SANTA FE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and state health officials announced July 30 the state of New Mexico will extend its emergency public health order and keep existing public health restrictions and guidelines intact while the state continues to combat the spread of COVID-19.

The emergency public health order retains the state’s public health prohibition on mass gatherings and keeps in place temporary indoor occupancy restrictions for certain businesses, particularly indoor “close-contact” businesses such as restaurants and gyms.

Also unchanged is the statewide requirement that all individuals wear face coverings in public and that business operators require customers to...

The New Mexico State Police discovered 495 packages of marijuana during the inspection of a semi at the Gallup Port of Entry July 31 around 4 pm.

The packages, which were vacuum sealed, were concealed inside 20 Home Depot boxes in the trailer of the semi.

The total amount of marijuana seized weighed 580 pounds.

The driver and co-driver were arrested and booked into the McKinley County Detention Center.

Binyam Habtamu Getahun, 36 of Alexandria, Va. and Mazemr Abebe Belayneh, 64 of Snellville, Ga. are charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, a 3rd degree felony, and possession of marijuana, a 4th degree felony.

Trina Velasco has COVID-19. She is one of hundreds of thousands of people who have it. Trina Velasco is in Nevada. Her son, Dee, is in New Mexico.

Trina Velasco hasn’t seen her son in weeks. But every day he sends her prayers and texts hoping to give her the strength to keep on fighting. He said he notices that as he has been texting daily, he has begun referring to her as ‘Mama,’ returning to the name he had for her when he was a child.

Trina hasn’t seen her husband Robert since before his birthday, July 12. He isn’t allowed to visit her. So he called her. But that stopped when she was put on a ventilator. Then he kept in contact using FaceTime. But that too, had to stop...

Hospital lets 2019 ‘Volunteer of the Year’ award winner go

Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services fired Dr. Phyllis Miller,  its Health Information Management Director, July 21, allegedly because she was a whistleblower that reported HIPAA violations and medical billing and coding irregularities that would invalidate the hospital’s invoices, according to a reliable source.

In an interview with the Gallup Sun, Miller said that for many years, the hospital billed patients and submitted invoices to Medicare and Medicaid using medical procedure codes that were not verified with providers’ signatures which guaranteed that the procedures, tests, exams and other medical...