Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 122, No. 81 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City’s casinos saw their profit fall by more than 27 percent last year, even as revenue from nongambling sources inched upward. The city’s casinos collectively posted $360 million in gross operating profits in 2012. They were hurt by having to close for up to a week for Superstorm Sandy. - PAGE B5
April 4, 2013
THURSDAY
Gov signs unemployment program revision
SANTA FE (AP) — A measure to shore up New Mexico’s unemployment compensation program was signed into law on Wednesday by Gov. Susana Martinez.
2012 CASINO PROFITS FALL
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
A new system will be implemented in 2015 for automatically setting the tax rates paid by about 45,000 businesses to finance the state-run program that provides benefits to unemployed workers. Taxes will remain unchanged for employers
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through next year. “There is no other bill that will so positively, effectively and quickly help business like this one does,” said Terri Cole, CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. “The bill insures long-term fund solvency, avoids massive and arbitrary increases, and eliminates political interference.” In the past, the Legislature and governors have often dictated the range of rates that would be paid by
Currently, businesses with the worst unemployment experience hit a maximum contribution rate and other businesses end up subsidizing them by paying more to keep the program solvent.
employers — reducing the charges when the unemployment fund was flush with cash during good economic times and later raising tax rates when the fund started to run out of
What’s the sign part gonna be about?
money.
There was a balance of $30 million in the unemployment fund as of Tuesday, and it’s estimated that should reach about $142 million by the end of 2014.
The fund had a balance of more than $500 million several years ago but that was drained after the economy soured and payments increased for unemployment benefits. Unemployment has since leveled off in the state. The jobless rate was 6.8 percent in February, down from 7 percent a year ago. Martinez said the new rate-setting system will provide more fairness for
Obama to return 5%
See MARTINEZ, Page A3
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sharing a bit of budget pain, President Barack Obama will return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in a show of solidarity with federal workers smarting from governmentwide spending cuts.
Obama’s decision grew out of a desire to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making, a White House official said Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be forced to take unpaid leave — known as furloughs — if Congress does not reach an agreement soon to undo the cuts.
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• CID to demand priority call on the Pecos • Animal permit work in progress • Roswell’s Most Wanted caught • Officer on leave, man arrested after shooting • RHS gets 2 victories
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
Richard Munoz, left, and his dad Richard Munoz Sr., of Munoz Masonry out of Artesia, add brickwork to new signage that will grace the NMMI campus along North Main Street, Wednesday.
The president is demonstrating that he will be paying a price, too, as the White House warns of dire economic consequences from the $85 billion in cuts that started to hit federal programs last month after Congress failed to stop them. In the weeks since, the administration has faced
Few states find narrow Camp Invention to return June 3 route to gun control laws HANNAH’S GOING TO NMMI!
Midway through her senior season of volleyball at Dexter, Hannah Manemann was not entirely sure she wanted to play college volleyball. And when NMMI’s Shelby Forchtner came calling, Manemann wasn’t sure she wanted to stay close to home if she did decide to play at the next level. Then she visited the Institute. Not long after, the 6-foot middle blocker was enrolling at New Mexico Military Institute. On Wednesday, she ... - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Cresencio Jaramillo • James Edward Handy • Gertrude Joan Zylstra • Donna Lee Bobst - PAGE A7
UNDATED — From Colorado to Connecticut, a handful of very different states have advanced new gun control laws over opposition that has made such legislation a struggle nationally and a nonstarter in most legislatures. How did they do it? Culture and attitudes regarding guns vary widely from state to state and within their borders, but the limited victories by gun control advocates in the three months since the Newtown school massacre show three factors at work: governors willing to spend significant political capital on the issue; Democratic legislative strength; and heightened public concern raised by proximity to mass shootings. All three helped drive new gun control measures in New York, Colorado and
in Connecticut, where Gov. Dannel P. Malloy pushed for an agreement between majority Democratic lawmakers and Republican counterparts on a series of new laws that were headed for a vote Wednesday. In Maryland, which also has a Democratic governor and legislature, a gun control bill was proceeding through the House of Delegates. “What makes the difference ... is the willingness of the legislators and the governors to take the lead and also, you know, the experience of gun violence in that state, whether it be through a mass shooting or the day-to-day shootings,” said Lindsay Nichols, staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group based in San Francisco. See GUN, Page A3
JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
Children whose idea of summer camp would be to pretend to crash land on Planet Zak and figure out how to build a spaceship to get home might want to think about Camp Invention. The summer sciencebased camp will be back in Roswell this year with its usual sense of adventure and creative ideas, according to organizer Margaret “Peggy” Bohlin. “It’s everything you’d want your kids to do,” Bohlin said, following another meeting to prepare for this year’s camp. Bohlin, a teacher who has taught gifted children at Valley View Elementary School in Roswell for the past 11 years, said she originally came up with
Jill McLaughlin Photo
Peggy Bohlin, center, organizer of Camp Invention, talks with other organizers Tuesday to prepare for this summer’s camp. the idea many years ago. “I was trying to find something for my son to do,” she said. “I decided it was really a good camp. It’s hands-on.” Camp Invention was held at Roswell Independent School District facili-
ties for a few years until about five years ago. Now, with a new agreement to hold the camp at Assumption Church on North Kentucky Avenue, See ZAK, Page A3
North Korea warns its military cleared to wage nuclear attack on US
HIGH ...78˚ LOW ....47˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B6 COMICS.................B4 FINANCIAL .............B5 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........B3 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
See OBAMA, Page A3
INDEX
AP Photo
South Korean trucks turn back their way as they were refused permission to enter Kaesong, North Korea, at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom, Thursday.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ratcheting up the rhetoric, North Korea warned early Thursday that its military has been cleared to wage an attack on the U.S. using “smaller, lighter and
diversified nuclear” weapons.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, said in Washington that it will deploy a missile defense system to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam to
strengthen regional protection against a possible attack from North Korea. The defense secretary said the U.S. was seeking to defuse the situation. Despite the rhetoric, analysts say they do not expect a nuclear attack by North Korea, which knows the move could trigger a destructive, suicidal war that no one in the region wants. The strident war ning from Pyongyang is latest in a series of escalating threats from North Korea, which has railed for weeks against joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises taking place in South Korea and has expressed anger over tightened sanctions for a February nuclear test. Following through on one threat Wednesday, North
Korean border authorities refused to allow entry to South Koreans who manage jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong. Washington calls the military drills, which this time have incorporated fighter jets and nuclear -capable stealth bombers, routine annual exercises between the allies. Pyongyang calls them rehearsals for a northward invasion. The foes fought on opposite sides of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953. The divided Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war six decades later, and Washington keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect its ally. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington was doing all it can to
defuse the situation, echoing comments a day earlier by Secretary of State John Kerry. “Some of the actions they’ve taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat to the interests, certainly of our allies, starting with South Korea and Japan and also the threats that the North Koreans have leveled directly at the United States regarding our base in Guam, threatened Hawaii, threatened the West Coast of the United States,” Hagel said Wednesday. In Pyongyang, the military statement said North Korean troops had been authorized to counter U.S. “aggression” with “powerful practical military counterSee NKOREA, Page A2