Morning Word: Iowa's Winners and Losers

Clinton gets margin-thin win; Cruz beats Trump

Snowy Conditions

National Weather Service meteorologists are warning that

could reduce visibility on Northern New Mexico roads Tuesday morning. And schools in Albuquerque’s East Mountains are

this morning. Authorities say roads are slick after the area received several inches of snow overnight.

Presidential Caucus

Last night’s caucuses in Iowa show the

are far from over. Ted Cruz heads to New Hampshire with a win. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders leave Iowa with the same number of delegates, and Martin O’Malley and Mike Huckabee have called it quits.

SF’s Big Budget Gap

Daniel J Chacón reports that Santa Fe city councilors want

to figure out how to deal with the city’s estimated $15 million funding gap and appear reluctant to make a decision on which services should be scaled back or how to raise new revenues.

LANL Probe

Mark Oswald reports three former Los Alamos National Laboratory whistleblowers who want to ensure the facility is

are encouraging the US Attorney for New Mexico “to reopen an old fraud case at the lab and look into the 2003 death of a former lab deputy director they maintain is suspicious.” 

High Standards

A majority of the state’s licensed medical cannabis growers want the Department of Health to rethink their

, which they claim are more stringent than rules in Washington, Colorado and Oregon.

Coal Sale Done

The world’s largest mining company has

the sale of its coal mine in New Mexico.

The sale has been a year in the making and was among the factors state regulators considered when deciding whether to move forward with a plan to shut down part of the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station. 
The terms of the sale were not disclosed, but officials with the utility that operates the power plant said the completed transaction secures the plant's coal supply as well as savings on coal costs for its customers.
SunZia Transmission

The group in charge of a proposed $2 billion transmission line that would carry electricity generated by wind and solar in New Mexico to Arizona and beyond is fighting against a requirement to

it will put renewables on the line.

Legislative News

Financial Control

Rick Nathanson reports, “State Auditor Tim Keller on Monday called on the Department of Finance and Administration to take

of the troubled Martin Luther King Jr. State Commission, and said his office was suspending its own investigation into the commission."

“The state of turmoil at the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission places their important work in jeopardy,” Keller said in a letter addressed to the MLK commissioners and acting chairwoman Karen Montoya. “The best way to ensure the viability of the commission is for another state agency to temporarily assume its financial operations.” 
Last week, investigators from the Attorney General’s Office served search warrants and combed through the offices of the MLK State Commission, located at Expo New Mexico.

Big Interview

Austin Denton, a New Mexico teenager, stole the national spotlight when he got his chance to interview Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning on the NFL Network yesterday.

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

We also welcome you to follow SFR on social media (on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and comment there. You can also email specific staff members from our contact page.