfarms are expected to be builtthis year than any other powersource. A good bit of thatgrowth is in West Texas wherewide-open landscapes bake un-der the sun.

Still, solar only accounts forabout 1 percent of the nation’stotal power supply, the EIAsaid.

Harvest Moon’s Sealy project,which cost about $3 million tobuild, is small potatoes com-pared to the big solar plants.

“There are people out in thedesert doing 100 megawatts,”Romano said. “We’re a familycompany. It fits our scale.”

Romano sees the Sealy farmas one of many long-term in-vestments for the family busi-ness, like the apartment build-ing, which was financed withfamily money.

“It’s things we feel like willbenefit the community longterm, be financially sustaina-ble, but something at the end ofthe day we can feel proud of,”he said.

Solar farm uses the sun on a small scaleBy NANCY SARNOFFHOUSTON CHRONICLE

In a March 4, 2016 photo, Joey Romano talks about his solar farm in Sealy, Texas. Romano’s family company, Harvest MoonRenewable Energy Co., has developed a 12-acre solar farm with more than 15,000 solar panels.

Photo by Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle | AP

BÚSQUEDA CASCARONESDE PASCUA

La Comisión de Par-ques y Entretenimiento deRoma, Texas. Invita a la 4ªBúsqueda de Cascarones dePascua el sábado 19 de mar-zo a partir de las 10 a.m. enel Parque Municipal Roma.Habrá comida, premios, jue-gos y fotografías con el Co-nejo de Pascua.

CHARREADASe llevará a cabo la

cuarta charreada anual a be-neficio de la Cruz Roja Mexi-cana en Miguel Alemán, Mé-xico.

La cita es el domingo 20de marzo en el Lienzo Cha-rro de la colonia Linda Vista,a partir de las 4 p.m.

Participará la Asociaciónde Charros del Rancho Nue-vo H.G. de Reynosa, Méxicoy la Asociación de CharrosLa Ribereña, quienes realiza-rán nueve suertes. Igualmen-te se tendrá la presencia dela Escaramuza Charra Juvenilde Reynosa, y la EscaramuzaCharra Infantil de MiguelAlemán.

El costo es de 20 pesospor persona, y los niñosmenroes de 10 años entrangratis. Todo lo recaudaro sedestinará a la Cruz Roja.

ZUMBATÓNEl jueves 24 de marzo

se celebrará un Zumbatónen la Presa Falcón por el la-do de Nueva Ciudad Guere-rro. El objetivo es apoyar enlos gastos médicos de unafamilia de ésa ciudad. Ins-tructores certificados ofrece-rán la clase. Costo: 50 pe-sos, adultos; y 10 pesos, ni-ños. Adquiera su boleto conDivas de Zumba.

Por otra parte se estarárifando un “Kit de Pachan-ga” que consta de un kilode carne, una bolsa de pollo,surtido de bebidas, y unabolsa de carbón. Costo: 50pesos.

B&G CLUB DE ZAPATA PIDE APOYO

El Boys and Girls Clubde Zapata tiene proyectadouna búsqueda de cascaronesde pascua para sus integran-tes el viernes 25 de marzo.Por esta razón están solicit-nado el apoyo de los padresde familia y comunidad engeneral para que donen cas-carones de pascua o snacks.Informes en el 956-765-3892.

FIESTAEl Gobierno de Nueva

Ciudad Guerrero, México, in-vita a disfrutar los eventospor las Vacaciones de Sema-na Santa 2016 el viernes 25de marzo a partir de las 10a.m. en el Parque NuevoAmanecer.

BRAVO FESTLa ciudad de Miguel

Alemán, México, invita alevento “Bravo Fest” del 25al 27 de marzo en las már-genes del Río Bravo, debajodel puente internacional queconecta con Roma, Texas.

El festival tiene como ob-jetivo promover el turismolocal y regional, especial-mente en el Valle de Texas.

PINTA DE BARDASLa comisión de agua

de Miguel Alemán, México,premió a los tres primeroslugares del concurso “Pintade Bardas”. Alumnos del Jar-dín de Niños Las Américasobtuvieron el premio de3.000 pesos; el Jardín de Ni-ños Mi Aventura, 2.000 pe-sos; y el Jardín de Niños Ea-gle College y el Mundo delos Niños, recibió 1.000 pe-sos, al haber quedado enprimer, segundo y tercer lu-gar, respectivamente. Con“Pinta de Bardas” los alum-nos tuvieron que participaren pintar la barda de sus es-cuelas donde destacaron elmensaje de cuidar el agua.

Agendaen Breve

Una persona sospechosa deconducir intoxicada se estrellócontra la cerca de ZapataCounty Shop el fin de semanapasado, de acuerdo con autori-dades estatales.

El Departamento de Seguri-dad Pública de Texas identificóal hombre como Norberto GarzaJr., de 23 años de edad.

Se trata del hijo del Comisio-nado del Precinto 4 en el Conda-

do de Zapata, Nor-berto Garza. El fun-cionario no quisorealizar comenta-rios.

El accidente fuereportado alrede-dor de las 2:20 a.m.del 12 de marzo en

la tienda del condado entre Texas16 y 12th Avenue, donde vehículosy otra maquinaria del condadoreciben mantenimiento.

DPS dijo que se reportó dañomínimo a la cerca. De acuerdo

con DPS, autoridades sostuvieronque encontraron drogas en el ve-hículo.

Garza Jr. fue acusado con con-ducir intoxicado y posesión demarihuana.

Fue trasladado a la Cárcel delCondado de Zapata, de donde pos-teriormente salió libre bajo fian-za de 3.000 dólares, de acuerdocon la Oficina del Alguacil delCondado de Zapata.

(Localice a César G. Rodriguezen el 728-2568 o en cesar@lmtonli-ne.com)

DPS: HIJO DE COMISIONADO SE IMPACTÓ CONTRA CERCA

Dobleacusación

POR CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZTIEMPO DE ZAPATA

GARZA JR.

PÁGINA 6A Zfrontera SÁBADO 19 DE MARZO DE 2016

Fue inaugurada la sala de con-trol del poder judicial del estadola cual dará servicio a los muni-cipios ubicados en la zona ribere-ña que conforman la quinta re-gión judicial de Tamaulipas.

La sala de control del nuevosistema de justicia penal se ubicaen Miguel Alemán, México, y elobjetivo es brindar servicios dedefensoría pública, procuración eimpartición de justicia regionali-zada, de acuerdo con un comuni-cado de prensa del Gobierno deTamaulipas.

En la citada ubicación seránatendidos casos relativos a 86 de-litos, y se implementarán los jui-cios orales que la nueva legisla-ción ordena homologar para ju-nio en todo México.

“Con esto no solo daremos co-bertura territorial, sino que conel concurso de nuestro capitalhumano… daremos cumplimien-to a lo que nos mandata la Cons-titución”, dijo el Gobernador Egi-dio Torre Cantú. “En el fortaleci-miento de este nuevo sistema, lainfraestructura juega un papelfundamental”.

En la ceremonia estuvo pre-sente Hernán de la Garza Tamez,Magistrado Presidente del Supre-mo Tribunal de Justicia; IsmaelQuintanilla Acosta, ProcuradorGeneral de Justicia; Manuel Mi-randa Castro, Secretario Técnicopara la Implementación del Nue-vo Sistema de Justicia Penal yRamiro Cortés Barrera, Presi-dente Municipal de Miguel Ale-mán.

La sala de control del nuevosistema de justicia penal cuentacon oficinas de la ProcuraduríaGeneral de Justicia, MinisterioPúblico, Instituto Tamaulipecode Defensoría Pública, Poder Ju-dicial del Estado y salas de jui-cios orales.

De igual forma, Torre Cantúvisitó Ciudad Mier, México, don-de inauguró un parque de barrioy recorrió la nueva museografíaen el Museo Casa de los FrijolesPintos.

MIGUEL ALEMÁN, MX

El Gobernador de Tamaulipas, EgidioTorre Cantú, y el Presidente Municipal deMiguel Alemán, Mexico, Ramiro Cortés,encabezaron la ceremonia de inaugurac-ión de la sala del nuevo sistema de justi-cia penal en Tamaulipas en la ciudadfronteriza.

Foto de cortesía

Abresala delpoder

judicialTIEMPO DE LAREDO

En 1829 Fernando VII en-vía al brigadier Isidro Ba-rradas, acompañado de3.000 huestes, a Veracruzcon la encomienda de re-conquistar México.

Barradas emprende lamarcha rumbo al río Pánu-co, para después decidirocupar y concentrarse enTampico.

Resuelto a combatirlo,Antonio López de SantaAnna se posiciona en Pue-blo Viejo. Realiza impru-dentes operativos y cerca

está de caer prisionero. Ma-nuel Mier y Terán afina lacontraofensiva. En conse-cuencia, los reconquistado-res son quebrantados por elhambre y enfermedadestropicales, quedando redu-cidos a dos únicos emplaza-mientos, en la urbe porteñay La Barra, respectivamen-te.

Aunque los adversariosdoblan sus manos, lejos derendirse en forma abierta,prefieren hacerlo bajo cier-tos términos. Es decir, recu-rren a la capitulación, quepresupone en lo militar dosrequisitos insoslayables:una retirada honrosa y es-tablecer por escrito losacuerdos. El convenio essuscrito y ratificado el 11 deseptiembre de 1829.

Tanto a Santa Anna co-mo a Mier les cabe el méri-to de la capitulación. El

mismo 11 de septiembre,Santa Anna reporta a la su-perioridad que “Los orgu-llosos españoles […] maña-na […] abatirán sus bande-ras”. Evitemos ahondar porel momento y concedámos-le nomás que para el día si-guiente estaba previstocumplir algunos compromi-sos”.

Después el sábado 19 deseptiembre escribe “He or-denado […] un inventario[…] de las banderas […] ydemás útiles […] tomadosal enemigo […] El coronel[…] José Antonio Mejía” y“mis ayudantes” presenta-rán “dos banderas y un pa-bellón español”.

