UNM disenrolling 256 students for shirking vaccine mandate - Albuquerque Journal, Las Cruces Sun-News, Associated Press
The University of New Mexico is disenrolling 256 students from classes for not complying with the university's requirement for vaccination against COVID-19.
University spokeswoman Cinnamon Blair said the students being disenrolled took no action to comply with the requirement by Friday's deadline, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
"Students facing disenrollment have been receiving daily messages for over a month and, prior to that, biweekly messages," Blair said.
Under the requirement, students must show proof of vaccination or acquire an exemption for medical or religious reasons or only take remote-study classes off campus.
Exempted students on campus are required to submit weekly COVID-19 tests to the UNM vaccine verification site. For the fall semester only, students who have not been vaccinated or exempted are permitted to remain at UNM if they submit weekly COVID-19 tests results.
UNM's online vaccination site shows 92.2% of students on the Albuquerque campus have been vaccinated and that 91.8% of students throughout the university system are vaccinated.
Blair said disenrolled students do not have to return financial aid received during the fall term, but disenrollment may affect their chances to get aid in the future.
"That's because they will not receive credit in the fall semester, and certain forms of financial aid require that a student demonstrate good standing and regular progress toward a degree," she said.
Disenrolled students may return to UNM in the spring semester as long as they provide proof of vaccination or request and receive a qualified exemption.
In another development, the Las Cruces school district has seen a big spike in COVID-19 cases among students and staff after several weeks of steady increases, totaling over 900 cases since classes began on Aug. 9, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
The district had 194 new cases in the week ending Thursday, almost four times the weekly numbers through early October.
Albuquerque man's shooting death marks city's 101st homicide – Associated Press
A man officers found dead with a gunshot wound to the head Sunday night near Mountain Road and San Mateo Boulevard is the city's 101st homicide victim, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
Several hours earlier around 1 a.m. police responded to a shooting at an Albuquerque food market that left one man dead and another wounded. The second man is in stable condition, the newspaper reported.
These events come a week after a chaotic Halloween weekend of shootings at house parties in the city and Bernalillo County that left three dead.
Albuquerque is now at its its highest homicide total and rate in recorded history.
“We have devoted a lot of resources to the increase in homicides during the pandemic,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a statement Sunday. “At the same time, our detectives are committed to solving homicides from past years, whether they occurred last year or decades ago.”
As of October, the number of shootings in which people were injured had increased by nearly 16% when compared to the same period last year. Law enforcement has recorded more than 250 shooting incidents so far this year, including more than three dozen accidental shootings. Most of the victims have been men between the ages of 20 and 30.
Incumbent mayor Tim Keller signed an executive order last month creating a task force to focus on gun violence. He and other officials called it a public health crisis.
US ex-diplomat defends private mission to troubled Myanmar – Grant Peck, Associated Press
Richardson, also a former governor of New Mexico, is the most high-profile American to visit the Southeast Asian nation since its military seized power in February from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. He traveled there last week with three colleagues, his office said, to discuss delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, medical supplies and other public health needs.
The U.S. government, along with a number of other Western nations, shuns Myanmar's military-installed government and urges a return to democracy.
“I’m deeply invested in this country and they invited me,” Richardson said in an online interview Monday from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. “I have a letter from the foreign minister to talk about vaccines ... that’s what I was invited to do. And I care about the country and I think I can make a difference. It’s a small difference.”
Richardson has a long history of involvement with Myanmar, starting in 1994 when as a member of Congress he met Suu Kyi at her home in the city of Yangon, where she had been under house arrest since 1989 under a previous military government.
He last visited Myanmar in 2018 to advise on a crisis over the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh after Myanmar’s military in 2017 launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in the western state of Rakhine, where most lived.
Since this year’s military takeover, violence has swept through much of Myanmar. Widespread peaceful demonstrations against army rule were savagely suppressed by security forces, and armed resistance has grown to the point that U.N. experts have warned the country risks sliding into civil war.
The instability has also caused a humanitarian crisis with food supplies badly disrupted and a breakdown of the already feeble public health system in one of Asian’s poorest countries. When a new wave of the coronavirus hit during the summer, crematoriums in Yangon struggled with a backlog of bodies.
Opponents of the military-installed government who are conducting a militant civil disobedience campaign inside the country want the outside world to treat the generals as pariahs. Richardson, as a prominent U.S. political figure well known in Myanmar, ran into a storm of online criticism for engaging with the government.
