ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Police in Albuquerque are investigating two homicides that may be connected and a suspect is in custody. They say officers responded to a convenience store 7:45 a.m. Sunday and found the body of a man who had been shot. During their investigation, police say they received another call about a deceased woman in a southwest Albuquerque home. Police say the shooting began with a fight inside the gas station, which moved outside to a side street. The name of the suspect hasn't been released by police yet.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller says much of the progress made against crime was erased by the COVID-19 pandemic, but believes the city's police department has made improvements. In his first State of the City address of his second term, Keller also announced Saturday that the Albuquerque Police Department is seeking release from at least some of the federal oversight it has been under since 2015. He says police are aiming to show compliance with about a quarter of the terms inside its U.S. Department of Justice settlement agreement. Keller didn't announce any new solutions for homelessness, but says the city is revisiting its approach to encampments.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A former Albuquerque spa owner has pleaded guilty to conducting unlicensed "vampire facials" that led to two clients contracting HIV. New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas announced the plea from Maria de Lourdes Ramos de Ruiz in a news release Friday. Ramos de Ruiz will enter a guilty plea to five felony counts of practicing medicine without a license. The scam was discovered when a client who was diagnosed with HIV reported visiting her spa. State licensing regulators investigated her business and found multiple health-code violations. A second client with HIV then came forward. Ramos de Ruiz faces more than seven years in prison.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Elected officials in a rural Nevada county became the last in the state to certify outstanding results of the June 14 primary election after a hand count of all ballots in an old mining town courthouse. Two county commissioners in Esmeralda County, Nevada's least populated, spent more than seven hours Friday counting all 317 ballots before formally voting to accept the results. Nevada's other 16 counties already had certified the primary results. The largest counties in the western battleground state in Las Vegas and Reno were among those that acted earlier Friday over the objections of some who questioned the results.