Regional

By KRWG News

New Mexico – New Mexicans are consuming more energy to heat, cool and power their homes than a decade ago and more traffic is clogging highways.

However, an inventory of the state's greenhouse gas emissions shows they have remained flat.

Officials say that's good news, considering the state's population grew more than 6 percent from 2000 to 2007.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – A government analyst is facing charges after police say he shot his sister in the head with a .40 caliber handgun.

Las Cruces Police Officer Wallace Downs says 40-year-old Richard Scott Zikmanis was booked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center early Saturday and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Zikmanis' sister, who was visiting from Montana, was listed in critical condition at an El Paso, Texas, hospital.

By KRWG News

Juarez, Mexico – Mexican police say the bodies of four men and a woman have been found on a rural road in a town not far from the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Enrique Torres, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state police, says the victims had been lined up and shot to death. He says they were found early Sunday near a dirt road in the town of Placitas, about 25 miles southeast of Ciudad Juarez. That city across from El Paso, Texas, is one of the world's most dangerous cities.

By KRWG News

El Paso – Army officials are investigating after a pair of cars were found with bullet holes in a military neighborhood outside the gates of Fort Bliss. No one was injured and there were no immediate arrests.

Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt says military police responded to the neighborhood near the post's golf course Saturday afternoon after getting a report of shots fired. They found two parked cars that had bullet holes.

Offutt says the Army's criminal investigation division is investigating.

By KRWG News

Texas – At two separate events, Texas' top two gubernatorial candidates portrayed the state of Texas education quite differently.

While Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, touted the state's education progress Saturday, Democrat Bill White said too many children are not graduating from high school and that state leaders have been downplaying the problem.

By KRWG News

Carlsbad – A relatively small earthquake struck about 19 miles northwest of Carlsbad in southern New Mexico on Saturday.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports the 4.3-magnitude earthquake occurred just after 6 p.m. in a "very remote location."

Dale Grant, a USGS geophysicist, says a number of people in the area reported feeling the quake for about five to six seconds.

There were no reports of injuries or damages.

By KRWG News

Sunland Park – Bob Baffert's Conveyance rates the 9-5 morning line favorite for this Sunday's Grade 3 $800,000 Sunland Derby at Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – White Sands Missile Range will open Trinity Site to the public for
another open house on Saturday, April 3.

Trinity Site is where the world's first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain War Time on July 16, 1945.

The open house is free. At the site visitors can take a quarter-mile
walk to ground zero where a small obelisk marks the exact spot where the
bomb was exploded. Historical photos are mounted on the fence
surrounding the area.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – New Mexico's environmental secretary wants the National Nuclear Security Administration removed from environmental cleanup and surveillance programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Ron Curry says the National Nuclear Security Administration has had a "troubled history" in implementing a 2005 consent decree over cleanup.

He wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu that the agency's involvement "has compromised the pace and direction" of work to protect the New Mexico's water resources and its citizens' health.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – The Navy has commissioned its newest nuclear-powered submarine.

The 377-foot-long New Mexico was formally accepted Saturday at Naval Station Norfolk.

The $2.3 billion Virginia-class attack submarine was built at the nearby Northrop Grumman Shipyard in partnership with General Dynamics Electric Boat. It was delivered to the Navy four months early.

The 7,800-ton ship can dive to depths greater than 800 feet, operate at speeds topping 25 knots and remain submerged for three months.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – City parks and medians in Las Cruces are getting spruced up by a donation of more than 1,400 plants and trees from a local businessman.

City officials estimate the value of the donation by Randy Farmer, who owns a landscape company, is between $50,000 and $60,000.

Assistant City Manager Robert Garza says the donated landscape plants are a windfall for the city, adding that "this is very meaningful, especially during these tough economic times."

By KRWG News

El Paso – A potentially deadly situation was averted yesterday after Border Patrol agents, helped rescue ten migrants who were put in a perilous situation by a smuggler in an attempt to elude authorities.

By KRWG News

El Paso – Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today highlighted the United States' significant progress in securing the U.S.-Mexico border one year after the Obama administration announced the Southwest Border Initiative a series of unprecedented steps to crack down on Mexican drug cartels by deploying additional personnel and technology, increasing information sharing, working closely with the Mexican government, and improving federal coordination with state, local and tribal law enforcement authorities.

By KRWG News

Silver City – The Western New Mexico University Museum is happy to announce the arrival of its newest short-term exhibition. Costumes Through Time and Space, on display from April 1 through June 30, 2010, features the creativity and artistry of Silver City residents Duane and Kathryn Elms. Duane, WNMU Director of Information Technology, and his wife Kathryn have selected some of their finest historical reproductions and costumes to help celebrate the University Museum's 35th Anniversary.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – At 15, high school sophomore Coloradas Mangas knows all too much about suicide.

He's recently had several friends who took their own lives.

Coloradas, a member of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, lives on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, where have been five youth suicides since the start of the school year. All were his friends.