A scare at Ortiz Middle School in Santa Fe Thursday. The school was locked down after a gun was found in a student’s backpack Thursday afternoon. Santa Fe Police SWAT team members and state police officers responded to the scene on the city’s southwest side. No injuries were reported. However, anxious parents were forced to pick up students at the nearby State Police Complex and Law Enforcement Academy, where students had been taken as a precaution after authorities asked district officials to move them off campus. Police say numerous students have been questioned.
An official with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the key to saving thousands of lives in the battle against Ebola will be stemming the transmission of the deadly virus. Dr. Toby Merlin is head of the preparedness and emerging infections division at the CDC. Merlin spoke Thursday to dozens of doctors and students at the University of New Mexico. Merlin made the stop in Albuquerque while on his way to Dallas, where the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. died Wednesday. He says much has been learned from how the Dallas case was handled. Merlin also said reducing the spread of Ebola in West Africa will be the only thing that keeps the U.S. and other countries safe.
A New Mexico behavioral health company says it felt forced by Governor Susana Martinez's administration to agree to pay a four-million dollar settlement to the state to resolve Medicaid -fraud allegations to stay in business. The New Mexican reports that Presbyterian Medical Service executives told legislators during a hearing in Albuquerque Wednesday that their company was innocent but settled to avoid being shut down. A state Human Services Department said Presbyterian didn't have to agree to the settlement to repay the alleged overbilling. Department spokesman Matt Kennicott said Presbyterian was informed of its options and made the decision to settle. While Presbyterian and another company settled, numerous other behavioral health providers accused of Medicaid overbilling were replaced by other companies during a shake-up last year.
Drought has been a persistent problem in New Mexico. However, recent moisture means that conditions have eased some, and may continue to improve over the course of the winter. KSFR’s John Calef has the story. ***** 1:28 *****
Federal wildlife officials are investigating the death of a Mexican gray wolf. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday in a monthly briefing that the uncollared animal was found dead last month in New Mexico. The agency did not provide any details about the location and said the wolf management team didn't know anything about the male wolf's history. They say the case is under investigation. Efforts to reintroduce the predators to parts of New Mexico and Arizona have been hampered over the years by illegal shootings, among other things. The most recent survey — done last January — showed there were at least 83 Mexican wolves in the wild in New Mexico and Arizona.
A satellite that measured the potent global-warming gas methane in the atmosphere has found a surprising hot spot over the southwestern U.S. That result hints that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considerably underestimates leaks of methane, which is also called natural gas. The hot spot appeared over the Four Corners area of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah. It contains about 1.3 million pounds of methane a year. That's about 80 percent more than the EPA figured. That amount would trap more heat than all the carbon dioxide produced yearly in Sweden. University of Michigan scientist Eric Kort said the methane likely comes from leaks as workers extract natural gas from coal beds, and not from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The study was released Thursday by the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Santa Fe Weather: Cloudy today with a 50-percent chance for scattered showers and thunderstorms, with the high near 60. Tonight: Mostly cloudy with a 40-percent chance for showers and thunderstorms. Tomorrow: Mostly sunny with a slight chance for showers after noon, tomorrow’s high near 66.