Animal rights groups oppose the move and want Congress to enact an outright ban on federal chimpanzee research.

“These animals have been put through the wringer and they deserve to be retired,” says Kathleen Conlee, a program manager with the Humane Society of the United States.

But chimpanzees are human’s closest living relatives, sharing up to 99 percent of human genes — making them appealing as test subjects for understanding the human body’s responses to toxins and vaccines.

Housing the chimpanzees to the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio would save $2 million a year, according to U.S. National Institutes of Health officials.

The bipartisan  ”Great Ape Protection Act,” currently under consideration by Congress, would retire all apes at federal labs to sanctuaries.

Gov. Bill Richardson and U.S. Sen. Tom Udall oppose moving the chimps to Texas. Richardson met with NIH officials last month to lobby for the chimps’ continued retirement in Alamogordo, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The study showed that New Mexico saw only 14 cents in returns for every dollar it spent on film production tax credits.

According to a state review of SIC data, there were 52 film tax credits worth $46 million in 2008 and 78 credits worth $76 million in 2009, The Independent reported in March.

The value of the state’s film tax credit program, particularly in terms of its economic benefits, is a hotly debated topic in New Mexico and has been for years.

A competing report issued in January 2009 by the New Mexico Film Office found a much more positive economic impact than the report cited by Hiltzik. Conducted by Ernst & Young, the study concluded that the program had earned $0.94 in additional tax revenue for each $1.00 paid out in incentives based on the 2007 value of present and future year tax receipts and the 2007 value of state film production tax credits.

But Hiltzik counts himself among the skeptical when talk turns to reports such as the one performed by Ernst & Young.

“The rationale for this welfare program is to keep productions from fleeing to other states, taking … jobs with them,” Hiltzik reported. “But you could go blind looking for an independent study, as opposed to studies funded by the state film commissions handing out the dough, showing that such programs produce more in overall benefits than they cost.”

SIC members have raised separate concerns about the value of New Mexico’s no-interest loans for film productions, The Independent reported in March. New Mexico has given Hollywood $273 million in no-interest loans for 26 films since 2003, including $15 million for the Denzel Washington film Book of Eli, The Independent reported.

New Mexico legislators have called for Gov. Bill Richardson to curtail state subsidies for Hollywood productions.

It was reported in March that the Motion Picture Association of America was considering Richardson as the organization’s new director, a position with a salary exceeding $1 million a year.

Meanwhile in the nation’s capital, health care reform is in that middle stage, where it’s hard to keep track of all the deals that may or may not wind up in a final package that may or may not pass, um, who knows when. Perhaps it’s just me who can’t keep up. Let’s take Tuesday for example. Here’s a recap of what happened, as reported by the New York Times:

U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said he and a group of 10 Democratic senators had reached “a broad agreement” to resolve a dispute over a proposed government-run health insurance plan. That agreement would sideline for now a public health care option and instead allow Americans aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare. In addition, a federal agency would negotiate with insurance companies to offer national health benefit plans, similar to those offered to federal employees, including members of Congress. Debate over a public health care option has ginned up a great deal of rancor and misinformation. But if these private plans don’t lead to affordable health care, the government would step in to offer a public option, the Times reports. Meanwhile the Times says the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment that would have placed strict controls on abortion yesterday, even as the normally more liberal U.S. House passed a similar amendment. Ayieee. Confused yet?

A major financial ratings firm downgraded the state of Illinois’ creditworthiness, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The decision by Moody’s comes at a terrible time for the state. Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing for a new round of borrowing to help close the state’s $11.6 billion budget gap. A downgraded credit rating means it’ll be more expensive for Illinois to borrow because it is perceived as a greater risk. In what is at best a dubious honor for Illinois, Moody’s decision leaves only California with a worse credit rating among states, the Sun-Times reports.

Down South, Alabama’s Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers are engaged in a war of words over no-bid contracts. The Democrats say Gov. Bob Riley is a hypocrite for criticizing his Democratic predecessor, Don Siegelman, in 2002 for the $1 billion in no-bid contracts Siegelman’s administration wracked up. The lawmakers say Riley’s administration has let $2.6 billion in no-bid contracts during his. No-bid contracts are let without competitive bidding and are generally viewed as vulnerable to abuse, like favoritism, nepotism, etc. Riley’s office, meanwhile, isn’t taking the attacks lying down. A Riley spokesman is giving as good as he gets in fact. He’s saying the Democratic lawmakers are a bunch of hypocrites because they’ve engaged in their own no-bid contracts.

Out West, a feud among drug traffickers is playing out in California, with small, elite killing squads operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border as they try to wrest control of the illegal drug market, reports the New York Times.

From the media world, there’s good news and bad news. Let’s start with the good news. Google has teamed up with the Washington Post and New York Times to offer online readers what they hope is a tool to attract more eyeballs, and thus help struggling newspapers. It’s not a game changer. But it’s a start. “The idea is to simplify things for readers by grouping developing stories about a hot topic — say, Tiger Woods — on a single Web page, with updates automatically highlighted at the top of the screen,” writes Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

Now the bad news: While nearly two-thirds of former Los Angeles Times journalists would like to remain in the news business, more than half believe their former paper eventually will fold – and nearly as many think newspapers in general have been mortally wounded, according to a recent informal survey by the Journalism Shop.

The order that smugglers should “use their weapons to defend their loads at all costs” came from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who heads the Sinaloa Cartel and who the Times identifies as Mexico’s most-wanted fugitive. It’s a shift from the previous position of avoiding confrontations in the United States with law enforcement officers or rival drug traffickers.

