Roswell Daily Record
INSIDE NEWS
NOAH VERNAU RECORD STAFF WRITER
THE MAKING OF A FLAG PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Move over, Betsy Ross. There’s a new generation of flag makers in Philadelphia. Tucked away in a room at a military supply operation, a dozen seamstresses are responsible for hand-embroidering the U.S. presidential flags.
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For The Past 24 Hours
• One dies in roll over • 35,000 acres burned, zero contained • Weather helps in efforts to fight fire • Sunset Villa hosts awesome party • Invaders into first
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Progress being made to contain fire
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Firefighters continued to build on progress made earlier this week in suppression efforts of the Little Bear fire, which as of Wednesday was 37,520 acres and 35 percent contained. Damage assessment of the fire is ongoing but remains substantially complete after emergency management personnel entered portions of the burned area Tuesday, and stands at 224 residential structures and 10 outbuildings destroyed. Total personnel increased Wednesday to 1,170, with 28 incident management crews, and resources committed included 74 fire engines, 11 helicopters, 12 bulldozers and 18 water tenders. Dan Ware, spokesman for the New Mexico State Forestry Division, said most of the progress has been made on the far north
and south ends of the fire. “The southern end is where the largest amount of containment was gained. Basically, the southern end was buttoning up an area to keep the fire from moving south, toward the upper canyon area and into Ruidoso. “Up north, the weather was such that the firefighters were actually able to attack the line directly and get in there and just build in their containment lines near the fire line, instead of having to pull back however far away. “The most active area is on the western flank, the west and northwest flank — that’s where they’re focusing their arial attack to support the firefighters on the ground. They go in there, drop some retardant, draw a line and then the fighters on the ground work from there to contain the fire from getting past that point.” Ware said crews were
Club gets fetching facelift
able to take advantage of Wednesday’s heat and humidity. “At first blush (the weather) sounds bad because it’s more dry and it’s hotter, but in reality, we’re going to use those weather conditions to our advantage. It’s going to allow us to see any hot spots with a little more clarity. ... The hot spots make themselves more evident, smoldering a little more strongly. So we use that and then we send the crews to attack them more efficiently.” FEMA approved a request from the state of New Mexico for a fire management assistance grant on Wednesday. Eligible costs covered by the aid can include expenses for mobilization and demobilization activities, field camps, equipment use, repair and replacement, tools, materials and supplies. The New Mexico Tourism Department joined the Rui-
SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — For Lance Armstrong, the doping allegations aren’t going away. In fact, they’re starting all over again. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has filed formal charges against ...
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TODAY’S OBITUARIES • Ramona Aragon Ramirez - PAGE B3
HIGH .102˚ LOW ....68˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
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INDEX
Home Builders Institute Electrical Wiring students from the Roswell Job Corps size up electrical outlets at the Roswell Boys & Girls Club, Wednesday. The Job Corps will spend the next few weeks re-wiring, re-plumbing and re-painting areas of the club in an effort to update and improve the facility.
Dexter woman charged with attempted second-degree murder JESSICA PALMER RECORD STAFF WRITER
The Chaves County Sheriff’s Office arrested Clairice Johnson, 31, on charges of attempted second-degree murder after a shooting in Dexter, Monday mor ning. The shooting followed a family dispute in the Lopez-Morley Road residence. The Criminal Complaint states that the Roswell Police Department was called in to the Eastern New Mexico Medical Center, after the victim came in with a bullet hole in the right side of the chest. According to
THURSDAY
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INSIDE
USADA CHARGES ARMSTRONG
June 14, 2012
the clinicians the bullet had traveled through the man’s body. The injuries were severe enough that the victim had to be air lifted to Lubbock for treatment. The Sherif f’s Of fice responded when it was learned that the incident took place in the county. Johnson was taken to RPD to make a statement to SO’s Detective Jason Tutor. According to the initial interview reported in court documents, Johnson said she was arguing with her spouse. He then retired to the bedroom. She went into the bed-
Clairice Johnson
room to clean, “wiping ashes from the cabinet” and picked up the gun in her right hand, as she did so she dislodged a magazine. When she went to
AP Photo
Arizona’s Hopi 5 Hotshot Ian Nuvamsa, at left, watches as teammate Peterson Hubbard, cuts a burning stump while battling the Little Bear fire near Ruidoso, on Monday.
doso lodging industry to provide discounted and free hotel room rates to those displaced by the fire. For a list of discounted lodging opportunities, visit nmindustrypartners.org or call 257-7395. The process of notifying displaced property owners is still being worked out, and a Type 3 incident management crew from Texas is on its way to head those procedures, Ware said.
