Police: Man tried to rob pizzeria

Santa Fe police were well acquainted with a man they arrested this weekend after he tried to grab cash from a pizzeria, Deputy Police Chief Aric Wheeler said Saturday.

Michael Lee Voyles, 952 Camino Vista Aroyo, was booked on charges of attempted robbery and resisting arrest after officers detained him near the Target store on Zafarano Drive. They were responding to a report of an attempted robbery at Domino's Pizza, 3530 Zafarano Drive, around 9 p.m. Friday.

Employees reported a man came in the business and loitered until the cash register was opened, Wheeler said. He then made an unsuccessful move to grab money from the drawer, the employees told police. Wheeler said officers were also told that the man displayed a black-handled knife before he fled.

Officers who arrived at the scene recognized Voyles nearby and detained him, Wheeler said. "Apparently, he's a regular the officers have been dealing with on almost a nightly basis," Wheeler said.

Voyles initially cooperated with officers, Wheeler said, but later tried to move his handcuffed hands from behind his back and resisted a sergeant who arrived on the scene, resulting in the resisting-arrest charge.

BLM suspends firewood permits

The Bureau of Land Management's Taos Field Office said it has temporarily suspended firewood permit sales to minimize damage on public lands caused by use of motorized vehicles to gather firewood.

"Because of heavy accumulation of snow and subsequent melting with warm temperatures in northern New Mexico, travel over most roads is difficult and is resulting in deeply rutted roads," the agency said in a news release.

The only area under the BLM Taos Field Office's jurisdiction currently open to firewood gathering is near Edgewood.

The statement said officials will reassess road conditions after March 1 and will advise the public when it will resume issuing firewood permits.

Mount Taylor gets emergency listing

In a rare special meeting, the state Cultural Properties Review Committee on Friday agreed to a request from several Northern New Mexico tribal governments for an emergency listing of Mount Taylor on the State Register of Cultural Properties.

The listing affords protections to Mount Taylor, located in an area near Grants where mining companies have shown renewed interest in exploratory drilling in the wake of rising demand for uranium.

The action was requested by Acoma, Zuni and Laguna Pueblos, the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, the state Historic Preservation Division said in a news release. Mount Taylor is "considered life sustaining and of great spiritual importance to Native Americans," the statement said.

The emergency listing provides protections to Mount Taylor for one year while the committee considers whether to permanently list the property.

"The nomination calls out the New Mexico Mining and Mineral Division's streamlined process of issuing mining permits without notification on tracts of land less than five acres that do not include registered cultural properties, and a permit recently issued for exploration at the site of a reburial completed under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act," the statement says.

Blacktip shark gives birth

ALBUQUERQUE — Three blacktip shark pups born Jan. 19 have been placed on exhibit at the Albuquerque Aquarium.

Holly Casman, manager of the aquarium in the city-owned Albuquerque Biological Park, said the pups have been placed in the Shallows and Shores tank, which also holds stingrays, sea bass and other fish.

Aquarium staff held 24-hour watches on a pregnant female for days to ensure successful delivery in what Casman said might have been the first recorded birth of blacktip sharks in captivity.