Here’s a look at today’s headlines:

The Wilderness Ranger District states that the construction on three bridges on Forest Road 150 continues.  Starting Monday, July 17th, the contractor will be hauling rock to Black Canyon from NM35.  A portion of the Continental Divide Trailhead will be used to stage the rock. The trailhead is located approximately 8 miles up NFSR 150 from NM35, about half a mile north of NFSR 150 A.  The contractor will only use a portion of the trailhead parking lot, leaving room for vehicles and stock trailers room to turn around and park.  The contractor is scheduled to have the rock hauling operations completed by August 4, making the entire trailhead parking available to the public after that date.

Starting Monday, July 17 through July 21, the Forest Service plans to conduct annual aerial surveys for insect and disease outbreaks on the Gila National Forest. Forest Service airplanes and helicopters regularly fly over private, state, and National Forest System lands at low altitudes to perform a variety of natural resource management missions, including insect and disease surveys, remote sensing to acquire aerial images and data, and firefighting.

The Silver City MainStreet Board of Directors recently named Charmeine Wait as the new MainStreet Executive Director.  Charmeine will assume her new position on Monday, July 17th.  She has lived and worked in Silver City for 27 years and co-founded the Southwest Women’s Fiber Arts Collective.

Wednesday, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) announced that the amount of opioids prescribed in New Mexico have significantly declined, dropping by 5 percent for the first quarter in 2017, compared to last year. Additionally, benzodiazepine prescriptions decreased by 3 percent over the same period. The drops come after Governor Susana Martinez enacted legislation to make it mandatory for healthcare providers to check a patient’s prescription history in the state’s Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) database when prescribing opioids, in an effort to stop doctor shopping for drugs. There has been a 63 percent increase in providers using the PMP since last year.