Word: laredo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Three brilliant virtuosos guaranteed the success of last Friday's Bank-Boston Celebrity Series concert. Leila Josefowicz, a violinist who has survived being branded a child prodigy, performed in two concertos. Andreas Haefliger, a Mozart specialist, was the pianist in another. Jaime Laredo, darling of countless Sony recording projects, conducted the Brandenburg Ensemble and joined Josefowicz as a soloist. All the repertoire was light and bright and ideally suited to the orchestra...
...toxic chemical, had leaked from a tanker waiting in line for U.S. Customs inspection, and the liquid was vaporizing as it gathered in a noxious pool. It was "chewing holes in the pavement," says Lee Thompson, who saw it all happen in early November at the border station outside Laredo, Texas. His hazardous-materials response team, fortuitously on the scene for a training exercise, rushed to prevent the highly flammable acid from catching fire. They barely averted an explosion. In the past few months, several Mexican trucks traveling just inside the U.S. border have exploded or leaked toxins that threatened...
...average day, at least 4,000 Mexican trucks cross the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge in downtown Laredo, where only 20 customs agents are available to work the import dock. Those agents have to inspect insurance, driver's licenses and immigration papers and look for narcotics and violations of trade-compliance laws. Checking a vehicle for faulty brakes or bald tires is way down the list and not necessarily a customs agent's responsibility, according to chief inspector David Higgerson, the cargo director for U.S. Customs in southern Texas...
Serious tragedies occur almost weekly. Last September, just north of the border, a Mexican driver was killed when a spark caused by carelessness ignited his tanker filled with jet fuel. Texas officials recently investigated a sulfuric-acid spill in Laredo involving a 16-year-old driver with no insurance and no shipping papers. His rig had faulty brakes; nine of its 18 tires were bald. It is not uncommon to find several Mexican truck drivers carrying insurance cards with the same name and policy number...
...front brakes, while Mexico does not. The U.S. is the only one that requires random drug testing. Even if uniform rules are agreed on, enforcement will remain a problem. As part of its safety program, the Texas department of public safety conducts periodic raids on the customs yard at Laredo, Higgerson says. But Richard Sparks, a former customs agent, recalls that whenever a raid begins, customs brokers, who operate the trucking companies, use cellular phones to stop the flow of their trucks until the raid is over...