Dos años después publicasus memorias.

“El 11 de septiembre de1829… la división” invasora“me entregaba sus armas ybanderas”. Detectemos las

discrepancias. Primero an-ticipa que el sábado 12 “losorgullosos españoles […]abatirán sus banderas”.Luego suelta que los pendo-nes le fueron “tomados alenemigo”. Y acaba por refe-rir que el 11, no el 12, lafuerza hispana “me entre-gaba” dichos lábaros..

Varios elementos des-piertan suspicacias. Capitu-lar –enfatizan los especialis-tas—se justifica si garantizael honor castrense de los ca-pitulantes. Ello queda enduda al producirse el abati-miento, la entrega o la to-ma de las máximas insig-nias.

Puede aducirse que el su-puesto convenio de 1829 ensu artículo 2 contempla: el“general español […] entre-gará las armas, banderas ycajas de guerra” o tambo-res. En otra versión del si-

glo XIX, el propio artículo 2indica: el “general español[…] entregará las armas ycajas de guerra” – excluyen-do los pendones.

Siendo que era imposibleque estos últimos pasaran adominio contrario al mar-gen de Barradas, y que aSanta Anna solo le interesa-ba torcer las estipulaciones,lo anterior sugiere oscurosarreglos entre ambos.

En 2010 el gobierno me-xicano recibe de Españados antiguas banderas in-surgentes. Cede en recipro-cidad el par de piezas quecomentamos. Una, de mane-ra definitiva, y presta laotra durante cinco años.Vistas las circunstancias,nos convino el intercambio.

(Con permiso del autor se-gún fuera publicado en LaRazón de Tampico, México,el 4 marzo 2016)

COLUMNA

Banderas españolas tenían origen turbioNota del Editor: Durante

un tiempo México conservódos banderas españolas.Eran de tropas que buscabanrevertir la independencia na-cional, pero al no lograrlo de-bieron moverlas.

POR RAÚL SINENCIO CHÁVEZESPECIAL PARA TIEMPO DE ZAPATA

La Interestatal 10 seguía cerradala mañana del viernes en ambasdirecciones en la zona fronterizaentre Texas y Luisiana y cerca delrío Sabine, ante la continua ame-naza de inundaciones en el área.

El miércoles, el Departamentode Transporte de Texas ordenó elcierre de los carriles hacia el estecuando el agua se esparció por laautopista. En Luisiana, sus homó-logos tuvieron que cerrar el mar-tes los carriles hacia el oeste. No sesabe cuándo reabrirán esa vía.

Se cree que el desbordamientodel río Sabine ha alcanzado su ni-vel culminante y se espera el aguaretroceda en pocos días, de acuerdocon TxDOT. Cuando la inundación

concluya, trabajadores inspecciona-rán el pavimento y los puentes pa-ra garantizar que el tránsito en esacarretera no corre peligro. No obs-tante, la autopista puede permane-cer cerrada por días.

Autoridades revelaron que es po-sible llueva más en la región estasemana y durante el fin de sema-na, lo que aumenta los temores deque se produzcan más inundacio-nes.

El Servicio Nacional de Meteo-rología indicó que la región podríarecibir hasta una pulgada adicio-nal de lluvia, pero que es posibleque esto no aumente las inundacio-nes. Hace varios días, esa área es-tuvo anegada en agua debido a lastormentas que azotaron la zona.

El agua liberada por el reservo-rio Toledo Bend, al norte de la I-10,

fluye cuesta abajo y ha contribuidoa las inundaciones.

Otras rutas entre Texas y Luisia-na también están cerradas. Lospuentes sobre el río Sabine, en lasautopistas 12 y 63, también perma-necen cerrados.

Los conductores que viajen ha-cia el este y el oeste deben tomar laInterestatal 20 hasta nuevo aviso.

En el caso de los que viajan porI-10, de oeste a este, existen reco-mendaciones según el punto departida. Desde El Paso tome I-20East de Van Horn; desde San Anto-nio tome I-35 North hacia I-20 Easta Shreveport; desde Houston tomeUS 59 North hacia I-20 East a Shre-veport; desde Beaumont tome US96 North para US 69 North despuésa US 59 North y finalmente a I-20East a Shreveport.

FRONTERA TEXAS-LUISIANA

CIERRE DE CAMINO

El oficial Jeff Cox toma fotos mientras patrulla la zona inundada por las aguas del río Sabine, el miércoles, en Deweyville.

Foto por Brett Coomer | Houston Chronicle

Existe temor de que llueva nuevamentePOR DALE LEZON

LA VOZ DE HOUSTON

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 National THE ZAPATA TIMES 7A

MINEOLA, N.Y. — A suburbanNew York foster parent who caredfor up to 140 boys over the pasttwo decades has beencharged with sexuallyabusing seven of themand prosecutors saythere are more victims.

Cesar Gonzalez-Mu-gaburu, 59, of Ridge,New York, on Long Is-land, was ordered heldon $1 million bond Fri-day after beingcharged in a 17-countindictment with childendangerment and sexual miscon-duct. He is accused of victimizingchildren as young as 8. He is alsoaccused of sexually abusing a fe-male dog in front of a child lastSeptember.

His attorney did not immediate-ly return a telephone messageseeking comment.

Suffolk County District Attor-ney Thomas Spota told The Asso-ciated Press that Gonzalez-Muga-buru earned as much as $18,000 amonth as a foster parent for thechildren. He cared for between sixand eight children at a time sinceat least 1996, the prosecutor said.

Some of the foster children,some of whom were developmen-tally disabled, were subsequentlyadopted by Gonzalez-Mugaburu,although Spota said he did not im-mediately have details on howmany.

He said prosecutors were onlyable to charge Gonzalez-Mugaburuwith abusing seven children in theindictment unsealed Friday, be-cause statute of limitations lawsprevent filing charges involvingother victims. He said two boyscame forward in January and re-ported the alleged abuse to a case-worker, who contacted police. De-tectives then launched a wider in-vestigation.

“We know there were other vic-tims,” Spota said.

He said that when Gonzalez-Mu-

gaburu was brought in for ques-tioning, he called a 28-year-oldadoptee. When that adoptee wentto a police station, detectives toldhim about the allegations and thatman began cooperating with inves-

tigators.“That opened the flood-

gates,” the prosecutorsaid.

Spota said it appearsthe boys were shelteredfrom the community, andwere not permitted to par-ticipate in extracurricularactivities at school, norany athletics programs.He said he children werefed twice a day and were

made to eat on the floor.“He’s trying to devise every way

he can to keep these kids con-tained,” Spota said.

Authorities the foster childrenwere placed in his care by Brent-wood, New York, non-profit St.Christopher Ottilie and the NewYork City Administration for Chil-dren Services. Rose Anello, aspokeswoman for St. ChristopherOttilie, says the organizationplaced 71 children with Gonzalez-Mugaburu over the past 19 years.

“This investigation should ex-pand well beyond the offender tothose who helped to enable this of-fender to access potential victims,”said Laura Ahearn, a victims’rights advocate and executive di-rector of Parents for Megan’s Law,which tracks alleged sex offenders.

Spota said the investigation isongoing, and will include how thealleged abuse went undetected forso long.

Gonzalez-Mugaburu had no pri-or arrests, prosecutors said; Spotasaid investigators also are tryingto determine how the suspect waspermitted to be a foster parent, be-cause he said the man has no em-ployment record.

“He claims to be self-employed,”Spota said.

Statements issued by both theACS and the non-profit said theywere cooperating with the ongoinginvestigation.

NY foster parentcharged with

abusing boys, dogBy FRANK ELTMANASSOCIATED PRESS

GONZALEZ-MUGABURU

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.—The terror attack that killed 14people in California in Decem-ber showed police need a protect-ed radio channel and ambulancepersonnel need safety gear, emer-gency responders said Friday.

Police, fire and medical per-sonnel lauded interagency work-ing relationships during a statelegislative hearing convened tolearn what worked in the hoursafter a husband and wife openedfire on a luncheon for countyhealth inspectors.

But they underscored theneed for officers from diverseagencies to be able to communi-cate safely without worryingabout details of a crime beingbroadcast live.

“Our radio traffic was playingout in real time across the na-tion,” said San Bernardino po-

lice Lt. Michael Madden, urginglawmakers to support efforts toenhance the security of commu-nications. “That is an extremelyprecarious situation for first-re-sponders in an incident of thismagnitude to be put in.”

His comments came at a hear-ing of a joint legislative commit-tee on emergency managementcalled by state AssemblymanFreddie Rodriguez.

A similar hearing was held bythe committee after the 2013shooting death of a Transporta-tion Security Administrationworker at Los Angeles Interna-tional Airport. The lessonslearned from that hearing prod-ded state lawmakers to pass legis-lation requiring agencies to coop-erate on active-shooter training,Rodriguez said.

Since the San Bernardino at-tack, law enforcement and medi-cal personnel have been evaluat-ing how they responded after

Syed Farook and Tashfeen Ma-lik killed 14 and wounded 22 oth-ers at the gathering for Farook’scolleagues at the San Bernardi-no County public health depart-ment.

Farook and Malik died hourslater in a shootout with policeon a busy street in the largelysuburban community east ofLos Angeles. The couple carriedout the deadliest terror strike onU.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

But David Molloy, operationsmanager of private ambulancecompany American Medical Re-sponse, said he was concernedmedical responders went with-out helmets or safety vests to anactive shooting scene when thewhereabouts of Farook and Ma-lik were still unknown.

“What would have happenedif they would have come back tothe scene, or the triage area, andmy folks were not protected?” hesaid.

Attack showed need forsecure radio, vests

By AMY TAXINASSOCIATED PRESS

BALTIMORE — A 20-year-old Baltimore man pleadedguilty to charges stemmingfrom fires and looting duringthe unrest after Freddie Gray’sdeath, and to an unrelated as-sault.

Maryland U.S. Attorney RodRosenstein announced the pleaFriday.