“Well, I knew that the trip would face some criticism,” Richardson said. But he disputed the idea that he could confer any kind of legitimacy on Myanmar’s government.
Legitimacy, he said, “is conferred by the people and by governments. I’m neither. I’m one person, a citizen who cares deeply about Myanmar, who was invited to come in a situation where there’s horrendous violence, human hurting, humanitarian needs, vaccine needs. And I felt I could make a difference and I believe I have.”
He is realistic enough to realize that some might try to exploit his presence. But he is satisfied with what he says he has accomplished so far: the release from prison of a young woman who had worked for his Richardson Center for Global Engagement; increased access to humanitarian aid and vaccines for the people of Myanmar; and a resumption of Red Cross visits to the country’s prisons, which the government had banned because of the coronavirus.
Richardson said he avoided politics in his discussions, as he did in the interview.
“I didn’t want to get into politics. I think humanitarian assistance should precede any kind of movement that would just divide the people even more. This is a country in great need, a country I’ve been to many times. I’ve invested a lot of myself in this country, and 55 million people should not have to pay with bad vaccine distribution, humanitarian problems, for the political divisions.”
Richardson said he met for about 90 minutes with Myanmar’s leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.
“We only talked about humanitarian access. We only talked about vaccines. He listened, he responded. It seemed like he liked my ideas,” Richardson said.
These ideas, he said, included the revival of the Red Cross prison visits and shortening the amount of time needed for travel permissions from the government for U.N. agencies and NGOs to carry out humanitarian missions, as well as finding ways to distribute vaccines more quickly and equitably.
“So it was a constructive discussion,“ he said.
Richardson also met with other top government officials, foreign diplomats, including the U.S. ambassador, and representatives of U.N. agencies and other international organizations.
“I think there’s been a logjam on activity and progress on the humanitarian front, the access to vaccines, ... the humanitarian efforts,” he said. “So I think my visit may be a catalyst.”
Latest New Mexico K-12 curriculum controversy, only on Zoom - By Cedar Attanasio Associated Press / Report For America
New Mexico officials have been inundated with critical letters on proposed K-12 social studies standards over the inclusion of racial identity and social justice themes in a majority Latino state where Indigenous tribes have persevered through war, famine, internment camps and boarding schools aimed at stamping out their cultures.
If approved, the standards would require students starting in kindergarten to "identify some of their group identities" and "take group or individual action to help address local, regional, and/or global problems."
By high school, students would examine "factors which resulted in unequal power relations among identity groups."
Critics, including some Hispanics, say the standards promote victimhood, while supporters have praised the standards as "more just and anti-racist."
The proposed New Mexico standards represent a new frontier in the clash over "critical race theory" — an academic concept increasingly used by conservative activists as a catchall term for the study of systemic racism, historical oppression or progressive social activism.
Political organizing centered around the term has been credited for swaying some voters to select a Republican governor, with mixed results in other local elections across the country on Nov. 1.
New Mexico teachers already face a challenge explaining the region's history and its evolving social structures. The state is a patchwork of 23 federally recognized Native American nations, tribes and pueblos.
Half of the state is Latino and about 10% of New Mexico's students are Native American — with many tracing their heritage to pre-Columbian and 16th century Spanish conquistadors.
Tensions over that history erupted last year when a group of mostly white activists destroyed a historical marker memorializing Union soldiers who fought against Confederate and Indigenous armies. The stone obelisk sat on the reference point for land appropriated by Spanish settlers.
The New Mexico Public Education Department's proposed standards are aimed at making civics, history, and geography more inclusive of the state's diverse population so that students feel at home in the curriculum and are prepared for a minority-majority society. They add requirements for students to learn more details about Indigenous life, including more of the distinct Native cultures.
Some studies have found that ethnic studies programs at the high school level can increase school attendance and graduation rates. And a New Mexico lawsuit seeks to pressure the state education department to embrace teaching that students find relevant to their cultures and languages.
The education department also wants to update the history portion of the social studies curriculum, which hasn't been changed in three decades. Proposed learning sections include the Sept. 11 attacks and the LGBT rights movement.
But many educators are concerned about the size and scope of the proposed updates.
They have said that updated school science standards in 2017 were based on an existing curriculum used in other states for years. Teachers and administrators also say they have been swamped with work returning to school amid the pandemic.
"It feels like it's being rushed and I don't know why," said Kevin Summers, superintendent of the Aztec Municipal School District in northwestern New Mexico. "Can we back off? Can we just get six more months?"
