A protest against the fatal foothills officer-involved shooting took place in Albuquerque Tuesday, as protesters carried a symbolic coffin through the streets with 22 names of people killed by Albuquerque police since 2010. The crowd was chanting and carrying signs, as well. Some of the signs said, “Justice for James Boyd,” the man killed in the shooting. He was a homeless man with a history of mental illness illegally camping in the foothills. The crowd marched about six blocks to the Albuquerque police headquarters on Fourth and Roma.
A Santa Fe woman faces 90 days in jail and must serve five years' probation and perform hundreds of hours of community service for causing a wrong-way crash on I-25 while driving drunk one year ago. The Albuquerque Journal reports that 27-year-old Leela Perez was sentenced Monday in state District Court in Santa Fe. The crash involved three vehicles, including one driven by a 30-year-old Raton woman who had to undergo an emergency C-section because of the accident. Her child is now a year old.
U-S Highway 491 between Shiprock and Gallup will be widened to four lanes by the end of 2016. Governor Susana Martinez announcing Tuesday that the highway improvements will occur as a result of a 78-million dollar appropriation. The Chief Engineer at the New Mexico Department of Transportation District in that area, Larry Maynard, expects some economic development activity when the work is done: *****032614-Maynard-2 :17***** U-S 491 was formerly known as U-S Six-sixty-six, with an earned reputation for its numerous alcohol-related fatal crashes on the rural roadway that traverses much of the Navajo Nation, a fact not lost on the NMDOT's Maynard *****022614-Maynard-4 :43***** Maynard says since widening began over the past few years, statistics show its wider portions have become safer, while its two-lane stretches haven't.
The head of a federal nuclear safety oversight board calls the recent truck fire and radiation release from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico "near misses." Reports cite Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman Peter Winokur saying operations and safety procedures were not performed with the rigor necessary for a defense nuclear facility.
A federal bankruptcy judge has ordered a new auction for the Sunland peanut butter plant in Portales that was the source of a 2012 salmonella outbreak. The trustee overseeing the liquidation of the now-defunct Sunland plant in Portales wants to be able to consider a last-minute, 25 million-dollar cash offer from a Canadian firm that came in after last week's bidding.
Santa Fe Weather: Mostly sunny today with a slight chance for showers this afternoon. It'll be breezy with a high near 59. Tonight, expect mostly cloudy skies and breezy with a slight chance of rain or showers with a low around 34. Tomorrow: mostly sunny with a high near 56.