Roswell Daily Record
House OKs DNA test expansion
Vol. 120, No. 59 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
ONE AND A HALF MEN?
NEW YORK (AP) — Charlie Sheen is gone, but his sitcom “Two and a Half Men” is likely to stick around. Although the eight-year-old show is aging and revolved around Sheen’s playboy character Charlie Harper, Warner Bros. Television and CBS have every incentive to try to keep it going after producers fired him on Monday. - PAGE A5
SANTA FE (AP) — A proposal to expand DNA testing to those arrested for any felony passed the House on Tuesday. The legislation is a key piece of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez’s legislative agenda. A 2006 state law requires DNA samples of those arrested of certain violent felonies, such as murder, kidnapping and sex offenses. “We must give law
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
March 9, 2011
WEDNESDAY
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enforcement the best possible tools to prevent crime and convict criminals, and requiring DNA samples from those arrested for felonies is simply the modern-day equivalent of fingerprinting,” the governor said in a statement after the bill cleared the House. The legislation will expand what’s called Katie’s Law in memory of Kathryn Sepich, a New Mexico State University student who was raped and
Eastward, Ho!
murdered in 2003. Sepich’s killer was identified more than three years later with DNA evidence after he was convicted of another crime. Martinez was district attor ney in Las Cruces when the murder happened. The bill passed the House on a 55-13 vote and was sent to the Senate, where a similar proposal is pending.
SENATE OKS FEES FOR PHONE CALLS BILL MATTHEW ARCO RECORD STAFF WRITER
A local lawmaker’s bill that would support a statewide victim notification fund cleared the Senate floor Monday following a 25-14 vote in favor of the legislation. Sen. Rod Adair’s, R-Roswell, legislation aims at charging prison inmates a 35-cent fee for every call they make and receive from jail, excluding phone communications from their attorneys. The funds would be col-
Roundhouse roundball raises $20K See CALLS, Page A3
See DNA, Page A3
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• Man’s condition improves • At the car show • Info sought on camera thefts • Group gathers to protest bill • SWAT team trains hard
INSIDE SPORTS
COYOTES NIP BULLDOGS ALBUQUERQUE — There was little doubt about who the better team was in Tuesday’s Class 4A state quarterfinal between the second-seeded Roswell Lady Coyotes and the 10th-seeded Artesia Lady Bulldogs. There was even less doubt in who was the best player on the court. The answer to the first was Roswell and the answer to the second was .... - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Ella Mae Davis • Burlington Jones • Berniece Zirschky • Albert L. Mulliken • Johnny J. Romero • Marilyn J. (Blea) Vogel - PAGE B3
HIGH ...71˚ LOW ....31˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........C1 COMICS.................B6 FINANCIAL .............B8 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
Mark Wilson Photo
Gene Glasscock, his dog Bug, and mules Kate and Kitty, take a break from a cross-country trip in a covered wagon, making camp in Riverside, Tuesday. Glasscock and his traveling companions are on their way to the Atlantic shores of Georgia. They left the San Diego area in September.