State Republican officials have tried to tap into the national controversy over education. But a Republic effort last spring to recruit school board members on a critical race platform didn't take off.
State education officials originally planned a Nov. 12 in-person public forum for supporters and opponents to share their opinions about the proposed standards. But the venue was changed to Zoom.
That will deprive Republicans of a physical space to rally around. State GOP chairman Steve Pearce called canceling the in-person forum a "rash, political decision to kill the public comment period is as dangerous as the proposal itself."
The education department in response said that all the public comment on proposed rule changes has been virtual since the pandemic began and extended the length of the Zoom session by several hours.
"We are in a pandemic, so crowding in an indoor setting could be dangerous," said education department spokeswoman Judy Robinson.
The proposed changes represent the biggest curriculum controversy the education department has faced since its effort to update new science standards in 2017, during Republican Gov. Susana Martinez' administration.
What New Mexico children learn in school is often determined less by legislation and more by the administrative rulemaking process by education officials, which includes public comments, responses and possible incorporation of feedback.
It's one of the strongest powers the agency has, according to the education secretary who spearheaded the 2017 science standards.
Christopher Ruszkowski, education secretary under Martinez, said public education changes don't usually happen under legislation, but are put in place by the education department and "90% of policy making is done at the rule level."
Public comment led to major changes in the science standards the agency proposed, he said, which had watered down scientific facts to placate anti-science constituents after early feedback sessions.
The education department removed the real age of the Earth and human evolution, which contradict some interpretations of the Bible, and struck explicit references to climate change unpopular in southeastern New Mexico's oil-producing regions.
Ruszkowski said he authorized the changes to a draft proposal even though he did not support them personally.
That generated a backlash from scientists in letters, newspapers ads, and a packed hall for the public comment forum.
In the end, the agency implemented the original science standards in full.
During the process of developing the science standards before they were drafted, sessions were held with members of the public to gather input. But the education department did not do that this time, instead inviting 64 people — mostly teachers and administrators — to draft the standards in private over the summer.
The draft was released on Sept. 28 and the education department wants students to learn using the new curriculum next school year.
US lifts pandemic travel ban, opens doors to visitors - By John Leicester, Travis Loller, and Rob Gillies Associated Press
The U.S. lifted restrictions Monday on travel from a long list of countries including Mexico, Canada and most of Europe, allowing tourists to make long-delayed trips and family members to reconnect with loved ones after more than a year and a half apart because of the pandemic.
"I'm going to jump into his arms, kiss him, touch him," Gaye Camara said of the husband in New York she has not seen since before COVID-19 brought the fly-here-there-and-everywhere world to a halt.
"Just talking about it makes me emotional," Camara, 40, said as she wheeled her luggage through Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, which could almost be mistaken for its pre-pandemic self, busy with humming crowds, albeit in face masks.
The rules that go into effect Monday allow air travel from a series of countries from which it has been restricted since the early days of the pandemic — as long as the traveler has proof of vaccination and a negative COVID-19 test. Those crossing a land border from Mexico or Canada will require proof of vaccination but no test.
U.S. citizens and permanent residents were always allowed to enter the U.S., but the travel bans grounded tourists, thwarted business travelers and often separated families.
Airlines are now preparing for a surge in travel. Data from travel and analytics firm Cirium showed airlines are increasing flights between the United Kingdom and the U.S. by 21% this month over last month.
When Camara last saw Mamadou, her husband, in January 2020, they had no way of knowing that they'd have to wait 21 months before holding each other again. She lives in France's Alsace region, where she works as a secretary. He is based in New York.
"It was very hard at the beginning. I cried nearly every night," she said. "I got through it thanks to him. He knows how to talk to me, to calm me."
Video calls, text messages, phone conversations kept them connected — but couldn't fill the void of separation.
"I cannot wait," she said. "Being with him, his presence, his face, his smile."
For grandmother Maria Giribet, the apples of her eye are her grandchildren Gabriel and David. The twins are in San Francisco, which during the height of the pandemic might as well have been another planet for 74-year-old Giribet, who lives on the Mediterranean isle of Majorca. Now 3 1/2 going on 4, the boys were half that age when she last saw them.
"I'm going to hug them, suffocate them, that's what I dream of," Giribet said after checking in for her flight. A widow, she lost her husband to a lengthy illness before the pandemic and her three grown children all live abroad: a son in Paris, a daughter in Richmond, Virginia, and the twins' father in San Francisco.
"I found myself all alone," said Giribet, who was flying for the first time in her life by herself.
