News-Sun Staff Report The COVID-19 variant of 0micron has arrived in Lea County, hospital leaders said on Monday. With that, they expect the county’s case to rapidly increase over the coming weeks, and predicting a peak happening somewhere around Jan. 24. If the variant follows its pattern like it has in other places, hospital leaders expect the numbers to rapidly …

FAA awards $1.2M to Lea airports CURTIS C. WYNNE NEWS-SUN Awarding a total of $1.2 million to Lea County airports, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration announced the first of five annual rounds of funding established by the new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Lea County Regional Airport in Hobbs will receive $1,018,010 while Zip Franklin Memorial Airport in Lovington …

Making a change: Lovington schools gets new SRO LOVINGTON – As a school resource officer (SRO), sometimes the job is more about being an ear for students and listening to what issues they may have going on. “A mentor, a role model, a source of trust and stability,” Lovington Police Chief David Miranda said. “Sometimes, the student’s home life is in …

Couple takes long journey from Vietnam to owners of Hobbs restaurant JENNY MOODY FOR THE NEWS-SUN One wouldn’t normally think to connect Vietnam and Hobbs, yet for Loi Tran and Van Nguyen, the owners of Hobbs Buffet, and Hai Khuu, the manager of Hobbs Buffet, the link between the two locations on opposite sides of the world spans decades, multiple …

ANDY BROSIG/NEWS-SUN Members of a relatively new after school club at Heizer Middle School in Hobbs got a big surprise recently. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Club was formed by instructor John Perales to enter the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge, an annual competition designed to introduce middle and high school students to critical thinking skills and project-based learning …

ANDY BROSIG/NEWS-SUN Members of a relatively new after school club at Heizer Middle School in Hobbs got a big surprise recently. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Club was formed by instructor John Perales to enter the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge, an annual competition designed to introduce middle and high school students to critical thinking skills and project-based learning …

A recent op-ed in in the Hobbs News-Sun extolled the virtues of payouts to the film industry as detailed in a recent study predicting $8.40 of return to the state for every $1.00 spent on the subsidies. This is incorrect. First, the study was not conducted by a legitimate accounting firm such as Deloitte or KPMG, but rather an outfit …

ANDY BROSIG/NEWS-SUN Christmas looks a little different this year in Hobbs. The decorations that for decades have festooned utility poles along the main thoroughfares in the city are gone, replaced on the ground by lighted reindeer, snowmen and more, interspersed with strings of bright white lights wrapped around the trunks of trees. “I don’t understand,” said Dwayne Penick, District 5 …

Gabrielle Arsiage/Hobbs News-Sun Lea County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Kiara Sainz, 26, of Odessa on Dec. 14 after sending three people to the hospital by running over them with her car, while she was intoxicated. On Nov. 27, deputies responded to the 2100 block of East Settles Pass about an accident involving the vehicle Sainz was allegedly driving, hitting three …

Andy Brosig/News-Sun Ruby Hamilton, 3, will be getting what her mother, Kristina, calls the best Christmas gift ever this year from a group started “deep in the desert of southern Lea County.” Even before she was born, Ruby’s doctors knew she was in for a tough road. Diagnosed with Down Syndrome, Ruby was also born with a heart condition where …