Roundhouse lawmakers took a break from bills and budgets last week during a legislative basketball game that raised $20,000 for the University of New Mexico Cancer Center. Two teams comprised of House and Senate lawmakers faced off during the annual Hoops 4 Hope game, played in the Santa Fe High School gym on March 3. The House “Aggies” defeated the Senate “Lobos” 33 to 26. “We are so grateful,” stated Dr. Cheryl Willman, director and CEO of the UNM Cancer Center, in a news release. “The proceeds will help us continue to deliver the world-class cancer care that all New Mexicans deserve.” This game nearly doubled last year’s $10,200 amount raised for cancer treatment and research. Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jen-
America’s ‘Heartland’ Denning takes Gold Award at moves Southwest Character Counts! banquet WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s population center is edging away from the Midwest, pulled by Hispanic growth in the Southwest, according to census figures. The historic shift is changing the nation’s politics and even the traditional notion of the country’s heartland — long the symbol of mainstream American beliefs and culture. The West is now home to the four fastest-growing states — Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho — and has surpassed the Midwest in population, according to 2010 figures. Califor nia and Texas added to the southwestern population tilt, making up more than one-fourth of the nation’s total gains since 2000. When the Census Bureau announces a new mean center of population next month, geographers believe it will be placed in or around Texas County, Mo., southwest of the present location in Phelps County, Mo. That would
put the center at the outer edge of the Midwest, on a path to leave the region by midcentury. The last time the U.S. center fell outside the Midwest was 1850, in the eastern territory now known as West Virginia. Its later move to the Midwest bolstered the region as the nation’s cultural heartland in the 20th century, central to U.S. farming and Rust Belt manufacturing sites. In the 1960s, “Will it play in Peoria?” was a common phrase that coincided with the U.S. center’s location in Illinois. It was a measure of whether a politician or consumer product could appeal to mainstream Americans with traits associated with Midwesterners, such as stability and caution. But over the last decade, the Phoenix suburb of Peoria, Ariz., soared past its namesake Peoria, Ill., in population size. Democrat
See HOOPS, Page A3
JONATHAN ENTZMINGER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Chaves County educators were honored at Character Counts! In Chaves County’s Teachers of Character Awards, Tuesday, at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center. Dink Denning, of Hagerman High School, took home the evening’s Gold Award. “It’s quite an honor for me,” Denning said. Denning said her accomplishments as a teacher include “seeing my students be successful and come back in to teach with me.” She also had advice for teachers getting their feet wet in the profession. “Don’t do it unless you really want to,” Denning said. The evening was emceed by Terri Douglass, Character Counts board president. Keynote
Mark Wilson Photo
From left, James Castle, Eastern New Mexico Medical Center; Betty Read Young, Read and Stevens Inc.; and Rod Schumacher, Roswell Regional Hospital greet one another during the Teacher of Character Awards Banquet, Tuesday evening. The three were key in sponsoring the gala event. speakers included Cla Avery, director of Character Counts!; Dr. Jim Castle, chief of staff, Eastern New Mexico Medical Cen-
ter; Judge Alvin Jones; and Rod Schumacher, CEO, Roswell Regional See DENNING, Page A3
Gadhafi forces barrage Libyan rebels in east and west See CENSUS, Page A3
INDEX
AP Photo
An anti-Gadhafi rebel flashes V signs and shouts religious slogans as he walks forward to fight on the front line, near Bin-Jawad, eastern Libya, Tuesday.
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — After dramatic successes over the past weeks, Libya’s
rebel movement appears to have hit a wall of overwhelming power from loyal-
ists of Moammar Gadhafi. Pro-regime forces halted their drive on Tripoli with a heavy barrage of rockets in the east and threatened Tuesday to recapture the closest rebel-held city to the capital in the west. If Zawiya, on T ripoli’s doorstep, is ultimately retaken, the contours of a stalemate would emerge — with Libya divided between a largely loyalist west and a rebel east as the world wrestles with the thorny question of how deeply to intervene. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to plan for the “full spectrum of possible responses” on Libya, including imposing a no-fly zone to prevent Gad-
hafi’s warplanes from striking rebels. According to a White House statement, the two leaders spoke Tuesday and agreed that the objective must be an end to violence and the departure of Gadhafi “as quickly as possible.” A spokesman for the opposition’s newly created Interim Governing Council in Benghazi, meanwhile, said a man who claimed to represent Gadhafi made contact with the council to discuss terms for the leader of four decades to step down. Mustafa Gheriani told The Associated Press the council could not be certain whether the man was acting on his own initiative or did in fact represent Gadhafi.
“But our position is clear: No negotiations with the Gadhafi regime,” said Gheriani, who declined to say when contact was made or reveal the identity of the purported envoy. Libyan state television denied that Gadhafi had sent an envoy to talk to the rebels. Later Tuesday, Gadhafi made a surprise appearance at a hotel hosting foreign correspondents in Tripoli, arriving just before midnight. He raised his fist in the air as he walked from his car to the hotel, then he went into a room separated by curtains for exclusive interviews with a See LIBYA, Page A3