To some, the Public Regulation Commission is best known for being cozy with the companies it regulates. So it might have come as a surprise when the PRC’s Insurance Division rejected a proposed 9.9 percent rate increase from health insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield on Oct. 11.

Occupy Wall Street is more than a protest: It’s democracy.

Santa Fe contractor Debbie Shapiro recently helped clients insulate an attic and install water catchment gutters to increase their home’s energy efficiency.

“The revolution will not be televised. It will be on the internet.”

Fifteen minutes into what began as a relatively run-of-the-mill interview, Kenny Ausubel drops a bombshell. “I don’t usually make predictions,” he says—the type of statement interviewees consider a cautionary disclaimer, but which reporters tend to gleefully exploit—“but I think probably the next six or so years are the six most important years in the history of human civilization.”

Santa Fe is the latest in a long line of cities to host Occupy Wall Street protests. Saturday, Oct. 8, marked the second weekend in a row of protests in front of a local Bank of America branch.

While touting new standards-based initiatives to improve New Mexico’s public schools, state Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera gave three failing charter schools a pass, in defiance of state regulators.

New Mexico’s unemployment rate continues to drop steeply, something Mitchell says would be “phenomenal”—if it were accurate. Instead, he says, the number is meaningless. In the past six months, each new job has come at a cost of roughly five people dropping from the workforce, Mitchell says.

On Aug. 11, a dozen members of the press crammed into a Public Regulation Commission meeting to follow a juicy lead. Jerome Block Jr.—the embattled commissioner facing allegations of charging $8,000 worth of gas to his government-issued credit card in six months, stealing a car and misusing public campaign funds—had been in the news for weeks. Block’s fellow commissioners were set to remove him as PRC vice chairman, leading to speculations of either his impeachment or resignation. Block had also been hammered in the headlines for missing one-third of his PRC meetings. Predictably, he was a no-show.

On Sept. 6, after trying to reach an agreement for 18 months, Washington, DC-based Pegasus Global LLC—a federal Department of Defense contractor—announced a partnership with the state Economic Development Department to develop a high-tech “ghost town” to test experimental technologies. On Aug. 16, the EDD signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Pegasus to cooperatively perform a feasibility study for the ambitious $200 million project.