Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Webcast 11/30/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Farmington Police Department facing lawsuit
Legislation mulls over pot charges
Mystery bird at Bosque del Apache
PRC postpones appointments 






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Farmington Police Department facing lawsuit


Two American Indian families have filed a lawsuit against the San Juan County Sheriff's Office and the Farmington Police Department over alleged abuse of power. 
The suit in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque says authorities in March pulled over an elderly couple and their grandchildren while authorities searched for a car thief. 
According to the suit, offices performed a felony stop with deputies and Farmington police officers had guns drawn. Authorities were searching for a suspect wanted for breaking into a school building and stealing a brown Chevrolet Impala with government plates and several laptops. 
But a lawyer for the family says it was obvious that the family had nothing to do with the crime. Both departments said they found no wrong doing.



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Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Webcast 11/30/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Mystery bird at Bosque del Apache
Whooping cough cases up in NM
Dept. of Transporation awards NM funds
Methadone treatment cut from jail controversy






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Steve Pearce votes on jobs act

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Today, Congressman Steve Pearce voted in favor of H.R. 6429, the STEM Jobs Act.   The Act reforms outdated immigration laws so that American companies can remain competitive, instead of losing American-trained students to foreign competitors.

“Immigration laws need to keep pace with the global economy, and today’s legislation helps us do just that,” said Pearce.  “America’s universities draw the best and brightest in the world, and the STEM Jobs Act allows our businesses to tap into this investment.  By updating our immigration laws through the STEM Jobs Act, we open the door to a vast new source of enhanced innovation, growth, and job creation for America.”

The STEM Jobs Act will provide new access to green cards for foreign graduates of American universities with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  As a result, American businesses will be able to keep these students here, and will have access to the world’s top innovators and problem-solvers.  As a result, the U.S. economy will profit, instead of losing the investment of American universities to foreign competitors.

The Act also includes a pro-family provision to allow spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents (green card holders) to join their family member in the U.S. after they have spent one year on the waiting list.  The STEM Jobs Act passed with bipartisan support. 

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Courtesy of legalinsurrection.com


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Legislators mull over marijuana charge changes

The Drug Policy Alliance on Thursday pitched a proposal to lawmakers to decrease penalties for having small amounts of marijuana — eliminating any penalty for less than 1 ounce, and reducing penalties and eliminating jail time for 1 to 8 ounces.

Currently, possession of up to 8 ounces is a misdemeanor that under the law could trigger a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to a year in jail.

The alliance’s New Mexico director, Emily Kaltenbach, said arresting adults for having small amounts of marijuana wastes criminal justice resources that could better be used elsewhere, as well as jeopardizing jobs and creating other hardships for those arrested. 

According to the alliance, there were 3,277 arrests in New Mexico in 2010 in which marijuana possession was the sole or primary charge. Marijuana arrests were 34 percent of all drug arrests, according to the alliance. 

Doña Ana County accounted for 28 percent of the overall arrests; Doña Ana and Chaves Counties had the highest arrest rates.



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Whooping cough cases up in NM

The number of whooping cough cases in New Mexico continues to rise and the Department of Health is ramping up efforts to educate people about preventing the infectious disease. 
DOH says there have been 644 cases of the deadly disease so far this year, including two child deaths. That is more than double the total number last year, 275 cases. 
To slow down this contagious disease, the State Health Department is spreading the message, plastering it on billboards and airing a public service announcement on Telemundo. 
Health officials suggest seeing a doctor if you have a cough for longer than a week.


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Arguments over methadone cuts at NM jail

Metropolitan Detention Center Chief Ramon Rustin said that providing methadone in jail is not working. 

He said Thursday that he believes many who get methadone re-offend and wind up right back in jail. And he said as of Dec. 31st prisoners will not get it. But that won't happen without a fight. 
There is concern that people will end up in the jail's detoxification unit and suffer severe withdrawal symptoms without the methadone they're used to. Rustin said no other jail in the state provides methadone and says people who get it aren't the only ones who face withdrawal symptoms. 
David Schmidt of the Drug Policy Alliance of New Mexico said corrections officers could be assaulted by inmates who act out violently while withdrawing and says inmate health is a huge issue. The Drug Policy Alliance said it will file a temporary restraining order against the jail to keep the program going if the jail does not respond to the group regarding the policy change by Friday.


