Here’s a look at today’s headlines:
All five members of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission voted to reject PNM’s application to increase electrical rates for the company’s residential customers during the Commission’s case management meeting held Wednesday afternoon. According to a news release, the Commission collectively agreed with PRC staff assertions that the application submitted by PNM was incomplete and the state’s largest utility company failed to provide adequate information pertaining to how PNM calculated their estimated costs and neglected to provide the PRC and interveners with electronic accessibility to many documents.
In advance of a Senate debate on whether to reauthorize several expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, U.S. Senator Tom Udall joined U.S. Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Trey Gowdy and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden to reintroduce their bipartisan, bicameral bill to strengthen the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The bill would significantly improve the oversight and accountability of the nation’s intelligence community to protect Americans’ constitutional rights
Yesterday, during a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Tom Udall urged Congress to oppose a straight reauthorization of several expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and restore Americans’ privacy rights by ending the government’s dragnet collection of phone records. The Patriot Act provisions – including Section 215, which has been used to justify bulk collection of Americans’ phone records – expire at the end of the month, and Congress is currently debating reforms that would require greater oversight, transparency, and accountability with respect to domestic surveillance.
The Chair of the Grant County Democratic Party, Frances Vasquez, today announced that Grant Democrats had unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the expansion of the Grant County Commission from three to five commissioners. The Commission is holding a series of public meetings to allow public input on the proposed expansion, including during their Thursday, May 14 meeting starting at 9:00 am at the county administration building.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch released the following statement on the report of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev receiving the death penalty: “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev coldly and callously perpetrated a terrorist attack that injured hundreds of Americans and ultimately took the lives of three individuals: Krystle Marie Campbell, a 29-year-old native of Medford; Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; and Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester who was watching the marathon with his family just a few feet from the second bomb. In the aftermath of the attack, Tsarnaev and his brother murdered Sean Collier, a 27- year-old patrol officer on the MIT campus, extinguishing a life dedicated to family and service. “We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack. But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families. We thank the jurors for their service, the people of Boston for their vigilance, resilience and support and the law enforcement community in Boston and throughout the country for their important work.”