Court documents say DontaBetts tried to set a police caron fire, looted a CVS pharma-cy and lit a roll of toilet paperon fire, placing it atop propanecylinders and squirting it withlighter fluid to try to preventofficers from coming insidethe pharmacy during a riot onApril 27. After he ignited thefire, the propane tanks explod-

ed, sending metal and debrisflying onto the crowdedstreets.

The CVS burned down andhas become a symbol for theanger that engulfed the city inthe wake of Gray’s death.

Gray, a 25-year-old blackman from West Baltimore, diedApril 19, a week after his neckwas broken in the back of a po-lice transport van.

The statement of facts at-tached to the plea agreementsays that on April 27, Bettsthrew rocks at police officersat Mondawmin Mall, where theunrest began. Later in the af-ternoon, Betts created make-shift explosive devices and setfires on Pennsylvania andNorth avenues, the intersec-tion at the center of the unrest.

The plea agreement also

says Betts tried to tip overMTA and police vehicles andset them on fire; at Pennsylva-nia and North avenue,s Bettsstuffed flammable material in-to the fuel filler pipe of a po-lice car and ignited the materi-al.

Months later, on July 2,Betts shot a woman who’d pur-chased heroin from him be-cause she owed him $20 for thedeal, according to court docu-ments. Betts saw the individu-al in the driver’s seat of a car,walked up and shot her in theleg. She was taken to the hos-pital and treated for severe in-juries.

According to the agreement,Betts will be sentenced to be-tween 14 and 16 years in pris-on. He will be sentenced June24.

Man pleads guilty toBaltimore riot chargesBy JULIET LINDERMAN

ASSOCIATED PRESS

8A THE ZAPATA TIMES Politics SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

WASHINGTON — AFlorida woman’s federallawsuit over an investiga-tion that led to the resigna-tion of former CIA directorDavid Petraeus is collaps-ing after her lawyers askeda judge Friday to let themwithdraw from the case.

The lawyers cited irre-concilable differences, justweeks after the Justice De-partment declined a secret$4.35 million settlementproposal.

Jill Kelley of Tampa,along with her husband,Scott, had sued the govern-ment in June 2013 in Wash-ington, alleging that offi-cials violated the U.S. Priva-cy Act by disclosinginformation about themduring the FBI’s investiga-tion of Petraeus.

The first signs that Si-dley Austin LLP, a promi-nent corporate law firm,and Sands Anderson PC,which handled relatedparts of the lawsuit, intend-ed to abandon the casewere in a brief court docketentry directing Kelley bynext week to hire new law-yers, object to hers quittingor advise the judge that sheplanned to represent her-self going forward. In a dif-ferent court filing Friday,both firms formally andopenly asked U.S. DistrictJudge Amy Berman Jack-son to permit them to quit.They cited local court rulesthat apply in cases of “irre-concilable differences be-tween the lawyer and cli-ent.”

The Justice Departmentlast summer offered to set-tle Kelley’s claims, but shedeclined the deal. Sidleylawyers more recently pro-posed a $4.35 million settle-ment but the Justice De-partment in late Februarydeclined to pay that amountand abruptly ended further

negotiations, saying it sud-denly viewed the case “in amuch different way thanwhen we made offers ofjudgment that your clientsdid not accept,” accordingto communications ob-tained by The AssociatedPress.

Kelley said Friday in awritten statement that itwas “truly unfortunate thatboth monetary and govern-mental pressures haveforced our counsel to file amotion to withdraw.”

The New York Post re-ported earlier Friday thatKelley was writing a bookabout her experiences,called “Collateral Damage,”

and that it would be pub-lished soon.

Lawyers for Kelley didnot immediately returnphone messages Fridayfrom the AP. The JusticeDepartment declined tocomment through a spokes-woman.

Sidley Austin told thejudge it would still be owedany money that Kelleymight win in a future settle-ment or judgment againstthe government, but it didnot specify its fees or litiga-tion costs so far.

Kelley’s lawyers had orig-inally sought to file their re-quest to withdraw privatelyunder seal. The judge saidthat was inappropriate. Shenoted intense publicity thathas surrounded the caseand blamed Kelley and herlawyers for some of thenews coverage.

“The case is a matter ofpublic record, and indeed,its filing and the events thathave transpired thereafterhave been broadly pub-licized by plaintiffs them-selves and/or members oftheir legal team,” the judgewrote.

Jill Kelley had com-plained to the FBI in 2012when an unknown personsent her harassing emails.

Kelley’s federallawsuit collapsing

By TED BRIDIS AND ERIC TUCKERASSOCIATED PRESS

Jill Kelley’s federal lawsuit iscollapsing after her lawyersasked a judge to let them with-draw from the case.

Photo by Chris O’Meara | AP file

WASHINGTON —President Barack Obamawill nominate the firstwoman to head a U.S.military combatant com-mand, Defense SecretaryAsh Carter said Friday, amajor milestone in a de-partment that this yearopened all combat jobs towomen.

Air Force Gen. LoriRobinson is being nomi-nated to head U.S. North-ern Command and theNorth American Aero-space Defense Command.If confirmed by the Sen-ate, Robinson, would be

the seventh commanderto head the Colorado-based command. She cur-rently is head of the Pa-

cific Air Force.Northern Command

was created in the af-termath of the Sept. 11,2001, attacks to coordi-nate and improvehomeland defense andto provide support fornational disasters. Shewould replace Adm.William Gortney, whois retiring.

Carter also said thatObama will nominateGen. Vincent Brooks tohead U.S. Forces Korea.Brooks currently is incharge of U.S. ArmyPacific Command.

Brooks’ nominationalso is subject to Sen-ate confirmation.

1st woman nominatedfor combatant command

By LOLITA C. BALDORASSOCIATED PRESS

This undated photo provided bythe U.S. Air Force shows Gen. Lo-ri J. Robinson.

Photo courtesy of the US Air Force | AP

Former Republican pres-idential nominee MittRomney said Friday hewill vote for Texas Sen.Ted Cruz in the upcomingcaucuses in his home stateof Utah, intensifying his at-tack against front-runnerDonald Trump.

“There is a contest be-tween Trumpism and Re-publicanism,” Romneywrote on his official Face-book page. “Through thecalculated statements of itsleader, Trumpism has be-come associated with rac-ism, misogyny, bigotry, xe-nophobia, vulgarity and,most recently, threats andviolence. I am repulsed byeach and every one ofthese.”

Responding on Twitter,Trump noted that Romneyhad previously supportedthe candidacies of OhioGov. John Kasich and Flor-ida Sen. Marco Rubio.“Mitt Romney is a mixed

up man who doesn’t have aclue,” Trump wrote. “Nowonder he lost!”

Kasich tried to brush offRomney’s endorsement ofCruz.

“This is his view andhe’s entitled to it. Frankly, Idon’t think anybody’s go-ing to have enough dele-gates to get to the conven-tion,” Kasich said after atown hall in Orem, Utah,on Friday. “This is reallyabout who we want to runthe country. This is not aparlor game.”

Romney delivered ascathing attack on Trumpin a speech at the Universi-ty of Utah earlier thismonth, in which he calledTrump “a phony” who is“playing the Americanpublic for suckers.”

A number of Republicanofficials have shown theirsupport for Cruz in recentdays while falling short ofendorsing the senator, whois currently in second placein the race for the GOP

nomination. On Thursday,South Carolina Sen. Lind-sey Graham said he wouldhelp Cruz’s fundraising ef-forts but stopped short ofoffering his endorsementto his senate colleague.

Romney also said in hisstatement Friday that helikes Kasich, who current-ly trails both Trump andCruz, but said “a vote forGov. Kasich in future con-tests makes it extremelylikely that Trumpismwould prevail.”

Utah is one of four con-tests scheduled for Tues-day. Early polling showsCruz leading among thestate’s predominantly Mor-mon voters.

Trump currently leadshis rivals, having won 678delegates in contests heldthus far, according to acount by The AssociatedPress. Cruz is in secondplace with 423 delegates,and Kasich is in third with143.

Needed to win: 1,237.

Romney to vote forCruz in Utah caucuses

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 THE ZAPATA TIMES 9A

SeaWorld’s decision tostop whale breeding — andultimately end its practiceof whales in captivity — isa big, blubbery deal.

It’s like Disney ending itsrelationship with MickeyMouse. Except Mickey nev-er killed any of Disney’scast members with guestswatching.

Which is why SeaWorld’sdecision was also necessary.Quite simply: Captivewhales are no longer goodfor business.

There are some who willtake to online messageboards to scream at Sea-World for CAVING IN TOANIMAL-RIGHTS NUTS!

These people don’t under-stand how business works.Or at least they haven’t tak-en the time to look at Sea-World’s business record.

I have. And it is a down-ward trend.

Lower attendance. Lowerrevenues. Lower profits.

From 2013 to 2015, mostevery key metric was down.

Attendance dropped by 1million guests. Adjusted netincome dropped 37 percent.The stock value plummetedin half.

All while competingparks, like Disney and Uni-versal, experienced booms.

The screamers urgingSeaWorld to stay the coursewould have told the Apollo13 crew to pay no attentionto all that carbon dioxidefilling their ship.

Evolution is necessaryfor the park to survive. Andthe world today is much dif-ferent than when SeaWorldfirst opened its tanks in1964.

Today, people care more— and know more — abouthow animals are treated.

If they care enough topay a higher price for cage-free eggs or free-rangechicken, you can bet theypay attention to the livingconditions of gigantic,splash-on-demand mam-mals.

SeaWorld wasn’t cavingto PETA. It was catering tothe average soccer momwho started realizing her

choices for a family vaca-tion were either SeaWorld(where she’d seen some-thing about a dead trainerand bloody whale battles) orUniversal (where Harry Pot-ter finds freedom every day,escaping Gringotts).

SeaWorld’s evolution willbe painful. You try runninga whale park without any

whales.But by doing it this way

— announcing that thewhale program will endwhen the existing whalesdie in a couple of decadesor more — gives the parkplenty of time to prepare.

