ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When you go to the New Mexico State Fair, you may need to grab some dinner, so why not make it a three-course fried creation?

There are the usual staples, like corn dogs and turkey legs, a lemonade to wash it down – but then there are the more unique foods.

In this year’s Unique Foods Contest, there were two winners:

• Conductor’s Corn Dog (Gravy Train in the food court)

“We fry that nicely. Crack it open, then we’ve got jalapeño cheese sauce, bacon, fried cheese curds, hatch green chiles on it and then we got a hatch green chile, pickle aioli on it as well,” said Darren, of Gravy Train. “We’re always lookin for unique food ideas that we go to. This one, we’ve had so many people all over the country tell us these corn dogs are exceptional so we thought, why not build on that?”

• Belgian Waffle Green Chile Cheeseburger (Rex’s Hamburgers, south of the Natural Resources Building)

“It’s a green chile cheeseburger, waffle bun and a maple green chile syrup drizzle on it,” said Rex, of Rex’s Hamburgers. “Everything in New Mexico is gonna have a little green chile. I mean that’s just the way it is. So Pat, he said we gotta add a little green chile to this maple syrup. We’re gonna make this thing work.”

If you’d like to spice it up, there is the deep-fried carne asada taco. They have grilled carne asada with fresh Monterey Jack cheese. The taco is then dipped in a special batter and “deep-fried to perfection,” then served with homemade spicy salsa.

You can find that at Quesada’s Mexican at Heritage and Main Street.

Here are the other Unique Foods at the fair:

• Street Taco Grilled Cheese
• Cheese Love Grill (Heritage and Main Street)

“Hand-diced and seasoned carne asada with fresh Monterey jack cheese and house-made green chile on sourdough, grilled to toasty perfection.”

• Dessert Chimichanga
• Fried Fantasy (food court)

“Sweet chimichanga made with a flour tortilla and filled with cream cheese wrapped in smoked bacon, deep fried to a golden brown and smothered in cinnamon sugar, strawberry and chocolate sauce.”

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Hundreds of New Mexicans flooded Expo New Mexico for the start of the state fair. 

All the favorites were there like the Midway, the rides, the petting zoo, and all the food. But it’s not all fun and games.

For a while, many people have worried about staying safe at the fair with their families. That’s especially true this year, with a recent surge in violent crime around the fairgrounds.

So, how is the state fair making sure the other 10 days will be safe? It’s a combination of officers and technology.

The New Mexico State Fair is working with New Mexico State Police, Albuquerque police, Bernalillo County deputies and even Homeland Security. That’s on top of some new tech they brought out this year. 

When you come to this year’s state fair, you’ll notice police and security all around the fairgrounds.

“The camera systems we use are using artificial intelligence, and it really makes a difference, and as well, artificial intelligence in our metal detectors,” said Dan Mourning, general manager of the New Mexico State Fair. 

Mourning explained how the first line of security, the Evolve system, works as soon as people walk through it. 

“There’s a tablet that’s being monitored by staff, security staff, and it actually shows if there’s something that’s not supposed to be or is questionable, that’s coming in through the grounds. Instead of just hitting on an area, and we have to scan and everybody, that kind of stuff. So it’s a lot more efficient,” said Mourning. 

While thousands enjoy the state fair every year, the area surrounding Expo New Mexico has seen its fair share of violent crime, especially recently. 

“This is stuff that we do year round. It’s not just something, oh, the fair is coming. Let’s get safe. It is something that we absolutely work on and try to improve on every time again. We understand the world that we live in,” Mourning said. 

NMSP says they have more than 50 officers on site that are spread out across the fairgrounds.

“We’ve got plain clothes officers, we’ve got uniform officers. So, you know, we just want to ensure everybody has a great time. And at the same time, if we need to respond to any type of incident, we can do so,” said NMSP Public Information Officer Wilson Silver. 

Silver is hoping we can have a repeat of last year with no incidents reported. Another perk for families at the fair is State Police are back with the Tag Your Tots program.  

“Little ones like to wander, you know, they want to look at all the lights and all the rides. So in the event that they do get separated from their family, officers can respond, and they’ll have a good contact phone number listed on that wristband to get hold of the parents and get them reunited,” said Silver. 

Tag Your Tots isn’t just for kids, you can sign up anyone. The New Mexico State Police booth is right by the midway entrance. Police just ask you have a current photo of the person you’re tagging. 

Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed the lawsuit against Snap Inc. Thursday in state court in Santa Fe. In addition to sexual abuse, the lawsuit claims the company also openly promotes child trafficking, drugs and guns.

Last December, Torrez filed a similar lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, saying it allows predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex on its platforms. That suit is pending.

Snap’s “harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” Torrez said in a statement. Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors.

“Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely,” Torres said.

In a statement, Snap said it shares Torrez’s and the public’s concerns about the online safety of young people.

“We understand that online threats continue to evolve and we will continue to work diligently to address these critical issues,” the company based in Santa Monica, California, said. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our trust and safety teams over the past several years, and designed our service to promote online safety by moderating content and enabling direct messaging with close friends and family.”

According to the complaint, minors report having more online sexual interactions on Snapchat than any other platform, and more sex trafficking victims are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.

Prior to the lawsuit, New Mexico conducted a monthslong undercover investigation into child sexual abuse images on Snapchat. According to Torrez’s statement, the investigation revealed a “vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap,” finding more than 10,000 records related to Snap and child sexual abuse material in the last year. This included information related to minors younger than 13 being sexually assaulted.

As part of the undercover investigation, the New Mexico department of justice set up a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, who found and exchanged messages with accounts with names like “child.rape” and “pedo_lover10.”

Snapchat, the lawsuit alleges, “was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.” Investigators also found Snapchat accounts that openly circulated and sold child abuse images directly on the platform.