Siblings in song: Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’ Pasatiempo, inside The New Mexic an’s Weekly Magaz ine of Arts, Entert
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Ex-inmate alleges murder plot against him Now free, former convict sues state prison system, says he was abused, tortured for acting as prisoner representative By Phaedra Haywood The New Mexican
Balderas promises to protect children The new attorney general vows to crack down on child predators and violent criminals. PAGE A-8
A man who spent more than two decades in the New Mexico state prison system before being released last January claims in a court document that prison officials tried to have him killed while he was incarcer-
Samuel P. Chavez
Deputy’s autopsy results revealed Report says Jeremy Martin might have been in a physical altercation before he was fatally shot. PAGE A-8
ated because he was working to reform prison policy and helping other inmates navigate the judicial system. Current and former prison officials deny the claims filed by Samuel P. Chavez, who spent 23 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the 1988 death of a
Las Cruces man. During the implementation of the Duran Decree, a policy put in place to govern prison conditions after the 1980 prison riot, Chavez served as a prisoner representative. He has said that he spent a total of about 13 years in solitary confinement and was abused and tortured in retaliation for his work on the Duran Decree and for acting as a jailhouse lawyer. “It was solely because of my involvement in constitutionally
A kinder, gentler trail Volunteers create safer, more elegant access to popular path
Obama to propose free tuition for millions
protected activity,” Chavez, now 55, said in a recent phone interview. Chavez filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections and several of the agency’s employees in 2007, while he was still incarcerated, alleging civil rights violations. The case has been moving slowly through the court system since then. After his release in January 2014, he began
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Janitor shaped brothers’ zeal for violence For suspects sought in French attack, militancy began in Parisian park
Program would pay for community college costs By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Tamar Lewin
By Griff Witte and Anthony Faiola
The New York Times
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Thursday that he would propose a program to pay the tuition of many community college students, an ambitious plan that would expand educational opportunities for millions of Americans. The initiative, which the president plans to officially announce Friday at a Tennessee community college, aims to address growing income inequality by transforming publicly financed higher education. The plan would be funded by the federal government and participating states, but White House officials declined to discuss how much it would cost or how it would be financed. It is bound to be expensive and likely a tough sell to a Republican Congress not eager spend money, especially on a proposal from the White House. “With no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan,” said Cory Fritz, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. Obama’s advisers acknowledged Thursday that the program’s goals would not be achieved quickly. The president, however, was more upbeat. “It’s something that we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world,” Obama said in a video posted Thursday night by the White House. The proposal would cover half-time and full-time students who maintain
Betty Block of Santa Fe hikes Thursday on the new section of the Dale Ball Trail System that goes from Upper Canyon Road up toward Picacho Peak. Volunteers, with the help of The Nature Conservancy, have realigned the trail heading to avoid a steep, eroded section that has been a bit of an eyesore, not to mention a danger to some hikers. LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Anne Constable
DALE BALL TRAIL REALIGNMENT
The New Mexican
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SOURCE: GOOGLE EARTH, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
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here wasn’t much fanfare late last October when volunteers finished rerouting a portion of the Dale Ball Trail off Upper Canyon Road. Only a dozen or so people were on hand to celebrate the completion of the four-day project. But many hikers and bikers setting off for Picacho Peak and beyond are benefiting from the improvements. Now, instead of the steep climb up a badly eroded power easement, they can easily hop onto a gently graded trail through the trees that crosses the historic Acequia del Llano — an active irrigation ditch — and meets up with the existing Dale Ball Trail after about a quarter-mile. The project was initiated by Bob Findling, director of land protection and stewardship of The Nature Conservancy, who supplied about 12 cubic yards of rock for the job. The trail, on conservancy land, was built by volunteers from the Santa Fe Conservation
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THE NEW MEXICAN
PARIS — The man who allegedly orchestrated France’s deadliest terrorist attack in half a century was introduced to radical Islam by a charismatic janitor who led a band of social misfits and petty criminals through military-style training exercises in a Paris park. At the time, Cherif Kouachi was a pot-smoking pizza delivery man, drifting through life with only the vaguest of attachments to religion. But his indoctrination more than a decade ago would prove fateful. It fired a zeal for violence that was apparently never extinguished despite an aborted trip to Iraq to battle U.S. forces, a three-year prison term and a long stretch when Kouachi convinced those around him — and perhaps French law enforcement — that he had given up his dream of martyrdom.
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INSIDE u Massive manhunt underway. u Egypt’s leader calls for ambitious reform in Islam. PAGE A-6
From left, Said and Cherif Kouachi are sought as suspects in Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Paris. FRENCH POLICE VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES
N.M. ranked 49th in national education report Nevada, Mississippi only states to score lower By Robert Nott The New Mexican
New Mexico ranks near the bottom in yet another national report on educational achievement. Education Week’s Quality Counts released its annual state report card Thursday, and New Mexico earned a D. The state ranked 49th in the nation, ahead of Nevada and Missis-
Index
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sippi. The report includes the District of Columbia. This is Education Week’s 19th Quality Counts report card on states’ educational standings. In the past few years, New Mexico has moved up and down between an F in 2010 — the year before Gov. Susana Martinez took office — to a C in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and a D-plus last year. One reason the state dropped to a D in 2015 might be because the report eliminated one measure used in previous years: policies that improve student achievement.
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“New Mexico tended to fare well on some of those policy measures,” Sterling C. Lloyd, a senior research associate for the Education Week Research Center, said by phone Thursday. The report ranks states on how well they prepare students for college and careers, K-12 achievement and school finance. New Mexico got a D+, D- and D+ in those three areas, respectively. Though the state’s ranking has not improved much in the past decade in any national report, Lloyd said it
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ON THE WEB u Visit www.edweek.org/ew/qc to view the whole report.
is making progress in some areas. It has climbed seven spots in the national rankings in gains made in both fourth-grade math tests (13th) and eighth-grade math tests (14th) between 2003 and 2013. But it ranks 50th in overall reading proficiency, with just 21.5 percent of students reading at grade level. The
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Obituaries Patricia Carpenter, 85, Dec. 30 Donald J. Liska, 85, Dec. 26 Leonor L. (Martinez) Lucero, Jan. 5 Jane Maes, 85, Dec. 30 Irving Saltzberg, 99, Dec. 16 Domenic Scarafiotti Jr., 85, Jan. 7 PAGE A-10
Two sections, 24 pages Pasatiempo, 56 pages 166th year, No. 9 Publication No. 596-440