ravens, steelers feud heats up as wild card teams ready for fa aceoff ffss sports, B-1
Locally o owned and independent
Saturday, January 3, 2015
www.santafenewm mexican.ccom 75¢
PNM seeks fee for solar users
fast-food chains are dumping the junk Restaurants seek a shift to healthier images. Meanwhile, new diet guidelines may be better for the planet. PAge A-2
some see proposed charge to help with infrastructure costs as penalty that will discourage installation of rooftop systems
taste for tiger puts cats in peril China’s new cravings undermine efforts to stamp out illegal trade. PAge A-10
Sharpening image, gun safety groups take fight to state ballots
By staci Matlock The New Mexican
New Mexico economist Laird Graeser installed solar power at his house because the numbers worked. Public Service Company of New Mexico pays him a little money each month, and when his solar panels produce more than
he uses, he can bank the extra. “We have had two years where we made no payment to PNM,” Graeser said. Now the state’s largest electric utility wants to levy an extra fee on people who install solar power systems after Jan. 1, 2016. Solar advocates and a couple of economists like Graeser think the fee penalizes people who invest
New YeaR’s BaBies riNgiNg iN 2015 wiTH a BuNDLe
By Jennifer steinhauer The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The gun control movement, blocked in Congress and facing mounting losses in federal elections, is tweaking its name, refining its goals and using the same-sex marriage movement as a model to take the fight to voters on the state level. After a victory in November on a Washington state ballot measure that will require broader background checks on gun buyers, groups that promote gun regulations have turned away from Washington and the political races that have been largely futile. Instead, they are turning their attention — and their growing wallets — to other states that allow ballot measures. An initiative seeking stricter background checks for certain purchasers has already qualified for the 2016 ballot in Nevada, where such a law was passed last year by the Legislature then vetoed by the governor. Advocates of gun safety — the term many now use instead of “gun control” — are seeking lines on ballots in Arizona, Maine and Oregon as well. “I can’t recall ballot initiatives focused on gun policy,” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “There wasn’t the money.” Colorado and Oregon approved ballot measures on background checks at gun shows after the Columbine school massacre in 1999, but the movement stalled after that. The National Rifle Association, which raises millions of dollars a year largely from small donors and has one of the most muscular state lobbying apparatuses in the country, is well attuned to its foes’ shift in focus. “We will be wherever they are to challenge them,” said Andrew Arulanandam, the group’s spokesman. The new focus on ballot initiatives comes after setbacks in Congress and in statehouses. After the 2012
From left, Zach Candelaria, 22, feeds his newborn son with his daughter, Melody Nieto, 3, and partner Danielle Nieto, 22. The baby boy was the first baby born in the new year at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center. Photos by Jane PhilliPs/the new Mexican
City’s first births slow to come By Uriel J. Garcia The New Mexican
B
Officials call move decisive response to sony attack, but its effects likely will be limited
Index
Calendar A-2
Classifieds B-6
Arthur Alfaro was born at 4 a.m. Jan. 2 to Elizabeth and Arturo Alfaro at home by midwives Jessica Frechette Gutfreund and Elena Strauss of Breath of My Heart Birthing Place in Española.
The baby boy born at 5:11 p.m. Jan. 1 at Christus St. Vincent to Danielle Nieto and Zach Candelaria will receive his name in several weeks from his godparents.
now during a baby shower, Nieto said. “We were surprised he was born [on the first],” Nieto said. The baby wasn’t due until Jan. 2. “I guess he wanted to come out in a hurry.” Arturo was the only baby born at the hospital Thursday. Nieto, who was admitted into the hospital Wednesday, used a hospital midwife to help her with the birth. As he fed the baby and whispered to it in Keres, the baby’s father, Zach Candelaria, 22, of Santo Domingo Pueblo, said Friday afternoon that he didn’t care if the baby was a boy or a girl, as long as it was healthy. Kane said she didn’t know if the hospital’s foundation would
provide Nieto with baby supplies, as is common at hospitals for New Year’s babies. In Española, two babies were born on New Year’s Day. A girl was born at 8:43 a.m. and a boy was born at 12:24 p.m., hospital officials said. This year, hospitals in some states, including New Mexico, declined to release the names of babies born on New Year’s Day because of concerns about identity theft and possible abduction. Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, which runs 207 health care facilities, including six in New Mexico, ordered its hospitals not to publish names of the first baby of the year.
for a cyberattack against Sony. Despite lingering doubts by the cyber community, the U.S. insisted that North Korea was to blame. The White House warned that this was just the opening salvo in the U.S. response. While the fresh sanctions will have limited effect — North Korea already is under tough U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program — American officials portrayed the move as a swift and decisive response to North Korean behavior they said had gone far over the line.
