Farmington hospital getting assistance due to COVID-19 surge - Farmington Daily Times, Associated Press
State and federal health agencies are sending 70 caregivers to San Juan Regional Medical Center due to a surge in COVID-19 patients in the northwestern corner of New Mexico in the past month. Over half of all patients at the hospital in Farmington tested positive for COVID-19 and San Juan County reported 3,657 positive virus cases in October, more than the previous four months combined, the Farmington Daily Times reported.
The number of COVID-19 patients being treated at the hospital had been steadily climbing for weeks but rose dramatically between Oct. 27 and Nov. 3.
As of Wednesday, the hospital was treating 88 COVID-19 patients and expecting that number to grow.
The state Department of Health is sending 34 caregivers to San Juan Regional, and the hospital is also getting a 36-person team from the National Disaster Medical System of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The state's deployment was authorized after San Juan Regional enacted crisis standards of care due to the large number of COVID-19 patients.
A public health alert pushed to cell phones on Nov. 3 called on residents to help reduce the "enormous strain on our healthcare system" by wearing a mask, socially distancing and getting vaccinated.
San Juan Regional singled out several ZIP codes in Aztec, Bloomfield and Farmington as contributing to COVID-19 spread, saying that the rising COVID-19 patient count at the hospital was due to "significantly low vaccine rates."
"It's so important for us as a community to depoliticize all the rhetoric in our country, our state and our community around this pandemic," Jeff Bourgeois, San Juan Regional's president and CEO, said in a statement.
"The best way to prevent contracting the disease, prevent hospitalization, prevent an ICU admission, and ultimately prevent mortality related to COVID-19 is to seek a vaccination."
C-USA adding New Mexico St, Liberty, Jacksonville St, Sam Houston St – Ralph D. Russo, Associated Press
Conference USA announced Friday that it will add Liberty, Jacksonville State, New Mexico State and Sam Houston State in 2023 as the league tries to replenish its ranks after having nine schools announce plans to leave in the last month.
C-USA said its new members will join July 1, 2023.
“We are incredibly excited about adding these four new members and feel there is tremendous upside in these moves for our conference,” Conference USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod said in a statement. “We have been deliberate in our efforts for the past few weeks to get us to this point and will continue to evaluate and consider our additional options for membership.”
The C-USA overhaul might not be done, either: Mid-American Conference presidents met Friday with possible expansion on the agenda and C-USA members Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee State as potential options, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league's discussions are private.
Including MTSU and WKU, Conference USA has only five members that have not announced plans to leave in the next few years. The NCAA requires Football Bowl Subdivision leagues to have at least eight teams.
All of this conference realignment is a trickle down from what started in July with the Southeastern Conference inviting Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 and join the powerhouse league by 2025.
The Big 12 responded by adding four schools, three from the American Athletic Conference, which led the AAC to poach six schools from C-USA.
C-USA has also lost three members to the Sun Belt in recent weeks and the last piece of the Sun Belt’s plan to expand to 14 football members fell into place Friday: James Madison, a perennial championship contender in the Football Championship Subdivision, was given approval by the state to move up to FBS, where the Sun Belt competes.
James Madison and the Sun Belt announced they will hold a news conference Saturday on the school's Harrisonburg, Virginia, campus. All the Sun Belt's new schools are also expected to join by 2023.
The newest C-USA schools will keep the league far-flung, from New Mexico to Virginia.
Liberty and Jacksonville State are both members of the ASun Conference for most of their sports, though Liberty is an independent competing in FBS. Jacksonville State has been a successful program in FCS.
New Mexico State is also an FBS independent and member of Western Athletic Conference for basketball and other sports. Sam Houston State, which won the FCS championship last season, is part of the newly restarted WAC football league, which is competing in FCS this year.
New Mexico GOP leaders concerned about US vaccine mandate - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
New Mexico already has among the highest U.S. unemployment rates and state Republican legislative leaders said Thursday that they fear President Joe Biden's plan to require vaccinations or COVID-19 testing for large employers could do more damage to the job market of the poverty-stricken state.
New Mexico Senate Republican Leader Greg Baca said the mandate is sowing more distrust of the federal government and he urged Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to push back against what he called federal overreach.
"We are already facing a significant worker shortage," he told The Associated Press in an email. "This excessive policy may very well be the final nail in the coffin for many more local businesses."
U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements made public Thursday call for workers of companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated by Jan. 4 or be tested weekly. Failure to comply could result in penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation.
Federal officials also left open the possibility of expanding the mandate to smaller employers.
More than a dozen Republican attorneys general in other states have said they would fight the requirements.
