Dry Southwest braces for stiffer winds, 'epic' fire danger - By Susan Montoya Bryan And Scott Sonner Associated Press
Thousands of firefighters continued to slow the advance of destructive wildfires in the Southwestern U.S. but warned they were bracing for the return Friday of the same dangerous conditions that quickly spread the wind-fueled blazes a week ago.
At least 166 homes have been destroyed in one rural county in northeast New Mexico since the biggest fire currently burning in the U.S. started racing through small towns east and northeast of Santa Fe on April 22, the local sheriff said.
Winds gusting up to 50 mph were forecast Friday in the drought-stricken region. One expert said it's a recipe for disaster on the wildlands where some timber has a fuel moisture drier than kiln-dried wood.
"It's a very, very dangerous fire day tomorrow," fire behavior specialist Stewart Turner said at a briefing Thursday night on the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
"Like we saw last Friday, epic fire behavior," Turner said. "It's a day that as a firefighter, we'll write about, we'll read studies about. It's going to be a big fire day."
A swath of the country stretching from Arizona to the Texas panhandle is expected to be hit the hardest by the return of the bad firefighting weather that has generated unusually hot and fast-moving fires for this time of year, forecasters warned.
Red flag warnings were in place Thursday for all of New Mexico and parts of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
More than 3,000 firefighters were battling fires in Arizona and New Mexico on Thursday — about half of those in northeast New Mexico, where more than 187 square miles of mostly timber and brush has been charred.
They focused Thursday on preventing it from moving into the rural New Mexico community of Ledoux. That meant bolstering fire lines and sending in crews tasked with protecting structures.
"Great progress again today," incident commander Carl Schwope said Thursday night. But "tomorrow has the potential to be a very destructive day."
"It will be chaotic if anything close to what happened (last) Friday occurs," added operations chief Jayson Coil.
Sheriff Chris Lopez, of New Mexico's Miguel County, confirmed for the first time Thursday night the fire there has destroyed at least 166 residences, 108 outbuildings and three commercial buildings. He joined authorities in neighboring Mora County in pleading with residents to pay close attention Friday to sudden changes in closures and evacuation orders.
"Falling trees, possibly falling power lines, that's the kind of winds we're looking at," Lopez said.
Turner, the fire behavior specialist, said the gusty winds are only part of the problem. He said moisture levels in downed logs and woody debris are "extremely dry"— just 2% in small twigs, pine needles and grasses that "actually carry a forest fire across the landscape."
Moisture in a small log "the size of a 4-by-4 post you buy at the lumber store ... are coming down to 8%," he said. "Kiln-dry is 12%. So out there, that's drying to what a kiln would do."
In northern Arizona, authorities downgraded some evacuation orders at a fire that has destroyed at least 20 homes near Flagstaff. It's now estimated to be 43% contained. Another fire 10 miles south of Prescott was 23% contained, but officials at both blazes warned of worsening conditions expected Friday.
Elsewhere, one national incident team continued to oversee a large prairie fire in Nebraska, where more than 200 firefighters were battling a blaze that has been burning since last week.
About 68 square miles of mostly grasses and farmland have been blackened near Nebraska's state line with Kansas, several homes were destroyed and at least one person was killed. That fire was 88% contained Thursday.
Leaders in tribal education center language preservation - Margaret Wright, Source New Mexico
Except for towers of smoke from the Cerro Pelado wildfire billowing over the horizon, Wednesday was a perfectly clear, mild spring morning in the mountain valley where New Mexico lawmakers visiting Jemez Pueblo were greeted by several of the tribe’s educational leaders.
Surveying the distant smoke from an overlook, Democratic state Sen. Benny Shendo, Jr., himself a member of Jemez Pueblo, told colleagues and their staff that the village they were visiting was not actually the traditional center of the tribe.
It was 1541 when the first Spanish conquistadors traversed the mesas near today’s village, he said. The Europeans estimated that there were up to 15,000 people living in settlements throughout the Jemez mountains. Today the tribe counts about 3,400 official members, Shendo added, with the vast majority — about 90% — of their ancestral lands now designated U.S. federal properties with restricted access.
Other ancestral lands now under supervision by the U.S. National Park Service are especially difficult for tribal members to reach, he said. “That infringes on our religious freedom.”
Overcoming the stumbling blocks tribes encounter as they work to educate their young people in ways that meaningfully counteract such historical infringements on their ancestral liberties, knowledge and lifeways was at the forefront of the state’s Legislative Education Study Committee visit to Jemez Pueblo.
Jeremy Oyenque, director of Youth and Learning for Santa Clara Pueblo said at one point during the daylong visit: “How do New Mexico’s Native American tribes define sovereignty over the education of their children when they depend on funding from outside governments to educate their children? Sovereignty means everything to tribes. But how solid is it?”
While plumes from the Cerro Pelado fire were still visible from doorsteps of portable buildings where Jemez early childhood and Head Start classes are held, the rooms themselves felt like peaceful sanctuaries. Six students had just circled up on a colorful carpet for the morning’s next activity in their Native language-immersion preschool.
Jemez Pueblo is approaching its 10th year since implementation of its fully language-immersive curriculum, a model backed by collaborative support from a successful Native language-immersion initiative out of Hawaii.
