Month: February 2015

El Paso County is still working to complete the Sportspark in far east El Paso. The park has been plagued with delays and unfinished projects. Monday, El Paso County Commissioners voted to terminate its contract with the architecture company handling construction, and hire a new one. Judge Veronica Escobar added that the county has entered

El Paso,Tx- The sportspark project is behind schedule and the county still doesn’t have a completion date. This project has already cost taxpayers 7 million dollars and it’s generated controversy for weeks. The architecture firm behind the sportspark renovations says delays are not its fault. The firm says the contractors, sunlight enterprises, is to blame.

For years, El Paso County has not been able to use its Sportspark in far east El Paso to its full potential. It is located off of Zaragoza and Saul Kleinfield. Late last year, County Commissioners terminated the contract with the company hired to renovate the park and is now trying to resolve a dispute

Newly installed speed humps in a neighborhood off Pino Real has caused some debate among neighbors. “I think they are ridiculous,” one neighbor said. “I don’t think they are going to slow much down in the neighborhood.” “Well, I think they are a good idea because I think it makes us slow down,” another neighbor

UTEP student Itzel Balboa, 20, wasn’t entirely against “laptop learning.” But she told ABC-7 it wasn’t her first choice — she was forced to take an online math course when there were no more sections available. Balboa was optimistic, saying her friends gave the virtual classes good reviews. “They really liked online courses because they

The $220 million dollar taxpayer-funded Spaceport America broke ground in 2009 and began constructing Virgin Galactic’s “Gateway to Space building.” The plan was to one day house Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo spacecrafts, but after Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed, killing one pilot during a test flight Friday, a long delay in the first launch from

A former Las Cruces Police detective will serve nine years in prison for raping a teenage intern. For the first time, the victim, Diana Guerrero is speaking out. Diana Guerrero was only 17-years old when she was sexually assaulted by Michael Garcia, a 14-year veteran in the Las Cruces Police department. After the assault, Guerrero

Tuesday night’s rivalry game between the Coronado and Franklin boy’s basketball teams ended up being a highlight of one special student’s life. Special needs student Mitchell Marcus has been Coronado’s basketball manager the past four years. So with the T-birds up double digits on the rival Cougars Tuesday night with a minute and a half

Leaders from all over the region gathered to discuss the future of the space industry and the possibility of humans in space at the 10th annual International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight. Wednesday’s events focused on the transition to commerical space and the big question, how a human presence will be established in space.

Aaron Brown and Matt Bingaya established career-highs with 24 and 21 points respectively, as Southern Miss rallied on its home floor once again to beat UTEP, 77-68, on Saturday in Hattiesburg. For the third straight time, the Miners (20-8, 10-3 C-USA) had a decent lead in the second half at Reed Green Coliseum but couldn’t

El Paso, Tx- Fire fighters battled a large fire in south central El Paso Monday morning. Black smoke filled the air as approximately three dozen fire fighters rushed to the scene to contain the massive fire. The structure’s roof and a wall collapsed sending two firefighters to the hospital with minor injuries after part of

It’s likely that diners would not want to eat at a place that scored a low rating during its latest health inspection. But it’s also a possibility that many diners don’t look up the results of those inspections — or if they do, they’re hard to find. Thankfully for El Paso diners, there’s now an

ABC-7 spoke to the El Paso County Democrats and state Sen. Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso), along with the El Paso GOP, for reaction to President Obama’s decision to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers. Obama made the decision by executive order and announced it during his State of the Union speech Tuesday. He

Former clients of Joseph “Sib” Abraham say they paid the late El Paso lawyer large retainer fees and advances, some in excess of $1 million. Now they’re wondering where their money went. Abraham, a well-known criminal defense lawyer whose career spanned five decades in El Paso, died of cancer on July 4, 2014 at the

The western battle between ranchers and forest rangers has made it to the borderland.Saturday morning ranchers in Alamagordo were protesting after their herds’ access to water had been cut off by the federal government. ABC-7 spoke with ranchers and U.S. Congressman Steve Pearce. They said they feel the federal government is violating ranchers’ constitutional rights.

