Nation

Udall, Heinrich Introduce Bill To Improve Health Of Border Communities, Strengthen National Security

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U.S. SENATE News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich announced Friday that they have introduced a bill to improve the health and economies of border communities and strengthen national security.

The Border Health Security Act of 2015 would strengthen binational collaboration to address border health issues, and establish grant programs to improve public health infrastructure and infectious disease monitoring.

Many residents of New Mexico’s border communities face unique public health challenges, due to a high volume of cross-border traffic, distances

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Heinrich Cosponsors Fair Elections Now Act

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Sen. Martin Heinrich

U.S. SENATE News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. is cosponsoring the Fair Elections Now Act, a bill to dramatically change the way Congressional elections are financed.

Under the legislation, qualified Senate candidates would earn grants, matching funds, and television vouchers to run competitive campaigns based on small-dollar contributions, rather than rely on funding from wealthy donors and special interests.

The Fair Elections Now Act would help reduce the influence of wealthy donors and special interest lobbyists by creating Read More

Taxpayers With Foreign Assets Filing Deadline June 30

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IRS News:

The Internal Revenue Service reminds all taxpayers with an FBAR (Report of Foreign and Financial Accounts) filing requirement to report their foreign assets by the June 30 deadline.

FBAR filings have risen dramatically in recent years as FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) phases in and other international compliance efforts have raised awareness among taxpayers with offshore assets.

The IRS encourages taxpayers with foreign assets, even relatively small amounts, to check if they have a filing requirement. Separately, certain taxpayers living abroad may also have Read More

Udall Reintroduces VOW To Hire Heroes Extension Act

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Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M.

U.S. SENATE News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Friday, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall announced that he has reintroduced legislation to extend and streamline hiring incentives for unemployed and disabled veterans.

The VOW to Hire Heroes Extension Act of 2015 would renew and extend the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), which provided employers with tax credits for hiring unemployed or disabled veterans until its expiration in 2014.

Udall said the bill is good for veterans, businesses and New Mexico’s economy. For example, some veterans have been overlooked for jobs because they Read More

Nearly $1.3 Million In Wildfire Prevention Funds OK’d For Valles Caldera And Santa Clara Pueblo

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U.S. SENATE News:

  • Funding from new program to help treat vulnerable forests, build resilience to prevent damage from future fires

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich welcomed news Friday that Valles Caldera National Preserve and Santa Clara Pueblo will receive funding under a new national program aimed at restoring the health and fire resilience of iconic landscapes.

Valles Caldera will receive $883,000 to improve the resilience of ecosystems to wildfires and other natural disturbances to better sustain healthy forests and watersheds for future generations. Read More

Udall Calls On Commerce, Agriculture Secretaries To Prioritize Broadband Access For Rural New Mexicans

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SENATE News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM joined a bipartisan coalition, led by Sens. Steve Daines, R-MT, Joe Manchin, D-WV and Angus King, I-ME, in an effort to ensure the federal government prioritizes high-speed broadband access for rural Americans. 
 
Broadband Internet is critical to expand economic development opportunities, distance learning and telehealth to rural communities in New Mexico and across the country. 
 
In a bipartisan letter signed by more than a dozen senators, Udall and others pressed Commerce Secretary
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UPDATE: LANL Approximates WIPP Explosion

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Drum 68660 at Panel 7 Room 7, Row 16, Column 4 in the WIPP underground photographed after the radiological release. Courtesy/DOE

UPDATE:

In response to a query by the Los Alamos Daily Post, Los Alamos National Laboratory provided the following clarification of the experiments related to the breached LANL container at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, noting that the experiment on an unvented drum at elevated temperatures was expected to cause a reaction. Yet to be determined is whether a drum that is vented, like the one that came open at WIPP, and at a significantly lower temperature, as that Read More

LAHS Graduate Barbara Hopkins Of Wright State University To Receive Georgina M. Smith Award

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Barbara Hopkins

EDUCATION News:

Washington, D.C.—Barbara Hopkins, professor of economics at Wright State University, has been selected as the 2015 recipient of the AAUP’s Georgina M. Smith Award.

Hopkins is a 1981 graduate of Los Alamos High School and the daughter of retired Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist John C. Hopkins.

During her time as grievance officer at Wright State, Hopkins has worked tirelessly to document, report, and remedy troubling patterns of racial bias in promotion and tenure in Wright State’s College of Nursing and Health (CoNH). Through Hopkins’s efforts, Read More

Martian Glass: Window Into Possible Past Life?

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Spectral signals: Researchers have found deposits of impact glass preserved in Martian craters like Alga (above) using data from NASA’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM). Green indicates the presence of glass. (Blues are pyroxene; reds are olivine.) Such deposits could be a good place to look for signs of past life. Courtesy/NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/University of Arizona

The search for impact glass: A possible Martian site (white circle) is the Nili Fossae trough. The blue-tinted Hargraves crater at the right (blue indicates a low topography) is known Read More

Senators Unveil Pragmatic Foreign Policy Principles

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SENATE News:
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Chris Murphy, D-Conn. and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii have released forward-looking and pragmatic foreign policy principles to guide America’s role as a global leader in the 21st Century.
 
The principles, as laid out in an op-ed published today in Foreign Affairs, provide a clear alternative to the limited perspectives that often dominate American foreign policy conversations in the United States Senate.
 
Smart Power Principles:
 
A forward-looking and pragmatic
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