TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Illegals' fine
A top executive at a Roswell aircraft painting company and his firm, Dean Baldwin Painting, have agreed to pay a combined total of $550,000 imposed by a federal court in Albuquerque and the U.S. Department of Labor for knowingly employing and accepting falsified documents from illegal immigrants, the Roswell Daily Record reports. The $300,000 court fine portion of the payment is the largest ever imposed in an immigration case in the state. Prosecutors allowed the executive to plead in part so the company could continue doing business in Roswell.
On a split vote, the Public Regulation Commission gave electric utility PNM the $63 million in increases the company said it needed over the next year, which, when coupled with a 6.4 percent increase approved last month, will raise customers' electric bills by about 15.4 percent, the Albuquerque Journal reports. Commissioners Jason Marks and Ben Ray Lujan, both of whom are running for office, voted against the increase.
Student members of the Clovis High School yearbook staff are on the defense after being criticized by a Christian group for running profiles and pictures of gay student couples, the Clovis News Journal reports. Staffers said the profiles reflect the diversity of the student body and were included after much discussion and consideration.
The Los Alamos Monitor reports that the birthplace of the atomic bomb continues to lead the nation in its per-capita population of affluent Americans, according to a Nielsen study released this week. The study defines affluent households as those with income and income-producing assets in excess of $100,000. Los Alamos' top ranking is attributed to its largest employer, Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Weather more typical of a March day than one in late May was the focus of a number of stories around the state. Rain, sun, hail, wind and snow all hit the mountains east of Albuquerque Thursday, with visitors to Sandia Crest finding a winter wonderland, while Interstate 10 from Las Cruces to the Arizona border was closed part of the afternoon after a nine-vehicle pileup blamed on blowing dust caused by high winds.
Be the first to comment