Lawmakers agree: Opioid epidemic is crippling NM

ALBUQUERQUE – Attorney General Hector Balderas announced Sept. 7, that he has brought a lawsuit on behalf of the State of New Mexico against the country’s largest manufacturers and wholesale distributors of opioids, a crucial first step toward holding these companies responsible for flooding New Mexico’s communities with prescription opioids and fueling the opioid epidemic by putting profits over people.

The State of New Mexico is filing suit against five of the largest manufacturers of prescription opioids and their related companies and against the country’s three largest wholesale drug distributors. The manufacturing...

City of Gallup on the ‘nice’ list

SANTA FE –State Auditor Tim Keller recently released “The Findings Report: A Summary of New Mexico’s Governmental Financial Audits.” The third annual report from the Office of the State Auditor compiles information that would otherwise remain buried deep within thousands of pages of annual audits.

The report allows policymakers and the public to easily access comparative information about the financial health of hundreds of state agencies, counties, municipalities, schools, and courts.

The Fiscal Year 2016 report compiles and analyzes data from the audits of 461 government entities across New Mexico government. The report provides a...

ALBUQUERQUE — Gov. Susana Martinez announced Sept. 1 that 110,000 more New Mexico students have access to high-speed internet at school. Governor Martinez began an initiative to connect every New Mexico student with high-speed internet at school by the 2018 school year.

Since the Governor’s 2015 announcement, 99 percent of New Mexico’s public schools now have access to high-speed internet – and the partnerships leveraged through the initiative have reduced costs to connect students by more than 60 percent.

“Every child can learn, and it’s up to us as leaders to give our kids the tools they need,” Martinez said. “High-speed internet is a necessity today, and progress...

Future of felines uncertain

It has become a joke in our society, but it really is not funny. The older person, usually a lady but not necessarily, who has taken in more cats or dogs than is responsible for them to keep, especially in the city.

It is a disease, with a name long enough to trip over, that affects caring people who honestly want to do the right thing and wind up with a total mess on their hands. Some call these folks animal hoarders, other collectors, but whatever the term, a mobile home on the 600 block of Jay Street in Gallup became overran with cats.

Gallup-McKinley Humane Society animal control officers are still trying to rectify the problem, which began...