If there’s a motto for Sea-World’s future plans, itshould be: Bigger rides,

smaller animals.The truth is: SeaWorld

has known this for years. Itbegan investing in impres-sive rides years ago and hassince stepped on the accel-erator.

Oh, and there’s anotherreason for SeaWorld toevolve beyond the whaleshows — a reason you don’thear as much about:They’re boring.

If you haven’t seen one ina few years, you may havememories of trainers ridingon whales and being blastedinto the air. Those days arelong gone.

After Tilikum drownedtrainer Dawn Brancheau,the in-water interactionended. Nowadays, it’s 25minutes of whales splash-ing in the tank while train-ers stand on dry land, danc-ing in wetsuits and throw-ing out dead fish.

The announcement alsogave SeaWorld something ithasn’t had much of in along time: good press.

On Thursday, SeaWorldswam in it.

In a truly surreal scene

on CBS, SeaWorld CEO JoelManby sat next to formerfoe Wayne Pacelle of theHumane Society of theUnited States, and the twopatted each other’s backsnonstop.

The CBS hosts were sosmitten, they labeled thenew partnership a "bro-mance" and asked if the twomen could teach Congressto get along so well.

There are still plenty ofchallenges and questions.Chief among them: If it’swhales today, will it be dol-phins next? And then sea li-ons?

But for now, SeaWorldhas basically said to its cus-tomers: We hear you. Weunderstand that orcas arein a class of their own. Andwhile we can’t just turnthem loose, because whalesborn in captivity might notsurvive in the wild, we canlet you know that we’reready to evolve.

That sentiment earnedgood will, good press and,by close of business Thurs-day, a 9 percent jump in thestock price.

SeaWorld has made a smart business moveBy SCOTT MAXWELLORLANDO SENTINEL

In this file photo, killer whale Tilikum watches as SeaWorld Orlandotrainers take a break during a training session.

Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack | AP file

ATLANTA — Atlanta’sairport — the world’s busi-est — and Los Angeles offi-cials want to force Uberdrivers to get fingerprint-based background checksto pick up passengers, butthe ride-hailing service isbalking.

Officials in both citiesare weighing measures torequire Uber and similarcompanies to tighten stan-dards in an effort to ferretout drivers who have hadserious trouble with thelaw. The debate over safetyhas come amid rapidgrowth by Uber and otherapp-based ride-booking ser-vices and intensified lastmonth, when police say anUber driver went on ashooting spree in Michiganthat led to six deaths.

The Atlanta City Councilwill review a proposed fin-gerprint requirement onMarch 30 that airport offi-cials have been advocating.Officials at Hartsfield-Jack-son Atlanta InternationalAirport said they might beinclined to lift the currentban on ride-booking servic-es if fingerprint-basedbackground checks are im-plemented.

Such a requirement“gives everybody confi-dence in the system,” Air-port General Manager Mi-guel Southwell told The At-lanta Journal-Constitution.He added that “it really

should be a welcome partof the process.”

But Uber has sharply op-posed the proposal. Compa-ny spokesman Bill Gibbonssaid in an interview Fridaythat such a requirementwould add “substantial, ad-ditional bureaucratic bar-riers for drivers,” many ofwhom work part-time driv-ing customers when theycan.

Uber said the proposalfor fingerprint-based back-ground checks is out ofstep with operating agree-ments it has with about 50U.S. airports, which it saysdon’t require fingerprint-based background checks.Among them is Denver In-ternational Airport, whichallows regular Uber driversto drop off and pick up pas-sengers in the same publicareas where family mem-bers and friends pick uppassengers, airport spokes-man Heath Montgomery

said.In Los Angeles, mean-

while, Mayor Eric Garcettiand two council membershave asked California regu-lators to allow the city toimplement a pilot programrequiring fingerprinting ofdrivers for ride-bookingservices.

“Keeping the riding pub-lic safe is something weshould strive to do and re-quiring full and fair finger-print background checksacross the board will pushus in that direction,” LosAngeles City Council mem-ber Paul Krekorian said ina statement.

Many law enforcementexperts say a fingerprintsearch is the most compre-hensive way to check some-one’s background. Ubercounters that its checks —which it says includessearches of motor vehicledepartment files — arestrong.

Uber balks at rulesproposed by airport

Passengers check in at the domestic passenger terminal at Harts-field-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Photo by David Goldman | AP

By JEFF MARTINASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Anotherstrong gain for stocks Fri-day extended the market’srecovery from a dismalstart to the year to a fifthweek in a row.

The Standard and Poor’s500 index closed up for theyear for the first time. TheDow Jones industrial aver-age turned positive Thurs-day. Both had been downmore than 10 percent forthe year a little more thana month ago.

The Dow rose 120.81points Friday, or 0.7 per-cent, to 17,602.30. It is up 1percent for the year. TheS&P 500 gained 8.97 points,or 0.4 percent, to 2,049.56,and is now up 0.3 percentfor 2016. The Nasdaq com-posite picked up 20.6points, or 0.4 percent, to4,795.65, though the Nas-daq remains down 4 per-cent for the year.

Stocks had plungedearly this year as investorsfeared that Chinese econo-my, which has been the en-gine of global growth, wasslowing faster than expect-ed and that China’s slidewould be enough to pullthe U.S. economy into re-cession.

“The market tended tofocus on the negative andignore the good” at thestart of this year, said Low-ell Yura, head of Multi-As-set Solutions for BMOGlobal Asset Management.

But over the course ofthe five-week rally, reportson hiring, manufacturingand construction spendingshowed the U.S. economyis doing fairly well. Indus-trial, consumer and tech-nology stocks benefitedfrom the more positive out-look in the U.S. Energyand materials stocksclimbed as oil and pre-cious metals prices rose.

And this week the Fed-eral Reserve said it expectsto slow the pace of interestrate increases this year.Lower rates make stockslook more attractive to in-vestors, and they helpboost economic growth byreducing borrowing costsand reducing the risk asso-ciated with starting or ex-panding businesses.

The biggest gainers Fri-day were health carestocks and banks, theworst-performing parts ofthe market this year. Com-panies that make aircraft,

machinery and chemicalsalso rose as the dollar fellagainst other currencieson hopes that the weakerdollar will boost their salesoutside of the U.S.

Starwood Hotelsclimbed $4.18, or 5.5 per-cent, to $80.57 after the ho-tel chain said it accepted anew buyout offer from agroup led by Anbang In-surance Group of China.The bid is worth morethan $14 billion. Competi-tor Marriott, which agreedto buy Starwood last year,said it is considering itsoptions and noted it hasthe right to make anotheroffer.

Columbia PipelineGroup climbed after Tran-sCanada Corp. agreed tobuy the company for $10billion, or $25.50 per share,in an attempt to expandfurther into the U.S. Co-lumbia Pipeline stock ad-vanced $1.33, or 5.7 per-cent, to $24.84.

Market finishes 5thweek of gains

Trader Mark Muller, right, works on the floor of the New YorkStock Exchange, Friday.

Photo by Richard Drew | AP

By MARLEY JAYASSOCIATED PRESS

PAGE 10A Zentertainment SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

The second season of“Daredevil” arrived on Net-flix on Friday less than ayear after Season 1, but italready feels as if it’s fall-ing behind in the Marvelantihero race. “JessicaJones,” another Netflix se-ries based on a Marvelcomics character, and theMarvel film “Deadpool”came along in the mean-time and seduced audienc-es and critics with moodynoir fatalism and wise-cracking, fourth-wall-break-ing nihilism. “Daredevil,”with its sincerity and thebroad comic-book strokesof its storytelling, seemssquare in comparison.

That in itself isn’t a rea-son to prefer one show overanother, and “Daredevil” isstill a solid crime-fighterdrama, with handsome,dimly lighted cameraworkreflecting the point of viewof its blind hero (the cine-matographer this season isMartin Ahlgren) and fightchoreography that’s eco-nomical but effective. Ascene in the new season’sthird episode in whichDaredevil (Charlie Cox) hasto escape a building down along stairwell, fighting atevery step — and carryinga gun that he refuses to fire— is a balletic exercise inbrutality and claustropho-bia.

Season 2 represents afalling-off from the pulpyhighs of Season 1, however,at least in the early epi-sodes. It’s mostly about thevillain. The Kingpin (Vin-cent D’Onofrio) was a morevivid and frightening foethan this year’s model, thegun-happy former soldiercalled the Punisher (JonBernthal), and D’Onofrio’sperformance was bigger inevery way than Bernthal’s.

The Kingpin’s overscaled

rage and narcissism gavethe story energy, and thecontrast with Daredevil’sproblematic idealism wasfertile ground for comic-book melodrama. In thenew season, the dynamic isdifferent and less interest-ing — Daredevil and thePunisher are both vig-ilantes, with differentmethods and different lev-els of concern for collateraldamage. This leads to long,windy exchanges about he-roism and truth that leaveyou fidgeting, waiting forthe next fight to break out.

Most of the time, youdon’t have to wait long,though given the Puni-sher’s preferences, a higherpercentage of the actionthis season involves gunfirerather than fists and ba-tons. Once again, the law-yers Foggy Nelson andMatt Murdock (whose su-

per senses and martial-artstraining compensate for hisblindness when he dons theDaredevil costume), alongwith their assistant, KarenPage, try to defend the poorresidents of Hell’s Kitchenfrom war-zone levels ofcrime and violence. Gentri-fication was an issue inSeason 1, but the currentseason moves back intotimeless comic-book terri-tory, with the Punisher tak-ing on Irish, Latino andbiker gangs straight out ofcentral casting.

Cox and Elden Hanson,as Foggy, do earnestnesswell and put across thesometimes dopey dialoguebetter than you’d have aright to expect. There’s not,however, a lot of wit orshading to their perform-ances — the writing can beblamed, but they could bedoing more to amplify it.

New ‘Daredevil’ seasonarrives on Netflix

Charlie Cox returns for more Hells Kitchen hero work in Season 2 ofMarvel/Netflix’s “Daredevil.”

