News New Mexico

Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Webcast 11/30/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 8am Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Ex-NMFA official pleads guilty
LANL security team fired
Jail cutting methadone argument

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Former NMFA official pleads guilty to forgery charges

Greg Campbell

A former top official of the New Mexico Finance Authority has pleaded guilty to forgery and securities fraud charges for falsifying an agency financial audit that was distributed to bond investors earlier this year.

Under an agreement with prosecutors, ex-controller Greg Campbell had faced up to six years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to two counts of forgery and one count of securities fraud.

State District Judge Stephen Pfeffer placed Campbell on probation for five years.

The 52-year-old Campbell had served as controller from 2007 until he left in June. In that position, he was in charge of the authority's accounting operations.

Felipe Calderón’s Legacy in Mexico

Mexican President Felipe Caleron

From the Weekly Standard - When Mexican president Felipe Calderón leaves office on December 1, his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, will inherit a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence. Of course, when Calderón entered the presidency six years ago, he himself inherited a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence.
To appreciate his legacy, we must recall that Mexico was not enjoying peace in December 2006. Powerful drug cartels were already at war with each other, and the government was already fighting back. Security analyst Viridiana Ríos of Harvard has shown that the violence began to increase as early as 2004.
If anyone doubts that, consider these Mexican news items from late 2004 and early 2005:
* In December 2004, U.S. consul Michael Yoder told Reuters that at least 22 American citizens had either disappeared or been kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo over the previous four months.
* On January 21, 2005, after six prison workers were executed by drug traffickers in the city of Matamoros (which sits next door to Brownsville, Texas), President Fox vowed to wage the “mother of all battles” against those responsible for the killings.The new president, a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), basically had four options: 1.) Confront the drug cartels with federal, state, and local police forces. 2.) Confront them with the military. 3.) Try to cut a deal with the cartels that would allow them to continue most of their criminal activities, provided they kept the violence to a minimum. 4.) Ignore them and hope for the best. Read more

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Webcast 11/29/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 5pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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Two recounts ordered in NM legislative races
Teachers' union petition denied
ABQ mayor says city is cooperating with probe
New lawsuit for Mexican wolf program

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Courtesy of conservativedailynews.com

New lawsuit against Mexican grey wolf program

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Wednesday in a bid to push federal wildlife officials into making rule changes, first recommended 11 years ago, to increase the population of the endangered Mexican gray wolf.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Arizona, marks the latest chapter in a year’s long effort to get the Fish and Wildlife Service to amend project rules that environmentalists and biologists say have hindered the wolf recovery effort.

At the start of 2012, there were 58 wolves in national forests in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, far below the 100 that biologists estimated would be roaming wild by the end of 2006.

In June 2001, three years after the first release of wolves in Arizona, a review team of wolf experts recommended three key changes be made “immediately” to the program.

Two recounts ordered in NM legislative races

Recounts are set to start next week in two close New Mexico legislative races that will determine the strength of the Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives.

The state Canvassing Board on Tuesday ordered the recounts to start Dec. 4. The recounts are required under state law because the margin between the candidates is less than one-half of 1 percent.

There’s a tie in a Southern New Mexico race between Republican Rep. Terry McMillan and Democrat Joanne Ferrary, both of Las Cruces. Each received 6,247 votes, according to results certified by the board. The district covers portions of Doña Ana County.

There was a 66-vote margin in a race for an Albuquerque-area House seat, with Republican Paul Pacheco of Albuquerque leading Democrat Marci Blaze of Corrales. The district covers parts of Sandoval and Bernalillo counties.

Well-traveled Trout not intimidated by New York – or Cotto

Austin Trout

AHD Note: Mayfield High School Grad Austin Trout will defend his championship belt against Miguel Cotto Saturday December 1st. Las Crucen, former championship boxer and Trout's head trainer Louie Burke will join News New Mexico Friday morning. RingTV - Much has been made about Miguel Cotto – a four-time former titleholder in three divisions and one of the sport's biggest stars – and his perceived home court advantage going into Saturday's fight at Madison Square Garden. Cotto (37-3, 30 knockouts), of Caguas, Puerto Rico, will be vying for the WBA junior middleweight title held by Austin Trout (25-0, 14 KOs), of Las Cruces, New Mexico, in front of what is sure to be a heavily pro-Cotto crowd. Cotto's popularity in The Big Apple is so that at Wednesday afternoon's final press conference, MSG Executive Vice President of Sports Bookings Joel Fisher handed Cotto a commemorative "Golden Ticket" for selling over 100,000 tickets in his eight appearances at "The Mecca of Boxing." Cotto has gone 7-0 in those fights. Trout, though undefeated, isn't as celebrated in America, having fought many of his signature wins in other countries like Mexico, Panama and Canada. Still, despite having never previously competed in New York or the Northeast region for that matter, Trout's familial ties give him a sense of home. “I always say, I'm more New York than Miguel Cotto is,” said Trout, whose mother and grandmother were both Brooklyn natives, and whose father was born in Harlem. “I've been coming back and forth to New York since I was a little boy. I'm not new to the city.” Read More News New Mexico

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Webcast 11/29/12

Newsbreak New Mexico 12pm Newscast with Vanessa Dabovich

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ABQ mayor says city is cooperating with probe
Lottery scholarship rules may change
BLM horse removal protest
State's largest jail cuts methadone treatment

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Lottery scholarship rules may change

A college scholarship that's bankrolled by the state lottery may become merit-based or granted on financial need, New Mexico's Senate majority leader has acknowledged.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that Sen. Michael Sanchez told a summit organized by University of New Mexico student leaders that his long-held stance that the scholarship should be available to all New Mexican students, regardless of financial need or academic accomplishments, might have to change.

That's because a Legislative Finance Committee reported in September that the scholarship fund is projected to run out of money in the next fiscal year. Sanchez says making the scholarship needs-based may be something that has to happen.

But Sanchez, who helped draft the bill creating the program in 1996, said he would oppose making the scholarship merit-based, using himself as an example of a student who didn't perform well in high school but went on to graduate from UNM.

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