Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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In a state often lacking statesmanship, two crime-fighters are emerging who are giving us hope. Listening to Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman and Attorney General Raúl Torrez talk about crime, you wouldn’t know they’re Democrats. Or Republicans, or independents or anything else for that matter. Few New Mexicans outside law enforcement likely knew that police officers had been prosecuting shoplifting cases in Albuquerque’s Metropolitan Court. And their conviction rates were abysmal, only about 15%. Bregman said...
ALBUQUERQUE -- Picturesque weather and an annular solar eclipse helped the 51st Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta reach new heights. The nine-day event attracted a record-setting 968,516 guests from across the world. "Whether it was a Wednesday or a Sunday — all the different days — we had huge crowds just about every day," said Sam Parks, the executive director of the Balloon Fiesta. "It was just one of those great events where the weather cooperated. ... And it just seemed like everyone wanted to come out and be a p...
A coalition of New Mexico consumer protection agencies and health advocacy groups is drafting legislation that would change the way drug manufacturers report their prices, in an effort to increase transparency as some prescription prices skyrocket around the U.S. Drugs that cost more than $400 for a month's supply or have increased costs by 10% in the past year would be required to report certain information, including the introductory price of the drug when it first came on the market, how much revenue it made over the past...
ALBUQUERQUE -- Dreaming big is paying off for the ABQ BioPark Zoo. The Albuquerque institution completed its largest addition to the zoo since 1996 when the Asia habitat opened to the public last week. "There's nothing like it," said Allyson Zahm, guest experience manager. "What we've managed to do is give visitors a 360 degree way of viewing the animals." The $33 million project took more than three years to finish. The animals have spent the last five weeks getting acclimated to their new homes. The habitat was transformed...
No one ever accused Bill Richardson of not thinking big - and dreaming bigger. Of all those thoughts and dreams, New Mexico sports were a prime beneficiary. To the mind-bending prospect of a National Football League franchise someday making Albuquerque its home, Richardson said (in effect), why not? Let's at least look into it. To the far more realistic hope of Albuquerque hosting an annual college bowl game, Richardson said, let's make it happen. To the formation of a...
Law enforcement officers arrested more than 30 people in southeast New Mexico last week on federal and state criminal charges. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said 31 people were taken into custody during an operation that involved numerous agencies. There were a range of charges, including kidnapping, armed robbery, felon in possession of a firearm and possession with intent to distribute. The Eddy County Sheriff's Office, the Carlsbad Police Department, the Artesia Police Department, the Pecos Valley Drug Task...
SANTA FE — A state judge on Thursday rejected a challenge to Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s authority to determine whether New Mexico laws targeted for repeal are exempt from referendum under the state Constitution. The ruling by 13th District Court Judge James Noel represents a setback for a coalition of groups who have sought to annul six laws passed this year by the Democratic-controlled Legislature via the rarely used referendum process. Several of those laws, which deal with abortion, elections and gen...
Three former athletes on the women’s basketball team at Eastern New Mexico University contend in a new federal civil rights lawsuit that their coach repeatedly coerced them to submit to “treatments” by her volunteer trainer husband, who sexually assaulted them. While complaints to ENMU athletics director Paul Weir allegedly went ignored for more than a year, two school trainers realized the women had been assaulted and finally reported the abuse to the university’s human resources department, states the 30-page lawsuit...
Attorneys for actor Alec Baldwin last week continued to slam the former special prosecutor in the "Rust" movie shooting case, now suggesting that she used the role to advance her political career. A motion filed Tuesday by Baldwin's attorneys cited a New York Times report about a private email the former special prosecutor, Andrea Reeb, sent in June suggesting that the high-profile post could help her bid for the state House of Representatives. Reeb was named special prosecuto...
SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday announced a sweeping plan to conduct in-person wellness checks on the thousands of adults who receive care as part of the Developmental Disability Waiver program in New Mexico. The interviews, which began last week, have already started to identify more cases of possible abuse. The announcement came in the wake of a client with developmental disabilities being seriously injured while under the care of a service provider. Though details of the client’s injuries haven’t been made...
SANTA FE — In 1912, Doña Dolores “Lola” Chávez de Armijo, state librarian of New Mexico, filed a lawsuit when Gov. William C. McDonald tried to remove her from office. McDonald claimed that women were unqualified to hold office according to the Constitution and laws of New Mexico. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham trumpeted Armijo’s courage and resolve during a presentation Wednesday marking International Women’s Day, and celebrating New Mexico’s Historic Women Marker Program. Armijo won her lawsuit, which allowed her to keep h...
It seems as if everywhere you go in New Mexico these days, businesses have “help wanted” signs, or reduced hours and services, or both. Many New Mexicans had hoped lawmakers would offer meaningful business tax relief during the 60-day session underway, given that the state is flush with $3.6 billion in “excess revenues,” primarily from oil and gas proceeds. But the omnibus tax package that emerged Monday will only make it harder for businesses to stay open in New Mexico, and the state’s greedy largest cities and the New M...
It takes time to sort through 23,000 years of history. Especially when the research has unveiled so many unheard stories. During the early days of the pandemic Katie Stone envisioned New Mexico history lessons for groups of children. Then it turned remote as mass gatherings were canceled. As the founder and executive director of the podcast, "The Children's Hour," Stone was forced to think outside the box to get information to the masses. "The Children's Hour," is an...
