Border
A Chihuahua movie: What is Disney thinking?
Disney is set to release a stereotype-ridden animated movie called "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" in September. See what Albuquerque-born author Alisa Valdes Rodriguez thinks about it and give us your opinion.
Swinging for Latinos
As New Mexico emerges as a key swing state, the two parties are increasingly focusing on the state's Latino voters as a key demographic. It’s not unusual for Democrats to win big statewide with New Mexico Latinos. But George Bush received about 40 percent of the Latino vote nationally in 2004, and maybe 37 percent in New Mexico. The big question now is was 2004 was a flash in the pan?
Obama to visit Las Cruces
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will visit the Las Cruces area on Monday.
The only other detail released by the campaign at this point is that Obama will host a public event. Sources said the focus of the Memorial Day visit will be veterans.
There was no immediate word on whether Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s most visible supporter in New Mexico, will be with the Illinois senator on the trip to southern New Mexico.
Guv trots off to Mexico
New Mexico’s globetrotting Gov. Bill Richardson is heading to Mexico on Wednesday to discuss a number of issues with leaders there. We can only hope he remembered to tell the lieutenant governor this time around.
Otero County Sheriff Department forced to change policies
A landmark settlement with the Otero County Sheriff’s Department and some Chaparral, N.M., families last month could change the way other border-town law enforcement agencies do business.
Post-9/11 intelligence goes local
Day in, day out a handful of analysts sit in a nondescript building at the National Guard Center off Highway 14 south of Santa Fe taking in raw data from an alphabet soup of federal, state and local agencies. New Mexico's program -- also known by the more friendly moniker "fusion center" -- is one of several dozen facilities to have opened, often quietly, across the country in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
McCain in a bind
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, leading Hispanic national organizations sent a bluntly worded letter to Sen. John McCain about his party’s platform positions on immigration. The groups urged McCain to ”...lead your party’s platform away from the deportation and detention path” which repudiates McCain’s past positions on immigration.
Poll: GOP Senate primary a nail biter
Steve Pearce has a lead within the statistical margin of error over Heather Wilson in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, according to the first poll of the race to be released publicly in months.
The new poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for KOB-TV in Albuquerque, has Pearce leading 49 percent to 46 percent. The survey of 439 likely Republican primary voters was conducted Monday through Wednesday and has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points.
The last polling released publicly was in January, when an internal state Republican Party poll had Pearce up three points, 38 percent to 35 percent.
Commentary
A visitor to interior Mexico might find it strongly reminiscent of America in the 1950s.
Seeking asylum at the border
Police officers, journalists and businessmen are among those who have shown up at the U.S.-Mexico border recently, claiming they fear for their life. An onslaught of drug-related violence has sent a record number of Mexican citizens north of the border seeking political asylum. Between October and July there have been 63 cases, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, nearly double the number from all of last year.
History and culture in the digital age
I recently had a chance to sit down with University of New Mexico Law School Professor Laura Gomez and Dr. Estevan Rael-Galvez, the New Mexico State Historian. Gomez’s new book, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race, was one point of discussion during the wide-ranging interview. We also discussed New Mexico’s rich history as well as how racial and ethnic tensions play out here. The video comes from KNME’s New Mexico In Focus program, which I co-host.
Mexico Notebook: Solar hot water for life
CHIHUAHUA CITY, Mexico -- "Free! Hot Water for Life," screams the billboard by the highway. In the near distance are the boxy-modern condos that spring up like hongos [mushrooms] around virtually every city in Mexico to accommodate their burgeoning populations.
No doubt the company selling this solar water heater -- in this case Signa Hogar -- would like to see a solar boiler atop each one.
Why don't we see signs like that in the States?
Dunn wins endorsement of man some call toughest sheriff in U.S.
Albuquerque — You've probably heard of America's Toughest Sheriff, Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz.
The man the Arizona Republic calls "a powder keg of public bravado" has garnered heaps of publicity for his unusual techniques. He moved 2,000 inmates into a tent city in the Arizona desert and re-instituted chain gangs for men, women and juveniles. He feeds his inmates the cheapest food in the country: two meals per day that cost an average of 15 cents each. He has the inmates' sheets, towels, socks and underwear dyed pink.
