Please help
Yesterday, Lindsay Sledge spoke to the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee about what she feels is a desperately needed change in state law. Her 5-year-old daughter, Paloma, has a form of epilepsy that responds to CBD oil, which is derived from a marijuana plant. For months, Paloma would walk to the parking lot outside her school so her mom could drive off campus and rub some CBD oil on her gums and put a couple drops under her tongue, and then bring her back to class. Administering the oil at schools, like other medicines for students, is prohibited by law. Shelby Perea at the Albuquerque Journal has the story.
Exposed
Chad Walde worked at Los Alamos National Lab. His job had a risk of radiation exposure. He died in July 2017 after battling brain tumors. He was 44. His family believes his work directly contributed to his death. The lab disagrees. The New Mexican's Rebecca Moss explains ($).
Larry’s angry
KRQE's Larry Barker got Santa Fe attorney Sid Childress to sue 13 telemarketers who were illegally plying their trade with harassing "robocalls" to a phone on the Do Not Call List. It's pretty hard to figure out whom to sue (and to find the time to do it) unless you're Larry Barker, but it's fun to watch some of those folks get their comeuppance.
Food forward
SFR's cover story this week looks at Santa Fe's spot as a food-forward community. Julia Goldberg examines some surprising ideas that have sprouted here, including a grocery delivery service to parts of the state that have a hard time finding fresh produce, a blossoming local food movement, growing spirulina or, almost literally, everything else humans need to survive.
Dropped
Prosecutors in Bernalillo County dropped charges against Adam Lowther yesterday. Detectives at the county sheriff's office had accused Lowther of sexually assaulting his young daughter, but prosecutors said the case was fatally flawed. Lowther had a high-profile job at Kirtland Air Force base leading a school on nuclear deterrence. He lost that job, along with the ability to see his kids for six months. They were in foster care for 10 weeks. He couldn't see his wife for four months. He's furious, and is suing the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office and detectives he says were criminally wrong in their accusations.
The driest
The Four Corners is the center of drought in the US, according to the latest data from the government. For a lot of people, it can be hard to feel the impact after a few days of rain, though, and recent storms have the city thinking it's okay to lift water restrictions, though it's still asking residents to conserve. That's probably a good thing, since it's unclear what the state's plans are for historically low flows on the San Juan River.
Hired
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller has hired Damon Martinez as a senior policy adviser for the city's police force. Martinez was US Attorney when the Department of Justice forced APD into a settlement agreement after it found unchecked, unconstitutional policing. But Martinez has faced criticism over his management of a federal law enforcement sting that netted a disproportionate number of minorities. One of the people who condemned the operation was Keller, who called it "racial profiling" and just plain "wrong."
The Voice
Farmington's Chevel Shepherd has been doing rather well on NBC's monster hit, The Voice. She advanced to the show's third round ($) on Monday. She says even if she doesn't win, she'd like to head to Nashville and try to make a living as a country singer.
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