Courtesy of Netflix-Marvel | AP

By MIKE HALENEW YORK TIMES

NASHVILLE, Tenn. —Pop star Taylor Swiftmade a surprise appear-ance at a Nashville, Ten-nessee, children’s hospitalto help “American Idol”host Ryan Seacrest open abroadcast studio for pa-tients.

Swift on Friday metwith children at MonroeCarell Jr. Children’s Hos-pital at Vanderbilt Univer-sity Medical Center fol-lowing the ribbon cuttingon the new Seacrest Stu-dio built at the hospital.

She told the crowd thatshe visited one of the now10 studios that Seacrest’sfoundation had built atchildren’s hospitals acrossthe country and wanted tobe involved when heopened the latest one inMusic City.

“What I saw when I

went there was an oppor-tunity for the kids to findexcitement and to expresstheir creativity and tolearn about what it is tocreate content, whetheryou would like to makeyour own radio show orwhether you want to re-cord,” Swift said. “It was

so exciting to see the ex-citement that it brought tothis one hospital.”

It wasn’t the first timethat Swift made a surprisevisit to a children’s hospi-tal: She previously visitedothers, including HasbroChildren’s Hospital inProvidence, Rhode Island.

Swift surprises childrenBy KRISTIN M. HALL

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ryan Seacrest and singer Taylor Swift join young patients at aribbon cutting ceremony for the new Seacrest Studio.

Photo by George Walker/The Tennessean | AP

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 THE ZAPATA TIMES 11A

the 1950s, the U.S. CensusBureau said the town had500 souls. Today, the citypopulation sign reads“Population 413.” The 2014U.S. census count puts itsresidents at 336.

The average age, accord-ing the Census Bureau, is50.

Gentry is one of the res-idents who doesn’t thinkthe town is about to die.Despite several closedstorefronts, aged build-ings and a dropping stu-dent population, Gentrysaid Dell City is just goingthrough a typical up-and-down stage.

“Times change,” Gentrytold the El Paso Times.“For a few years it (farm-ing) faded out and now alot of this farm land thatfaded out is now back inproduction."

But the small-town ap-peal that Gentry saidmakes Dell City a greatplace to live isn’t enoughfor some of its youngerresidents.

Nineteen-year-old JanaeRichardson speaks overher shoulder about leav-ing town as she stocks theshelves with essentialslike bread and eggs at theonly grocery in town. Shedrives about 60 miles toSierra Blanca twice aweek to a community col-lege. She firmly, yet re-morsefully, said when shegraduates she has no rea-son to stick around.

“I’m gone,” Richardsonsaid. “As soon as I gradu-ate, I’m gone. I’m not afarmer; there’s nothinghere.”

Founded in the late1940s following the discov-ery of an undergroundaquifer, Dell City was arich farming communityin its heyday. At one timethe town featured severalbars, three grocery stores,a true mercantile and acommunity of migrantfamilies who worked onfamily owned farms andtwo cotton gins.

Now, Dell City has onegrocery store, one restau-rant and fewer farms thanbefore. The city’s schooldistrict has 73 students —11 of whom will graduatethis year.

When the town’s schoolsuperintendent, FabianGomez, 43, returned toDell City in 2013, the facesin his town were mostlynew to him.

So were the faces of thechildren in the school dis-trict he’d just taken over,the same school districthe attended all his lifeand graduated from.

His old kindergartenclassroom is the new su-perintendent’s office.

Every year there arefewer faces at the schooldistrict which is no longerbeing fed by a communityof farm laborers.

In 2000, the student pop-ulation recorded by theTexas Education Depart-ment for the Dell City In-dependent School districtwas 236 students ingrades ranging from kin-dergarten to 12th grade.

Now the district has ayearly average of 70 stu-dents. The rural schooldistrict has a student pop-ulation in which 79 per-cent of the children areconsidered “economicallydisadvantaged” and 39percent of the studentsare English language lear-ners, meaning English istheir second language.

Peggy Beltran, Englishand writing teacher atDell City ElementarySchool, drives 70 milesfrom El Paso to Dell Cityevery school day. Even ifshe wanted to live in DellCity, Gomez said therejust isn’t any housingavailable.

But Beltran is happyworking in Dell City.

“This is ideal. We have,I have, less kids in classand I get to spend timewith them on those areaswhere they need help,”Beltran said, adding thatshe left the El Paso schoolsystem because of chang-es to instruction time.Now she has a classroomequipped with a Smart-Board, new books and on-ly nine students to teach.

Beltran has 28 years ofteaching experience, withonly two months of themin Dell City. She isn’t theonly new member of thestaff; Gomez said that on-ly one of the teachers em-

ployed by the districtwhen he arrived remains.

Following state trendsfor filling teaching staffpositions, Gomez said thatthe district has beenforced to get creative withtechnology to help stu-dents continue to achieve.

“We try to do every-thing we can to retainthose teachers, but hon-estly they resign andmove to a larger city, ormaybe not larger but aschool district that’s clos-er to a larger city.”

Currently, Dell Citylacks a science teacher forsecondary students. Stu-dents now take thosecourses online throughthe Texas Virtual SchoolNetwork. Dell City lost itsagricultural teacher, a po-sition that still has notbeen filled, along with atechnology teaching posi-tion.

“We’ve departmental-ized, just like a biggerschool,” Gomez said, add-ing that in many ways therural district faces thesame challenges as largerschools. But keeping fo-cused on a system that al-lows him to track teacherperformance and improvetheir impact on studentlearning has become agame of pointing fingers.

Gomez said he’s fieldingaccusations about fellingdead trees on the schoolgrounds and spendingfunds on new technology,rather than concernsabout how to better edu-cate the children of DellCity.

One of his toughest crit-ics is Tracie Kelley, whoquestions Gomez’s deci-sions as she rings up cus-tomers at the Two T’sGrocery store that she co-owns.

“I was so excited when Iheard he (Gomez) wascoming back, but some ofthe changes he’s madearen’t necessarily good fora small community,” Kel-ley said. “He weeded out alot of the older teacherswho’d been there for awhile, who cared aboutthe kids, and brought abunch of strangers in.”

When Kelley came toDell City in 1979, there

were four bars, three gro-cery stores, a mercantileand a community of mi-grant families. Now Kel-ley spends her days at theTwo T’s Grocery, whichshe co-owns with herdaughter. The convertedbarracks and former barstocks everything fromthe bare necessities likesoap and butter to luxuri-es like T-shirts with aprint of the original townwelcome sign declaringDell City “The Valley ofHidden Waters.”

“I’ve seen it changefrom small farms with awhole lot of workers —you know, busy all thetime — to the small onesbeing bought up by thelarger ones. I’ve seen itgoing to machinery doingthe work and migrant andfarmworkers drop tremen-dously,” Kelley said as twoteenagers, including Rich-ardson, balance stockinggroceries and manningthe grill.

The 80-year-old formerschool nurse doesn’t likethe changes assailing heradopted hometown even ifit might make it more ap-pealing for her fourgrandchildren and sevengreat-grandchildren.

About two miles down adirt road, business ownerSteven Rader sat on thetailgate of his pickup, ad-miring the view of El Cap-itan in the GuadalupeMountains from his farm.It’s a drastic change frommore than 12 years agowhen he called the busycity of Houston home.

He said that without alittle change there’s notmuch more the town cando to continue to survive.

Twelve years ago, Raderfounded Chaffhaye Inc., acompany that special pro-cesses alfalfa into feed forperformance livestock.His 1,200 acres of alfalfafarmland abuts farmlandowned by large dairiesand agricultural corpora-tions, meaning that hisgrowing company willsoon find no room in DellCity to keep expanding.

“Well, the town is de-creasing in size becauseit’s always been an agri-cultural community;

there’s never been an in-dustrial base here. Sowhen people say industryis leaving, well, I thinkthere never was any in-dustry to leave,” Radersaid, jokingly adding thathis factory is the sole in-dustry in town.

Rader’s business canemploy as many as 20 peo-ple, but a shortage of la-borers has always been achallenge.

“We pay well, but it’sjust a lot of people whodon’t want to live in asmall town,” Rader said.“First thing, they comeout, they say, ‘Where’s theTaco Bell, where’s theWal-Mart, where’s themovie theater?’ So that’s abig issue. We try to bringin families, but they saythe kids want to play reg-ular football. Here we playsix-man football.”

Of the hundreds of peo-ple his business has em-ployed since opening 12years ago, none havemade Dell City their per-manent home.

Despite the challenges,Rader’s fondness forsmall-town life expands tothe peace and quiet. Here,he said, the residents haveto find their own enter-tainment. Every night hepersonally enjoys spot-lighting, which, for thosewho have never shined aspotlight on cottontailrabbits while the dogs be-gin the chase, can be anamusing way to hunt.

Fifteen minutes beforethe lunch rush hits theSpanish Angel Cafe onMain Street, the waitressbegins placing glasses oftea and water on tables infront of empty chairs thatwill soon be occupied. Sheeffortlessly knows wherethe restaurant’s regularswill sit.

Craig Gentry boughtthe cafe in January whenits retiring owner consid-ered closing its doors. Asthe last restaurant intown with its doors stillopen, he said, he couldn’tallow the town to go with-out it.

“Dell City, this is some-thing this town needs. Itneeds a place for people tocome sit down eat, talk,

visit,” Gentry said. “Imag-ine a town without a littlecafe, imagine a town with-out a grocery store or agas station. That’s whatpeople out here fail to un-derstand, is that we reallyhave it pretty good.”

Craig Gentry, who isGerald Gentry’s son, is afarmer who moonlights asa business owner andmember of the schoolboard. He says that hesees a community slowlycoming back to life, notdying.

For a city whose popula-tion is trending towardlong-term decrease, thequestion becomes whetherto embrace the changethat’s brought it to thispoint in the hope that itwill help pull it out oftough times.

But the town had an op-portunity to embracechange and rejected it,voting down the establish-ment of a prison and amanufacturing corpora-tion, both projects thatnever made it to Dell City.

