Crystal Sims

State sharpens rules for tattoo and piercing shops

Piercing and tattoo artists in New Mexico will have to do an apprenticeship before practicing, and a fresh batch of inspectors will make the rounds and evaluate parlors.

Cops say they busted up what kind of illegal business? What are APS officials investigating? Bad Rail Runner news. And who met in Albuquerque to discuss climate change?

Tina Larkin

Athleticism and optimism lead amputee to a 215-mile bike ride

Brett Weitzel is uncomfortable with the idea that his physical abilities are in any way amazing. "It's not like I'm working out like crazy. It's just I'm going out and doing the stuff I used to do that I'm excited to be able to do again," he says. Weitzel, who skis, bikes and kayaks, lost his right leg to a third bout of cancer about eight months ago. "Anything's really possible if you're willing to figure it out," says Weitzel. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "or if you're willing to do it at a slower pace than someone who has two legs."

Friday, May 16, was a good day to buy a newspaper.

You would have a souvenir to show to your descendants. Headlines declaring "California High Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban" will be something to see, especially if the decision becomes one of many affording same-sex couples the right to marry—and to call it marriage. Because there may be a day when anything other than equality, regardless of sexual orientation, is unimaginable.

Domestic partnerships and civil unions aren't a fair substitute for marriage, the California Supreme Court decided on May 15. But don't throw rice at this thing yet. A coalition of conservatives is sending in an assassin: a ballot measure in November that would lodge a ban on gay marriage into the state's Constitution. That would trump the court's Thursday decision.

Unlike astrologers, I don’t think people should be stereotyped and subjected to prejudice. (I use prejudice in its original meaning: forming an opinion about a person or group on the basis of generalizations, assumptions or stereotypes.)

Eric J. Garcia

Dateline: Japan--A suicidal man who had doused himself with kerosene in front of police burned to death after asking officers for a smoke his during interrogation. Hifumi Kubota, 45, was taken for questioning to a police station in Nagoya last Saturday after a woman who was living with him told police he was acting violently. When officers arrived at the house, “he poured kerosene over himself in front of police,” a police spokesperson said. Kubota refused to change out of his kerosene-soaked clothes at the police station and asked to smoke during questioning, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and other Japanese media. Despite a no-smoking rule in the building (and the presence of kerosene-soaked clothing), a police official provided the flammable felon with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. After bursting into flames, Kubota was rushed to a hospital where he died the next day from burns over a major portion of his body.

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