On Thursday Arpaio endorsed rancher Aubrey Dunn in the Republican primary race in the second congressional district.
Today's Top Stories: Juarez death toll nears 800
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Madrid to help Democrats draft platform
According to the AP, the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee are expected to announce today that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano will chair the Democratic Party's Platform Drafting Committee. Patricia Madrid, the former New Mexico Attorney General and congressional candidate, will be a co-chair, along with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and former Discovery Communications President and CEO Judith McHale. Madrid was long a John Edwards supporter (which couldn't have pleased Richardson much) before he dropped out of the presidential race.
Speaking of the presidential campaigns, John McCain continues to court Hispanic voters today, as he delivers a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Washington, D.C., according to excerpts of McCain's speech released beforehand, reported by CBS News' John Bentley.
Immigration raids assailed by mayors
A resolution by Mayor David Coss of Santa Fe calling for a change in the way ICE conducts workplace raids of immigrants has been passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Miami.
The mayor, who has been an outspoken advocate for tolerance of immigrants, reportedly shepherded the resolution first through the mayor's Criminal and Social Justice standing committee. It was then passed by the entire conference.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES
Two Texas women were seriously wounded by gunfire while driving in Juarez, and a Chihuahua state investigator became the fourth police officer killed in three days, as the death toll from drug violence in this border city rose to 410 for the year, the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Parents were camped out in front of Albuquerque schools early Friday morning in an attempt to save hundreds of dollars on summer child care by securing their children spots in summer recreation programs, KOAT Channel 7 reports.
Meanwhile, the city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County report a shortage of lifeguards, delaying opening of some pools, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
A hundred head of longhorn cattle were to be herded through the city of Roswell Friday as the kick-off event to Old Chisum Days, the Roswell Daily Record reports.
The Las Cruces paper also reports that former Gov. Garrey Carruthers is one of five candidates being considered in a closed session this morning by the New Mexico State University Board of Regents as replacement for NMSU President Mike Martin.
A ghost story involving a severed arm, based partly in fact, is luring trespassers to an abandoned amusement park nicknamed "Tragic Landing" in East El Paso County, according to another story in the Sun-News.
A meadow jumping mouse native to New Mexico -- and the only mammal known to have 18 teeth -- is at the center of a controversy between ranchers, farmers and the state Department of Game and Fish, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.
Dems Devote $20 Million to Hispanic Voter Outreach
The Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign announced Tuesday that they will spend $20 million to on outreach to Hispanic voters. During a conference call with reporters, Obama for America National Hispanic Leadership Council Chairman Frank Sanchez and DNCVice-Chair Linda Chavez Thompson described a huge grassroots effort that will mirror Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, but focus resources on what they called "critical" states such as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida.
The hidden costs of a 'maquiladora'
Last week ground was broken on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez in what is set to be Mexico's largest 'maquiladora'. The Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn started construction in Jeronimo, Chihuaha on a facility that will eventually span 500 acres with more than 1.2 million square feet of structures and employ 30,000 people. Foxconn is one of the largest manufacturers of computer components and electronics worldwide.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Hit list raises concern
Not surprisingly, a report of a Mexican drug cartel hit list was the most e-mailed story for the Las Cruces Sun News this morning. The Luna County Sheriff would not divulge the names of the 15 to 20 people on the list, but they are said to be current or former residents of Doña Ana, Luna and El Paso counties and from as far away as Albuquerque, among other locations, the Sun News reports.
Meanwhile, Thomason Hospital in El Paso is back to normal after nearly two weeks in lockdown to protect a Mexican police official and his deputy assistant, both of whom had been brought in for treatment of gunshot wounds, the paper reports. The officers suffered the gunshot wounds in Nuevo Casas Grandes, about 150 miles southwest of El Paso in Chihuahua state.
Northern New Mexico community leaders attending a briefing and rare tour at Los Alamos National Laboratory this week were assured "we're going to be here for a while," the Los Alamos Monitor reports.