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Assembly Republicans are renewing their opposition to a plan being pushed by some Senate colleagues to seek a 10 percent tax on Nevada’s gold and silver mine operators. Members of the Assembly GOP caucus say singling out the mining industry for more money would hurt rural economies and stifle job growth when the state is still recovering from the recession.

Six senators led by Republican Minority Leader Michael Roberson of Henderson are proposing a mining tax increase as an alternative to a 2 percent business tax that will be on the 2014 ballot. Senate Republicans said the plan would raise $600 million during the two-year budget cycle to be used to fund education.

Meanwhile, Nevada sales rose 4.2 percent in February, compared with the same month last year. The Department of Taxation claims, merchants sold nearly $3.4 billion in goods during the month, of which the state collected $265,000 in gross sales and use taxes.  Statewide, 13 of Nevada’s 17 counties reported increased taxable sales.

Allan Wood spend nearly five decades as a technical artist and public information officer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, before passing away April 18th at his Sierra Madre home from congestive heart failure.

Born in Pasadena on May 3, 1922, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history at UC Berkeley and was a talented watercolorist, who studied at the Art Center in Pasadena before joining JPL in 1958. Wood, however played a critical role in one of World War II’s most important events.

It was on Iwo Jima, February 23rd, 1945, that five Marines and a Corpsman planted an American flag on Mt. Suribachi.  Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured a picture of that moment which would inspire monuments and made the flag-raisers instantly famous.

Although the 22-year-old Navy officer, wasn’t among them, it was Wood who provided the flag.

“The fact that there were men among us who were able to face a situation like Iwo where human life is so cheap, is something to make humble those of us who were so very fortunate not to be called upon to endure any such hell,” he wrote in a 1945 letter to a Marine general who asked for details about the flag.

A squad of Marine’s scaled the 500-foot peak and hoisted the flag from a length of blasted water pipe.  This was actually the second raising of a U.S. flag on the mountain, as Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who was witnessing the battle, asked for the first one as a memento.

Wood was in charge of communications on LST-779, a landing ship that moved tanks and heavy equipment onto Iwo Jima.  Beached near the base of Suribachi, his ship was boarded by a Marine looking for the biggest flag he could find and Wood handed over a 37-square-foot flag he had procured in a Pearl Harbor Navy depot months before.

Sixty-eight-thousand Americans died taking the eight square miles island.  Japanese losses included 21,844 dead.

“The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years,” Forrestal would tell Marine commander, Lt. General Holland P. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith as Wood’s flag rose into sight.

Nevada lawmakers are working to update candidate residency laws after a judge ruled a candidate for the Assembly didn’t live in the district he was running to represent. Assembly Minority Leader Pat Hickey of Reno presented AB 407 to the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee Thursday.

The bill aims to clarify that simply owning a residence in a district does not alone qualify someone to run for that district’s seat.  It would mandate that candidates live in the district they seek to represent.

Lawmakers promised this bill after a judge ruled Assemblyman Andrew Martin of Las Vegas did not live in Assembly District 9. The judge said Martin owned a condominium in the district, but actually lived elsewhere.

It has already been approved by the Assembly.

Nevada’s Governor Brian Sandoval met with California’s Governor Jerry Brown to talk about Lake Tahoe and renewable energy, Thursday. The meeting comes under the cloud of Nevada’s threat to leave the decades-old Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a bipartisan group that governs environmental controls and development in the scenic basin that straddles the two states.

A bill pending in the Nevada Legislature seeks to repeal the law passed two years ago. But officials in the Sandoval administration say keeping the threat alive to exit TRPA will make sure both states coöperate on Tahoe issues. Details of the meeting have not been released.

State lawmakers are considering expanding an annual scholarship meant to help future Nevada teachers finance their senior year of college from one recipient to two. Republican Senator Ben Kieckhefer of Reno presented SB 102 to members of the Assembly Education Committee Wednesday.

Currently, the Kenny C. Guinn Memorial Scholarship provides up to $4,500 to one Nevada college senior majoring in education. The bill allows a second Memorial Scholarship annually, with awards going to students from northern and southern Nevada schools that offer a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Education.

The scholarship is in honor of former Governor Kenny Guinn . It’s funded by donations received following Guinn’s death in 2010.

Guinn established the state’s Millennium Scholarship program that provides qualifying Nevada high school students with money to attend college.

Investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are sifting through debris in the Texas town of West, following a deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant. Fourteen people died and more than 200 injured in a blast that devastated a four to five-block radius.

It brings back the memory of another blast nearly 15-years earlier. I was pulling out of the drive way of the Sierra Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross, heading for the Sierra Chemical Company to teach a CPR and first aid class to their employees.

