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Medicare ban on sex-change surgeries lifted
No word yet on new city manager
House GOP coalition backs medical pot
Federal board rules in favor of a 74-year-old Albuquerque transgender Army veteran whose request to have Medicare pay for her genital reconstruction was denied two years ago. PAge A-5
Libertarian and moderate Republicans block federal attempt to interfere with states that permit the use of medial marijuana. PAge A-5
Comedian tells grads: You have the power Santa Fe Prep, Santa Fe Indian School hold ceremonies. LOcAL NewS, A-6
Retired four-star general says he was ‘too trusting of some’
Shinseki resigns as VA woes mount
Mayor’s Office remains mum on who’s in the running for top job
Feds say problems at WIPP mean deadline ahead of fire season can’t be met at LANL
By Daniel J. Chacón
The New Mexican
With less than two weeks remaining on Santa Fe City Manager Brian Snyder’s contract, Mayor Javier Gonzales still hasn’t decided who he wants to take the top job at City Hall on a permanent basis. The Mayor’s Office declined to disclose who Gonzales is considering for the appointment, Brian Snyder which requires City Council approval, Current city or how many candimanager’s dates he has intercontract viewed. “He’s still deliberexpires in ating on his choice less than for city manager,” two weeks. city spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis Porter said Friday, “and he’s not going to go forward with anybody until he’s had an opportunity to discuss his choice with council members.” Several councilors said the mayor, who took office in early March, hasn’t shared any information about who he is considering for the $130,000-a-year job of overseeing day-to-day operations of city government, including hiring and firing. “I feel like the proverbial mushroom: left in the dark,” City Councilor Bill Dimas said. City Councilor Signe Lindell said Friday she hadn’t heard anything, either. “In as much as I haven’t been contacted and I’m not aware of any interviews, my assumption is that Mr. Snyder will continue on as city manager,” she said. “I just haven’t been contacted. I would’ve thought if there were interviews of outside people, perhaps some of the council would’ve been included in that, but I’ve heard nothing about it.” Snyder, a civil engineer who started working for the city in 2004, was appointed city manager last June
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By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, who spoke Friday at a meeting of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans in Washington, resigned in the wake of allegations of treatment delays and preventable deaths at veterans hospitals around the country. CHARLES DHARAPAK/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Julie Pace
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON eset by growing evidence of patient delays and cover-ups, embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned from President Barack Obama’s Cabinet Friday, taking the blame for what he decried as a “lack of integrity” in the sprawling health care system for the nation’s military veterans. Obama, under mounting pressure to act from fellow Democrats who are worried about political fallout in the fall elections, praised the retired four-star general and said he accepted his resignation with “considerable regret.” But the president, too, focused on increasingly troubling allegations of treatment delays and preventable deaths at veterans hospitals around the country. Emerging from an Oval Office meeting with Shinseki, a stone-faced Obama said the secretary himself acknowledged he had become a distraction as the administration moves to address the VA’s troubles, and the president agreed with him. “We don’t have time for distractions,” Obama said. “We need to fix the problem.” One of Shinseki’s last acts as secretary was to hand the president an internal accounting that underscored just how big the problems have become. It showed that in some cases, VA schedulers have been pressured to
B
Georgia O’Keeffe’s sister gets her turn to shine in exhibit By Jamie Stengle
The Associated Press
DALLAS — Little-known works by the younger sister of famed artist Georgia O’Keeffe will take center stage at an exhibit that will debut at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2017 before going on tour. The exhibit will feature about 40 paintings, watercolors, prints and drawings by Ida O’Keeffe, along with photographs of her taken in the 1920s by her sister’s husband, acclaimed photographer
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Nuclear waste removal delayed
Alfred Stieglitz. “She possessed a very good eye. She was very skilled in the art of composition and also in technique,” said Sue Canterbury, curator of American art the museum and organizer of the exhibition. Canterbury hopes the exhibit, titled Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow, will help reveal Ida O’Keeffe both as a person and an artist.
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President Barack Obama, in accepting Shinseki’s resignation, said, ‘We don’t have time for distractions. We need to fix the problems.’ JACQUELYN MARTIN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
fake information for reports to make waiting times for medical appointments look more favorable. “It is totally unacceptable,” Obama said. “Our vets deserve the best. They’ve earned it.”
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INSIDe u Obama bids farewell to longtime White House spokesman Jay Carney. PAge A-5
Man’s best friend through history Sunday lecture covers canines in the Pre-Columbian era. PAge A-6
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
S.F. Opera Insider Day Saturdays through Aug. 23, refreshments 8:30 a.m., staffmember-led backstage tours and talks 9 a.m., 301 Opera Drive, no charge, meet at the box office, 505-986-5900.
Altered photos irk kids Today
Orlinda Gallegos, 98, Santa Fe, May 26
Students troubled over Utah school’s ‘modesty makeover’ in yearbook.
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Migrants overwhelm Texas border authorities By Astrid Galvan
The Associated Press
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Lotteries A-2
The U.S. Department of Energy notified state regulators Friday that it won’t meet a June 30 deadline to remove nuclear waste stored at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The department cited delays caused by a Feb. 14 radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, where waste from the lab is shipped for underground storage. Some 387 cubic feet of clothing, tools, rags, debris, soil and radioactive materials generated during nuclear research and weapons development is still stored on-site at Los Alamos, according to the federal agency. After the Las Conchas Fire in 2011 burned within a few miles of the storage area, the Energy Department said, the waste was repacked in noncombustible containers, including metal drums and waste boxes held in domed structures with fire suppression systems. “As we work to assess the conditions of the transuranic waste program at the lab, we have decided to halt further shipments until we can
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BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM
PHOENIX — By the time the women arrived disheveled and hungry at the Greyhound station in Phoenix, they already had spent weeks traveling thousands of miles with young children in tow. Ranging from months old to adolescents, some of the children were sick and lethargic. Others played gleefully at arcade games in the crowded waiting room of the bus station. The families were apprehended in Texas, flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. It was a signal of a shift in immigration that has seen the Rio Grande Valley surpass Tucson as the leader in border apprehensions, overwhelming border agents in Texas. The trend is being driven by a huge
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Two sections, 24 pages TV Book, 32 pages 165th year, No. 151 Publication No. 596-440