(Update)El Paso, Texas – Monday afternoon the El Paso Fire Department were dispatched to a fire at 8829 Mt. Elbert Dr. Neighbors saw smoke and called 911. When firefighters arrived, they found brown smoke and flames venting from the roof of the house. Crews checked for occupants in the house, didn’t find any and proceeded

UTEP Head Football Coach Sean Kugler addressed the media Monday and talked about the team’s win on the road over New Mexico and the Miners’ upcoming home game against Texas Tech. Below are Kugler’s quotes from the news conference. Sept. 1, 2014(Opening Statement)“I want to thank all the players and the coaches for putting in

A woman was killed early Monday morning in a head-on collision not far from Ascarate Park. It happened at about 3 a.m. on the 4700 block of Delta. El Paso Police say the woman was killed because she was using her cell phone while driving. Police say witnesses told them they saw 40-year-old Susan Flores

A single-engine plane crashed near the Las Cruces International Airport on Labor Day morning. New Mexico State Police told ABC-7 the crash happened at about 7:30 a.m. about 1/8 of a mile west of the airport runway. The two people onboard suffered minor injuries. The plane, piloted by 31-year-old student pilot Kathlyn Drexler, was found

An El Paso County resident says noise, traffic, headaches are right in her backyard and wants to know what can be done. Lupe Quintana’s family has lived on land next to the Darrington Race Track on Darrington Road and Las Colonias Road for more than 20 years. She said recently, a racing group came in

I-10 is reopened after a rollover that happened near the Tornillo exit Friday morning. Authorities on the scene tell ABC-7 that two women were driving east when their vehicle flipped and landed on the westbound lanes of I-10. One of the women was ejected. One woman had to be airlifted to an El Paso hospital.

San Diego, Canary Islands, and Sydney, Austalia all have something in common with El Paso. All of those cities have been named by Orbitz as cities with picture-perfect weather. “You probably know it because of the salsa, and how do you think they get such high quality salsa vegetables? Sunshine!” states Orbitz’s description about El

Former Arizona Cardinal quarterback John Skelton is headed to the Canadian Football League. Skelton signed a two-year deal with the Montreal Alouettes, the team announced on Friday. The Alouettes also announced that the club has released international quarterback Alex Brink. Skelton, 26, played high school at Burges in El Paso before playing four years at

The New Mexico Supreme Court has upheld the first degree murder convictions of Eugene “Gino” Ferri. Ferri was convicted in 2013 of three counts of first degree murder, along with other felonies, in a triple homicide in Las Cruces. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. Ferri appealed his convictions to the New Mexico

Saying that drug cartels are “ramping up” their efforts as the Texas National Guard prepares to leave the Rio Grande Valley next month, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrickannounced Tuesday that he’s seeking an additional $12 million to keep the troops there through May. Beyond that, he added at a Capitol news conference, he would work to

Major construction will begin soon in the heart of Las Cruces. During the first phase of the project, crews will reconstruct 1-25 over Missouri Avenue and will work on nearby Triviz, Don Roser and Missouri. The first phase of the project began Monday but residents won’t see crews reconstructing and diverting traffic for another week

It’s time to dig to see if there’s any artifacts left behind from one of the five historic Socorro Mission sites. During an El Paso County Commissioners Court meeting on Monday, commissioners agreed to lend labor, equipment and efforts to assist the Texas Historical Commission with archaeological research. Although the THC state archaeologist wouldn’t tell

One of three people facing charges in a case involving corpse abuse has been indicted. The El Paso Times reports that Mortuary Services Inc. owner Joseph Anthony Solis has been indicted on 42 counts of tampering with government records and 37 counts of forging government records. The 54-year-old mortician remained Saturday in the El Paso

The 2014 WNIT championship game (UTEP vs. Rutgers, 1 p.m. Saturday, CBS Sports Network) has sold out in record time, taking less than two hours for the 12,222 seats at the Don Haskins Center to be purchased. The Miners (29-7) and Scarlet Knights (27-9) will be playing before a sold-out Don Haskins Center for a

The Fort Bliss community welcomed home more than 200 hundred soldiers Thursday night on post. Members of the 4th Battalion 501st Aviation Regiment, 1AD Combat Aviation Brigade were deployed in Kuwait for nine months. Their mission in Kuwait was to provide security and help with medical evacuations. As soldiers arrived, families waited with ‘welcome home’