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Members of LANL security force fired

Officials say five members of the Los Alamos National Laboratory security force were fired because of "unauthorized visitors" at the shooting range. 

The lab said Wednesday that the unauthorized visitors were allowed access to the shooting range and allowed to "operate a variety of firearms." Lab officials say news of the visitors was discovered when it received information from an anonymous source. 
Five employees of the lab security force, known as Securing Our Country, were fired earlier this month for "inappropriate behavior" at Technical Area 72. 
Names of the former employees have not been released.


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Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Webcast 11/30/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Ex-NMFA official pleads guilty
LANL security team fired
Jail cutting methadone argument 







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Former NMFA official pleads guilty to forgery charges

Greg Campbell
A former top official of the New Mexico Finance Authority has pleaded guilty to forgery and securities fraud charges for falsifying an agency financial audit that was distributed to bond investors earlier this year.

 Under an agreement with prosecutors, ex-controller Greg Campbell had faced up to six years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to two counts of forgery and one count of securities fraud. 
State District Judge Stephen Pfeffer placed Campbell on probation for five years. 
The 52-year-old Campbell had served as controller from 2007 until he left in June. In that position, he was in charge of the authority's accounting operations.


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Felipe Calderón’s Legacy in Mexico

Mexican President Felipe Caleron
From the Weekly Standard - When Mexican president Felipe Calderón leaves office on December 1, his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, will inherit a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence. Of course, when Calderón entered the presidency six years ago, he himself inherited a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence.
To appreciate his legacy, we must recall that Mexico was not enjoying peace in December 2006. Powerful drug cartels were already at war with each other, and the government was already fighting back. Security analyst Viridiana Ríos of Harvard has shown that the violence began to increase as early as 2004.
If anyone doubts that, consider these Mexican news items from late 2004 and early 2005:
* In December 2004, U.S. consul Michael Yoder told Reuters that at least 22 American citizens had either disappeared or been kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo over the previous four months.
* On January 21, 2005, after six prison workers were executed by drug traffickers in the city of Matamoros (which sits next door to Brownsville, Texas), President Fox vowed to wage the “mother of all battles” against those responsible for the killings.The new president, a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), basically had four options: 1.) Confront the drug cartels with federal, state, and local police forces. 2.) Confront them with the military. 3.) Try to cut a deal with the cartels that would allow them to continue most of their criminal activities, provided they kept the violence to a minimum. 4.) Ignore them and hope for the best. Read more
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Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Webcast 11/29/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Two recounts ordered in NM legislative races
Teachers' union petition denied
ABQ mayor says city is cooperating with probe
New lawsuit for Mexican wolf program 






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New lawsuit against Mexican grey wolf program

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Wednesday in a bid to push federal wildlife officials into making rule changes, first recommended 11 years ago, to increase the population of the endangered Mexican gray wolf. 
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Arizona, marks the latest chapter in a year’s long effort to get the Fish and Wildlife Service to amend project rules that environmentalists and biologists say have hindered the wolf recovery effort. 
At the start of 2012, there were 58 wolves in national forests in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, far below the 100 that biologists estimated would be roaming wild by the end of 2006.
 In June 2001, three years after the first release of wolves in Arizona, a review team of wolf experts recommended three key changes be made “immediately” to the program. 


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Two recounts ordered in NM legislative races

Recounts are set to start next week in two close New Mexico legislative races that will determine the strength of the Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives. 

The state Canvassing Board on Tuesday ordered the recounts to start Dec. 4. The recounts are required under state law because the margin between the candidates is less than one-half of 1 percent. 

