Local News

Sen. Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., today formally requested $10 million in federal funds to continue support for the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The senator serves on a subcommittee that will soon begin developing the FY2009 Interior Appropriations Bill that funds the U.S. Forest Service and the Valles Caldera.In a letter submitted to subcommittee chair, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Domenici requested the funding for the Valles Caldera, an 89,000-acre ranch located near Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains.

An upcoming meeting of the New Mexico Fish and Game Commission will consider adopting a recovery plan for two small rodents listed as endangered under the Wildlife Conservation Act.At the Jemez Mountains Science Symposium Friday, Leland Pierce, the state’s recovery coordinator for terrestrial species alerted the scientific community that the state was trying to raise public awareness about the meadow jumping mouse and the Arizona montane vole.The vole is known to dwell primarily in Catron County along the border with Arizona; the meadow jumping mouse has sev

KNIGHT – Jack Henry Knight, born Sept. 23, 1919, died March 27, 2008. Jack came to Los Alamos in 1953, worked 30 years for the Protection Force and 20 years part-time for Los Alamos National Laboratory. Jack is survived by Buddy Jack and two grandchildren in Midland, Texas; Don and three grandchildren in Corrales, N.M.; Jeanne with one grandchild and two great-grandchildren in Las Cruces N.M.; and three brothers and two sisters across the country. Goodbye, Dad. We love you.

A few years ago, Carl Newton was one of a handful of people from Los Alamos who publicly defended Wen Ho Lee, a neighbor whose children Newton coached in soccer.“I had a feeling he was being railroaded,” said Newton, who wrote letters to the Monitor, gave an interview on National Public Radio and was the local contact for the Wen Ho Lee defense fund.“There may have been reasons for the laboratory to be upset with him, but there was no reason to charge him with espionage,” he said, recalling Judge James Parker’s excoriating rebuke to t