Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 123, No. 102 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
April 27, 2014
Congress returns to do the bare minimum
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress gets back to work Monday after a two-week vacation, and it’s looking like lawmakers will do what they do best: the bare minimum. Forget immigration, a tax overhaul, stif fer gun checks. They’re all DOA. Raising the minimum wage or restoring lost unemployment benefits? Not going to happen. Forcing government approval of the Keystone XL pipeline? Veto bait.
The only things likely to become law in a Congress bitterly divided between House Republicans and the Democratic-led Senate are those that simply have to pass, such as a measure to avoid a government shutdown. That’s a short, short list. It gets even shorter if you leave off things that can wait until a postelection lame-duck session. Atop the list is a shortterm spending bill to keep the government running
Blaze on Brown Road
www.rdrnews.com
past the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year. Votes on the bill aren’t needed until September. After stumbling into a politically costly partial government shutdown last fall, Republicans won’t let it happen again, especially with an election just around the cor ner. This year’s measure should be no problem. Much more dif ficult, however, is the second main item of must-do business: finding more money
for the Highway Trust Fund to keep road and bridge construction projects afloat. The fund is running critically low on cash. The administration says that could mean a slowdown in construction projects this summer and fall when lawmakers are back home asking voters to return them to Washington for another term. The current highway bill expires at the end of September. “The number of (mustdo) items is small,” said
SUNDAY
GOP lobbyist Hazen Marshall of the Nickles Group. “But the degree of difficulty, particularly for the highway bill, is very high.” Top lawmakers and the administration all say they want to pass a multiyear highway and transit funding bill. Most Capitol Hill watchers think a temporary extension of funding is far more likely. That’s still complicated. Lawmakers will have to agree on perhaps $10 billion to $15 billion in fund-
Firefighters respond to an out of control fire at a salvage yard located on Brown Road at around 6 p.m., Saturday. The cause of the blaze was unknown at press time.
Former Sandia Lab scientists create male home fertility test
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Two former Sandia National Laboratories scientists have come up with what they say is a take-home fertility test for men, the Albuquerque Journal reported Friday. Researchers Greg Sommer and Ulrich Schaff have created a portable test kit for gauging a man’s sperm quality that could be available to consumers as early as 2015.
“It allows men to test and track their fertility from the comfort and privacy of their own homes,” Sommer said. “It’s a portable, easy-to-use diagnostic system with the accuracy of a clinical lab test.”
The test would give results within a few minutes, the scientists said. They said technology they helped create during their time at Sandia was the basis for the device. Both participated in a project at a Sandia California lab site where they created a device that quickly detects toxins or other biological threats in emergency first responders. Sommer and Schaff licensed the technology from Sandia. In 2012, they founded their own startup, Sandstone Diagnostics Inc., to develop the fertility-test device, which they called TrakFertility. The home diagnostic
“We want to help people conceive in a way never done before,” Sommer said. “The market today is completely focused on females to monitor hormones, temperatures and so forth for peak fertility windows each month. But one of every five men has low-sperm counts that can impair conception.”
lived all over the U.S. and in
Europe, and she has always had a gift for language.
HIGH 81 LOW 52
TODAY’S FORECAST
The new cath lab is just one example of the commitment to Roswell by Lovelace Regional Hospital, says CEO Dawn Tschabrun. The new cardiac catheterization laboratory held a grand opening on Tuesday, although the facility is about six weeks old, T schabrun said. The cath lab is built with state-of-the-art technology that will allow providers to treat a variety of patients with cardiovascular and vascular conditions with minimally invasive surgical procedures. The cath lab also featur es a digital imaging system that produces high
A princely pooch
r esolution images and state-of-the-art imaging technology suitable for both vascular and cardiac interventional procedures. “This is the highest resolution screen, and the newest technology available,” Tschabrun said. Lovelace Chief of Staff, Dr. Robert Radar said the cath lab is not just for heart patients, but can also be used to view and repair peripheral arteries in patients as well. “With this technology, heart attack patients can come in and go straight to the cath lab and we can begin treatment immediately,” Radar said. “The longer the heart goes without treatment, See LOVELACE Page A3
Randal Seyler Photo
Zeev, a Saluki, is affectionate to Peggy Kaser, while her son, Lance, puts a matching costume on Enoch, also a Saluki. The breed is rare in Southeastern New Mexico. The royal dog of Egypt, the Saluki is perhaps the oldest known breed of domesticated dog. The Kasers and their dogs were at the Woof Bowl Dog Park Saturday for the Wag-N-Walk & Bake Sale, sponsored by the Rio Pecos Kennel Club.
Vale believes in the benefits of language
Erinda Or nelas Vale believes that lear ning more than one language is important not just for cultural growth, but for the overall quality of life — and language education has played a key role in her life. Vale, 74, has lived all over the U.S. and in Europe, and she has always had a gift for lan-
Erinda Ornelas Vale, 74, has
So what will Congress do for the next few months? Not much.
would help men who are focused on fertility issues to regularly keep watch over their sperm quality, Sommer said. They also are developing a mobile app so men can use their phones to study the results and learn how to discuss them with their doctors.
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Randal Seyler Photo
Passing those two bills is probably all that has to happen before Election Day. Congress has taken care of must-do legislation to increase the debt limit and fix Medicare’s flawed payment formula.
Lovelace CEO: Cath lab shows a commitment to community RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Mark Wilson Photo
ing to cover expected trust fund shortfalls. Optimally, Congress would act before its August vacation.
• FRANCISCO B. LUNA • BARBARA J. MIKESELL
guage.
“My mom and dad moved to Roswell from Spur, Texas, before I was bor n, but I wound up being born in Texas,” Vale recalls. “My mom thought she could get in one more visit home — but I surprised her.” Vale’s father, Pablo Ornelas, and her uncle, Tony Ornelas, worked with Dr. Robert Goddard in the 1930s during his development of the liquid-fueled
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A8
rocket, and her father was a mechanic. Vale attended the old Berrendo School as a child, getting an eighthgrade education. However, the eighth grade in the 1950s wasn’t the same as today’s middle school.
“We had already learned Latin and Algebra II,” Vale recalled. “We had had college courses by the eighth grade.” Life happened, and Vale married her first husband, who was an Air Force man
CLASSIFIEDS ..........D1 COMICS .................C5 ENTERTAINMENT .....B9 FEATURE ................B7
stationed in Roswell. After they married, she traveled with him to various bases in the U.S. and ultimately to Crete, a Greek island, where they were stationed in an elite NATO posting. While stationed in Alaska, Vale received her high school diploma through a correspondence school, the Inter national High School of Chicago. Thanks to Vale’s lan-
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2 HOROSCOPES .......A10 LOTTERIES .............A2 OPINION .................A4
See VALE, Page A3
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ............A10
WORLD ..................A9