There’s a tie in a Southern New Mexico race between Republican Rep. Terry McMillan and Democrat Joanne Ferrary, both of Las Cruces. Each received 6,247 votes, according to results certified by the board. The district covers portions of Doña Ana County

There was a 66-vote margin in a race for an Albuquerque-area House seat, with Republican Paul Pacheco of Albuquerque leading Democrat Marci Blaze of Corrales. The district covers parts of Sandoval and Bernalillo counties. 



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Well-traveled Trout not intimidated by New York – or Cotto

Austin Trout
AHD Note: Mayfield High School Grad Austin Trout will defend his championship belt against Miguel Cotto Saturday December 1st. Las Crucen, former championship boxer and Trout's head trainer Louie Burke will join News New Mexico Friday morning. RingTV - Much has been made about Miguel Cotto – a four-time former titleholder in three divisions and one of the sport's biggest stars – and his perceived home court advantage going into Saturday's fight at Madison Square Garden. Cotto (37-3, 30 knockouts), of Caguas, Puerto Rico, will be vying for the WBA junior middleweight title held by Austin Trout (25-0, 14 KOs), of Las Cruces, New Mexico, in front of what is sure to be a heavily pro-Cotto crowd. Cotto's popularity in The Big Apple is so that at Wednesday afternoon's final press conference, MSG Executive Vice President of Sports Bookings Joel Fisher handed Cotto a commemorative "Golden Ticket" for selling over 100,000 tickets in his eight appearances at "The Mecca of Boxing." Cotto has gone 7-0 in those fights. Trout, though undefeated, isn't as celebrated in America, having fought many of his signature wins in other countries like Mexico, Panama and Canada. Still, despite having never previously competed in New York or the Northeast region for that matter, Trout's familial ties give him a sense of home. “I always say, I'm more New York than Miguel Cotto is,” said Trout, whose mother and grandmother were both Brooklyn natives, and whose father was born in Harlem. “I've been coming back and forth to New York since I was a little boy. I'm not new to the city.” Read More News New Mexico

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Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Webcast 11/29/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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ABQ mayor says city is cooperating with probe
Lottery scholarship rules may change
BLM horse removal protest
State's largest jail cuts methadone treatment






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Lottery scholarship rules may change

A college scholarship that's bankrolled by the state lottery may become merit-based or granted on financial need, New Mexico's Senate majority leader has acknowledged. 

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Sen. Michael Sanchez told a summit organized by University of New Mexico student leaders that his long-held stance that the scholarship should be available to all New Mexican students, regardless of financial need or academic accomplishments, might have to change. 

That's because a Legislative Finance Committee reported in September that the scholarship fund is projected to run out of money in the next fiscal year. Sanchez says making the scholarship needs-based may be something that has to happen. 

But Sanchez, who helped draft the bill creating the program in 1996, said he would oppose making the scholarship merit-based, using himself as an example of a student who didn't perform well in high school but went on to graduate from UNM.



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Teachers union petition denied

The state Supreme Court has denied a petition from teacher unions, which had asked to court to strike down the state’s new teacher evaluation system on the basis that it violated the separation of powers in the state Constitution. 

After two attempts to overhaul the teacher evaluation system through legislation, the Public Education Department instead wrote administrative rules that required teacher evaluations to be based in part on student test score improvement.
 The state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and its Albuquerque chapter argued that changes constitute a major policy change, and that policy change is the job of legislators, not executive departments.


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State's largest jail cuts methadone treatment

New Mexico's largest county jail has announced that it will no longer provide methadone treatment to inmates. 

Metropolitan Detention Center officials said Tuesday that all inmates who are currently incarcerated and receiving methadone will undergo a "discontinuation process" during the next several weeks. 
Official say the move was made out of health concern for inmates. The methadone program was initiated at the MDC by the New Mexico Department of Health in 2006. Officials say pregnant women will continue to receive methadone through their pregnancies.
 Methadone is a synthetic opioid that is used as part of a drug addiction detoxification and maintenance program.

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NM peanut plant lays off workers

A New Mexico peanut butter plant has laid off a third of its 150 workers after federal authorities shuttered the plant. 

