Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 121, No. 252 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
SILVA JARDIM, Brazil (AP) — Three tiny flaming orange monkeys crouched on a tree branch, cocking their heads as if to better hear the high-pitched whistles and yaps that came from deep within the dense green foliage. Then they answered in kind, rending the ... - PAGE B8
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
October 20, 2012
GOP pounces on Libya raid information
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sensing a moment of political vulnerability on national security, Republicans pounced Friday on disclosures that President Barack Obama’s administration could have known early on that militants, not angry protesters, launched the attack on U.S. diplomats in Libya.
ENDANGERED TAMARIN MAKING A COMEBACK
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Within 24 hours of the deadly attack, the CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington that there
SATURDAY
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U.S. intelligence officials have said the information was just one of many widely conflicting accounts, which became clearer by the following week.
were eyewitness reports that the attack was carried out by militants, officials told The Associated Press. But for days, the Obama administration blamed it on an out-of-control demonstration over an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee, led Friday’s charge. “Look around the world, tur n on your TV,” R yan said in an interview with WTAQ radio in the election battleground state of Wisconsin. “And what we see in front of us is the absolute unraveling of the
Obama administration’s foreign policy.”
As a security matter, how the Obama administration immediately described the attack has little effect on broader counterterrorism strategies or on the hunt for those responsible for the incident, in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed. And Republicans have offered no explanation for why the president would want to conceal the
SPORTS Mark Wilson Photos
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Harold McCarty • Benjamin Garcia - PAGE B8
HIGH ...92˚ LOW ....55˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
See LIBYA, Page A3
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The state that produced the peanut butter at the center of a growing national recall on Friday said it has identified its first victim of the salmonella outbreak, a 5year-old girl from the easter n New Mexico county where the peanuts are grown and processed. The New Mexico Health Department said it confirmed the girl from Roosevelt County had been sickened by the same bacteria that had been found in T rader Joe’s Valencia Creamy Peanut Butter and the Sunland Inc. plant where it was produced. To date, most cases have been linked to the Trader Joe’s brand. But the health department said the young girl in Roosevelt County — which is some 200 miles from the closest T rader Joe’s store — had eaten multiple peanut products. Department Health spokesman Kenny Vigil said the girl was never hos-
INSIDE
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Barry Zito pitched the San Francisco Giants back into the NL championship series, dominating into the eighth inning of a 5-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night that narrowed their deficit to 3-2. The defending champion Cardinals might have thrown away a chance to ... - PAGE B1
But the issue has given Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney an opportunity to question Obama on foreign policy and national security, two areas that have received little attention in an election dominated by the U.S. economy. Obama’s signature national security accomplishment is the military’s killing of terrorist
Victim of Playful day at the pumpkin patch tainted peanut butter identified
• Animal abuse protests enter fifth week • Early voting underway • County approves CCDC upgrades • Homecoming events at NMMI connect past ... • Domestic violence: Law enforcement ...
GIANTS STAY ALIVE IN NLCS
nature of the attack.
Above: Kindergartners from Washington Avenue Elementary visit Graves Farm and Garden and haul off their prizes from the pumpkin patch during a field trip, Friday morning. The fifth annual Farm Festival & Corn Maze begins today at 9 a.m. and the Scary Corn Maze begins at nightfall until 11:30 with additional dates scheduled from the 26th through Halloween. Right: Valley Christian students help create a pumpkin patch at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on Friday after visiting Leonard Farm north of Roswell earlier in the morning to pick up several hundred of the Halloween favorites for delivery to the church in an annual fundraiser for St. Marks.
See VICTIM, Page A3
Security official among Character Counts! Week kicks off 8 dead in Beirut blast CHAUNTE’L POWELL RECORD STAFF WRITER
BEIRUT (AP) — A powerful car bomb tore through the heart of Beirut’s Christian sector Friday, killing a top security official and seven others in a devastating attack that threatened to bring the war in Syria directly to Lebanon’s doorstep. The blast sheared the balconies off apartment buildings, upended cars and sent dazed rescue workers carrying bloodied children into the streets. Dozens of people were wounded in the blast, the worst the Lebanese capital has seen in more than four years. The state-run news agency said the target was Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, head of the intelligence division of Lebanon’s domestic security forces.
Al-Hassan, 47, headed an investigation over the summer that led to the arrest of former Information See BLAST, Page A3
It was proclaimed Friday that the third week of October is National Character Counts! Week. The week kicked off in Roswell with a press conference at Commission Chambers in the Joe Skeen Building. After a flag presentation by the New Mexico Youth ChalleNGe, and a prayer by City Councilman Savino Sanchez, Tim Fuller introduced the special guest in Mark Wilson Photo attendance and founding cochair, Judge Alvin Jones, The New Mexico Youth ChalleNGe Academy color guard stand at attention in the rotunda of the Skeen Building, readying to kick off a press conference proclaiming the third week See CHARACTER, Page A2 of October as National Character Counts! Week, Friday.
Fifty years before Felix, Wayne Dotts claims unique skydive achievement NOAH VERNAU RECORD STAFF WRITER
CLASSIFIEDS..........B5 COMICS.................B3 FINANCIAL .............B4 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........B5 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8 WORLD .................B8
INDEX
Noah Vernau Photo
Wayne Dotts holds a Carlsbad Daily Argus newspaper clipping Thursday that details his early morning New Year’s Day skydive in 1963.
An ambitious skydiver made history above New Mexico. Sounds familiar, right? But no, not that skydiver. Almost 50 years before Felix Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier in a free fall, a college student from Arizona jumped from an airplane flying over Carlsbad in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day to claim 1963’s first parachute jump and skydive. To accomplish this eccentric but altogether unique feat, Wayne Dotts jumped just minutes after midnight from an altitude of 8,000 feet. Though he said it’s hard to know for certain, Dotts has not heard of an earlier jump made on that day. Whether or not he actually was the first person to skydive in 1963 matters little to Dotts today, he said. But half a century later, as he watched Baumgartner make skydiving history
Sunday, Dotts couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to jump from more than 24 miles. “That was incredible. As I’m watching him step off, I’m thinking about the many times I’ve stepped off,” he said. “And wow, what a feeling. But he was so high. The highest I ever did was a 60-second free fall, but he had four minutesplus!” Dotts came into skydiving during his time in the Army from 1958 to 1961. He continued to skydive for a couple of years after he came See SPOTLIGHT, Page A2