WHAT TO EXPECT: Despite budget cuts, APS board to discuss pay raise for employees

As Albuquerque Public Schools nears a budget deadline, district officials will discuss progress with the Board of Education at Wednesday’s meeting. One known line item is a 3% raise for APS employees. Chief budget architects Rennette Apodaca and Rosalinda Montoya will present the outlook for career-connected learning, curriculum and instruction and operational areas of the […]

Library IT funds missing from mayor’s budget

The days of searching for a book using card catalogs and the Dewey Decimal System became obsolete at least a decade ago as libraries were computerized and digitized. This is one reason employees and supporters of the metro area’s 19 branches are concerned that the entire information technology (IT) budget — $400,000 — has been […]

DEA will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift, AP sources say

WASHINGTON / ASSOCIATED PRESS The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country. The DEA’s proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and […]

Police detain UNM protesters, spray one with chemical agent on encampment’s ninth day

BY SHAUN GRISWOLD / Source NM The University of New Mexico Gaza Solidarity Encampment started its ninth day on Tuesday with part of the camp inside the main campus Student Union Building. By 4 a.m., police destroyed the five tents set up by the group demanding UNM divest from the state of Israel, and New Mexico […]

College protesters want ‘amnesty.’ At stake: Tuition, legal charges, grades and graduation

By JOCELYN GECKER / Associated Press Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours. But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. […]

NM Supreme Court hears ‘bloody Indian’ lawsuit in front of high school students

A campus auditorium became a courtroom this morning, as the New Mexico Supreme Court convened in Albuquerque as part of an annual outreach program called The Rule of Law. At Central New Mexico Community College’s Smith Brasher Hall, the justices heard oral arguments in a case involving a student’s discrimination claim against Albuquerque Public Schools. […]

New Mexico reaches record settlement over natural gas flaring in the Permian Basin

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN / Associated Press New Mexico has reached a record settlement with a Texas-based company over air pollution violations at natural gas gathering sites in the Permian Basin. The $24.5 million agreement with Ameredev announced Monday is the largest settlement the state Environment Department has ever reached for a civil oil and […]

APD is solving more homicides than in recent years

While the Albuquerque Police Department has generally been solving fewer than 10% of property crimes over the past couple of years, it has been steadily improving on solving homicides, according to data in the mayor’s proposed budget.  In fiscal year 2022, the Albuquerque Police Department cleared 71% of homicides but in the next fiscal year, […]

CDC: ‘Vampire facials’ at an unlicensed spa in New Mexico led to HIV infections in three women

By ALEXA ST. JOHN / ASSOCIATED PRESS Three women were diagnosed with HIV after getting “vampire facial” procedures at an unlicensed New Mexico medical spa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report last week, marking the first documented cases of people contracting the virus through cosmetic services using needles. Federal health officials said […]