Russia celebrates Games’ conclusion, return to top of winter sports p Sports, p , B-1
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Parliament rushes to shift power in Ukraine
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Telemedicine helps providers treat pain The University of New Mexico’s Project ECHO connects New Mexico physicians with specialists to address complicated care. LIFE & SCIENCE, A-9
Lawmakers quickly move to dismantle traces of the former president’s government, firing top cabinet members, including the foreign minister. PAGE A-3
Study: Opening unused Rail Runner stop wouldn’t immediately worsen traffic
What’s next for Zia station?
GOP, Dems both aiming for control in House Members of rival parties view about 10 districts as important battlegrounds By Milan Simonich The New Mexican
Republicans last controlled the New Mexico House of Representatives when Dwight Eisenhower was in his first term as president and Rocky Marciano ruled the world of boxing. The GOP says this is its year for a breakthrough. Of course, it said the same thing in 2012, when Republicans actually lost seats in the House. This time is different, said Rep. Nate Gentry, because there is no presidential election and no Obama wave. New Mexico’s wellfunded Republican governor, Susana Martinez, will head the party’s statewide slate of candidates, and that will help candidates down the ballot, he said. “I think it is possible for us to win the House,” said Gentry, R-Albuquerque. For Republicans to take control of the chamber for the first time since 1953, they need a net gain of three seats. Democrats now have a 37-33 edge, but they seemed like the underdog at times during this year’s 30-day legislative session. Two Democrats were too ill to serve in Santa Fe, and their absence made it impossible to push through a ballot issue calling for an increase in the statewide minimum wage. That measure required 36 votes. House Speaker Kenny Martinez, D-Grants, said 30-day legislative sessions in years with a gubernatorial election are always filled with heavy politicking. With Gov. Martinez seeking re-election and all 70 seats in the House on the fall ballot, Developer Merritt Brown, whose firm has a stake in the land adjacent to the Zia Road Rail Runner station, has been waiting for the state to complete its study on the possible impacts of opening the station. ‘We’ve been in a holding pattern,’ he said. ‘I need to be able to go through the report and analyze it and make some decisions from whatever this report’s recommendations are and then decide which way we’re going to go from there.’ CLYDE MUELLER/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Daniel J. Chacón The New Mexican
raffic at the corner of Zia Road and St. Francis Drive would continue to operate at acceptable levels even if a so-far-unused commuter train station were to open today. But by the year 2038, Zia would need an additional left turn lane and another through lane between St. Francis and Galisteo Road to handle a projected increase in eastbound traffic, according to a recently released study of the intersection. The traffic study was initiated by the state Department of Transportation in 2012 to look at the impacts of opening the Rail Runner Express station near the intersection. The Zia Road sta-
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tion platform, built more than five years ago at a cost of about $1 million, has sat idle and enclosed by a chain-link fence due to disagreements over what should be allowed on private property next to the station. Additional improvements would be needed before it could open, including an access road. City Councilor Ron Trujillo, whose district includes the station, said he hopes the traffic study will put discussions about the future of the station — and the intersection — back on track. “It’s a shame that that kind of money was spent on that train station. Nothing is being used,” Trujillo said Friday. “If the whole intent was not to use that train station, I sure of heck could’ve found a better place to use that money.” The state Department of Transportation built the station on public right of way at the urging of
local officials. Part of the plan was for the owners of the adjacent land to build an access road to the station as part of a mixed-use development project. In 2011, after hearing from various neighborhood residents, the City Council decided the station should be designed only as a “kiss-andride” station — meaning there would be no parking lot. Santa Fe developer Merritt Brown, whose firm owns a stake in the adjoining land, said last week he’s been waiting for the report to be completed. “We’ve been in a holding pattern,” he said. “I need to be able to go through the report and analyze it and make some decisions from whatever this report’s recommendations are and then decide which way we’re going to go from there.”
Please see STATION, Page A-4
E-cigarettes divide health experts Some say devices are path to tobacco, while others argue they will cause fewer to smoke By Sabrina Tavernise The New York Times
Dr. Michael Siegel, a hardcharging public health researcher at Boston University, argues that e-cigarettes could be the beginning of the end of smoking in America. He sees them as a disruptive innovation that could make cigarettes obsolete, like the computer did to the typewriter. But his former teacher and mentor, Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is convinced that e-cigarettes may erase the hard-won progress achieved over the last half-century in reduc-
Index
Calendar A-2
ing smoking. He predicts that the modern gadgetry will be a glittering gateway to the deadly, old-fashioned habit for children, and that adult smokers will stay hooked longer now that they can get a nicotine fix at their desks. These experts represent the two camps at war over the public health implications of e-cigarettes. The devices, intended to feed nicotine addiction without the toxic tar of conventional cigarettes, have divided a normally sedate public health community that had long been united in the fight against smoking and Big Tobacco. The essence of their disagreement comes down to a simple question: Will e-cigarettes cause more or fewer people to smoke? The answer matters. Cigarette smoking is still the single largest cause of preventable death in the United States, killing about 480,000 people a year.
Classifieds B-6
Comics B-12
Life & Science A-9
Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Santa Fe Public Schools Choruses Performances begin at 6:30 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m., Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., no charge. Dr. Michael Siegel, a public health researcher, says electronic cigarettes could help end smoking, but other experts strongly disagree.
Obituaries
MATTHEW CAVANAUGH/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Siegel, whose graduate school manuscripts Glantz used to read, says e-cigarette pessimists are stuck on the idea that anything that looks like smoking is bad. “They are so blinded by this ideology that they are not able to see
Please see DIVIDE, Page A-4
El Nuevo A-6
Opinions A-11
Editor: Ray Rivera, 986-3033, rrivera@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Kristina Dunham, kdunham@sfnewmexican.com
Ernestine Valdez Babcock, 83, Feb. 19 Robert P. Maes, 92, Santa Fe, Feb. 20 Ramon N. Montoya, 91, Santa Fe, Feb. 19 PAGE A-10
Police notes A-10
Sports B-1
Today Partly sunny. High 61, low 31. PAGE A-12
Tech A-8
Time Out B-11
Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010
Please see HOUSE, Page A-4
Talk to explore perceptions of gun violence, mental illness By Staci Matlock The New Mexican
Most people with mental illnesses are not violent, and not everyone who uses a gun to kill others is mentally ill. But when a dangerous person with a gun commits some horrific crime — like shooting children in a Connecticut school or moviegoers in Colorado — the automatic assumption is that mass shooters are driven primarily by mental illness, said Jeffrey W. Swanson, a researcher and medical sociologist at Duke University. The assumption can lead to policies and laws that not only tread on privacy and paint an inaccurate picture of mental illness, but that don’t prevent gun violence from happening again, Swanson said. Many factors lead to people shooting other people, said Swanson, who is giving a free lecture on “The Truth About Gun Violence and Mental Illness” at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Center for Contemporary Arts’ Cinematheque, 1050 Old Pecos Trail. “We do have a big problem with firearm violence,” Swanson said. “But we need to do better at focusing on all the types of risks, not just people with mental illness.” The violence really comes down to the intersection of dangerous people and firearms, he said. “Even if it were possible to get rid of all the guns, we would still have dangerous people,” he said. He said the hardest thing to do is predict when someone will turn violent — whether or not mental illness is involved — and try to stop them. Some policies could help reduce access
Please see VIOLENCE, Page A-4
Two sections, 24 pages 165th year, No. 55 Publication No. 596-440