“They didn’t want it;they didn’t want thechange,” he said of the lo-cals, all of whom heknows on a first-name ba-sis.

Despite the precariousposition of Dell City, somelongtime residents say thetown still has a chance ifa few more minds can beopened up to the possibil-ities.

“There are a lot of real-ly good people out hereand it is a peaceful com-munity to live in, butsmall-town politics, likeeverywhere, can get you.But if you can handle thatand laugh about it, it’s agood place to live,” CraigGentry said.

None of the old-timersor business owners whowant things to stay thesame, nor the superin-tendent fighting for pro-gress or even the 19-year-old ready to put her homein her rear-view mirror,can say for certain whatDell City will be like infive more years. It couldbe on the verge of becom-ing a ghost town — ormake the “growing com-munity” sign prophetic.

DELL CITY Continued from Page 1A

many of them older, more-polluting models. As trafficjams increased, overallemissions were boostedeven more because carswere forced to idle, expertssay.

This week’s emergencyprompted authorities to saythey are studying morestringent restrictions on ve-hicles — including smoke-belching government trucksthat are now exempt fromsmog tests — though thereare likely to be more smog-bound days before thosehave any effect.

Bernardo Baranda, LatinAmerica director for the In-stitute for Transportationand Development Policy,

said that officials ought tore-establish limits on carcirculation and improvecooperation across the vari-ous jurisdictions that makeup the Valley of Mexico.

Longer-term, he called formore investment in publictransportation as well astolls on cars and creation ofareas open only to foot andbicycle traffic.

“The root problem is thegrowth of the vehicle fleet,”Baranda said.

Air quality in MexicoCity today is generally farbetter than much of China,India and other parts ofAsia. For example, whilethe alert was still in placeon Thursday, Mexico City

recorded a pollution indexof about 150 while levelswere topping 400 in Beijing,according to the World AirQuality Index, which tracksair quality around theglobe.

Even with the SupremeCourt ruling, vehicles stillmust pass smog checks ev-ery six months. But everycar owner knows that slip-ping the equivalent of about$20 to a verification centerworker is enough to ensurethe inspection will come out“clean.”

Authorities in MexicoCity say vehicles are re-sponsible for 87 percent ofnitrogen oxide emissions, aprecursor to ozone, the

most problematic contami-nant.

Critics also say a series ofcity administrations havebeen enthusiastic aboutbuilding things like double-decker highways for carsand less aggressive aboutbetter public transportation,though the area has expand-ed its subway, bus and ur-ban train systems. A bike-share program has beenwildly popular and dedicat-ed bus lanes have attractedhuge ridership since theirinception in 2005.

Dwight Dyer, energy andenvironment editor for theonline publication El DailyPost, argued that at leastfour more dedicated bus

lanes could have been builtfor the amount of moneythat was spent expanding ahighway that rings the city.

“You have a policy of pro-moting the use of the car,and this has not been onlythe present administration,”Dyer said, adding that thetendency is even more pro-nounced in suburbs that arehome to over half the me-tropolis’ 20 million-plus resi-dents.

“There’s a huge marketfor increasing mass publictransit,” Dyer said. “Butthere’s very little interest Isuppose in doing this be-cause the electoral payoffsare not as high.”

Announcing the end of

the four-day alert Thursdayevening, federal Environ-ment Secretary AlejandroPacchiano promised to beefup the system of smog in-spections and study toughervehicle restrictions.

Some would like to seemore drastic measures.

“I have thought that theyshould take half of the carsoff the road on any givenday, and the other half thenext,” said Ricardo Juarez,a 54-year-old salesman whorelies on the subway, busesand occasional taxis to getaround.

This week’s alert may bea good thing, he said, if it“sends up red flags for thegovernment.”

SMOG Continued from Page 1A

BRUSSELS — Policeraiding an apartmentbuilding captured Europe’smost wanted fugitive Fri-day, arresting the primesuspect in last year’s dead-ly Paris attacks in the sameBrussels neighborhoodwhere he grew up.

Hours later, the Frenchpresident said more peoplewere involved in the at-tacks than initiallythought, and predictedmore arrests would follow.

Salah Abdeslam, 26, is achildhood friend of the sus-pected ringleader of the at-tacks. Investigators believehe drove a car carrying agroup of gunmen who tookpart in the shootings, rent-ed rooms and shopped fordetonators. He may havebeen planning a suicide at-tack himself.

After the bloodbath, heslipped through a dragnetto return to Brussels andeluded capture for fourmonths, despite an interna-tional manhunt. He was be-lieved to have slipped

through police fingers mul-tiple times. At one point,Belgian authorities lockeddown their capital for sev-eral days but failed to findhim.

His capture brought in-stant relief to police and or-dinary people in Franceand Belgium who had beenlooking over their shoulderfor Abdeslam since Nov. 13,when Islamic extremist at-tackers fanned out acrossthe French capital andkilled 130 people at a rockconcert, the national stadi-um and cafes. It wasFrance’s deadliest attack indecades.

Abdeslam and four othersuspects were detained inFriday’s raid, includingthree members of a familythat sheltered him. Abdes-lam was shot in the leg andwas hospitalized, and an-other arrested with himwas also wounded, officialssaid.

During Friday’s policeoperation, a phalanx of offi-cers in camouflage, masksand riot helmets marchedthrough the neighborhoodwith guns and automaticweapons drawn, escorting

people out of buildings.A witness described

hearing gunshots and offi-cers repeatedly yelling overa loudspeaker to suspectsholed up inside the apart-ment building.

Authorities first sealedoff the neighborhood. Thenpolice began shouting to aparticular apartment, de-manding that the occu-pants come out with theirhands up, said Fatiha Hri-ka, a 39-year-old child-careworker who lives a fewdoors down from where theraid happened.

After shots were fired,she told The AssociatedPress, “they piled in. Weheard noises all around.And that’s when theypulled out the Salah (guy.)They put him to theground.”

She described seeing thesuspect put into an ambu-lance followed by a SWATteam.

France’s BFM televisionbroadcast images of policetugging a man with a whitehooded sweatshirt toward apolice car, as he draggedhis left leg as if it were in-jured.

Abdeslam was notarmed but did not immedi-ately obey orders whenconfronted by police, Bel-gian prosecutor Eric Vander Sypt said.

It was possible he hadspent days, weeks ormonths in the apartment,according to Van der Sypt,who said the investigationwould continue day andnight.

French President Fran-cois Hollande said author-ities will continue huntingfor anyone who aided theattacks in any way. He saidthose people are muchmore numerous than au-thorities had believed, andthat the French govern-ment would seek to haveAbdeslam extradited.

Belgian Prime MinisterCharles Michel called Fri-day’s arrests a success inthe “fight against terror-ism.”

President Barack Obamacongratulated the leadersof Belgium and Franceover the arrest, in phonecalls with both men, theWhite House said in astatement.

Two other people be-

lieved linked to the attackswere still being sought, in-cluding fellow Molenbeekresident Mohamed Abriniand a man known underthe alias of Soufiane Kayal.

Friday’s capture of Ab-deslam came after Belgianauthorities said they foundhis fingerprints in anapartment raided earlierthis week in another Brus-sels neighborhood.

In that raid, a man be-lieved to have been an ac-complice of Abdeslam —Mohamed Belkaid — wasshot dead, Belgian prosecu-tors said. But two men es-caped from the apartment,one of whom appears tohave been Abdeslam.

Most of the Paris attack-ers died on the night of theattacks, including Abdes-lam’s brother Brahim, whoblew himself up. BrahimAbdeslam was buried inthe Brussels area Thursday.

Salah’s Abdeslam’s rolein the attacks has neverbeen clearly spelled out.The car he drove was aban-doned in northern Paris,and his mobile phone andan explosive vest he mayhave used were later found

in the Paris suburb of Mon-trouge, raising the possibil-ity that he aborted his mis-sion, either ditching a mal-functioning vest or fleeingin fear.

The Islamic State groupclaimed responsibility forthe attacks.

Another person arrestedFriday had been stoppedand fingerprinted with Ab-deslam in Ulm, Germanyon Oct. 3, Belgian prosecu-tors said.

Papers issued to themystery man were discov-ered in an apartment raid-ed by police in the Forestarea of Brussels where Ab-deslam’s fingerprints werefound. There was a falseSyrian passport in thename of Monir AhmedAlaaj and a fake Belgianidentity card under thename of Amine Choukri,prosecutors told a Fridaynight news conference.

On Tuesday, a joint teamof Belgian and French po-lice showed up to searchthe residence in the Forestneighborhood in connec-tion with the Paris investi-gation.

Top fugitive in Paris attacks captured By RAF CASERT

AND JOHN-THOR DAHLBURGASSOCIATED PRESS

12A THE ZAPATA TIMES SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

Sports&OutdoorsSATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 ON THE WEB: THEZAPATATIMES.COM

SAN ANTONIO — TheGolden State Warriorshave spent the last 18months rising to the goldstandard in the NBA, apeerless team that hasblown the doors off therest of the league bothduring their title run lastseason and the record-setting pace they haveset this year.

As good as they havebeen through it all, theyhave rarely been betterthan they were at homeon Jan. 25 against the or-ganization that has fortwo decades been theNBA’s standard bearer.

The Warriors thumpedthe San Antonio Spursthat night, a 30-point vic-

tory that delivered a re-sounding message to therest of the league. Yet forall of the obstaclesthey’ve obliterated alongthe way, one more re-mains: a win in San An-tonio.

The Warriors — theteam that almost neverloses these days — havelost a staggering 32straight regular-seasongames against the Spursin San Antonio, a skidthat predates 39-year-oldTim Duncan’s entranceinto the league. The lasttime they won in SanAntonio was Feb. 14,1997.

Golden State could endthat skid on Saturdaynight.

