Today's News

There are a fair amount of commuters who take the Rail Runner to Santa Fe and then take the bus to Los Alamos.

Those commuters will have to find another way to work Friday.

According to TV stations KRQE-TV and KOB-TV, flooding from heavy rain late Thursday will keep Rail Runner Express trains from running north of Bernalillo to Santa Fe on Friday.

KRQE said no trains will operate between the U.S. 550/Sandoval County station in Bernalillo and the station in downtown Santa Fe.

On Thursday, a Rail Runner train that was stopped north of the Kewa station was given the green light to proceed with caution after severe weather and flooding halted the train. KOB reported another bridge was reportedly underwater. The TV stations reported that 600 to 800 passengers had to wait at least an hour for buses to take them to their destination.

Storm runoff from the rains flowed through Santo Domingo Pueblo.

However, trains will run on regular schedules between Belen and Bernalillo through Albuquerque.

A Rail Runner spokesperson said they currently expect the line to be open in time for weekend trains.

Storm runoff Thursday evening flowed over the rails about two miles east of the Kewa station on Santo Domingo Pueblo.

Today
Family Game Night at Mesa Public Library. Join the geeks and gamers from 5:30-8:30 p.m. in the upstairs rotunda for game boards galore. All ages welcome, please bring a parent or another adult if you’re 12 or younger.

The monthly Los Alamos County Democratic party meeting will be at 7 p.m. at Mesa Public Library. The topics of the meeting will be the upcoming events with congressmen, candidate updates and other developing news. All registered Democrats are invited to attend.

Saturday
There will be a Masonic Waffle Breakfast 7:30-10 a.m. at the Los Alamos Masonic Lodge, 15th and Canyon. Proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity’s 2012 Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Work Project in Haiti. Price of the breakfast is $7 and $3 for children age six and younger.

Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church will present a high tea and fashion show event at 2:30 p.m. at 3900 Trinity Dr. This is the third annual event. All proceeds go toward the two-house build trips to Juaréz in the fall. For more information, call Cathy Walters at 662-5107.

Award-winning University of California-Berkeley astrophysicist Alex Filippenko will deliver the 42nd Oppenheimer Memorial Lecture 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Duane Smith Auditorium in Los Alamos.
 The lecture, “Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe,” is free and open to the public.
 Filippenko has made a career of studying supernovae and using these cosmic beacons to probe the vastness of space. Filippenko was a member of two independent teams that in 1998 reported, based on observations of supernovae that the universe was expanding at a runaway pace. The leaders of those teams received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.
 Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his research, Filippenko’s skills in teaching and conveying scientific concepts to non-scientists has been recognized with the Carl Sagan Prize, the Richtmyer Memorial Award and a Professor of the Year Award from the Carnegie Foundation.
 Filippenko will discuss how observations of supernovae have led scientists to conclude the universe contains a repulsive force, dubbed “dark energy,” that forces space to expand at an ever-increasing rate, pulling galaxies and other matter along with it. Einstein had once postulated such a mechanism but later rejected it and called it his “biggest blunder.”

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — State lottery officials say one ticket sold in New Mexico for Wednesday night’s huge Powerball jackpot is worth $1 million.
The big prize ticket was sold in Michigan and is worth $337 million.
But lottery officials say $1 million isn’t bad for a $2 ticket either.
The New Mexico winner should sign the ticket’s back immediately and then head to Lottery headquarters in Albuquerque to claim the prize.
Officials won’t say where the ticket was sold until the winner comes forward.
Wednesday’s winning numbers were 6, 27, 46, 51 and 56 and a red Powerball of 21.