A salmonella outbreak traced to the peanut butter has sickened 41 people in 20 states.
 Millions of pounds of the regions prized sweet Valencia peanuts sit in barns at the Sunland peanut butter plant. Farmers are worried about getting paid. And residents wonder what toll the shutdown will have on the region's economy.
 The tension boiled over on Monday, when the Food and Drug Administration suspended Sunland's registration to operate because of repeated safety violations. It came just as the plant was set to resume shelling the bumper crop.


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Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Webcast 11/29/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Protest to BLM horse removal
Jail to no longer offer methadone treatment
Sunland Inc. lays off workers







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State workers to contribute more to retirement

State and local government workers and educators could see their take-home pay shrink in the next several years under proposals to have them contribute more of their salaries for retirement benefits.  

A legislative panel on Wednesday endorsed a pair of proposals to shore up the long-term finances of two programs for public employees — the retirement system for educators and a separate program offering health insurance to retirees from state and local government jobs as well as public schools and universities.
 One proposal calls for nearly 62,000 educators to pay an extra $46 million over two years into their pension system. Under another measure, 133,000 public employees, including educators, would pay $30 million over three years for retiree health care while taxpayers pay $60 million more.


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N.M. was selling 4,000 lotto tickets a minute

From KRQE-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - New Mexicans are feeling the power of the Powerball. Lottery officials say they sold more than 4,000 tickets every minute in New Mexico. Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday lottery customers spent almost $800,000 on Powerball tickets.That's about 400,000 individual tickets in just three hours.
At least 30-percent of all lottery ticket sales go to the state's struggling lottery scholarship program. Overall lottery sales this year are down about $2 million from 2011 and down a whopping $17 million from six years ago. The scholarship program is facing a $5 million shortfall, and the Legislature is looking at tighter requirements. Read more
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Roswell police warn of brazen break-ins

From KOB-TV.com - The Roswell Police Department said they’ve seen a spike in home break-ins over the past few weeks. In part, it’s due to the normal holiday surge of burglaries, but in several cases, the invasions are happening while people are home.

One woman didn’t want to be identified, but wanted to share her story with KOB Eyewitness News 4 so others would be more careful. She left her back door unlocked and heard her dogs barking so she went outside to look. She saw a man outside, closed the door but didn’t have a chance to lock it, and the man came right through. She pressed the panic button on her alarm system, but the man hit her.
“I turned around and he just nailed me right in the face, and the last thing I remember before passing out was my German Shepherd attacking him,” she said. “I woke up with my husband holding me calling my name, and RPD officers all over my house.”
She provided some descriptors of the man, but there are currently no suspects in mind.
In other cases, police have been able to apprehend burglars immediately. On November 18, 34-year-old Michael Samario and 23-year-old Richard Thyberg pounded on a family of four’s door until a man opened it, then beat the man and tried to steal some cash. Police arrived while the beating occurred and were able to apprehend and arrest both men. Read more
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Walter E. Williams: Parting Company

From Walter E. Williams, Ph.D. - For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Since Barack Obama's re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitions for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there's absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let's look at the secession issue.
At the 1787 constitutional convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States."
Here's my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?  On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty."
The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves." Read full column




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The American Dream: to control our own fate

© 2012 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. As a youngster I saw a poster with the inscription, “I am Captain of my ship, but I cannot control the weather.” I stood transfixed in front of the poster as I pondered the meaning. The poster showed a wild sea and someone grasping the wheel of the ship resolutely.

