Some students are not on school rosters, others are chronically absent

SANTA FE - Three state agencies are joining forces with local school districts and charter schools to track down students who have dropped off school rosters or who are chronically absent from remote classes.

The Public Education Department is partnering with the Children, Youth and Families and Indian Affairs departments to identify, locate, contact and intervene to get students back in school to ensure their safety, and to provide for their continued learning opportunities and well-being.

“This has been an impossibly difficult year for all of us, no doubt about it,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said. “The...

Want drought considered AS ELIGIBLE FOR RELIEF

SANTA FE — Congressman Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., along with U.S. Senators Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and U.S. Representatives Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M. and Deb Haaland, D-N.M. called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide robust oversight of the New Mexico Farm Service Agency’s management of the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program program. In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation raised concerns about NM FSA’s actions to limit Rio Arriba farmers and ranchers’ access to disaster assistance.

In August, the USDA...

Week ending Friday, October 16, 2020


‘Dying’ Arctic

Researchers returning from the world’s most ambitious study ever of the North Pole say they found proof that the Arctic Ocean “is dying,” due to unprecedented warming and the melting of the polar ice cap. A team of several hundred scientists from 20 countries say they found during their 389-day Arctic mission that the North Pole is surrounded by “badly eroded, melted, thin and brittle ice.” The mountain of data they collected will take up to two years to analyze and may help to predict conditions up to 100 years in the future. The team from the German Alfred Wegener Institute’s Polarstern ship says the results will...

Notice of intent to sue for giraffes; suit planned for wolverines

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a notice of intent to sue the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to act after announcing that giraffes may deserve protection from extinction under the Endangered Species Act.

According to the Center, giraffe populations are down 40 percent due to habitat loss, civil unrest and poaching for the international trade in bone carvings, skins, and trophies.

The U. S is a top importer of those trophies and products.

The Center and its allies petitioned for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2017 and followed up in 2019 with a lawsuit.

When USFWS said...