North rolls over South in Pecos League’s All-Star slugfest Sports, B-1
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Diego Fire rages on Residents in Jarosa, surrounding areas urged to leave; firefighters hope rain will help. PAge A-7
Bill Gates visits LANL
GM recalls more cars
Microsoft co-founder discusses health, education. PAge A-8
Move brings total for year to 28 million vehicles. PAge A-3
Lawmakers question hefty sums state paid to Arizona providers Invoices show high hourly charges, extreme workdays By Patrick Malone The New Mexican
Last summer, Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration assured lawmakers the state would need no more than $17.85 million in emergency funds to help a handful of Arizona companies
take over mental health services from 15 New Mexico providers that had been accused of fraud. By the end of the year, the Arizona companies had billed the state nearly $24 million. Now some lawmakers want a review of how the Arizona companies spent that money after documents obtained by The New Mexican show wide-open billing practices that were approved by the Human Services Department. In one example, invoices submitted to the
Study examines rise, fall in Native populations
state for reimbursement by the Arizona providers show that the executive and management team of one company, Open Skies Healthcare, routinely billed the state $250 an hour to $300 an hour for wait times at airports and extremely long workdays. Invoices for another replacement provider, La Frontera Center, revealed that managers and executives charged the state hourly rates
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Hobby Lobby wins case on birth control
Justices: Companies’ religious rights trump contraceptives rule in Affordable Care Act By Mark Sherman The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that some companies with religious objections can avoid the contraceptives requirement in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the first time the high court has declared that businesses can hold religious views under federal law. The justices’ 5-4 decision, splitting conservatives and liberals, means the Obama administration must search for a different way of providing free contraception to women who are covered under the plans of objecting companies. Chaco Canyon, pictured, saw high birth rates around the time they began widely cultivating beans, diversifying types of corn and hunting with bows and arrows instead of spears. A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that after A.D. 1100, however, the birth rate and life spans of Native peoples in the Southwest took a dive, driven in part by drought and climate change outstripping the ability of farmers to feed everyone. COURTESY U.S. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Southwest sites saw birth rates steadily rise with technology before sharp decline, Santa Fe Institute researcher reports By Staci Matlock
The New Mexican
B
uoyed by irrigation, corn cultivation and other innovations, indigenous people in the Southwest for two millennia enjoyed increasingly longer lives and a population growth rate rivaling any seen today. After A.D. 1100, however, the birth rate and life spans of Native peoples in the Southwest took a dive, driven in part by drought and climate change outstripping the ability of farmers to feed everyone, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“If we look at areas abandoned in the 1200s, it was the areas with the highest birth rates,” said Timothy Kohler, the study’s lead author and a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University. “I’m not saying birth rates caused the problems. They just made whatever problems these societies ran into that much more serious with so many mouths to feed.” “It is very common for these neolithic societies to have some kind of crisis after a period of rapid expansion,” said Kohler, who also works with the Santa Fe Institute. The neolithic period, from 1100 B.C. to A.D. 500, was one of slow but immense
technological innovation, such as the creation of extensive irrigation systems among the Hohokam in Arizona. The study by Kohler and co-author Kelsey Reese, also of Washington State University, is a precautionary tale for modern societies. “We in the West have a profound confidence that we are so technologically adept that we can survive anything nature or other people throw at us. We think we can innovate our way out,” he said by phone from his Washington office. “People in the neolithic societies were also innovative. Yet they didn’t
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N.M. court upholds property tax cap Annual increase cannot top 3 percent, unless a home changes hands By Barry Massey
The Associated Press
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Monday upheld a state law capping residential property tax valuation increases until a home changes ownership.
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Critics of the law contend it causes “tax lightning” for new homeowners when the valuation of a house is reassessed for market value. The property taxes for new homeowners can end up much higher than their neighbors who’ve lived in a house for many years. Had the state’s highest court invalidated the law, longtime New Mexico homeowners could have faced the potential of significant tax increases. Under a state law that took effect in
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2001, most people are subject to a 3 percent limit on how much property values can climb each year for tax purposes. However, the cap doesn’t apply when a home changes hands. The law was enacted to help longtime property owners, such as in Santa Fe where expensive homes were being built in older neighborhoods and surrounding property values skyrocketed. The cap prevented taxes from spiking on homes
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Standing outside Santa Fe’s Hobby Lobby Store on Cerrillos Road, Tina Haughton shows support Monday for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that some corporations can opt out of paying for certain types of birth control for employees based on religious grounds. CLYDE MUELLER/THE NEW MEXICAN
Texting while driving ban takes effect today Violators will be fined $25 1st time; $50 after By Barry Massey
The Associated Press
A statewide ban on texting while driving takes effect Tuesday in New Mexico. Under the new law, drivers are prohibited from sending or reading text message and emails — even while at a stoplight or tem-
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porarily stuck in a traffic jam. Motorists also will be banned from searching the Internet on smartphones or other hand-held wireless devices. However, the law does allow a driver to pull over to the side of the road to send or receive a text
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Ambassador Sichan Siv The former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and author of Golden Bones and Golden State recounts his life growing up in Cambodia, 6 p.m., Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo St. More events in Calendar, A-2 and Fridays in Pasatiempo
Obituaries
Today
Lois Ann Geary, 84, June 28 Dolores Q. Myers, 78, Santa Fe, June 27
Partly cloudy; not as hot. High 86, low 58.
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