It was jus’ before eight that morning when an explosion rocked the chemical plant that manufactures dynamite, killing four people. About a dozen people were inside the plant at the time, in the hills above Lockwood, about 10 miles east of Reno.

In addition to the four deaths, six people received injuries that Wednesday morning, January 7th, 1998. Had the class been scheduled at eight like usual, I could have been among those numbers.

Barbara Bradley, who lived across from the plant said the first blast knocked her out of bed. She went to see what happened, and the second explosion threw her to the floor.

“It really shook the whole house,” Bradley added. “Pictures moved back and forth across the walls. It scared me half to death.”

Investigators believe the first explosion occurred in Booster Room 2, where workers were mixing explosives. Less than four seconds later a second explosion in the Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) Building that housed chemicals used in the mixtures happened.

That first explosion was likely triggered when a worker started a blade in a mixing bowl unaware that an explosive mixture had been left there the night before. Evidence suggests a worker left 50-100 pounds of base mixture in a large mixing pot and it stratified and hardened overnight.

The next morning, when the same worker turned the mixer’s motor on, the mixing blade embedded in the mixture detonated the explosives. The blast left a crater 40 feet wide, scattering debris over a 2,000-yard radius, breaking windows over a mile away, shaking seismic needles at the University of Nevada, Reno and could be felt as far away as Fernley, 20 miles to the east.

The shock wave also detonated thousands of pounds of explosives, destroying the Booster Room, sending burning and flying debris that triggered a second explosion 3.5 seconds later at the building storing the PETN . One survivor, Gustavo Alcala said he and other workers found themselves trapped  after the second blast.

“I yelled for help from my co-workers,” Alcala told investigators, “but they couldn’t hear me.”

Alcala said he and some of the trapped workers found a hole in the side of the building and crawled out carrying their severely burned co-worker, Benigno Orozco.

This was backed-up by Storey County Sheriff’s Sergeant Bill Petty, who was the first witness to arrive at the scene.

“There were four men staggering out of the area, and they were dragging a fifth,” Petty said.

The plant is about a mile from Interstate 80, where motorists could see the black smoke well after the blasts. The plant itself is in a canyon and couldn’t be seen from the freeway.

The Nevada Senate has approved a bill designed to give law enforcement quicker access to cell phone locations in times of emergency, by-passing warrant procedures. SB 268 gives carriers protection for providing information during certain circumstances.

A Kansas mother who struggled with a cell phone company to provide call location information when her daughter went missing testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Labor and Energy, urging them to pass the bill requiring such information be given to police agencies in emergencies.

Missy Smith of Overland Park, Kansas, told committee members of her frustration and anger when her daughter, Kelsey, was taken from a store on June 2, 2007, just nine days after graduating from high school. The 18-year-old’s body was discovered four days later and her family believes she might have been found sooner, possibly alive, if her cell phone location was tracked and made available to authorities.

At least nine other states have adopted similar laws.

Don’t feed the horses. That’s the message the Nevada Assembly is sending with passage of a bill increases penalties for feeding feral livestock.

Republican Assemblyman Tom Grady of Yerington says AB 264 isn’t about Nevada’s wild horses but public safety. It’s intended to discourage feeding horses, which lures the animals to populated areas, creating hazards on roads and highways.

Under the measure, violators would be given a warning for a first offense. After that it would be a gross misdemeanor carrying a possible fine of up to $2,000.

The bill passed the Assembly on a 30-9 vote. It now heads to the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Nevada Senate has passed a resolution expressing support for wild horses and burros. Senate Joint Resolution 1 recognizes wild horses as living symbols of American Western heritage, as well as a natural resource and cultural asset.

SJR 1 also expresses support for wild horse and burro eco-sanctuaries, something supporters say could encourage rural tourism in the state. It now goes to the Assembly.

Chain restaurants will have to post nutritional information on menus under a bill passed by the Nevada Assembly.  AB 126 was approved on a mostly party-line vote.

It requires restaurants with 15 or more locations to post  calorie information on-site, up from 10 in the initial bill.  Another change makes penalties administrative, rather than criminal.

Opponents of the bill say federal officials are already developing similar regulations, and they didn’t want to pre-empt  those rules. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Lawmakers are creating an avenue for domestic violence victims to get out of lease agreements early. The Assembly passed AB 284 allowing domestic violence victims to get out of leases without penalty by telling the landlord the situation and providing a written report by the victim, law enforcement personnel or a third-party such as a minister or social worker.

Supporters say the state needs to do whatever necessary to help victims leave abusive relationships. Opponents contend allowing victims to go through means other than law enforcement would allow the abusers to continue living in the community without real repercussions.

The bill now goes to the Senate.