The change will also have a profound effect on the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, where traveling back and forth was a way of life until the pandemic hit and the U.S. shut down non-essential travel.
Malls, restaurants and Main Street shops in U.S. border towns have been devastated by the lack of visitors from Mexico. On the boundary with Canada, cross-border hockey rivalries that were community traditions were upended. Churches that had members on both sides of the border are hoping to welcome parishioners they haven't seen in nearly two years.
Loved ones have missed holidays, birthdays and funerals while nonessential air travel was barred, and they are now eager to reconnect.
River Robinson's American partner wasn't able to be in Canada for the birth of their baby boy 17 months ago. She was thrilled to hear about the U.S. reopening.
"I'm planning to take my baby down for the American Thanksgiving," said Robinson, who lives in St. Thomas, Ontario. "If all goes smoothly at the border I'll plan on taking him down as much as I can."
The U.S. will accept travelers who have been fully vaccinated with any of the shots approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, not just those in use in the U.S. That's a relief for many in Canada, where the AstraZeneca vaccine is widely used.
The moves come as the U.S. has seen its COVID-19 outlook improve dramatically in recent weeks since the summer delta surge that pushed hospitals to the brink in many locations.
Navajo Nation President Nez signs ban on indoor smoking -Associated Press
The leader of the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. signed legislation Saturday to ban indoor smoking in many locations, including the tribe's casinos.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez called the ban a "monumental achievement and bold step in the right direction to promote healthy living among our Navajo people.
"It is a fundamental right to protect our Navajo people's right to breathe clean air," he said in a statement.
Tribal lawmakers approved the bill in October that prohibits the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and other commercial products in public buildings and workspaces, including a 25-foot (7.6-meter) buffer outdoors.
The ban will not apply to the ceremonial use of tobacco or in people's homes unless they are being used as day care centers, adult care centers or as business offices.
Nez had until Sunday evening to act on the legislation.
Enactment of the ban followed 13 years of work by a coalition to educate the public on the dangers of secondhand smoke.
Advocates saw an opportunity to renew the push during the coronavirus pandemic while masks are required and questions remain about the long-term effects of the virus.
Comments submitted to the Navajo Nation Council on the measure overwhelmingly supported it. A few cited the potential of lost revenue for the tribal gambling enterprise that unsuccessfully sought to carve out an exemption from the ban.
Smoking had been prohibited at the tribe's four casinos — three in New Mexico and one east of Flagstaff — under COVID-19 safety measures, but it wasn't permanent until Nez signed the legislation Saturday.
The Tribal Council approved a ban on smoking and chewing tobacco in public places in 2008, but then-President Joe Shirley Jr. vetoed it, partially because he was concerned about gambling revenue. An override effort fell short of the votes it needed.
Shirley's successor, Ben Shelly, also vetoed legislation that would have banned smoking in public places but not at the tribe's casinos until their loans were paid off. He issued an order to ban smoking within executive branch offices he oversaw. The order didn't apply broadly across the 27,000 square-mile (70,000 square-kilometer) reservation that extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Las Cruces airport mulls aerospace growth - By Algernon D'ammassa Las Cruces Sun-News
With increasing activity in commercial space flight and new startups entering the industry, Las Cruces is eyeing opportunities to draw more aerospace investment to the area — including the role its municipal airport might play in the effort.
Las Cruces International Airport, originally built as a military air base during World War II and transferred to the city in 1955, is working on an updated master plan, a requirement of its certification with the Federal Aviation Administration and a guide for city planning as the facility looks to short- and long-term needs, including economic development opportunities.
As airport administrator Andy Hume puts it, the plan "makes sure that the pieces you need for growth are either in place or, if they're not, how we get them in place."
A new focus for the airport's master plan will be aerospace and what improvements might be made at the airport to make Las Cruces more attractive to the industry as commercial activity is anticipated to ramp up next year at Spaceport America 50 miles north of the city.
While the spaceport is best known for its anchor tenant, spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, other tenants and customers are also active at the remote facility outside Truth or Consequences, such as UP Aerospace, SpinLaunch, and HAPSMobile/Aerovironment.
Hume tells the Las Cruces Sun-News that the most recent master plan, adopted in 2018, did not assess the proximity of the spaceport or aerospace growth, even though Virgin Galactic is a "pretty steady presence" at the airport, flying engineers between Las Cruces and its manufacturing base of operations in Mojave, California.
