New Mexico kids’ reading scores are better than those in only one other state or district nationwide, according to a new report.

Santa Feans who currently park for free with city-issued permits received a less-than-welcome surprise in their mailboxes.

Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center couldn’t afford to co-sponsor the Mayor’s Ball, which benefits a local charity, two weeks ago. And if things don’t improve for the hospital, it might have to stop providing free dental care to Santa Fe's needy children. And there might be “serious layoffs.” That’s what Christus CEO Alex Valdez told Santa Fe County commissioners at an Oct. 25 meeting of the County Indigent Hospital and Healthcare Board.

It turns out that a secret decoder ring isn’t the best prize kids can get out of a cereal box. Last school year, Pablo Roybal Elementary, a private school, raised the most money of any Santa Fe school—$2,200—through the Box Tops for Education program. Santo Niño Regional Catholic School came in second place with $1,023, which Vaisa says went to both classroom and playground supplies. The school comes up with various incentive programs to get kids to bring in the cardboard box tops—a system that seems to be yielding results.

In the summer of 2010, an excavator lifted a 1940s-era radiation protection suit from a pit in Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area 21. With it came two pickup trucks of the same vintage—one of which may have been involved in the famous Trinity nuclear test near White Sands—and a 30-foot-tall chemical mixing tank. The successful excavation of Material Disposal Area B, the lab’s oldest waste site, disproved a commonly held belief: that comprehensive cleanup of radioactive waste at the lab was cost-prohibitive, if not impossible. The project cleared a 200,000 square foot area and removed 750,000 cubic feet of toxic waste that had lain dormant since World War II. It cost $110 million—a modest sum for a facility with an approximately $2 billion budget.

When Sandra Tompkins asked her 8-year-old son Dakota about trying to work things out at Aspen Community Magnet School, he curled up in a ball and turned away from her. “‘Don’t ever talk to me about Aspen,’” Tompkins says he told her. Tompkins withdrew Dakota from Aspen on Sept. 16. The day before, he ran to his dad in the parking lot after school, crying.

Some operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility have been put on hold after the National Nuclear Security Administration identified safety concerns.

New Mexicans wanting more protection for endangered Mexican gray wolves aren’t shutting their traps.

Santa Fe contractor Debbie Shapiro recently helped clients insulate an attic and install water catchment gutters to increase their home’s energy efficiency.

A complaint filed with the state Attorney General’s Office this month could have implications for Gutierrez’ contract length.