I spoke to my father about the notion. He smiled indulgently and offered what he thought he was going to be doing upon high school graduation. It was photography, but he could not anticipate how it all changed because World War II started midway through his senior year. He quit school to join in the service of our county. Instead of taking hometown Wedding pictures, he became a combat photographer. He held a camera as he always intended to do, but the weather was quite different.
The more I thought about the poster the more I could see I was in control of myself and at the same time was not completely in control of all of the stuff around me. The weather notion held my attention through many years and many times when the weather had the upper hand over me and yet I always felt I controlled my destiny. I have that saying over my desk as I write.
Perhaps it is true since against all advice I write and talk for a living after coming from stock that worked with their hands. While I am able to repair and construct stuff, I would rather do something else. And who is to stop me other than myself? That is the essence of the American Dream.
Among other things it is the American Dream for each of us to control our own destiny. That is a freedom our country was founded upon, that each of us has our own future in hand and can select different futures if we want. Most of us did not ask someone before we went after a dream, and many of us succeeded or failed against the advice of loved ones and friends. We individually own our failures and successes.
In the Old Country where generations ago many of us originated, if you were born the son of a pig farmer, you would more than likely die a pig farmer. Why? Because your future was not yours, it belonged to the society which needed a dependable supply of pig farmers. You lived for the society so there was little control of your own destiny.  Read full column
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Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Webcast 11/28/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Rural postal service cut
Research lab gets animal control exemption
RGA keeps Martinez
NM lottery facing crisis 






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Courtesy of Americans for Limited Government


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LANL working on security problems


Los Alamos National Security is bringing in outside help to deal with the botched construction of a security upgrade at the lab. 
The Los Alamos Monitor reports that the trade journal Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor says Los Alamos National Security has hired attorneys to help the lab pursue claims against subcontractors that did the work on the security system. 
Lab Director Charlie McMillan told employees in a memo that the system was supposed to cost $213 million, but cost overruns have jacked the project up to $254 million. The cost overruns could be paid for by money that had been earmarked for the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement facility or the bonus that LANS receives for running the lab.


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Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Webcast 11/28/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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RGA keeping Martinez on executive committee 
LANL fixing security problems
Man facing charges for killing hawk
GOP appoints House leaders 






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UNM students helping to solve lottery scholarship crisis

The New Mexico Lottery Scholarship is running out of cash fast, so Tuesday students at the University of New Mexico gave their ideas on ways to preserve the fund. 

The fund will be broke by next year, according to projections. According to the study, more and more students have become eligible for the lottery scholarship since it began in the late 1990s. Right now, 80 percent of incoming freshmen at UNM meet the scholarship’s requirements. 
On Tuesday, a couple dozen students and a few teachers offered suggestions to keep the fund solvent, such as raising eligibility requirements, increasing needs-based requirements or a combination of both.
 The student group will give their opinion to legislators during the upcoming legislative session in 2013.  


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NM man faces charges for killing hawk

A New Mexico man is facing possible federal charges after he admitted shooting a trained hawk.  

18-year-old William Hefley was arrested on an extreme cruelty to animals charge for shooting and killing a five-year-old Harris Hawk valued at $3,000.
 Luna County Sheriff's investigator Israel Saenz saysHefley told deputies he shot the bird while out to kill a family dog that was old. The owner of the hawk holds a registered Falconry Permit and apparently raised the hawk from a young age after being given permission to rescue it in Texas.
 Investigators said the case is being turned over to the New Mexico Game and Fish Department.



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GOP appoints House leadership

Republican state Rep. Donald Bratton of Hobbs was picked as minority leader of the New Mexico House of Representatives. 

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Bratton will replace Tom Taylor of Farmington as the top-ranking Republican in the Democratic-controlled House. 
House Republicans also elected several members of the party's younger guard to top-ranking positions. Rep. Nate Gentry of Albuquerque will serve as the new House GOP whip, while Rep. Alonzo Baldonado will be the Republican caucus chairman. 
The leadership posts were filled during a closed-door caucus meeting held Monday night in Albuquerque.


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U.S Justice Dept. launches APD investigation

The U.S. Justice Department says it is launching an investigation into the Albuquerque Police Department after a string of officer-involved shootings and a number of high-profile abuse cases. 

A press conference was held Tuesday to announce the details of the pending probe following a visit by federal officials to New Mexico's largest city more than a year ago. 
The Albuquerque Police Department has been under fire from civil rights advocates in recent months. The department has had 25 officer-involved shootings since 2010 — 17 of them fatal.
 The department also has been criticized over a number of cases alleging abuse by officers.


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