New Mexico
RECA has expired. What's next?
Help for people sickened by radiation from nuclear tests and uranium mining, including here in New Mexico, is coming to an end after 34 years.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Help for people sickened by radiation from nuclear tests and uranium mining, including here in New Mexico, is coming to an end after 34 years.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expired Friday after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t call a vote on a bill to extend and expand it.
That’s despite a 69-30 U.S. Senate vote in March.
The expiration left New Mexicans, who worked in uranium mines and were downwind of nuclear tests, in wonder. What’s next for them and their families?
“I’m the fourth generation in my family to have cancer since 1945. And unfortunately, now I have a 24-year-old niece who’s diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” said Tina Cordova, co-founder and executive director of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.
Advocates like Cordova are never giving up. For her and others, it’s a lifelong fight – but this is a massive setback.
“While they play politics, we’re gathering up our resources for someone to have cancer treatment. We’re having bake sales and car washes and selling cattle so we can meet our health care needs,” Cordova said.
Lawmakers are using this energy and support to chart the next steps for RECA.
Starting Tuesday, the House Rules Committee will decide which amendments could be made to the National Defense Authorization Act.
“There’s over a thousand amendments and ours is one of them,” U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez said.
Cordova is pressing local Republican leaders to call on their counterparts in Congress.
“The Republican Party of New Mexico knows and has supported our efforts to expand RECA in the past. They know that radiation exposure is not discerning. It’s affected the young, the old, the black, the white, and the Republican and the Democrat alike,” she said.
Just a simple extension isn’t enough either. With RECA the way it is, it doesn’t cover New Mexico downwinders and their families, like Cordova and her family.
Rep. Leger Fernandez says people already covered aren’t budging either.
“They’re saying no. The Navajo Nation, whose members can benefit from the existing RECA, have passed a resolution calling for the expanded RECA,” she said.
While the RECA program has expired, the office will still process claims submitted before June 10. The office will remain open until they’ve addressed all of the claims.
KOB 4 reached out to the Republican Party of New Mexico for a response to Cordova’s call to them. Chairman Steve Pierce issued the following statement:
“During my time in Congress, I supported the RECA program to provide compensation for the victims of radiation exposure from United States nuclear testing. The main challenge has always been to negotiate a bill that is fair to all parties involved. From the outside, it appears the Senate bill has provisions that House leadership is currently not willing to accept. The issue is bipartisan, so I trust that negotiations are ongoing, which will see that the program continues. Even if the bill expires, provisions can be incorporated to mitigate any disruption to the program.”
We also reached out to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office for a statement. However, we have not heard back from them yet.
New Mexico
New Mexico Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 Day results for Dec. 15, 2025
The New Mexico Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Dec. 15, 2025, results for each game:
Powerball
23-35-59-63-68, Powerball: 02, Power Play: 4
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Pick 3
Day: 2-3-6
Evening: 4-5-5
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Lotto America
08-11-29-36-50, Star Ball: 07, ASB: 02
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Pick 4
Evening: 2-5-0-2
Day: 7-2-1-6
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Roadrunner Cash
01-12-17-26-29
Check Roadrunner Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Powerball Double Play
20-23-38-42-65, Powerball: 19
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Las Cruces Sun-News editor. You can send feedback using this form.
New Mexico
New Mexico expanding use of gun and bullet scanning technology to more easily link crimes
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – State-of-the-art tech, credited with cracking some of the metro’s highest profile gun crimes, is now getting deployed across the state. A handful of new bullet casing scanners are being deployed in four new regional hubs stretching from Farmington to Roswell. The goal is to link evidence from shooting cases across city and county lines in rural communities. “What makes this different is that we very intentionally distributed these machines and the personnel necessary to run the machines across the state, so that the state itself could conduct its own comprehensive analysis,” said New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
The New Mexico Department of Justice will be at the center of the effort with their new Crime Gun Intelligence Center. He said they’ll be the only AG’s office in the country managing a statewide program that scans bullet casings and guns found at crime scenes. Analysts will then figure out what crime scenes could be connected. The AG is deploying the scanning machines to Farmington, Gallup, Roswell, and Las Cruces. The scans get uploaded in the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN database, to see if the same gun was used at different scenes.
It’s the same technology the Albuquerque Police Department used to figure out and arrest the people tied to shootings at elected officials’ homes in Albuquerque. “Instead of waiting weeks and months to connect discovery, investigators now can link shootings from firearms, shell casings, and suspects in a matter of hours or days, and cases that once appeared isolated can now quickly be connected, helping us identify repeat offenders and patterns of violent activity more quickly,” said San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari.
Right now, almost every community outside the metro has to bring in its bullet casing evidence to Albuquerque in order to get it scanned and sent into the federal NIBIN system. The process can take six to 12 months. “Rural communities often cover large geographical areas with limited resources, and crime does not stop at the city limits,” said Sheriff Ferrari.
The attorney general said the machines being deployed will be used as regional hubs, available for any New Mexico police agency to use.
The New Mexico Department of Justice got a million dollars from the feds, with the help of Senator Martin Heinrich, to stand up the system, which they said is ready to start on Tuesday. AG Torrez called out state lawmakers for not helping fund the initiative. “It is a system that is broken. It’s a system that can be fixed. and the only thing we lack at this moment is the political will to do so,” said AG Torrez.
New Mexico
Event spreads holiday cheer and aims to stop spread of viruses
An event allowed families and their kids to spread holiday cheer and prevent the spread of viruses and illnesses this season.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — One could say that holiday cheer is usually infectious as you see pure joy on kids faces as they line up to see Santa Claus or light the menorah.
Unfortunately, this time of the year, that’s not the only thing that is infectious. Flu season is now in full swing but local organizations recently came together to spread the good and try to prevent the bad.
“We want to make sure that we’re there for the community as a destination point, not just for culture and celebration, but also for everyday needs, like health care,” Zackary Quintero, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
Families came to the National Hispanic Cultural Center on Sunday to meet Pancho Claus – or Santa Claus – and get their holiday fun on but many also came to get protected.
“The main goal is for all New Mexicans to be proactive in the prevention and not just when they have to go to the emergency room. We want them to be proactive in seeking medical care regardless of if they have insurance,” said Monica Toquinto, coordinator for Ventanilla de Salud.
Being proactive includes getting flu shots or glucose testing. These are services the Mexican Consulate’s Ventanilla de Salud (Window of Health) offers for free.
“In the day-to-day, the community may not go, because of work or other things, to the Consulate. We try to bring all these services we do along with our partners to the communities,” Head Consul Patricia Pinzón said.
According to Pinzón, people are coming to the Consulate in Albuquerque not just for the Ventanilla but because they’re scared as they see more and more immigration raids nationwide and locally.
“It’s an opportunity to inform the community to let them know that they are not alone, that we are here,” Pinzón said.
The Mexican Consulate partners with University of New Mexico Health Science Services on Ventanilla de Salud. They see how the the fear of deportation or arrest is keeping people at home during a time when vaccine hesitancy is already high.
“In this particular administration, there’s even more fear among Latino populations for their relatives that are immigrants. That plays into interfacing with anywhere in the public. People have come to be afraid of what vaccines do and don’t do and we want to overcome that,” said Cosette Wheeler, executive director of Ventanilla de Salud.
Ventanilla de Salud is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Consulate. They offer other services, like legal help, every weekday.
To learn more about services at the Consulate of Mexico in Albuquerque, click here. For information about the Ventanilla de Salud, click here.
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