NEW MEXICO

State delivers delivers inflation aid funds to residents

SANTA FE — New Mexico is delivering the primary in a collection of direct funds to the state’s grownup residents to offset larger shoppers prices amid inflation.

Particular person taxpayers who get direct deposit rebates are scheduled to obtain $250 and {couples} who file collectively had been set to obtain $500 as early as Could 19. Checks for an additional 200,000 taxpayers had been anticipated to reach within the mail over the following few weeks.

The funds are among the many $1.1 billion in tax aid and payouts approved earlier this yr by the Democratic-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Particular person taxpayers might be eligible to obtain as much as $750 and {couples} are set to obtain as a lot as $1,500 throughout three installments between June and August. That does not embody a newly authorized annual per-child tax credit score of as much as $175, relying on family revenue.

Residents who don’t file taxes due to restricted revenue can apply for one-time aid funds of $500 or $1,000 relying on household measurement. Undocumented immigrants are eligible for aid below the applications.

Excessive gas costs are hurting family funds because the state authorities advantages from a monetary windfall linked to record-setting oil manufacturing within the Permian Basin. New Mexico final yr surpassed North Dakota to turn into the No. 2 oil producer within the nation behind Texas.

Supporters of the proposed funds, together with the governor, have stated the state has an obligation to assist folks struggling monetary hardships due to inflation. Some Republicans legislators have warned that that refunds may make inflation worse.

Tribes nearer to leisure hashish gross sales

SANTA FE — Two New Mexico tribes have signed an settlement with state officers recognizing the tribe’s authority to gather taxes on gross sales of hashish merchandise.

The transfer introduced by state officers on Could 19 after it was signed the earlier week additional formalizes potential involvement within the hashish trade by the Pojoaque and Picuris pueblos, each in northern New Mexico.

Leisure marijuana gross sales started throughout the state on April 1, grossing round $2 million on the primary day.

The settlement signifies that hashish merchandise can now be offered within the pueblos and taxed by the tribes very like cigarettes and gasoline are offered and taxed now, based on state Taxation and Income Division spokesman Charlie Moore.

The state’s 12% tax on the product will not be levied on merchandise offered by the tribes.

“New Mexico has a robust historical past of collaborating with tribes to effectively administer taxes whereas recognizing tribal sovereignty and the constraints of state authority on tribal lands,” stated Taxation and Income Secretary Stephanie Schardin Clarke.

Hashish remains to be unlawful on the federal degree, and tribes are warily getting ready to enter the trade in a authorized grey zone. In Picuris Pueblo, federal regulation enforcement officers destroyed marijuana crops licensed for medical use in 2018.

WYOMING


By some measures, Cheyenne’s financial system is at a report excessive

CHEYENNE — It is official: By no less than one state authorities measure, the native financial system has utterly rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, within the Cheyenne geographic space, the financial system has reached a report degree.

New statistics from the Financial Evaluation Division of the Wyoming Division of Administration and Info assist to inform the story.

The state-overseen Cheyenne Financial Well being Index exhibits the worth of 109.6 this previous March “is the best worth the ChEHI has ever recorded because it started being measured in January of 2005.” That’s based on a Could 20 report from the Financial Evaluation Division.

The report’s writer, the division’s principal economist, Dylan Bainer, stated by cellphone that the report degree displays a number of components: Employment is “sturdy,” with excessive gross sales and use tax collections, in addition to dwelling costs — making up the “ChEHI” total financial statistic.

Jobs have come roaring again from the depths of the coronavirus-induced financial malaise. The unemployment charge in March was 3.3%, decrease than the year-earlier 4.7% and the statewide March 2022 charge of three.7%. Put one other means, per the brand new report, our county “has recovered all the 4,000 jobs misplaced in the course of the worst components of the pandemic” in March and April of 2020.

Issues within the state total should not rising fairly as gangbusters as they’re within the Cheyenne space.

One space of power for power has been rising oil and pure gasoline costs, though this has additionally created ache on the gasoline pump, amongst different rising power prices for shoppers. Wyoming’s assortment of the 4% gross sales and use tax has been gaining, though it has not returned to its five-year common.

MONTANA

State not following transgender beginning certificates ruling

HELENA — A month after a Montana decide quickly blocked enforcement of a state regulation that required transgender folks to bear surgical procedure earlier than they may change their gender on their beginning certificates, the state nonetheless wasn’t in compliance with the courtroom order, the ACLU of Montana stated.

Jon Ebelt, spokesperson for the state well being division, stated the company remains to be working with the Division of Justice to evaluate the April 21 ruling and its implications. He didn’t reply to an electronic mail asking if that meant the state was evaluating whether or not to enchantment the order.

The ACLU of Montana stated the state’s “willful indifference” to the courtroom order was “inexcusable.”

Montana is amongst a rising listing of Republican-controlled states which have moved to limit transgender rights, together with requiring student-athletes to take part in sports activities primarily based on their gender assigned at beginning or making it unlawful for transgender minors to be handled with hormones or puberty blockers.

Starting in late 2017, transgender residents may apply to alter the gender on their Montana beginning certificates by submitting a sworn affidavit with the well being division. District Courtroom Decide Michael Moses’ order requires the state to revert again to that course of whereas the problem to the brand new regulation is pending.

Republican state Sen. Carl Glimm, who sponsored the laws, has argued that the Division of Public Well being and Human Companies overstepped its authority in 2017 by altering the designation on a beginning certificates from “intercourse” to “gender” after which setting guidelines by which the designation may very well be modified.

NEBRASKA

Pool noodle combat over the identify Josh once more attracts lots of

LINCOLN — A pair hundred folks grabbed their pool noodles and headed to a Nebraska park once more on Could 21 to battle over the correct to the identify Josh.

The occasion began as a web based joke when Josh Swain from Tucson, Arizona, despatched out a tweet difficult anybody who shared his identify to combat over it. After it took on a lifetime of its personal, Swain turned it into an actual occasion final yr on the random coordinates he included in his authentic word, which occurred to be in Lincoln, Nebraska.

A number of of the opponents this yr donned costumes, together with masks, animal fits and soccer helmets, earlier than heading out to Bowling Lake Park. However that wasn’t sufficient to dethrone 5-year-old Josh Vinson Jr., who defended his title because the No. 1 Josh.

The occasion raised almost $21,000 for Kids’s Hospital & Medical Heart in Omaha, and the homeowners of the Josh Cellars wine label pledged to match that quantity with a donation of their very own. The hospital stated it plans to share a few of the donations with the Joshua Collinsworth Memorial Basis that promotes water security with its Josh the Otter mascot who attended Saturday’s battle.

Swain stated he’d wish to make the Josh Battle an annual occasion however he is unsure if he’ll have the ability to stick with it.