“We know what theSpurs have been doing

all year,” Stephen Currysaid before the Warriorsstarted a tough back-to-back with Dallas on Fri-day and the Spurs onSaturday. “We’ll talkabout we haven’t wonthere in the regular sea-son for so long. We’d loveto end that streak. Otherthan that it’s just focus-ing on what we expect tobe playoff atmospheresthese next two games. "

The Warriors are eye-ing one of the league’smagic numbers: the 72wins the Chicago Bullspiled up in 1995-96. Butthe Spurs (58-10) areright on their heels andhave been there all sea-son long, and when thetwo meet it will be thebest combined recordamong opponents this

late in the season inleague history.

The Spurs have alwaysdownplayed regular-sea-son matchups, keepingtheir eyes fully focusedon being as ready as pos-sible once the playoffsbegin in April.

“It’s whatever youwant to make it,” saidDuncan, who did notplay in the first meeting.“We’re going to show upfor the game and we’regoing to play it. It’s notgoing to change our sea-son or anything else. Itwill be a great matchupfor us. Obviously, twobest records in theleague. They’re playingexceptionally well. It’s agood test for us. Playoff-

NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION: SAN ANTONIO SPURS

West showdown

The Spurs and Warriors meet on Saturday in San Antonio with the Spurs’43-game home winning streak on the line. Golden State has lost 32straight regular season games in San Antonio but is 61-6 in 2016 and iseyeing the all-time record of 72 wins in a season.

Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez | The Chronicle

Warriors head to San Antonio SaturdayBy RAUL DOMINGUEZ

ASSOCIATED PRESS

See SPURS PAGE 2B

DENVER — The onlything "double-digits" aboutWichita State and Gonzagahave been their margins ofvictory.

They are 11 seeds thisyear. They have played acombined three games. No-body has come within 10points of them.

That the Shockers andBulldogs have moved pastthe first round of theNCAA Tournament ishardly anything new - sur-prises happen all the timein March Madness, as Mi-chigan State will certainlyattest.

The bigger questionsare: Were these really up-sets? And, given the mostunpredictable regular sea-son that just ended, did theselection committee have afighting chance of gettingthis, or anything else, rightthis year?

"We don’t have basket-ball people in that group,"said Kentucky coach John

Calipari, during an enter-taining rant after thebrackets came out.

One of Calipari’s maincomplaints was that whenteams get seeded improper-ly, they don’t suffer asmuch as the teams theyhave to play.

Arizona and Seton Hall,a pair of No. 6 seeds withdecent resumes, would cer-tainly agree. The Wildcatsfell by 10 to Wichita Stateon Thursday, and the Pi-rates lost by 16 to Gonzaga.Vanderbilt also got thewrong end: Wichita Statebeat the Commodores, an-other 11 seed, 70-50 in theplay-in game Tuesday.

"Typically, the talk isthat teams that are in thoseplay-in games shouldn’t bein the tournament," saidWichita State guard FredVanVleet, who was part ofShockers teams that wentto the Final Four in 2013and went undefeated thenext regu-

NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

Seton Hall guard Derrick Gordon walks off the court after the sixth-seed lost to No. 11 seed Gonzaga 68-52 Thursday.

Photo by David Zalubowski | AP

Double-digitseeds makean impactASSOCIATED PRESS

See UPSETS PAGE 2B

The Cowboys, in thehunt for a running backto pair with DarrenMcFadden, will hostAlfred Morris for a free-agent visit Monday, ac-cording to a source.

In four seasons inWashington, Morrisstarted all 64 games,rushing for 4,713 yardsand 29 touchdowns on1,078 attempts. He hadcareer lows in 2015 with202 carries for 751 yardsand one touchdown, los-ing carries to rookieMatt Jones with ChrisThompson and PierreThomas also gettingplaying time.

McFadden, signed last

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: DALLAS COWBOYS

MORRIS ON THE RADAR

Former Washington running back Alfred Morris is visiting Dallas as the Cowboys entertain the possibil-ity of pairing him with Darren McFadden.

File photo by LM Otero | AP

RB visitsDallasBy CHAREAN WILLIAMS

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

See COWBOYS PAGE 2B

INDIANAPOLIS — Pey-ton Manning took onemore victory lap aroundIndianapolis on Friday.

It’s not likely to be hislast.

Less than two weeks af-ter announcing his retire-ment in Denver, the re-cord-breaking quarter-back returned to his firstNFL home to reminisce,thank supporters and re-ceive a fitting send-offfrom the team he firstplayed for. Colts ownerJim Irsay said Manning’sNo. 18 jersey will be re-tired and the team willerect a statue of him atLucas Oil Stadium in hon-or of the man who did alot more than win gamesin Indy.

“When I got here, it wasbasketball, basketball, bas-ketball and it was car rac-ing, car racing, car racing.Football was probably inthe third place and that’sno longer the case. It’s a

football town,” Manningsaid. “It was fun to be apart of that transforma-tion.”

For Manning, this wasmore like a second tripdown memory lane.

He recounted tales ofincredible comebacks andbitter disappointments,

former teammates and thebonds they formed, andhe acknowledged howgrateful he was that thecity embraced him fromthe day he arrived.

A smattering of fans —some dressed in the Colts’blue-and-white, otherdressed in Denver’s or-

ange and blue — stoodoutside the front gate ofthe team’s complex.

Inside, it was emotion-al.

At one point, Manning’svoice cracked, though hedrew a lot more laughter,including a roar after re-membering Jim Mora’sinfamous “playoffs” rantwas actually directed athim after he threw fourinterceptions against the49ers.

It was a stark contrastto the last time Manningand Irsay stood togetherinside the same room inMarch 2012. Back then,both shed tears during asIrsay announced the part-ing of ways to make roomfor Manning’s successor,Andrew Luck.

This time, Irsay andManning laughed andjoked as they told stories,and Manning flew intotown on Irsay’s personalplane one more time. Be-fore speaking with report-

Indianapolis to honor Manning

Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay, left, poses with former quarterbackPeyton Manning after announcing the retirement of Manning’s jer-sey during a press conference Friday.

Photo by Michael Conroy | AP

By MICHAEL MAROTASSOCIATED PRESS

See MANNING PAGE 2B

ers, Manning met withLuck and others in theteam complex.

“It was always strangeto watch 18 out there with-out a horseshoe on his hel-met, and it wasn’t alwayseasy for us,” Irsay said asa slideshow of Manningplayed on two screens be-hind the podium. “I thinkI speak for all Colts fans.We feel like he’s ours.”

Manning did wear thehorseshoe, in the form of alapel pin on his dark sportcoat, and explained how hewill always consider him-self a Colt even though he

retired officially with theBroncos.

During his 14 seasonswith the Colts, he wonfour of his record fiveMVP Awards, led the Coltsto two Super Bowls anddelivered the first worldchampionship in city his-tory following the 2006 sea-son. He added his secondSuper Bowl title lastmonth as the Broncos beatCarolina.

His personality, successand off-the-field contribu-tions are widely creditedwith helping to generatepublic support for building

Lucas Oil Stadium, whichhosted the Super Bowl inFebruary 2012. Andthrough his Peyback Foun-dation, Manning hostedhigh school football gamesat the RCA Dome and Lu-cas Oil Stadium, providedThanksgiving meals forlow-income families andheld Christmas parties forchildren in need.

He also teamed up withthe Make-A-Wish Founda-tion and reached out tohelp American servicemembers and ordinary ci-tizens who were enduringtrying times.

Manning also acknowl-edged again that one ofthe best rewards he everreceived came when an In-dianapolis hospital re-named the children’s wingthe Peyton Manning’sChildren’s Hospital at St.Vincent.

Each spring, even afterhe joined the Broncos,Manning returned to Indyto host an A-list fund-raiser that included auc-tioning off prized posses-sions. Among the itemswere an autograph fromMother Teresa, a clippingfrom a contract signed by

cial this news is to me,” hesaid after Irsay’s an-nouncement.

Still to be determined iswhen Manning will be in-ducted into the Colts’ Ringof Honor and a possible 10-year reunion of the Colts’Super Bowl title team.

Most of all, Manningwas just happy to be backhome.

“That was a tough emo-tional day four years ago.We shed some tears thatday,” Manning said. “Butit felt comfortable comingback here. It felt right.”

Marilyn Monroe, an auto-graphed photo of formerAmerican presidentsGeorge H.W. Bush, RonaldReagan, Jimmy Carter,Gerald Ford and RichardNixon and baseballssigned by Joe DiMaggio,Mickey Mantle and TedWilliams.

“On the field, I just can’tsay enough about what hehas meant to this fran-chise, to this city andstate,” Irsay said. “Youjust run out of words.”

Manning struggled toexpress his own emotions.

“I can’t tell you how spe-

MANNING Continued from Page 1B

PAGE 2B Zscores SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

type atmosphere and playoff-typeintensity. Good experience for us.”

But there may be a little extramotivation for a proud franchisethat was won five championshipsbut left Golden State in Januarywith coach Gregg Popovich saying“it was like men and boys outthere.”

“They’re the defending champsand they’ve been playing unbeliev-able this year,” Spurs guard TonyParker said. “We’ve been playinggreat, too, so we get another shotat it.”

The Spurs are 20-3 since losingto the Warriors and have fullyevolved from a veteran teamguided by its Big Three of Duncan,Parker and Manu Ginobili to onethat leans heavily on All-Stars Ka-whi Leonard and LaMarcus Al-dridge.

Like Golden State, San Antonio

has already clinched a playoffberth and division title. But clinch-ing the top seed would be huge foreither team given their success athome. Golden State has won 50straight home games dating backto last season, which is the longeststreak in league history. Thestreak includes 32 straight homevictories to open this season,which is fourth all-time.

San Antonio is 34-0 at home thisseason and has won 43 straightoverall dating back to March 2015,which is third all-time.

Both Popovich and Warriorscoach Steve Kerr have taken toresting players in the regular sea-son — no matter the opponent —to ensure everyone is ready for thepostseason. But this one feels dif-ferent.

“I don’t think that’s going tohappen,” Parker said.

