- ELECTION 2020-HOUSE-NEW MEXICO
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Records show Democratic U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small outraised all her GOP opponents in the last months of 2019 as she seeks re-election. Federal election records show she raised 648,636.52 from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. She has around $2.3 million cash-on-hand as she enters an election year two years after she flipped the historic Republican leaning seat along the U.S.-Mexico border. Claire Chase, an oil executive from Roswell, New Mexico, raised $261,417 during the same period. Former state lawmaker Yvette Herrell reported raising $188,005 during the last months of 2019.
- CODE TALKER-FLAGS LOWERED
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) — Flags on the Navajo Nation will be lowered to honor a revered Navajo Code Talker who died in New Mexico last week. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez says all flags will fly at half-staff as a tribute to Joe Vandever Sr. from Monday through Thursday. Vandever died Friday of health complications in Haystack, according to his family. He was 96. Vandever was among hundreds of Navajos who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, transmitting messages using a code based on the Navajo language. The code developed by an original group of 29 Navajos was used to confound Japanese forces.
- DOLORES HUERTA-ROAD
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — City councilors in New Mexico's largest city are set to vote on renaming a portion of a busy road after one of the United States' most recognizable Mexican American activists. The Albuquerque City Council is scheduled Monday to take up a proposed to rename part of Bridge Boulevard in the city's South Valley as Avenida Dolores Huerta. Born in New Mexico, Huerta moved to California and later helped form the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s. She has been an advocate for women and immigrants. Avenida Dolores Huerta will run from the county boundary at the Rio Grande west to Isleta Boulevard. A park along the road was renamed for Huerta in 2017.
- RELIGIOUS SECT-CHILD ABUSE
GRANTS, N.M. (AP) — A leader in a rural New Mexico paramilitary religious sect with anti-Semitic leanings and who facing child sex abuse charges has been released on house arrest. The Gallup Independent reports Peter Green, also known as Mike Brandon, was released last week by State Judicial District Judge Amanda Sanchez Villalobos despite protests from state prosecutors and sheriff deputies. Authorities say he was a lieutenant colonel in the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps near Grants, New Mexico. Peter Green was arrested in the 2017 raid of the religious compound by the Cibola County Sheriff's Office and charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor. He has pleaded not guilty.
- HOUSE FIRE-BABY DIES
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico house fire killed an infant and led two other young children to be taken to a hospital, firefighters said Sunday. Roswell Fire Department spokesman Todd Wildermuth said the cause of the fire is under investigation but it broke out at a home in the southeast New Mexican city around 11 a.m. Emergency responders took the infant to a hospital, where the child was pronounced dead. A 3-year-old and a 4-year-old were also taken to a hospital for evaluation.
- AP-US-OTHERING
CHICAGO (AP) — Iranian Americans across the U.S. say they are experiencing renewed anxiety since the U.S. and Iran traded threats and military strikes. They say the angst has them concerned about the safety of family members abroad and about Iranians who live in the U.S. facing extra scrutiny at airports as they return to America. For many young Iranian Americans, the climate is also serving as a mobilizing moment as they embrace their Iranian identity and begin to identify as people of color in the U.S. as part of a larger struggle alongside other ethnic minorities.
- EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION SECRETARY
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico now has its first-ever state secretary of Early Childhood Education and Care Department. The New Mexico Senate on Friday unanimously confirmed education official Elizabeth Groginsky to the job, leading a new government department created last year. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Groginsky to the cabinet post in November. The 53-year-old Groginsky is a former Washington, D.C.-based education official who has been working full time on early child care since 2003, when she was a county administrator of the Head Start early childhood program in Colorado.
- CLOVIS SHOOTING
CLOVIS, N.M. (AP) — Police are investigating after three people were injured in an early Sunday morning shooting in a neighborhood in Clovis, New Mexico. The Clovis Police Department said in a statement that officers found two 21-year-old men and a 19-year-old man who had been shot just after 3 a.m. Two of the men were taken to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas for their injuries. The third was taken to a Clovis hospital. Officers are asking anyone with more information to contact police.