Please see HACK, Page A-4
Comics B-10
Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010 News tips: 986-3035
Nate Gentry
House gOP leader said egolf’s “divisive rhetoric demonstrates that he would rather follow in the same footsteps as washington politicians who choose dysfunction over bipartisanship.”
Bipartisan battle rears its head in state House Party leaders trade barbs ahead of 2015 session; expert expects little compromise on top issues The New Mexican
U.S. slaps sanctions on North Koreans over hack
HONOLULU — Opening a new front in its cyber spat with North Korea, the United States slapped new sanctions Friday on government officials and the North’s defense industry in its first public act of retribution
Brian egolf
By steve terrell
abies in Santa Fe were in no hurry to be born on New Year’s Day. While babies elsewhere in the country were born during the midnight hour Jan. 1, the first Santa Fe baby didn’t come along until 5:11 p.m., when Danielle Nieto, 22, of San Felipe Pueblo, gave birth to her third child, a son, at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center. Then at 4 a.m. Friday, Elizabeth Alfaro, 32, gave birth to a son, Arthur (named for his father, Arturo), at home with the help of two midwives. The city’s first home-birth baby of 2015 was 7 pounds, 7.5 ounces and 19 inches long — and easier to deliver than his two older siblings, his mother said. The first baby to be born in New Mexico was Angelo Oros in Farmington, 45 seconds after midnight, KRQE-TV reported. “Normally they’re born in the middle of the night,” said Mandi Kane, a Christus St. Vincent spokeswoman, noting that last year, the first baby was born just after midnight Jan. 1. Nieto’s son, who weighs 6 pounds, 2 ounces, also was 19 inches long. Following Pueblo tradition, the baby’s godparents will name him two weeks from
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The associated Press
Please see SOLAR, Page A-4
Democratic House floor leader called on gov. susana Martinez to reject “the radical out-of-state agenda being driven by the incoming House republicans.”
with washington state victory and bigger war chest, effort gains steam
By Josh Lederman
thousands of dollars of their own money to generate some of their own power. If the extra charge is approved by state regulators, it won’t affect Graeser, but he said it could discourage other people from putting in solar panels. “To penalize solar just seems to me to be an argument that is not sus-
Crosswords B-7, B-9
Lotteries A-2
Gov. Susana Martinez, in her inauguration speech this week, called for the state government to put aside party differences and work together in a bipartisan manner. But less than a day after that speech — and more than two weeks before the 2015 Legislature begins — Democrats and Republicans in the soon-to-be GOP-dominated state House of Representatives already are fighting. And one New Mexico political scientist says that’s just a sign of an intensely partisan era and election cycles that seem to start as soon as the previous ones end. Shortly after Martinez’s speech Thursday, the House Democrats’ floor leader, Brian Egolf of Santa Fe, told The New Mexican that the speech sounded good, but he called on Martinez to reject “the radical out-of-state agenda being driven by the incoming House Republicans: reducing paychecks for New Mexico’s working people, privatizing education with out-of-state corporations and interfering with New Mexicans’ health care
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Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com
IAIA Arts Writers Festival Free readings, 6 p.m. daily through Jan. 9; tonight’s authors: Jennifer Foerster, Chip Livingston and Claire Vaye watkins, iaia auditorium, Library and Technology Center, 83 avan Nu Po road, 424-2356.
Obituaries
President Barack Obama signed an order Friday imposing sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for the cyberattack against Sony. associated Press file Photo
Opinion A-9
sports B-1
Time Out B-9
George Patrick Bowker Jr., 79, santa Fe, Dec. 30 carolyn ann edwards, 72, santa Fe, Dec. 31 Mark wray sr., 54, santa Fe, Dec. 26 isaudro Manuel Roybal, 93, Pojoaque, Dec. 22 PAge A-8
Markets A-5
BreakiNg News aT www.saNtafeNewMexicaN.coM
Today Mostly sunny. High 33, low 12. PAge A-10
Two sections, 20 pages TV Book, 32 pages 166th year, No. 3 Publication No. 596-440