“Obviously, it’s a very, very sensitive issue. It’s not something you just want to drop in their laps. “We’re considering this almost like an incident within an incident. So this team from Texas, once they get established here in the next few days, will be dealing with a lot of the homeowner issues. So once the
JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER
tat. While the agreements may provide an environmental peace of mind, they do not weigh lightly on an industry’s bank account. In New Mexico, the fee to enroll is $2 per acre. Each activity an industry performs within a habitat has a fee assessed to it based upon the habitat type. If an oil and gas company decides to drill a well in a critical habitat that is occupied, the fee incurred could be as high as $20,000. The lizard made its way to the forefront of political battles and was accused of placing thousands of jobs and the development of the oil and gas and agricultural industries in jeopardy as debate raged this year over federal protection of the species. U.S. Sens. Tom Udall, DN.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., along with U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. praised the feds’ decision. The New Mexico senators, who have engaged with relevant stakeholders, were largely responsible for urging the Service to delay its decision to allow for further public comment. “I hope the utilization of CCAs like this can be a model for the future when we get into conservation disagreements. This has proved that you can take one of the most contentious situations and move it to a win-win situation,”said Udall. “This is a great example of how voluntary cooperative agreements are being used to help protect a habitat and a species, while allowing oil and gas development to continue in southeastern New Mexico,” Bingaman stated in a press release. Pearce has long been at the forefront of the debate in Washington and New
Lizard escapes listing A lengthy and hardfought battle over a lizard that can only be found in the shinery oak dunes of southeastern New Mexico and West Texas took a turn for the best Wednesday when federal officials decided against dubbing the reptile an endangered species. An unprecedented number of voluntary conservation agreements now in place in New Mexico and Texas persuaded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to withdraw its proposal to list the dunes sagebrush lizard as a species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Candidate Conservation Agreements and Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurance, accords between industry and species, are tools created by the Service to establish cooperative conservation. These agreements, both voluntary, have been joined upon by the Bureau of Land Management and praised by politicians. “The states of New Mexico and Texas have worked tirelessly with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and scores of landowners and operators in the Permian Basin to conserve and protect habitat that supports the dunes sagebrush lizard and many other species,” stated Service Director Dan Ashe in a joint press release from the FWS and the Department of Interior. “These ongoing efforts will play a key role in ensuring the future of the lizard, while allowing responsible oil and gas development to continue.” The press release listed more than 650,000 acres in New Mexico and Texas as being enrolled in these agreements, totaling 88 percent of the lizard’s habi-
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Car bombs target pilgrims in Iraq, killing at least 66 individuals
BAGHDAD (AP) — Car bombs ripped through Shiite and Kurdish targets in Baghdad and other cities Wednesday, killing at least 66 people, wounding more than 200 and feeding growing doubts that Iraq will emerge as a stable democracy after decades of war and dictatorship.
The latest bloodshed comes against a backdrop of sharpening political divisions that show Iraq has made little progress in healing the breach among its religious and ethnic
communities that once pushed the country to the brink of civil war. The coordination, sophistication and targets of the attack bore the hallmarks of alQaida and its Sunni militant allies seeking to exploit these tensions.
Iraqi authorities played down any suggestion that the devastating attacks that have taken place every few weeks or so since the U.S. military withdrew in mid-December portend a return to the all-out, titfor -tat violence that tore
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the nation apart in 20062007.
“Iraqis are fully aware of the terrorism agenda and will not slip into a sectarian conflict,” said Baghdad military command spokesman Col. Dhia al-Wakeel.
But Iraqi authorities have been unable to prevent such wide-scale attacks, even though they were on high alert during a major Shiite pilgrimage. And the number and distribution of these bombings demonstrate the strength and resilience of the Sunni
militants.
Altogether, 17 explosions struck Baghdad and six other cities and towns some 300 miles (500 kilometers) apart, from Mosul in the vast deserts of the north to Hillah in the fertile plains of the south. Most targeted Shiite pilgrims between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. as hundreds of thousands were making their way on foot to the capital.
“I fell on the ground. Then so many people fell on me” said Falah Hassan, who was being treated for
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wounds at Sheikh Zayid Hospital in Baghdad Hours after the bombing in Hillah, puddles of blood and shards of metal still clogged a drainage ditch. Soldiers and dazed onlookers wandered near the charred remains of the car that exploded, gazing at the gaping holes in nearby shops. Wednesday’s blasts were the third this week targeting the annual pilgrimage to observe the eighth-cenSee IRAQ Page A3