Democrats disgruntled with their own party’s candidate in the Public Regulation Commission race are forming a political action committee to help Green Party candidate Rick Lass, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports. Apparently a few Democrats aren’t smitten with Jerome Block Jr., who is the Democratic nominee.

Journal investigative reporter Thom Cole takes on a Los Lunas Municipal Court Judge who denied him access to a public court file last week in a doozy of an open letter that’s one part chastisement and one part defense of the state’s Public Records Act.. Click here to read Cole’s open letter.  Give ‘em what for, Thom!

New Mexico State University police issued a warning to returning students to not travel to Juarez due to the spike in drug-related violence in the Mexican city, the Las Cruces Sun-News reports. Drug violence has taken 800 lives in the Mexican border city, according to the report.

West Nile virus hits New Mexico as the state Department of Health confirms the first case of the disease, according to the Farmington Daily Times, which also reports that mosquitoes in the Aztec area have tested positive for the virus. 

House Minority Whip Dan Foley will resign his seat after the general election instead of waiting until January for his term to end, Albuquerque’s KOB TV reports. Foley lost the Republican primary in June and had talked of resigning then, but his opponent asked him not to.

Note to anyone attempting to sell vellum covered books dating back to the 1600s: Don’t try to sell them to a bibliophile. That’s the theme of a story in the Albuquerque Journal today about a thief that tried to sell rare books only to land in lock up.