SPURS Continued from Page 1B

lar season. "So, we just takeall of that as ammunition andjust keep letting that chip onour shoulder get bigger andbigger."

It wasn’t hard to see thiscoming.

This season included sixchanges atop The AssociatedPress poll, one short of the re-cord. It gave us a season-end-ing Top 10 of teams that com-bined for 68 losses. It featured31 conference tournaments,only 10 of which were won bythe same team that earned topseeding in the regular season.

Gonzaga may have wellhave been the poster child forall this upheaval.

The Bulldogs started theseason ranked ninth and con-sidered, as always, a FinalFour contender. But when cen-ter Przemek Karnowski wentout with a season-ending backinjury in December, every-thing changed. The Zags lostsix games - a catastrophe bytheir standards - in December,January and February. Theywere considered a bubbleteam. All the while, their for-ward, Domantas Sabonis, wasimproving almost every dayand their guards were turninginto playmakers, not liabili-

ties.The Bulldogs won the West

Coast Conference tournamentto make March Madness. Theprogram making its 18thstraight trip to the tourna-ment was rewarded with an11 seed. The Zags didn’t fightit.

"In some ways, it’s going tobe kind of nice to be a double-digit seed," Gonzaga coachMark Few said. "We justhaven’t done it in a while andit will be kind of fun to haveto play that role."

Fun, it was. Led by 21points and 16 rebounds fromSabonis, Gonzaga rolled to a68-52 win over Seton Hall onThursday night.

There have been some otherdouble-digit seeds moving onin this tournament, thoughtheir stories - including No. 15Middle Tennessee’s shockerover No. 2 Michigan State -have more traditional feels tothem.

-No. 12 seeds Yale and LittleRock had nothing to complainabout their seedings. But theirwins over Baylor and Purdueadded to an already massivepile of evidence showing theever-shrinking gap betweensmall and big conferences.

-No. 10 seed Syracuse gotlambasted after making thetournament but, much likeUCLA did last year after it in-explicably got in, did every-thing it could to have the com-mittee’s back. The Orangebeat Dayton 70-51 on Friday."Anybody that said we didn’tdeserve to be in obviouslydoesn’t know anything aboutbasketball," coach Jim Boe-heim said.

-Nobody argued much aboutthe seeding of either No. 13Hawaii or No. 4 Cal before theRainbow Warriors won thatgame 77-66. But Cal’s 10 lossesthis season despite having twopotential lottery picks on theroster - Jaylen Brown andIvan Rabb - raised red flagsabout the Bears.

-Finally, many expertsthought Michigan Stateshould’ve been a 1, not a 2.The Spartans’ loss goes as Ex-hibit A of how crazy this sea-son has been.

"It’s all about the team thatyou’re playing, not the num-ber in front of it," said GreggMarshall, the coach of WichitaState, which plays No. 3 seedMiami on Saturday. "Andthat’s what I love about theNCAA Tournament."

UPSETS Continued from Page 1B

year to replace DeMarco Murray,had his second career 1,000-yard sea-son with 1,089 yards and threetouchdowns on 239 carries. But heturns 29 this summer and had a his-tory of injuries during his sevenseasons in Oakland.

The Cowboys re-signed third-down back Lance Dunbar on Thurs-day, getting him back for a one-year,$1.75 million deal. But they lost freeagent Robert Turbin, who backedup McFadden the last seven gamesof 2015, to the Colts.

COWBOYS Continued from Page 1B

GLENDALE, Ariz. —The uproar over Adam La-Roche’s abrupt retirementfrom the Chicago WhiteSox turned ugly Friday,with ace Chris Sale accus-ing an executive vice pres-ident of lying to the teamabout the reasons La-Roche’s son needed tospend less time aroundthe clubhouse.

LaRoche announcedthis week he was leavingafter Kenny Williamsasked him to cut theamount of time his 14-year-old son, Drake, wasspending with the WhiteSox. The incident sparkedanger from players acrossthe major leagues andprompted questions aboutthe balance between workand parenting.

LaRoche, who joinedChicago after playing forthe Washington Nationals,for the first time spokepublicly Friday aboutwhat happened and he sin-gled out Williams.

“Prior to signing withthe White Sox, my firstquestion to the club con-cerned my son’s ability tobe a part of the team,” hewrote in a statement post-ed to his Twitter account.“After some due diligenceon the club’s part, wereached an agreement.The 2015 season presentedno problems as far asDrake was concerned. (Mybat and our record are an-other story!).

“With all of this inmind, we move toward thecurrent situation whicharose after White Sox VPKen Williams recently ad-vised me to significantlyscale back the time thatmy son spent in the club-house. Later, I was told notto bring him to the ball-park at all.”

The 36-year-old LaRochesaid he instead chose toretire and walk away froma $13 million salary.

White Sox owner JerryReinsdorf declined specificcomment.

“This is an internal is-sue, and we are in the pro-cess of holding a numberof discussions with play-ers, staff and the front of-fice,” Reinsdorf said in astatement. “As a result, wedo not want to commentuntil that process is com-pleted. I have instructedmembers of the organiza-tion not to talk about thisissue and get our focusback on the field and win-ning baseball games.”

Outfielder Adam Eatonsaid he had reached out to

the Major League BaseballPlayers Association on thematter. Union spokesmanGregory Bouris said theMLBPA was monitoringthe situation.

Current players, includ-ing Bryce Harper and for-mer slugger ChipperJones, took to socialmedia to back LaRoche,using #FamilyFirst onTwitter. But their angerwas nothing like that ofSale, the team’s All-Starpitcher who hung Drake’suniform outside his locker

and said it was the coach-es. He went to the coachesand said it was the play-ers. Then he came in hereand said it was the own-er,” Sale said. “If we areall here to win a cham-pionship, this kind of stuffdoesn’t happen.”

In a brief response is-sued by the club, Williamssaid: “While I disagreewith Chris’ assertions to-day, I certainly alwayshave appreciated his pas-sion.”

Pitcher David Robert-

son said “the entire club-house” supported La-Roche, while Todd Frazierwondered why the issuewasn’t addressed duringthe offseason.

White Sox managerRobin Ventura had little tosay about the controversy.

“The timing of it, nomatter where you put it, Idon’t think it would havebeen any better if it hadbeen the first day ofspring,” he said. As for hisplayers, he said, “Onething for sure is thatthey’re together, 100 per-cent.”

Yankees general manag-er Brian Cashman re-called manager Billy Mar-tin, perhaps at the behestof owner George Stein-brenner, telling Ken Grif-fey Jr. to stay out of theclubhouse when Ken Grif-fey Sr. was on the team.

“There is definitely nopart of a workplace that isowned by the playersabove the company, includ-ing clubhouse,” Cashmansaid. “The is the New YorkYankees club, New YorkYankees training room,the New York Yankees du-gout, the New York Yan-kees field. We dictate ac-cess.”

Marlins manager DonMattingly said every teamhad to find a balance inhaving children aroundtheir fathers and having togo play. Dusty Baker of theNationals said he believedboth LaRoche and theWhite Sox did what theyhad to.

“I see the basketballplayers have their kids atinterviews and stuff.Steph Curry . everybodytalks about the family, theimportance of family, buthow are you supposed tohave a family sometimes ifyou don’t bring your kidsto work?” Baker said.

Players on other teamsspeculated about the ori-gin of the dispute.

“I would have to imag-ine there’s more to it thanwe know for it to end upbeing this dramatic of anoutcome,” Yankees reliev-er Andrew Miller said.

at the spring trainingcomplex in suburbanPhoenix.

White Sox players weretold three different storiesabout what happened, Salesaid.

“This is a bigger issuethan being told his soncan’t be around. It’s amuch deeper issue,” Salesaid, then referred direct-ly to Williams: “We gotbold-faced lied to by some-one we’re supposed to beable to trust.”

“He came to the players

Sox ace Sale accuses VP of lying about LaRocheBy MIKE TULUMELLO

ASSOCIATED PRESS

White Sox pitcher Chris Sale accused vice president Ken Williams of lying as the team remained in an uproar over the retirement of AdamLaRoche.

File photo by Jim Mone | AP

White Sox No. 1 starter Chris Sale accused Chicago’s vice president KenWilliams of lying to the team regarding the Adam LaRoche situationstating, “We got bold-faced lied to by someone we’re supposed to be ableto trust.”

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 THE ZAPATA TIMES 3B

Dear Heloise: I knowyour husband is a plumber,and you have mentioned inyour column that the onlything that should beFLUSHED down the toiletis toilet paper.

My husband flushes fa-cial tissue, paper towels,cat hairballs, cat hair andwho knows what else downthe toilet. When I told himwhat I had read, he saidthat he’s always done it,and that it hasn’t been aproblem yet.

Maybe if he sees it inprint, he will change thisbad habit. Thank you! – ADover, N.H., Fan

I usually try NOT to getin the middle of a "discus-sion" between husband andwife, but on this one I will.My husband is a retiredplumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractor,and he built our house. Weand waste-management en-gineers agree on this:

DO flush only humanwaste and toilet paper.

DO NOT flush anythingelse!

All of the items men-tioned may be "flushable,"which means they go

through the toilet, but theydon’t just "go away." Theygo through (or NOT) theplumbing system, then ei-ther into your septic sys-tem or out to the main sew-er system.

Your husband may neverhave had a problem, butmillions have. Plus, it’scosting MILLIONS OFDOLLARS to unclog, keepfree-flowing and remove allof the items that peopleflush.

The toilet is meant forone thing. It’s not a catchallfor trash!

To flush or not to flush –that’s the question. – He-loise

DRIVING WITH GPSDear Heloise: I was dis-

turbed by your answer toRobert C., who has his wifeblindly follow their GPSwhile driving to a mysterydate location for dinner.

We live in a world wheredrivers are dangerouslydistracted by their electron-ic devices. Following GPScommands also can be dis-tracting, especially if youdon’t know your destina-tion. – Douglas M., Bolivar,Ohio

4B THE ZAPATA TIMES SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016