News in Brief

State

Attorney general seeks durnk driving field test

SANTA FE (AP) - The attorney general is asking the state Supreme Court to let courts in New Mexico use a particular field test to check whether a driver is drunk.

The request arises from a 1998 driving-while-intoxicated case in which a Santa Fe judge prohibited a prosecution witness from testifying about the validity of the horizontal gaze nystagmus, or HGN, test. The state Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's ruling last December.

Attorney General Patricia Madrid disagreed, and filed a petition with the Supreme Court to review the admissibility of the test.

In an HGN test, a driver is asked to follow an officer's hand movements to check eye-gaze alertness.

It is one of three standard field tests used to determine if a driver is under the influence of alcohol, Madrid said. She said the test, developed and adopted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is used by police in all 50 states and is admissible in state courts except those in New Mexico.

She is asking the Supreme Court to find "that the scientific basis of the HGN test has been adequately established and therefore, the HGN test should be admitted as an important part of a DWI prosecution."

$1.3 million approved by House for cancer society

SANTA FE (AP) - First Lady Dee Johnson says despite the governor's request that lawmakers trim $50 million in Medicaid spending, he supports more money for breast and cervical cancer treatment.

"I know he will do everything that he can to get the monies to this particular effort this year," Mrs. Johnson said Wednesday after an American Cancer Society news conference.

The nearly $3.9 billion state budget approved this week by the House includes $1.3 million for the program, which would provide treatment under Medicaid for uninsured and low-income women with breast and cervical cancer.

Now, those women have access to diagnosis but must rely on donated health care services for their treatment, the American Cancer Society said.

The House-passed budget for next year is now under consideration in the Senate.

New Mexico is one of three states that doesn't participate in the program, three-fourths of which is funded by the federal government once it's enacted.

Gov. Gary Johnson says lawmakers must slow Medicaid spending because it's outpacing the projected rate of growth in state revenues.

The House-passed budget would boost spending on Medicaid by $45 million next year. Lawmakers found money for increased spending by going into the state's cash reserves, making cuts in some agencies, and using tobacco settlement monies.

"I strongly feel the tobacco settlement money should stay in the (tobacco) fund for its original purpose of prevention and cessation programs, because they do work," Mrs. Johnson said at the news conference.

The first lady also said she is optimistic that her multi-year effort to ban smoking in the Capitol will be successful this year.

Bills are moving through both houses that would eliminate all smoking in the Capitol; it's allowed now in private offices and in the House and Senate lounges.

"I think I took on this battle because thousands and thousands of children and adults are exposed to second-hand smoke in this building," she said. "I just felt that was the least we could do ... give them clean air when they come to visit our state leaders."

National

Five Mexican nationals found dead in railroad car

WILLCOX, Ariz. (AP) - Five Mexican nationals were found dead Wednesday after a railroad coal car released its cargo at a power plant in southeastern Arizona, authorities said.

Officials with the Cochise County Sheriff's Department said the men appeared to have stowed away in the car.

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe train originated from a mine in Lee Ranch, N.M., on Tuesday and made a stop in Deming, N.M., before heading to its Willcox destination.

Deming is about 35 miles north of the Mexican border.

Three of the men were residents of Hidalgo del Parral, a small town in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, said Miguel Escobar Valdez, Mexican consul in Douglas.

He identified them as Carmelo Monarrez Ramirez, about 39, and two brothers, Roman Jimenez Martinez, about 27, and Ruben Jimenez Martinez, about 30.

He said the men apparently asphyxiated in the coal.

Authorities were not sure if the victims were illegal immigrants.

Officials at the county Medical Examiner's office were conducting autopsies to determine how the men died.

A worker discovered the bodies at the Arizona Electric Power Cooperative after the car dumped its 100-ton coal shipment onto a conveyor belt about 2:15 a.m., said sheriff's spokeswoman Carol Capas.

Workers at the plant did a routine visual inspection of the shipment when it arrived but didn't see the men, according to Capas.

Student dies while giving birth in her dorm bathroom

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) - A 19-year-old college student died after giving birth in a dormitory bathroom as other students came and went, thinking she was just sick, school officials said Wednesday. The full-term baby was in critical condition.

Karen Marie Hubbard was not breathing when a resident assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire found her in a bathroom stall Tuesday night, said Charles Major, director of housing. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Paramedics found the baby girl when they removed Hubbard from the stall. The newborn weighed between 5 and 7 pounds, Major said.