In New Mexico, the legislative session that begins in January is limited to budget issues. Republican lawmakers said it's possible that one or more bills could be introduced to provide relief for local businesses being forced to comply with federal and state mandates.
New Mexico's Democrat-dominated state government was among the first to push hard for vaccinating adults.
Interest in inoculation has since tapered off and the state's vaccination rate has been stagnant at less than 73%. State officials announced Wednesday they aim to have more than 50% of children ages 5 to 11 vaccinated as part of the latest campaign.
Lujan Grisham's public health order already requires shots for state employees, health care workers and educators, accounting for much of the state's workforce. But some critics have raised questions about whether her administration might go further and require booster shots since immunity in the state appears to be waning.
"Our focus right now is on MLG (the governor) and the mandates she has already imposed and potential mandates she has yet to announce," said House GOP Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia. "New Mexicans simply want to get back to their lives, but continue to run into power hungry politicians at every turn."
The governor's office did not comment directly on the federal vaccine requirement. Officials with the state Health Department have said any discussions on whether the state would consider reimposing stricter public health mandates or expanded vaccine requirements have not yet occurred.
Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokesperson for the governor, said Thursday that New Mexico continues to have one of the highest vaccination rates in the West. Sackett said the state's goal is to get as many people vaccinated as possible and that vaccinating younger children will be a big step.
Steve Pearce, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, described the federal vaccine mandate for employers as "a blatant infringement on our civil liberties."
"To threaten employees who don't comply is even more dangerous and insulting," he said. "Americans have the right to choose, and this is another violation of our constitutional rights."
Confirmed COVID-19 cases are creeping back up in New Mexico despite higher vaccination rates and a mask mandate for indoor public spaces. State data shows more than 22,000 confirmed infection cases have been reported over the past month, including infections among vaccinated people.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase on Wednesday pointed to the infectious nature of the delta variant as a factor driving the surge. He said all regions of the state are seeing an uptick in infections and that community spread remains high statewide.
New Mexico regulators approve shaft at nuclear waste dump -Associated Press
State environmental regulators have cleared the way for work to continue on a multimillion-dollar ventilation shaft at the federal government's underground nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico.
Ventilation has been an issue since 2014, when a radiation release contaminated parts of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure, delayed the federal government's cleanup program and prompted policy changes at national laboratories and defense-related sites across the U.S.
The state Environment Department last week approved a permit modification requested by the U.S. Department of Energy to build and use the utility shaft. Temporary authorization previously was granted but work stopped in November 2020 after state officials opted not to renew the authorization, citing a rise in COVID-19 infections among workers at the repository.
Estimated to cost about $100 million, the shaft will be a key part of the repository's revamped ventilation system. With more airflow, officials have said more employees can be in the underground space working on mining and waste operations simultaneously.
The project is expected to be completed in 2025 and would triple the available air flow, the Carlsbad Current-Argus reported.
In the notice of approval, New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said more airflow was needed for the repository to achieve its mission.
Donavan Mager, a spokesman for Nuclear Waste Partnership — the contractor that manages the facility — said it was unclear when construction would resume.
Subcontractor Harrison Western-Shaft Sinkers was awarded a $75 million contract to build the shaft in 2019. When complete, it will reach a depth of about 2,275 feet (693 meters) and will include two access drifts to connect the shaft with the rest of the WIPP underground.
The project saw intense criticism from environmental and government watchdog groups that argued it was part of a larger plan to expand the repository beyond its presently permitted mission, which allows for disposal of 6.2 million cubic feet of waste. Officials have said it would take congressional action to increase the volume of waste permitted at WIPP.
The DOE is seeking a separate permit change to allow the mining and use of two additional disposal rooms to replace space that was lost to due contamination in 2014.
Still, in public comments submitted to the state, opponents voiced concerns that the project could lead to further expansions of the facility.
"We object to NMED's refusal to explain the true purpose of the shaft in their required notification documents for the public," wrote Virginia Necochea, executive director at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. "In order to provide informed public comments, the public must be able to review DOE's entire plan."
The project was supported by members of the Carlsbad City Council, the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce and local business owners. They defended WIPP, a major employer in the community, and argued that the shaft was needed to improve worker safety.
WAC tabs Brian Thornton as its next commissioner -Associated Press
The Western Athletic Conference has named Brian Thornton as its next commissioner.
Thornton will replace Jeff Hurd, who is ending a 10-year run as commissioner and 37 years overall with the conference on Dec. 31.
"I would like to start by thanking Jeff Hurd for his incredible 30-plus years of dedicated service to the WAC," Grand Canyon University President Brian Mueller said in a statement on Thursday. "He has always been there through the good and the challenging times. Brian is the perfect person to take the rebuilt WAC forward. His knowledge of NCAA athletics and his strong strategic view of the future is very impressive, and we all look forward to building a very bright future together."
