An interview with Martin Chavez

It's an obscure "Simpsons" reference. An animated Burque mayor wants to steal Springfield's baseball squad, the Isotopes. In the final shot of the episode, he turns to the camera and says, "For I am the mayor of Albuquerque." Our non-cartoon city team takes its name from the ep.

We spent more than an hour with Mayor Martin Chavez, but we didn’t have room to print everything we talked about in the paper. (See the original article here.)

Which company announced layoffs? Why did a mom say she was shoplifting? What did a 6-year-old girl want for her birthday? Why is a man facing 18 felony counts?

A closer look

A tragic event in Albuquerque on June 25 cast a pall on the July 4 weekend. According to a front-page article by Albuquerque Journal writer Hailey Heinz, “A woman attending a church conference in Albuquerque with her husband didn’t call for medical treatment while giving birth to twins in a hotel room, even as one of the newborns struggled to breathe. ... That child died while church members gathered in prayer. ... Samuel and Tammy Kaufman told police at the scene they did not believe in man's medicine, only God, and that their child’s death was God’s will.”

Dateline: Russia—Russian soccer fans apparently have a sure cure for a worldwide epidemic. Russians heading to Wales next month to watch a World Cup qualifier match are being urged to down lots of whiskey in order to ward off the H1N1 swine flu virus. “We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whisky as a form of disinfection,” Alexander Shprygin, head of the country’s supporter organization (VOB), told Reuters. “That should cure all symptoms of the disease.” Russia’s Health Ministry has issued a public warning against traveling to Britain because of the spread of the H1N1 virus, but Shprygin said he expected several hundred fans to attend the Sept. 9 qualifier in Cardiff. “Russian fans don’t fear anything or anybody, so this virus will not stand in our way of supporting our team,” Shprygin added.

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