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Monica Ortiz Uribe

Fronteras Senior Field Correspondent Mónica Ortiz Uribe (KRWG, Las Cruces) is a native of El Paso, Texas, where she worked as a freelance reporter prior to joining the Fronteras team.  She also anchors segments on KRWG-TV's Fronteras program.

Her work has aired on NPR, Public Radio International and Radio Bilingue. Many of her stories have examined the effects of drug-related violence across the border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Previously, she worked as a reporter for the Waco Tribune Herald in Waco, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a degree in history.

  • Benjamin Alire Saenz won this year's PEN/Faulkner award for his latest collection of short stories, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club. The real-life Kentucky Club is just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, and Saenz joined a reporter there to talk about life in two countries.
  • New Mexico State University is trying a new approach to better accommodate veterans with on-campus housing. The gap between student veterans and their civilian peers is wide. The model integrates veterans and makes them feel at home on campus.
  • At a new school for midwives, students learn old arts, like massaging bellies, while also studying gynecology, obstetrics and nursing. Officials hope a new generation of professional midwives will help reduce the pressures on Mexican hospitals overwhelmed by births that, in the past, would have taken place at home.
  • Narcotraffickers battling over turf in northern Mexico's border town of Nuevo Laredo have left a trail of bodies and a populace afraid to speak. Last week, nine corpses were dumped near the outskirts of the city. Making matters worse, 131 inmates escaped from a prison in about two hours outside Nuevo Laredo.
  • In Las Cruces, a candy shop whips up nut brittle made with red and green chili powder almost daily. Luis Flores' parents started in the candy business four decades ago. Today, you'll find his spicy brittle in farmer's markets and gift shops across the Southwest.
  • Josefina Vazquez Mota is the first woman from a major political party to run for president. She has pledged to crack down on corruption but is having trouble distancing herself from President Felipe Calderon. He's from the same party, and his drug war has failed to halt cartel violence.
  • New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is the ultimate immigrant success story and, with an overall approval rating of about two-thirds of residents in her state, she's arguably the most popular Republican governor in the country. But that popularity doesn't always extend to Hispanics.
  • Mexican and U.S. leaders have vowed to track down the gunmen who killed three people, including two U.S. citizens, with ties to the U.S. Consulate in the border town of Juarez. Mexican authorities say they believe the killings are linked to the country's raging drug war.

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