Regional

By Vanessa Dabovich

Las Cruces, NM – Absentee voting in the Las Cruces Municipal election began this week and seven candidates are running for city council positions. As KRWG's Vanessa Dabovich reports district 6 candidate Sharon Thomas says working to improve planning and development in her district top her list of priorities.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – One suspect in this spring's theft of more than $50,000 of steel rebar from a Las Cruces industrial supply business has been arrested in El Paso.

43-year-old Oscar Reza, who also goes by names Oscar Gomez and Oscar Silva of the 1600 block of Daniels in El Paso, was arrested by El Paso County Sheriff's investigators for his involvement in unrelated, but similar, offenses in that city.

In Las Cruces, Reza is charged with 14 counts of fraud by worthless check. All charges are fourth-degree felonies.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – Universities across the country are seeing an increase in flu cases and New Mexico State is no exception.

NMSU Medical Director Doctor Benjamin Diven says the first cases of H1N1 surfaced in mid September. As of Tuesday NMSU has seen 33 cases of influenza through student and employee health centers with 14 of those cases positively identified as H1N1.

NMSU has seen a total of 86 cases of influenza like illness. And Diven says .the number of cases is steadily increasing.

By Melissa Aguilera

Las Cruces, NM – The city of Las Cruces and Dona Ana County are working with the Environmental Protection Agency to begin the clean-up of water wells near an EPA superfund site. KRWG's Melissa Aguilera reports.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – Road closures on Highway 70 due to movie filming have caused significant delays.

After a large number of complaints, Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima announced changes to the plan approved by the New Mexico Department of Transportation.

He says .the road closures during filming will be changed to
9am-3pm daily to allow commuter traffic to normalize.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – Gov. Bill Richardson says $24 million in federal stimulus funds has been awarded to schools, colleges, tribes and other agencies to improve energy efficiency in New Mexico.

The state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department has selected 28 projects to receive the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money.

Richardson said Tuesday the recipients will use the money to install solar power and energy efficient lighting, heating and cooling systems.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – State Representative Richard Berry told an excited crowd of supporters, "Hey, we did it!" as unofficial returns show he will be Albuquerque's next mayor.

The returns show Berry with nearly 44 percent of the vote.

A candidate had to win at least 40 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff next month.

The city's current mayor, Martin Chavez, had 35 percent of the vote, while the third candidate in the field, former state Senate President Pro Tem Richard Romero, trailed with 21 percent.

By Vanessa Dabovich

Las Cruces, NM – This week the Las Cruces City Council approved a lease for a solar generation plant to be built at the West Mesa Industrial Park. KRWG's Vanessa Dabovich reports

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – Tuesday, October 6th (daytime hours)

By KRWG News

New Mexico – Gov. Bill Richardson plans to call a special session of the Legislature on Oct. 17 to resolve a looming state budget deficit.

Richardson announced the date of the session on Monday after meeting with a group of legislators on what should be done to resolve the state's budget problems.

Lawmakers will receive an updated revenue forecast next week that will set the deficit reduction target for the session.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – The New Mexico Department of Health says the first shipment of swine flu vaccine is expected to start arriving this week.

The department said Monday it has ordered about 12,000 doses of nasal swine flu vaccine that will be shipped to providers statewide. Nasal flu vaccine can only be given to people between the ages of 2 and 49 who are not pregnant and do not have chronic health conditions.

Vaccine in the shot form will arrive in later shipments.

By KRWG News

Las Cruces – Highway 70 in Las Cruces will be turned into a movie set this month, and extra law enforcement officers have been recruited to control traffic.

State police Capt. Rich Libicer, whose agency is coordinating the law enforcement, said the agencies will pay the initial cost of officers' time and the production company will then repay the agencies.

Libicer doesn't have an estimate of how much the manpower might cost, but he said it's going to be "a significant amount of money."

By KRWG News

Texas – A top regional federal food stamps official says Texas should appoint one official to fix eliminating food stamp application backlogs and high error rates.

William Ludwig is a Dallas-based regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service. He tells the Austin American-Statesman that the recession is hurting food-stamp programs in all states, but he's unaware of any state having as much trouble as Texas.

By KRWG News

New Mexico – The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has restarted its hot line for people who have been denied access to a public record or a meeting.

The toll-free hot line is available weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The hot line provides information and resources to citizens, journalists and public officials with concerns about transparency at the state or local level.

By KRWG News

Silver City – Western New Mexico University in Silver City is making students aware of flu through their university e-mail and on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

Western officials and students have met over the past several months to develop flu awareness programs and inform students about their level of risk for swine flu, also known as H1N1.

Hundreds of students and alumni follow the school's fan page on Facebook, where they receive regular updates on campus events and news.