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SWAIA stunned by chief’s departure
Victims of GM recall Majority of those killed as a result of General Motors’ delayed recall of its compact cars were young. PAGe A-2
COO posts resignation letter on Facebook but stays mum on decision to leave organization
Crash suit settled Victim’s son says dirt pile obstructed views, causing fatal accident in 2009. PAGe A-8
By Uriel J. Garcia
The New Mexican
Driver alleges force
John Torres-Nez’s resignation as chief operating officer of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts,
Cab driver says officer tackled her during traffic stop. PAGe A-8
the group that organizes the annual Santa Fe Indian Market, caught many by surprise. Torres-Nez, who has been associated with SWAIA since John Torres-Nez 2007 and was its COO since October 2012, posted an open letter Monday afternoon on his Facebook profile saying that he has “chosen to leave an
Problems persist for N.M. exchange at enrollment deadline
Rep. Jeff to stay on ballot for primary
organization” he loves. “Due to the position, despite my objections, in which this organization has been placed, it is my fiduciary duty to resign my position as Chief Operating Officer,” the letter says. Torres-Nez said he couldn’t comment further on his decision and that he has been “advised not to [talk] at this point.” “I have [a] much longer version of that letter I’ve been prepping,” he said via Facebook. “But it’s getting
Surge in last-minute insurance sign-ups causes health site to crash; state’s target appears out of reach
Case challenging House Democrat’s nominating petitions tossed by judge By Milan Simonich
The New York Times
Renada Lucero, left, a financial counselor at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, helps Renso Sandoval, and his wife, Monica Niess, sign up for health insurance under the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange on Saturday. PHOTOS BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Patrick Malone
The New Mexican
T
he federal gateway to health insurance stumbled out of the starting gate in October and limped across the finish line Monday. On the last day to enroll in an insurance plan without facing a tax penalty and waiting until 2015 for coverage, healthcare.gov, the federal online marketplace that New Mexico relies on to enroll individuals in insurance, crashed for six hours Monday morning and went down again in the afternoon apparently because of the high volume of traffic. It was unpleasant déjà vu for administrators of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, who have blamed maladies in the federal website’s roll-out last fall for the state’s sluggish enrollment figures. As healthcare.gov wobbled through the fall, the New Mexico exchange holstered its marketing campaign until the site became more reliable. Because of that lost time and the resulting lag in enrollment here, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange board favors keeping enrollment open throughout the year. That would require federal approval, and New Mexico exchange board member Aaron Ezekiel of the
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People wait in line outside Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center to sign up for health insurance on Saturday.
Office of the Superintendent of Insurance said Monday that constant conversations about an extended enrollment period are taking place between state and federal agencies. “We are making the case to the feds that we think New Mexico should have an extended open enrollment because we lost 75 days at the front end of our
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U.N. panel ties hunger problems to global warming The Associated Press
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Global warming makes feeding the world harder and more expensive, a United Nations scientific panel said. A warmer world will push food prices higher, trigger “hotspots of hunger” among the world’s poorest people, and put the crunch on Western delights like fine wine and robust
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Officials urge calm after APD protests take turn By Fernanda Santos
State Rep. Sandra Jeff withstood a challenge to her re-election candidacy Monday when a judge in Gallup dismissed the case on technical grounds. Conservation Voters New Mexico, which financed the lawsuit to remove Jeff from the ballot because it claims she filed insufficient nominating petitions, promptly announced that it would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. Meantime, a judge Sandra Jeff in Santa Fe disqualified legislative candidate Algin Mendez for failing to file enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions. Mendez, a Democrat from Española, said he would decide soon whether to appeal the ruling by District Judge Raymond Ortiz. Mendez’s ouster leaves state Rep. Carl Trujillo, D-Nambé, as the only candidate in House District 46 in Santa Fe County. Jeff, a Democrat who lists her address as Crownpoint, needed 78 signatures to make the ballot. She filed 91, but Conservation Voters alleges that more than half of them are invalid. In the lawsuit it is bankrolling, the organization says Jeff obtained signatures from Republicans and independents, people who do not live in her district, and even a dead man. The quality of Jeff’s nominating petitions was not considered by state District Judge Louis DePauli. Instead, he decided that the secretary of state did not notify Jeff of the ballot chal-
By Seth Borenstein
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Demonstrations prompt police chief to announce reforms for department
The New Mexican
Report: Climate change hurting food production
a look-over by my attorney before I send it to The New Mexican.” The news saddened many associated with SWAIA. “He’s a terrific man,” said a former SWAIA staffer. “He really understands the artists and the native perspective. He knows how to work with everyone.” A longtime board member who declined to discuss the resignation confirmed, “He was well liked by all of us.”
coffee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in a 32-volume report issued Monday. “We’re facing the specter of reduced yields in some of the key crops that feed humanity,” panel chairman Rajendra Pachauri said in press conference releasing the report. Even though heat and carbon dioxide are often considered good for plants, the overall effect of various aspects of man-made warming is that it will reduce food production compared to a world without global warming, the report said. The last time the panel reported
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on the effects of warming in 2007, it said it was too early to tell whether climate change would increase or decrease food production, and many skeptics talked of a greening world. But in the past several years the scientific literature has been overwhelming in showing that climate change hurts food production, said Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution of Science and lead author of the climate report. But this doesn’t mean in 50 years there will be less food grown. Thanks to the “green revolution” of improved agricultural techniques, crop pro-
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duction is growing about 10 percent per decade and climate change is likely to reduce yields by 1 percent a decade, so crop production will still go up, but not as fast, said David Lobell of Stanford University, one of the authors of the report’s chapter on food problems. Still, it is as if an anchor is weighing down the improvements to agriculture, Pachauri and Field said. Some places have seen crop yield increases drop from 2 percent a year to 1 percent or even plateau. And
ALBUQUERQUE — After demonstrations over a string of fatal shootings by the police became so heated over the weekend that officers in riot gear lobbed tear gas at an unruly crowd, Gov. Susana Martinez and Albuquerque city officials urged calm Monday and reassured a jittery public that investigations of the shootings were underway. “Albuquerque is going through a tough time, and they’ll figure it out through the investigation,” Martinez said at a news conference, referring to the killing last month of James Boyd, 38, a homeless man. “We want that to be thorough,” she said. “We want confidence in the investigation, but I just don’t want to see anyone harmed.” The city’s new police chief, Gorden Eden, commended officers for showing restraint, and said he is about to unveil reforms that include changes to the embattled department’s recruiting process. Hundreds have taken to the streets in protest here in recent days over the shootings of Boyd and other people who most likely had mental illnesses, episodes that have weakened the public’s confidence in the Albuquerque Police Department and
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Obituaries John Buchen, 89, Los Alamos, March 28 Antonio Elizardo Gonzales, 76, Santa Fe, March 28 Leo Ray Lovato, March 25 PAGe A-9
Today Mostly sunny. High 66, low 33. PAGe A-12
Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Guru of Chai Jacob Rajan’s one-man portrayal of modern India, 7:30 p.m., the Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., $15-$35, 988-1234, ticketssantafe.org.
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