- The
- Santa Fe New Mexican
- has a great piece on the role that Los Alamos National Labs had in the radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. And, well,
- it doesn't look good for LANL
- .
Instead, the lab and its various contractors took shortcuts in treating the acidic nuclear waste, adding neutralizer and a wheat-based organic kitty litter to absorb excess liquid. The combination turned the waste into a potential bomb that one lab chemist later characterized as akin to plastic explosives, according to a six-month investigation by the New Mexican.
- Another Democrat has thrown her hat in the ring for the position of minority leader. Rep. Christine Trujillo, D-Albuquerque,
- said that she would seek the position
- . Reps. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, and Eliseo Alcon, D-Milan, have already said they would run. Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, was noncommittal when asked if she would run. Speaker of the House Ken Martinez, D-Grants, said that he would not seek the position because it is partisan.
- Milan Simonich
- says that it is past time that Martinez is no longer speaker
- , citing the controversial ending to the 2013 legislative session and other controversial moments from the past two sessions.
- Democratic Party of New Mexico chairman Sam Bregman
- announced that he would not seek a second term as head of the state party
- . Bregman's time as head of the party hasn't been the smoothest of times for Democrats and after a historic loss of control of the state House, it was unlikely he would be able to win a second term.
- The Republicans, who will be a majority in January for the first time in over 50 years,
- named some key members of the staff
- from chief clerk down to spokesman. The names include those with experience in the office of former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and the campaign of Susana Martinez.
- As civil forfeiture becomes an issue that more are paying attention to in New Mexico, the
- Albuquerque Journal
- finds that the
- cut of federal civil forfeitures for APD has grown by leaps and bounds of the past five years
- .
That money is in addition to what the city receives from seizing and sometimes selling vehicles used in repeat DWI cases. Overall, Albuquerque received about $11 million from 2010 through 2014 fiscal years from property seized by law enforcement, according to the records.
- Las Cruces city councilors will
- start the process of repealing a minimum wage increase
- to ease any potential conflicts between it and a larger minimum wage increase the city council approved earlier this year. Of course, this won't be the end of it.
The proposal to be read Monday calls for the city council to meet before July 1, 2015, to "determine whether there should be an additional increase to the minimum wage," according to the city agenda.
- Meanwhile, a group
- wants a recall election for the three city councilors who are most supportive of a minimum wage increase
- . Of course the group, which is forming as an LLC, says minimum wage has nothing to do with it.
"We're not looking to oust them over the minimum wage," he said. "Do these three happen to be supporters of the minimum wage? I don't know, they voted against it the last couple months. They're on record twice as voting 'no' for the minimum wage, and our group is on record supporting it."
- President Barack Obama may take action on immigration reform through executive action,
- which has politicians in the state split
- . The split is, not surprisingly, largely on party lines. Most Democrats were grudgingly supportive of an executive action but said they would prefer Congress to pass legislation.
- Miles Hanisee's win in a statewide judicial race was very rare. Not just because he's a Republican, but he
- became the first candidate to win using public financing
- . He and his opponent both agreed to use public financing in the race.
- More news out of the race for president in the Navajo Nation. This time, a
- grievance against presidential candidate Russell Begaye
- .
The grievance challenges Begaye's qualification for the tribal presidency, alleging he did not maintain an "unswerving loyalty" to the tribe through his service as a shareholder representative for the Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Company.
It also accuses Begaye of abusing his authority by having the company pay for legal representation and for attending shareholder meetings.- There have been 17 APD officers fired since 2010. Of those,
- five were fired because of use-of-force incidents
- . Activists critical of APD say that this is not enough, citing the DOJ report.
- Steve Pearce
- was was quoted in an article about the Obama administration being criticized for not doing enough to hamper the finances of ISIS
- .
“You know which oil fields are under the control [of IS]," Pearce said. "I wonder why you are not stopping the oil today. ... Now, you can either blow up the tanks, you can blow up the trucks or you can blow up the connection between the two.”
- I'd expect to see this come up in the debate over controversial education reform initiatives in the upcoming session. The state received another waiver from No Child Left Behind standards. From the
- Santa Fe New Mexican
- :
In doing so, the federal department basically gave its blessing to some of the educational reforms initiated by Gov. Susana Martinez and Public Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera: the adoption of Common Core Standards, a new teacher evaluation system that heavily factors in student test scores, and the A-F school grading system that the Legislature supported several years ago.
- We all know that the King political dynasty took a major hit with King's historically poor showing in the gubernatorial race. Well, the
- Sanchez political dynasty also suffered a loss on election day
- .
- The Center for Public Integrity will be updating its State Integrity Investigation which looks at the risk for corruption in each state. Local journalist, and personal friend, Gwyneth Doland
- will be updating the New Mexico report
- .
- The
- El Paso Times
- looks at the shrinking amount of water in the Rio Grande Basin
- .
Stream flows measured at the Otowi Gauge on the Upper Rio Grande were well above historical norms between 1980 and 2000, when El Paso's and Albuquerque's populations respectively grew 42 percent and 38 percent.
Add climate change—which an overwhelming majority of those who study it say is happening—and you have a future that might not be very promising for cities such as El Paso, Juárez, Las Cruces and Albuquerque.- Santa Fe County
- is looking into selling or leasing the old Santa Fe County Ranch
- . The county bought the 470-acre property for $7 million in 2009.
- How big is gaming in New Mexico? It
- brings in $1.2 billion annually in New Mexico
- with the bulk of it coming from gaming on reservations from the tribes throughout the state.
- KUNM
- takes a look at the weakening of environmental protections in recent years
- .
- KUNM
- spoke with environmental reporter Laura Paskus, who wrote about it in last week's
- Santa Fe Reporter
- .
- Three New Mexico school districts
- were named to the Advanced Placement honor roll
- . Congratulations to everyone at the Santa Fe Public Schools, Hatch Valley Public Schools and Gadsden Independent School District.
- The Otero County Commission
- heard about a lawsuit over the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program
- . The lawsuit was brought by environmental groups; Otero County is one of the most conservative areas of the state.
- A report by the state of New Mexico
- found that those who hunt and fish in the state spend $613 million each year
- on those pursuits.
- Officials say hunters
- kill about 10,000 coyotes each year in New Mexico
- . That is 8 percent of the total coyote population in the state.
- San Miguel County
- approved paid time off for employees to attend parent-teacher conferences
- .
- The Atari video games dug up from an Alamogordo landfill
- ended up netting over $37,000 for the city
- . The games, including an infamous E.T. video game, were put up for sale on eBay after being unearthed for a documentary.
- SB Nation
- really, really doesn't think that the Maloofs should be allowed to buy an NHL team
- . The family made their money from a beer distributorship in New Mexico and went on to buy a casino in Las Vegas and the Sacramento Kings NBA team.
- The NBC show
- The Night Shift
- will begin filming for its second season this in Albuquerque soon
- . The show also featured
- quite possibly the worst publicity still
- in the history of TV publicity stills.
Santa Fe Reporter