When you step off the Rail Runner at the Santa Fe Railyard, what awaits at the end of the line?

A portion of the track under the Rail Runner's wheels was built by Burlington Northern more than 100 years ago.

Which prominent New Mexican may have been blackmailed? How are criminals coming up with extra holiday dough? Winrock Mall is set to make a big improvement. What makes our state attractive to identity thieves?

Dr. John Fogarty was sure his case was cut and dry.

But after two hours of deliberation on Friday, Dec. 12, the jury pulled the plug on his years-long case against Albuquerque police and the city. The verdict was not in Fogarty's favor.

On March 20, 2003, the day the United States and three other countries invaded Iraq, several hundred citizens demonstrated near the University of New Mexico. "The mood of the crowd was almost festive," Fogarty says. "People were playing music. People were singing and chanting."

Longtime Senator Pete Domenici announced his retirement in October 2007 under the worst of circumstances. He wasn't retiring because of some political scandal; instead, it was something far more tragic. He announced his diagnosis of a fatal brain disease called frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

Dateline: China—A Chinese woman who had not cut her hair in 10 years called police to report that her lengthy locks had been purloined. Xiao Hong, 30, of Siping told the Beijing Evening Post someone cut off her 4-foot braid as she walked out of a shopping mall. “People were squeezing together out the door, and when I stepped out I felt I lost something,” she explained to the newspaper. “I subconsciously touched my hair, but it was gone.” In the past, Xiao said she had been offered the equivalent of $500 for her hair, but refused to sell it.

Rarely do we at the Rio Grande Foundation agree with Jerry Ortiz y Pino, but I agree with much of what he says in his recent article on New Mexico’s broken education system and the prospect for a 1 percent statewide gross receipts tax hike [ “Re-Reform,” Dec. 11-17]. Basically, although Ortiz y Pino ponders (misguidedly in my opinion) the possibility of increasing the income tax, he ultimately concludes that real reforms are necessary before we spend any more money.