in the news

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Two western senators are proposing to expand access to a $4 billion federal program that has allowed public schools and libraries throughout the U.S. to obtain high-speed internet at affordable rates as one way to close the digital divide that persists across American Indian communities and other rural...

DORA — Wind was on the minds of some Roosevelt County residents on Thursday, but not because their hats were flying off. Landowner Bill Rush touted the economic benefits that come from the energy-producing turbines on the Roosevelt Wind Farm and the planned Sagamore Wind Project, both south of Portales. Rush thanked U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich,...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s two U.S. senators have joined fellow Democrats and environmentalists in calling for the embattled chief of the Environmental Protection Agency to resign. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich issued statements Thursday, taking aim at Scott Pruitt’s policy decisions and recent suggestions that he...

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., stopped in Gallup April 2 to announce the Degrees Not Debt Act and to support the construction of the Gallup Veterans Cemetery. During his visit, he spoke to fellow democrats at the Jim Harlin Community Pantry about his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Heinrich said voters of the region should cast their ballots...

U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall said Thursday that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt should resign. The two Democrats are the latest elected official to say the scandal-ridden administrator should not be in charge of the agency. “Scott Pruitt has been surrounded by ethical problems and has failed to...

GALLUP — College students currently graduate with degrees as well as mountains of debt — but a new bill is aimed at easing the burden of student loans in our nation. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., announced for the first time Monday new legislation titled “Degrees Not Debt,” in front of students from Middle College High...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The U.S. military recently tested a new, high-powered microwave weapon built by Raytheon in New Mexico to down swarms of incoming drones and missiles. Raytheon successfully demonstrated the system in December during an Army exercise at Fort Sill, Ok., where the ground-based weapon shot down 33 unmanned aerial vehicles with...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — For years, World War II Navajo Code Talker Adolph Nagurski didn’t talk much about his war experiences. In fact, his son, Benjamin Nagurski, said, “I didn’t know my dad had been in the Marines until maybe the 1970s, when it was finally revealed there were such things as Code Talkers.” For the past...

As hundreds of thousands of American schoolchildren prepared to rally for gun law reform in Washington, Albuquerque and other U.S. cities late last month, Sen. Martin Heinrich marveled at the students’ power to change the national conversation. “It’s had more impact than anything I’ve seen in my years in elected...

New Mexico lost almost 14 percent of its solar jobs in 2017, but had a strong showcase in solar installations compared to the rest of the country. A report from The Solar Foundation however, indicates the state is going to be installing more solar in the coming years. The Land of Enchantment ranked No. 29 overall for solar jobs in 2017 with 2,522...

To know the Plains of San Agustin of western New Mexico is to love it. I remember the first time I drove west of Magdalena and laid eyes on this vast expanse of grasslands. A couple winters ago, I took my son Carter on an elk hunt in the Continental Divide Wilderness Study Area where the views stretch out for miles above the surrounding plains....

At a time of extraordinary political division, it’s rare that a public lands bill gets sweeping bipartisan support. Fights over how to manage public lands rage in today’s West, from disputes over national monument boundaries to whether states should have control over federal lands. Yet when Rep. Rob Bishop, R-UT, brought a public...

Today’s (March 21, 2018) KSFR Wake-Up Call: Two reports emanating from Washington: Senator Martin Heinrich is pushing for answers into the question of Russian cyber-interference in US elections….while Heinrich’s New Mexico colleague Tom Udall is hopeful that Congress adopts common sense steps to reduce gun violence while still...

Leaders of both parties on Tuesday made a high-profile push to keep hackers and online trolls from skewing American democracy, offering the first major set of bipartisan suggestions to bolster the digital defenses protecting the country’s electoral systems. The recommendations — the first release from the Senate Intelligence...

Senate Intelligence Committee members said Tuesday that the federal government and states should take immediate steps to update antiquated voting machines; improve information-sharing and cybersecurity measures surrounding threats to systems; and make it clear that the United States will respond to attacks on election infrastructure as hostile acts...

A small city in the mountains of landlocked New Mexico could become the namesake of the next U.S. attack submarine. All five members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation this week asked Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer to name the next Virginia class fast-attack submarine “USS Los Alamos” in recognition of the...

Trade wars are rarely effective as a grand strategy and allow our leaders to create winners and losers by pitting one sector of the economy against another. If you are reading this editorial in the print version of the Las Cruces Sun-News, you could be among the losers. New Mexico’s entire congressional delegation – U.S. Sens. Tom...

More than $11 billion in maintenance projects at national parks across the country are awaiting completion. New Mexico’s 15 national parks have about $123 million in total deferred maintenance. And about a third of that is being spent at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, for its elevator modernization project. To address the national backlog...

A bipartisan group of senators is pressing President Trump to issue a national strategy for deterring malicious activity in cyberspace “as soon as possible,” accusing successive administrations of not giving enough urgency to the issue. “The lack of decisive and clearly articulated consequences to cyberattacks...

President Trump’s border wall is a symbol of everything that’s wrong with his administration. The heated rhetoric about our border region coming from the White House is wildly out of touch with the realities of our experiences in New Mexico. I’m familiar with nearly every mile of our state’s border with Mexico. A $25 billion...