I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
In national news, about one million laid-off workers will see their unemployment benefits end in January unless Congress acts quickly to renew existing federally paid extensions, according to a new report and legislators and state officials, the New York Times reports.California faces a nearly $21 billion budgetary shortfall — $6.3 billion from this year and $14.4 billion for the year that starts July 1, the Los Angeles Times reports. Closing this shortfall could be harder than this year’s budgetary problems, “when record deficits and cash shortfalls drove California to issue IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression,” the paper reports. “Lawmakers have already cut billions from education, healthcare and social services while temporarily hiking income, sales and vehicle taxes.”
Meanwhile, Arizona is getting ready to turn to outside lenders for the first time in its history to help address this year’s budgetary shortfall estimated at $3.6 billion, according to the Arizona Republic.
Oklahoma’s state Board of Education passed an emergency resolution Tuesday asking the governor and state lawmakers to immediately release Rainy Day Funds so teachers won’t lose jobs and schools won’t be shuttered, The Oklahoman reported.
Meanwhile in the nation’s capital, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid was scrambling Tuesday to lock down votes behind a health-care bill that he may present as early as today, the Washington Post reports. Reid and other Democrats hope to win over at least one Republican, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, on a vote for final passage, according to the Post. But the Maine moderate has pledged to support a GOP filibuster at the outset because Reid’s bill is expected to include a public-insurance option that she opposes. The parliamentary vote on bringing the bill to the floor could come as soon as Friday.
The paper goes on to report that Reid:
… would not confirm that he had received commitments from all 60 members of his caucus to overcome GOP procedural objections and bring the bill to the Senate floor, saying only, “I feel cautiously optimistic that we can do that. I think we’re together as a caucus.”