Thornton spent the past year as the American Athletic Conference associate commissioner for basketball, serving as the primary administrator for men's and women's basketball. He spent the previous two years as an assistant director for basketball development with the NCAA.
Thornton was the two-time Atlantic-10 student-athlete of the year while playing basketball at Xavier. He started his college career at Vanderbilt and played professionally in the German Basketball Bundesliga.
Navajo Nation reports 103 more COVID-19 cases and 5 deaths -Associated Press
The Navajo Nation on Thursday reported 103 more COVID-19 cases and five deaths.
It marked just the 13th time in the last 36 days that the tribe has recorded a coronavirus-related death.
The latest numbers pushed the tribe's totals to 37,154 confirmed COVID-19 cases from the virus since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
The known death toll is now at 1,493.
Based on cases from Oct. 15-28, the Navajo Department of Health issued an advisory for 58 communities due to uncontrolled spread of COVID-19.
"The vaccines for 5-to-11-year-old children will also soon be available once doses are distributed and ready to administer," tribal President Jonathan Nez said in a statement Thursday. "The individual choices we make each day ultimately determine the number of new infections. We don't want to lose any more of our Navajo people to this virus."
The tribe's reservation is the country's largest at 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) and covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Iconic Western starring Clint Eastwood dubbed in Navajo - By Felicia Fonseca Associated Press
Manuelito Wheeler isn't sure exactly why Navajo elders admire Western films.
It could be that many of them were treated to the films in boarding schools off the reservation decades ago. Or, like his father, they told stories of gathering around a television growing up to watch gunslingers in a battle against good and evil on familiar-looking landscapes.
Whatever the reason, Navajo elders have been asking Wheeler to dub a Western in the Navajo language ever since "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" was translated into Navajo and released in 2013.
The result? "Béeso Dah Yiníłjaa'" or "A Fistful of Dollars," an iconic Western starring Clint Eastwood who plays a stranger — known as "The Man With No Name" — entering a Mexican village among a power struggle between families. The 1964 flick is the first in a trilogy of spaghetti Westerns produced and directed by Italians.
Unlike many other Westerns produced in the U.S., it has no Native Americans in it. That appealed to Wheeler, the director of the Navajo Nation Museum.
"Usually in Westerns, there are inaccurate if not offensive depictions of Native people, so this one had no Natives, period," Wheeler said. "That just eliminated that aspect for me."
A premiere for the crew and all-Navajo cast of voice actors is scheduled Nov. 16 at the movie theater in Window Rock, Arizona — the first showing since the venue shut down in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Limited seats are available to members of the public who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and consent to a rapid test on site.
It will be screened for free later this month at other places on or near the Navajo Nation, which extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Other popular films dubbed in Indigenous languages include "Bambi" in Arapaho, "Frozen 2" in Sámi, and "Moana" in Maori. The cartoon series "The Berenstain Bears" was translated into the Dakota and Lakota languages.
At least 20 Indigenous languages are spoken in films that are being showcased by the National Museum of the American Indian in November during Native American Heritage Month, program manager Cindy Benitez said Thursday. Indigenous people increasingly are producing and directing their own stories, she said, including some entirely in Indigenous languages.
"We have films from all gamuts, from all places," she said. "It really gives me hope that these filmmakers are using that as a tool for language revitalization."
"A Fistful of Dollars" is the third major film dubbed in Navajo, an effort financed by the tribe to preserve the language. Elbert Jumbo voiced Bruce the shark and another fish in the Navajo version of "Finding Nemo," released in 2016.
Jumbo, who retired from the U.S. Army and lives in Many Farms, also voices Ramon in the Western film. The character calls the shots, terrorizes the town and believes he's untouchable. Jumbo said he nailed the over-the-top super villainous laugh that is characteristic of spaghetti Westerns.
Jumbo speaks, writes and reads Navajo, a result of growing up in a home where that was the only option.
"People feel a little more pride in knowing that we've come a long way with our language," said Jumbo, 47. "It's sad to say but some of it we're losing to the younger generation. But at the same time, I think movies like this inspire them to learn, even if it's just a little word here and there."
It was supposed to be released last year, but it was delayed because of the coronavirus.
The Navajo Nation Museum teamed up with the New York-based Kino Lorber film distribution company and the Indigenous-owned Native Stars Studios in Gallup, New Mexico, for the film.
"I can't wait for my uncle to see this, for my dad to see this," Wheeler said. "The other feeling is I wish that those who have gone would be here to see this."