A consultant to the master plan update said in an interview that Las Cruces is already "on the map" for U.S. aerospace and well positioned to attract more businesses involved in manufacturing and supply chains for the growing satellite and reusable rocket industries.
James Bennett, chief regulatory officer for aerospace technology company Immortal Data, said Las Cruces established itself in the minds of space entrepreneurs in 2006, when it hosted the X Prize Cup rocketry and lunar landing expo and competition. By then, early construction had already begun on the spaceport in Sierra County.
Immortal Data, which is developing a data system payload to be launched by UP Aerospace, has maintained an office at the Las Cruces airport since 2019, when it relocated from Mojave.
The company is now serving as a subcontractor for the master plan update being prepared by the engineering and consulting firm Dubois and King.
"We think there's an opportunity," Bennett said.
There is, however, some catching up to do for public capital investment. Private sector money moves much faster, and developments are accelerating.
Virgin Galactic flew its first two crewed flights to the edge of space over New Mexico this year, and rival Blue Origin has also flown passengers to space twice from its facility near Van Horn, Texas. SpaceX is flying human crews to the International Space Station for the space agency NASA and may test a new prototype for orbital flights as soon as November.
Interest in satellite and rocket technology are also high. Bennett remarked, "I think I see a new startup announced every week nowadays," adding that an estimated 120 companies worldwide are developing or building launch vehicles. While most of these startups can be expected to disappear, he said the industry is here to stay.
That means commercial space firms are actively seeking optimal locations to root themselves, and Bennett said Las Cruces has a valuable foothold.
"It's got the economics, because you have a low cost of operation," he said. "It's got a good university locally and three or four good universities with aerospace talent within a couple of hours' range. You have an incubator (at New Mexico State University) which is very commercial-space-savvy. These are all good ingredients."
The question for this master plan update, he said, is whether Las Cruces' airport could become the new Mojave airport, providing a similarly convenient access point for moving new technologies to rapid turnaround tests or commercial operations at the spaceport.
The airport is adjacent to an industrial park and completed crucial pavement upgrades a year ago. There are three runways that can accommodate arrivals and departures in six directions.
One of them, however, is in need of maintenance, and Hume said the city hopes to extend the length of the other two to 8,600 feet and 10,500 feet, respectively.
That would accommodate heavier aircraft, including commercial passenger jet launches from the airport.
Hume explained that at present, jets loaded with passengers can land at the airport, but can only take off empty under FAA regulations.
Both men said the planning update will present city officials with an assessment of potential investments conducive to the industry's needs, financial risks and strategic priorities for attracting private sector investment. Bennett said the planning document will present policymakers with a phased plan for immediate needs plus 5- and 10-year plans to position itself for regional aerospace activity.
"It's going to be looked at by some hard-minded people asking the hard questions and we want to make sure that we have a well-studied set of options," Bennett said.
Fatal hit-and-run involving a car, motorcycle in Albuquerque - Associated Press
Police in Albuquerque said they are investigating a fatal hit-and-run involving a car and a motorcycle.
Officers responded to the scene around 9 p.m. Saturday and police said the motorcyclist died at the scene.
The name, age and gender of the victim weren't immediately released.
Witnesses told police they saw a white four-door car flee the scene.
Investigators believe speed was a factor in the crash.
According to witnesses, the motorcycle was traveling at a high rate of speed when the sedan pulled out from a hotel and turned onto a street.
The brakes of the motorcycle reportedly locked up and the bike began to skid.
Witnesses said the motorcycle went down and the rider may have struck the car, which then left the scene.
Albuquerque police: 2 men shot at food market and 1 has died
Police in Albuquerque are investigating a homicide after two men were shot and one of them died.
They said the shooting occurred around 1 a.m. Sunday at a food market.
One man died at the scene and the other was transported to the hospital, according to police.
The condition of the survivor isn't immediately known.
Police said their investigation was ongoing.
Navajo Nation reports 60 more COVID-19 cases, no deaths – Associated Press
The latest numbers released Sunday pushed the tribe’s totals to 37,411 confirmed COVID-19 cases from the virus since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
The known death toll remains at 1,498.
The tribe reported no COVID-related deaths 23 times in a 35-day span before reporting five deaths on Thursday and one death on Friday along with 88 new cases.
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.
Tribal officials still are urging people to get vaccinated, wear masks while in public and minimize their travel.
All Navajo Nation executive branch employees had to be fully vaccinated against the virus by the end of September or submit to regular testing.
The tribe’s reservation is the country’s largest at 27,000 square miles and covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.