Regional

By KRWG News

Silver City – About 180 workers have been added to the payroll at Chino Mines Co. since the company began hiring Nov. 1.

Freeport-McMoRan announced in October it will restart mining and milling operations at its Chino copper mine near Silver City. The company closed the mine in 2008 because of global economic conditions.

By KRWG News

Texas – Gov. Rick Perry is criticizing Illinois for raising taxes and predicts the hikes will be a recruiting boom for Texas.

Perry on Thursday said he was troubled by the Illinois Legislature's move to "tax the rich without talking about how to make the thoughtful prioritized decisions on how to govern."

Illinois Democrats backed the measure to help erase a deficit as high as $15 billion.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – An Albuquerque-based group is taking over food bank operations for four counties in southern New Mexico.

The Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico handed over the operations to Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico with Thursday's announcement that Roadrunner will do food distribution throughout Dona Ana, Grant, Luna and Hidalgo counties.

Food will be distributed from a Las Cruces warehouse.

By KRWG News

Texas – Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced that she will retire after her current term expires.

In a letter released Thursday, Hutchison said she will not run for re-election in 2012. Hutchison has said she might retire and then changed her mind several times in the last few years. In 2010, she challenged Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary for governor, but lost.

Hutchison has been in the Senate since 1993.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – A Grant County man who forcibly stole a purse from a 67-year-old woman on Wednesday has been arrested after he and a female accomplice used the victim's credit card to purchase approximately $1,000 worth of merchandise.

David Palomarez, 28, of Santa Clara, N.M., and Felicia Chavez, 21, of Silver City, N.M., were arrested early Wednesday evening after they purchased a television, clothing and other items using a credit card stolen from the victim.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – Less than two weeks after taking office, Gov. Susana Martinez faces the prospect of going to court.

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center claims in a lawsuit filed with the New Mexico Supreme Court that Martinez's administration disregarded the law when it put the brakes on the publication of pending and proposed state rules in the New Mexico Register. Those rules include a state-only cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

The center wants the court to force the publication of the emissions rules.

By KRWG News

Texas – A federal appeals court has lifted a brief stay granted to Texas to keep the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from taking over greenhouse gas permitting in Texas.

Texas had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Dec. 30 to block the EPA from taking over the permitting until the court could review the case. The appeals court on the same day had temporarily blocked the EPA from taking over the permits as it was set to on Jan. 2.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – The more ideas for cutting waste and reducing the size of state government, the better.

Gov. Susana Martinez is inviting all New Mexicans to share their ideas by sending an e-mail directly to the governor's office. A special e-mail address has been set up: CutWasteTips(at)state.nm.us.

Martinez says she's welcoming ideas from her fellow New Mexicans as she and the Legislature gets ready to work on passing a balanced budget. She says everyone will have to work together to identify and eliminate unnecessary costs.

By KRWG News

Juarez, Mexico – Authorities say an activist who led protests against the unsolved killings of women in the violent border of Ciudad Juarez has been slain.

Chihuahua state Attorney General Carlos Manuel Salas says Susana Chavez was strangled and mutilated after a night of partying with three teenagers, who were drunk and on drugs. He said Wednesday that the killing had nothing to do with Chavez's activism.

Her body was found Jan. 6 in the historic center of the city, her left hand cut off. She was not identified until Tuesday.

By KRWG News

Juarez, Mexico – A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in the four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared a stepped-up offensive against drug cartels.

Such killings jumped sharply in 2010 to reach 15,273 drug-related killings. The figure for 2009 was 9,616 deaths.

Officials say the rate of killings grew in the first half of the year, but then stabilized and began to decline in the last quarter of 2010.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – Las Cruces Crime Stoppers is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the suspect or suspects who, in the past few days, have burglarized several homes under construction.

Since Jan. 10, 2011, Las Cruces Police have learned that 12 homes under construction in a subdivision off Northrise Drive have been broken into and burglarized.

By Claudette Ortiz

Las Cruces – In this month's edition of The Age Spot, Las Cruces Sun News columnist Claudette Ortiz with a story of pecans and cherished memories of love.

By KRWG News

El Paso – Opening statements are expected in the immigration fraud trial in Texas for an anti-communist militant considered Fidel Castro's nemesis.

But first a federal judge is expected to rule Wednesday morning on how much of Luis Posada Carriles' past and the Cuban government's history attorneys will be allowed to discuss.

The 82-year-old Posada is a former CIA operative and public enemy No. 1 in Cuba.

He's facing 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and naturalization fraud in the U.S.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – A land use committee is seeking proposals from the public for how best to distribute $1.7 million for projects on federal lands in southern New Mexico.

Officials with the Southern New Mexico Resource Advisory Council say the funds are limited to Catron, Grant, Lincoln, Otero, Sierra and Socorro counties and the projects must benefit the Cibola, Gila or Lincoln National Forests.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – A new report on the quality of public education gives New Mexico a grade of C and a ranking of 32nd nationally.

Education Week magazine's annual report dropped New Mexico's ranking from 24th last year. The state was 22nd in 2009.

New Mexico's received an F for achievement in kindergarten through the 12th grade, and D+ in "chance for success," a category looking at factors such as graduation rates and parental education.

The state's best grade was A- for standards, assessment and accountability.