The cause of death was under investigation. But Eau Claire County Medical Examiner John Folstad said it is believed that Hubbard died of complications related to childbirth.

Major said Hubbard's roommate, a friend from high school, noticed Hubbard had gained some weight but did not know Hubbard was pregnant. The roommate said Hubbard herself may not have known, according to Major.

According to the roommate, whose name was not released, Hubbard thought she was suffering from flu symptoms and went into the bathroom.

"She even asked the roommate to maybe even go get her some Pepto-Bismol," Major said. "The roommate kept going in and out, asking how she was doing, if she needed help, if she needed anything. Karen kept saying, 'No, I am not feeling good. I am OK.'"

Other students in the all-women dorm were coming and going in the bathroom, heard noises and asked Hubbard if she was OK, but she told them that she thought she was just sick, according to Major.

"It's a very tragic situation," he said. "We just wish that the girl could've cried out for help at some point in time. Maybe this could have been avoided."

Her mother, Carol Hubbard, had no comment when called at her home Wednesday.

Hubbard was a freshman pre-pharmacy major from Withee, a small town about 40 miles east of Eau Claire. She earned a high grade-point average in her first semester and was well-liked, Major said.

At Owen-Withee High School, Hubbard was co-valedictorian in 2001. She was also a member of the National Honor Society, the math team, the Spanish Club, the school band and student council, and was an athlete.

"She was just a sweetheart. One of the nicest kids you would ever meet," said David Nelson, a guidance counselor. "She would be the person that you would say was definitely going to make it."

International

Karzai requests expansion of force protecting Kabul

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Afghan leader Hamid Karzai appealed to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to expand the multinational force now in Kabul to other cities as "a guarantee" that the international community won't abandon his war-devastated country.

Karzai has previously said in Kabul and Washington that "many Afghans" feel the force should be expanded to be able to operate nationwide. But until Wednesday, he had stopped short of directly calling for an enlargement.

Appearing before the 15-member council, Karzai said "security is the foundation of peace, stability and economic reconstruction as well."

The council authorized the British-led force on Dec. 20 to help protect Afghanistan's new interim government, but restricted it to the Kabul area, as the Afghans who agreed to establish the temporary government wanted.

The force is authorized for six months, and can be renewed. It currently has about 2,500 troops, and is expected to reach its full strength of about 5,000 by the end of February.

If the Afghans want to expand its operations outside the Kabul area, a new Security Council resolution would be needed.

In the last month, Karzai's administration has had a change of heart about the force's deployment because of instability and lawlessness.

"The Afghan people want it as a guarantee of the international community to stay with Afghanistan," Karzai told journalists after his speech.

London rocked by severe winter storm that kills 17

LONDON (AP) - Powerful gales battered northern Europe, killing at least 17 people as the wind ripped roofs off houses, disrupted traffic and shipping and left thousands of homes without power Tuesday.

Winds gusting at up to 120 mph tore through Britain and Ireland on Monday before heading across Scandinavia, Germany, Poland and Russia overnight, meteorologists reported.

In Britain, seven people died in gales that centered on northern England and Scotland. Scottish Hydroelectric said 8,000 homes remained without electricity Tuesday.

Engineers worked through the night to restore electricity to tens of thousands of homes after high winds closed bridges, caused numerous road accidents and brought the area's rail network to a virtual standstill.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency issued 12 flood warnings while the Environment Agency had 23 flood warnings in force across Wales and England.

In Scotland, two people died when the wind overturned tractor-trailers, and a man was killed and a woman injured by a falling tree outside a hotel.

In northern England, two drivers and a passenger were killed in three accidents in which trucks were blown over or off the road. A woman was killed by a piece of stone carving that fell from a church in York.

In northern Germany, gales brought down trees and tore the roofs from a number of buildings including a 32,000 square-foot hall in the port city of Bremen, where a man was killed by a flying tree branch. Another man was killed when he lost control of his car in high wind and hit a truck.

Falling trees killed a man in Oranienburg, near Berlin, and a 78-year-old woman in Wuelfrath, near Dusseldorf. In Travemuende, on the Baltic coast, the wind blew a ferry into a tugboat and both ran aground.

In western Poland, two men were killed when their car hit a fallen tree, and one person was killed by a falling tree. In Konon, a lamp post fell on a woman riding a bicycle, killing her.

Two thousand Polish communities remained without electricity Tuesday.

In the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, two people were killed when high winds blew a tree onto their car.

In Scandinavia, high winds felled trees and electricity poles and disrupted shipping, but no one was reported injured.