Facing unrelenting fiscal pressures, Presbyterian Healthcare Services on Thursday announced it is exploring the formation of a parent organization with Iowa-based UnityPoint Health to consolidate administrative functions and ease cost burdens on both not-for-profit health systems. President and CEO Dale Maxwell said patients will not be affected by the change. Jobs related to patient care and the health plan will not be affected. He said it’s too soon to tell what — or if — jobs will be impacted on the administrative side for...
LAS CRUCES — The rebuild begins. New Mexico State University officials at a news conference Wednesday said the once-proud men’s basketball program has become “infected” and that additional student-athletes and coaches could face discipline in connection with a hazing scandal that prompted university officials to cancel the remainder of the season and fire the first-year head coach. NMSU Chancellor Dan Arvizu said the university fired coach Greg Heiar for cause and did not enter a settlement with him. Heiar was under contrac...
SANTA FE — This year’s legislative session could bring a dose of sunshine to lobbying inside the Roundhouse. And it could curtail public scrutiny of applicants to serve as school superintendents, county managers or other high-level government positions. The ideas — for more government transparency and for less — are among the hundreds of bills introduced in the first two weeks of the 2023 legislative session. The push for more secrecy in the hiring process for top government jobs gained momentum Wednesday as it cleared...
SANTA FE — The debate over New Mexico’s minimum wage is far from settled. Just weeks after the state’s minimum wage increased to $12 an hour under the final step-up mandated by a 2019 bill, two new proposals calling for future increases generated heated debate Tuesday at the Roundhouse. After more than three hours of discussion that ranged from enchilada prices to poverty rates around New Mexico, the House Labor, Veterans’ and Military Affairs Committee advanced one bill dealing with the minimum wage, but held off on voting...
New hires for an organization. Helping Native American artisans get their work on e-commerce sites. Those are just some of the areas in which small businesses organizations are planning to use federal money they received through the Omnibus Appropriations Agreement for fiscal year 2023. At a press conference last Wednesday, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., announced $774,000 for small business organizations — including WESST, the New Mexico Minority Business Development Agency Business Center and the New Mexico Small Business D...
The constitutional amendment voters approved in 2020 changing the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission from five elected members to three appointed ones was aimed, in large part, at ensuring a more qualified board to handle technical and important issues. The belief also was that the commission would have more credibility than previous boards, which had their share of controversy — even scandal. So much for good intentions. It turns out the Republican grocery store owner from Clayton, appointed to the PRC last month by D...
New Mexico is comprised of 121,697 square miles. With more than 300 days of sunshine a year, it’s easy for New Mexicans to get out of the house and visit an area around the state. Luckily there are 35 state parks, which can be pure fun to explore. Here’s a list of the parks located in the southeast quadrant of the state: Bottomless Lakes State Park Located just 14 miles southeast of Roswell, it is home to non-motorized boating in your kayak or canoe, camp, fish, picnic, swim, hike, go birding. The unique lakes are sin...
COVID-19 is still with us. Just when we think we've got it whipped, it comes back at us in a different guise. It's still sneaky dangerous. But for the first time since it emerged in New Mexico in March 2020, the pandemic did not make the annual list of top stories in the state. That would be great if it were not for the fact that the virus was edged off the list by more distressing news. In 2022, New Mexico not only experienced the worst wildfire in its history, but its two most destructive wildfires ever. It was during a...
You don’t have to be an animal lover to appreciate why a recent federal court order involving the future of more than 30 chimpanzees at an Alamogordo research facility is a big deal. The case is as much about the rule of law, reining in a rogue federal agency, and wise use of tax dollars as it is about the moral aspects of denying mankind’s closest living relatives the space and freedom they deserve to live out their lives the way nature intended. The ruling paves the way for the National Institutes of Health to relocate the...
A one-game suspension. Really? That’s what New Mexico State University officials determined was the proper discipline for three basketball players who broke curfew early Nov. 19 to take possession of and hide evidence in a fatal shooting on the campus of the University of New Mexico. Police records say NMSU player Mike Peake was lured to UNM the morning of the highly touted NMSU-UNM rivalry game by a group of UNM students seeking revenge for an earlier brawl at the Lobo-Aggie football game. UNM student Brandon Travis was o...
The Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office is investigating the conduct of New Mexico State University employees and players in connection with a fatal shooting by an NMSU basketball player in Albuquerque after it took hours for police to obtain the gun used in the shooting from a coach. Meanwhile, NMSU officials said Tuesday the school will hire an external, third-party investigator to review the Nov. 19 fatal shooting and the university's response to it. The announcements came a day after the Albuquerque Journal and...
SUNLAND PARK — Customers begin lining up on a hot Friday afternoon in mid-October at Ultra Health in Sunland Park. Just a three-minute drive away, others are pulling into the parking lot of the building that houses the Pecos Valley Production and soon-to-be-open OSO Cannabis Co. dispensaries. At both locations, there’s a familiar sight on this “mellow Friday,” as Ultra Health District Manager Jesus Muñoz puts it: a whole lot of Texans. Those customers have been a driving force in Sunland Park’s successful adult-use...
