Good Morning El Paso: 10.21.15

the trial continues today for lisbeth garrett, the woman accused of killing her husband. we have updates from the trial and what to expect as the case moves forward. el paso is looking into where to put the downtown arena. stick around to see how the city is making the plan move faster. a very good morning el paso, las cruces, and juarez. i’m stephanie valle. and i’m hillary floren. good morning, everyone. does this view look familiar? if you live on the westside of el paso, this is what you might have seen on your afternoon commute. heavy rain and hail hit the borderland. it didn’t last long, but it still left mounds of ice throughout the city. we’re still under that first alert this morning. so let’s throw it over to our stormtrack meteorologist krystal klei for your first forcast. a live look at stormtrack doppler radar is showing… currently around our region… here’s your day planner for today… expect skies, winds and temperatures in the by 8 am, by noon and for your drive home around 5 pm. we’ll talk more about what to expect for the rest of this work week and the weekend ahead coming up in your full forecast. closing arguments are happening today in the trial of lisbeth garrett. the former eastwood high school teacher is accused of murdering her husband back in 19-77. yesterday her defense team did not call any witnesses and instead rested its case. it was lisbeth’s other son, patrick, who broke his silence to police and put an end to the 35-year-old cold case. he says his brother, roger, admitted to stabbing and beating chester garrett. and patrick even told the jury he helped his mom and brother clean a large stain on the garage floor shortly after. roger is already serving a 40 year prison sentence. closing arguments start today at 9 am. there’s new information on the former jefferson high school teacher and football coach accused of having sex with a student. court documents obtained by our abc-7 i-team.. state 31-year-old joel provencio allegedly sent explicit text messages to the 16- year-old girl. el paso school district officials say the teen was a student in his geometry class. provencio allegedly gave her rides. police say she told them provencio began texting her last year — asking her to send him nude photos of herself. court documents say the two had sex three different times at his home. investigators discovered nude photos and explicit messages provencio allegedly sent to the girl. provencio is charged with improper relationship between an educator and student. the city will soon be looking to buy the land where the downtown arena will sit. council authorized the city manager to sign all the contracts on behalf of the city. he will not have to come back to council for permission every time he needs to sign a new contract… as long as the contracts he signs stay within the project’s budget. they did this once before during construction of the downtown ballpark. “we still have to comply with all the procurement laws. the only difference is instead of ‘piece-mealing’ bringing them back every week to city council, he’ll be able to sign them as long as he stays within the project budget.” 14:0 that budget? 50- thousand dollars. with it he can get appraisers, surveyers, and anything else they need to get ready for buying the real estate. a new incentive plan is in the works to help bring more businesses to el paso. city council met yesterday to talk about how to bring companies to el paso. they discussed plans like increasing incentives to the veteran populations. they’re enhancements that they say aren’t happening anywhere else in the country. mayor oscar leeser says they’ve been giving incentives for the past 2 years … and they’ve already paid off. the new plan is set to come out november 3rd. also out of city hall. a former political opponent has started a recall petition against city rep. larry romero. citing the street controversy – in which romero – worked with the city to pave his home street even though it wasn’t on the approved list of streets in need of repair. adam gurrola says he’s also disappointed in romero’s support of payday lenders. but we asked gurrola if this was a politically motivated move – meant to position himself for attention to run against romero during the next election: “the reason that i started this campaign to recall larry romero was not to benefit me. i was sitting back and i was having people call me and ask me and say yo if you’re the voice of the people if you’re our advocate like you say you are. how can you let these things happen? petioners have about three months to gather a little more than one thousand signatures of registered voters in district 2. a new database is promising to help researchers and health care providers improve the health of el pasoans. it’s called the el paso community health atlas. it’s an inter-local agreement between the city of el paso and utep. the health atlas will gather information from medical sources, share statistics, and provide analysis to researchers: “our mission is to provide th most advanced database with analytical tools such as cognitive computing, advanced visualization, advanced statistical analysis.” the agreement will last until october 20-18. during which time the city will pay utep up to 600- thousand dollars with funding from the texas healthcare and quality improvement program. a major change from the american cancer society on mammograms. it’s changing its recommendation for the first time in more than a decade and now telling women they can wait longer for their first exam. good morning el paso’s denise olivas has the details… denise? this news comes during breast cancer awareness month. the american cancer society now saying healthy women should get their first mammongram at the age of 45 instead of 40. the american cancer society says women between the ages of 45 and 54 who do have a risk of developing breast cancer should get an exam every year. and as long as the patient is healthy after the age of 55– it recommends a mammorgram every other year. what some women may find more surpising– it is also recommending that doctors and nurses no longer do clinical breast exams in which they feel for lumps around the breast area. the american cancer society says manual exams has never proven it saves lives. the new guidelines come as new evidence says mammograms often produces “false positives” i younger women. resulting in additional testing and surgery that is often unnecessary. as one hopeful drops out of the democratic bid for president… another may be getting ready to step up and run. andy rose has the latest. one fewer democratic candidate vying for the white house… “i am withdrawing from an consideration of being the democratic party’s nominee for the presidency.” former virgini senator jim webb ended his democratic bid for president on tuesday. web never caught enough momentum in the primary to compete with heavy-hitters like hillary clinton or senator bernie sanders — but he isn’t completely bowing out of the race. webb says he will meet with people from across the political spectrum to consider a third- party run for president. “how i remain as a voice will depend on what kind of support i am shown in the coming weeks as i meet with people from all sides of america’s political landscape. and i intend to do that.” and as web potentially makes a transition to run as an independent, speculation over if vice president joe biden will make a run is growing. subtle jabs between biden and hilary over policy and political style have some wondering if the decision has already been made. but time is running out. biden has until next thursday to make and announce his 2016 decision — if he wants to be a serious candidate who is on all ballots. andy rose reporting. polling hasn’t shown a groundswell of support for biden. a cnn/orc national poll out monday shows that just 18% of democratic primary voters would back biden, behind clinton at 45%, and vermont sen. bernie sanders at 29%. now it’s time to take a look at the tx-dot traffic cams… the religious community is coming together after a number of churches are set on fire what these churches all have in common and what the community is doing in response but first – stormtrack weather! meteorologist krystal kleihas your complete forecast. krystal… and this is abc-7, where news comes first!