Featured Articles from the Imperial Valley Press Online

CALEXICO - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are already reporting shorter border wait times for pedestrians utilizing the six newly installed Ready lane kiosks at the Calexico downtown Port of Entry. The six kiosks were installed last Wednesday and allow travelers to scan their own border-crossing documents before reaching the officer, thereby cutting down on the time it would take for the officer to manually swipe the document. It also allows the officer to better focus on the traveler and thereby increases safety, officials say. Those using the Ready lanes must have a Radio Frequency Identification-enabled document, and those include U.S. passport cards, Trusted Traveler cards such as SENTRI as well as legal permanent resident and laser visa/border crossing cards issued after 2008.

Teaching young people how to venture into the arts and entertainment business will be at the heart of a third day of workshop presentations today. Working out of Southwest High School in El Centro on Saturday, youngsters attending the event were treated to a variety of workshops on such topics as entrepreneurship, music production, entertainment company, careers in radio, television news, marketing and advertising, business management, dramatic arts, disc jockey and remixing, commercial acting, film and television, papier-mâché and watercolor painting.

> > 50 Years Ago   - EL CENTRO - Welfare expenditures had a commanding influence had commanding on the record high budget handed to the county supervisors yesterday, according to Al Haberger, county executive officer. Proposed budget for the county is set at slightly over $10 million. This budget carries overtones of tax increases next year, he said. According to Haberger, welfare expenditures alone conciliate 34.1 percent of the budget. “This is something that the supervisors have no control over,” he said.

> > 50 Years Ago   - EL CENTRO - “Laos is lost … down the drain,” Virgil Pinkley, editor and publisher of the Post and Press Newspapers, told members of the El Centro Rotary Club yesterday. He called for a drive, starting in the homes of El Centro to strengthen the moral fiber of Americans, and to cease the continual seeking after comfort and ease. Pinkley reviewed his recent trip to Southeast Asia during which he visited eight countries and covered 38,000 miles, getting a first-hand view of the area's political, economic and social accomplishments and failures.

A man was arrested this week on suspicion of agriculture equipment theft after an estimated $6,000 worth of property was taken from local harvesting companies. Marco Andres Gutierrez-Perez, 33, of Mexicali was arrested Tuesday and is being held at the Yuma County Sheriff's Jail awaiting extradition to Imperial County, according to a press release from the Sheriff's Office. He was identified after the Imperial County Sheriff's Office increased patrols near El Centro due to recent agricultural thefts in that area.

Two members of the Imperial County Sheriff's Office team have been arrested within the last week, and Sheriff Ray Loera said it's disappointing, but not indicative of the agency as a whole. “It is disappointing, and we have to deal with it,” Loera said. “We act on it as quickly as possible and hopefully move on.” Last week reserve deputy Elizabeth Hernandez was arrested with one other person for allegedly transporting people thought to be in the country illegally. Court records said Hernandez wore her uniform with her firearm visible at the time of detainment north of the Highway 86 checkpoint.

Why does the Pope wear red shoes? I saw Pope Benedict wearing them, but can't remember seeing Pope John Paul II wearing them. What about the new pope? - Papal Watcher, Imperial County The short answer is, the red papal shoes are meant “to honor the martyrs of the Church, people who have given their life for the faith,” said Michael Lovette-Coyler, assistant vice president of mission and ministry of University of San Diego. The color red, of course, would represent the blood of the martyrs.

> > 50 Years Ago   - WINTERHAVEN - At a tribal meeting last night, Quechan Indians passed a resolution protesting their forced annexation into Arizona by a border agreement passed by the legislatures of both California and Arizona, and signed by Governor Brown. Ed Jackson, tribal chief, said that Governor Brown “had not kept his word” when he had promised that “nothing would be done to harm the interests of the Quechan Indians.”   > > 40 Years Ago   - Dr. Irving S. Benglesdorf made the future sound exciting and the present a lot less dull in an address to some 317 Imperial Valley College graduates at Saturday   evening's commencement.

Officer with a good eye nabs 2 After a six-mile car chase through west Imperial and a foot pursuit, Imperial police arrested a former Los Angeles man who had been driving with a suspended license. Alex Garzona, 28, who recently moved back to Imperial, was scheduled to be booked into jail this morning. At 1:30 a.m., Officer John Espinoza allegedly saw Garzona blow through a stop sign and he tried to stop him. Garzona punched the accelerator, leading Espinoza on a six-mile chase that snaked north on La Brucherie, west on Lee Road and into the Ironwood Estates subdivision.

GRAYS WELL ? A van carrying about 20 illegal immigrants got stuck trying to go over a vehicle barrier on a makeshift ramp two miles west of the rest stop here Wednesday morning. Nobody was detained during the incident. U.S. Customs and Border Protection senior Border Patrol Agent Enrique Lozano said that at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday a Chevrolet Astro Van filled with about 20 people illegally entered the United States and began heading north to Interstate 8. Lozano said the occupants of the van used a ramp to attempt to scale the vehicle barriers installed by the Border Patrol along Interstate 8. The weight of the van and the people inside, however, caused the ramp to partially collapse while the vehicle was midway across the barrier, stranding the van several feet above the ground.

Wandering through the aisles in a Los Algodones pharmacy, Brigitte Mack was like a kid in a candy store. Pulling items off the racks left and right, Mack, a 65-year-old Wisconsin native, seemed perpetually amazed by the low-cost medications available in Mexico. ?I come here once a year all the way from Kenosha and the savings make it well worth the trip,? said Mack as she studied an herbal medication made from prickly pear cactus. ?Even though I have medical insurance, I?m still able to save $1,000 a year if I buy my drugs here.

MEXICALI ? At least a couple thousand people gathered under the canvas of night and drank beer until the early morning hours as the 2008 Chevefest got under way here Friday night. The two-day festival attracted Mexicali?s middle-class residents and featured seven brands, including that of Mexicali brewery Cerveza Cucapá. Cucapá, named for the Mexicali and Imperial Valley?s native peoples, is four years in the making. But clearly, Bud Light was the most popular beer Friday as the large crowd gathered at that manufacturer?

"From ancient ages to the modern present times, the solving of cranium straining conundrums has been one of the ways in which we have created harmony out of chaos, and brought some semblance of order, however transitory or illusional, to our lives. " If you need a translator for the foregoing statement, (1) you are not overly erudite and (2) neither are you obsessed by the crossword puzzle craze that besets millions of people in our nation. One of my earliest childhood memories was of trying to get the crossword puzzle in our local newspaper worked before my brother Charlie could locate the paper.

Staff Writer The time is 10 p.m. The day, Friday. It's cold; the wind gusty. A lone woman walks along Adams Avenue near 12th Street in El Centro. She is pacing in front of a liquor store ? waiting, watching. A pickup pulls up beside her; the driver looking for a little company. "Looking for a date?" the woman asks. For several hours Friday night and Saturday morning that scenario played out over and over again. The woman was one of three undercover officers taking part in an operation meant to strike at those soliciting the services of prostitutes and ultimately get some drugs and drug pushers off the streets.