And that’s what has me confused.

The Mexican Army is currently trying to take down the cartels. Why risk dragging the United States into what has, thus far, remained an internal security issue for the Mexican government because, for the most part, the cartel violence hasn’t spilled into America?

The article implies that desperation is the reason.

“… Some U.S. intelligence officials suggested Guzman was on the defensive because of enforcement efforts on both sides of the border and because he can no longer afford to ditch valuable cargoes when challenged by rivals or authorities,” the article states.

Which, if true, could dramatically change what has been the reality along the border. So far, according to the article, “the contrast has been stark — near-daily violence in Mexican border towns with relative tranquility on the U.S. side, according to data and interviews with law enforcement officials in the region.”

“For example, Ciudad Juarez had 100 times as many homicides in the 14 months ending in February as neighboring El Paso, which is roughly half its size,” the article states. “In 2008, Nogales in Mexico’s Sonora state had 40 times as many homicides as Nogales, Ariz., which is roughly one-ninth as populous.”

Keep an eye on this situation.

Yesterday was no different. Learning that the Pulitzers were out, I searched the Internet for a list of winners with the same old giddiness.

A few winners surprised me: the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz.; and the Las Vegas Sun. Who knew? But there, at the head of the winner’s table, was Old Faithful — the New York Times. The paper once known as the Gray Lady had grabbed five Pulitzers, a near historic haul. (It won seven in 2002 in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The Los Angeles Times won five one year, while the Washington Post won six last year.)

The Pulitzers the New York Times won this year are for what the paper excels at — in-depth journalism in the international and investigative categories. It also won for flooding the zone during the lightning-strike confession and resignation of then-N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer because of his clandestine hook-ups with call girls.

Rarely a year goes by that the New York Times does not win at least one Pulitzer. One year — 2000, I think — the Times was skunked. I hear that caused some soul-searching in the newsroom.

So I imagine yesterday the New York Times newsroom was jubilant.

But I can’t help but wonder if a bittersweet feeling hung over the revelry. As much as the Pulitzer fever gripped me yesterday, the event also felt a tad funereal. I don’t mean to pile on the bad news for newspapers during this really rough patch, but I’ve never seen as many papers fold,  or for that matter layoff or furlough employees or freeze pensions or stop 401K contributions. This is a bad time for newspapers. And the New York Times is no exception. A day after nabbing five Pulitzers, the company that owns the Times announced that it had lost $74.5 million in the first quarter of this year.

Here’s an excerpt from an AP story:

The owner of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and 15 other daily newspapers said Tuesday that it lost $74.5 million, or 52 cents per share, in the opening three months of the year. That compared with a loss of $335,000 at the same time last year, which was break-even on a per-share basis.

A little later, the story says the Times already has taken cost savings measures:

Most of the company’s employees in New York are facing a temporary 5 percent reduction in their paychecks through the remainder of the year, and management is demanding even bigger concessions at the company’s next-largest U.S. newspaper, The Boston Globe.

If it can’t wring $20 million in employee concessions from the Globe by early May, the Times Co. has threatened to shut down the newspaper to avoid further losses. After suffering a loss of about $50 million last year, The Boston Globe is on a pace to lose $85 million this year.

This is a perilous time for newspapers of all types — the really good and the really bad. The financial crisis is hitting them all and not distinguishing between the ones that perform a public service and those that have put out a mediocre product for decades in order to squeeze more profits out of their operations.

In a few years, online media might be able to attempt to fill the gap if newspapers pull back, but it’s going to require a lot of growing up.

Here’s to hoping the New York Times, and other papers that match their statements about public service with actual deeds, survive this financial crisis largely intact. If not, we’re all going to lose.

As he notes in somewhat understated fashion, it’s been a tough few days for newspapers and magazines, an industry in which I labored — mostly contentedly — for close to two decades.

Here’s the rundown that has Carr doing his best Chicken Little impression.

The inimitable Christian Science Monitor, which has published for a century, announced it will become a Web-only paper starting in 2009.

Time Inc., publisher of such identifiable brands as TIME and Sports Illustrated, has announced it will eliminate 600 jobs.

The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., the 15th largest paper in the nation, will reduce its editorial department by 40 percent.

Gannett, which publishes USA Today and dozens of newspapers across the country, announced that it is cutting 10 percent of its staff — or, as Carr notes, up to 3,000 jobs.

And the Tribune Company let it be known that it will cut 75 jobs from the Los Angeles Times, once the possessor of one of the most muscular newsrooms in the country.

Clearly the sky is falling — for old media.

For someone like myself who worked at newspapers for most of my professional life, it’s painful to watch, this drawn-out death by a thousand cuts, whether they be layoffs, buyouts or positions going unfilled. First and foremost, some of those jobs being eliminated may well be filled by people I know. And secondly, the timing of these announcements possesses a hint of the ironic. There’s an historic presidential election, an economic collapse, two U.S. wars, corruption aplenty by public officials and a dramatic story around every corner it seems these days. There’s more than enough news to go around for everyone.

And yet … and yet … we wake up every other week to news like this.

As someone who now makes his professional home in the new media, my hope is that we can help fill in the gaps left by a newspaper/magazine industry in retreat. I say that as someone who sees tremendous opportunities in new media. But I say it also as someone who respects the service the media has performed — and still performs. And that is to inform a sometimes grateful, often distracted public. The American people need a vigorous press, if only to uncover what’s going on. We in the new media need to step up to the challenge. Otherwise, we all suffer.