Classroom visitors are asked to refrain from speaking English to the children but encouraged to address them in any other tongue they’re conversant in. All child care providers in Jemez speak Towa in their instruction, beginning each day in the classroom with a traditional prayer.
Artwork and handmade posters on the classroom walls feature illustrated elements of life in the pueblo, from photographs of local landmarks, to imagery representing the familial clans within their tribe. The Jemez people are matrilineal, with each newborn baby continuing the clan line of their mother, and clan affiliation determining a person’s spiritual and religious role within the tribe.
“My mother is from the old school,” said one teacher. “She packed corn with her when we were going to the hospital for her to give birth. The minute the baby is born, the corn bestows their tribal name.”
In another classroom for babies and toddlers, teachers sat in a circle with little ones singing the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in Towa. And next door in a Head Start room, preschoolers were practicing basic arithmetic, speaking Towa as they counted out loud to 10 and then 20.
Sen. William Soules, chairman of the committee who’s a former educator and school principal, said “this should be a national program” admiringly as he exited one classroom.
Helen Tafoya is a creative team member for the tribe’s Hemish Language Immersion School for upper grades of elementary school students, as well as the Head Start program, working with teachers to create traditional, culturally based curriculum and lessons. As she drove a group of lawmakers in her minivan along the dirt roads threading across the village, Tafoya said she fervently wishes all the tribe’s educational programs were Towa language-immersive. “If we lose our language, that’s it.”
There’s a gap within the tribe when it comes to knowledge and acquisition of the Jemez language, she added, with some generations having experienced profound loss of their Native language and thus culture. There’s also more intermarriage between Jemez Pueblo members and people from outside groups than there was traditionally. “We’re teaching them as much as we can, but we have a lot of young parents who don’t speak the language at home,” Tafoya said.
So the tribe is also looking to expand home-based lesson plans. That way families can practice Towa together and incorporate more experiential learning outside the classroom.
Because Towa has no written form, students go on field trips and work with photographs snapped during guided tours of tribal lands. Those same photos help them tell stories about their homelands and use localized geographical names. Jemez teachers guide students on visits to ceremonial sites, and help them learn to introduce themselves in Towa using their Native name, clan name, and their specific ties to the land.
Later in the day, legislators convened back in the Jemez community center to hear from tribal educators from across the state as they provided overviews of the language immersion and related educational initiatives in progress in their communities.
After more than one lawmaker mentioned the word “data,” Lana Garcia, manager of the Jemez Walatowa Head Start Immersion Program, interjected that student success is not always well measured by conventional standards like test scores and graduation rates.
She told the story of a recent feast day celebration at the pueblo, during which she’d found herself awestruck by the importance of the tribe’s young people knowing their inherent value and where they come from. There was a circle of grown men praying in Towa and drumming in ceremony. At one moment, they dropped the volume of their voices. Little boys gathered nearby, who’d been learning Towa in their Head Start classes, responded by confidently raising their voices to meet their elders’.
“When I saw that, I said to myself, ‘That! That is success right there,’” Garcia said. “Success means strong, positive, healthy individuals connected to their communities.”
New Mexico legislator to pay $250 fine in ethics settlement — Associated Press
A New Mexico state representative has agreed to pay a $250 fine under a settlement with the State Ethics Commission stemming from her drunken driving arrest in February.
The commission said Albuquerque Democrat Georgene Louis violated the state Governmental Conduct Act by seeking favorable treatment from Santa Fe police during her Feb. 13 arrest Fe by mentioning that she is a legislator.
Under the settlement, the commission agreed not to seek a civil enforcement action against Louis, accusing her of violating the act.
Louis, who has apologized for her "lapse in judgment" and announced she won't run for reelection this year, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of aggravated DWI,.
Police videos from her traffic stop show her telling an officer that she had been at a Super Bowl party at a friend's house.
"I haven't had much sleep," Louis said in the video. "I'm a legislator, we haven't had much sleep."
Inside the Trevor Reed deal: From Oval Office to Moscow trip — Eric Tucker, Associated Press
The worst possible moment for bringing Trevor Reed home turned out to be the best.
With U.S.-Russian relations at their lowest point in decades, it seemed an improbable time to hope for the release of Reed, a former Marine detained in Russia for almost three years. Yet this week the Biden administration completed the type of transaction it had earlier seemed resistant to, exchanging Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and convicted drug trafficker serving a 20-year prison sentence in Connecticut.
A series of events and considerations in the last two months helped facilitate the swap, including escalating concerns over Reed's health, a private Oval Office meeting between his parents and President Joe Biden and a secretive Moscow trip by a former diplomat on the cusp of Russia's war with Ukraine.
"All those three forced the White House to make a decision that they hadn't made before," said Mickey Bergman, vice president at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement.
How the war — and the breakdown in U.S.-Russian relations — affected the deal isn't clear. U.S. officials stressed that the negotiations for Reed's release were narrow in scope, focused squarely on the prisoners and not on Russia's war and not reflective of any broader diplomatic engagement. But while the timing of the deal was startling, it's also clear that the groundwork for it had been laid before the conflict had begun.
"I did it," Biden told reporters Wednesday about the deal. "I raised it. I raised it three months ago."
Just as the war was about to commence, Bergman and his colleague, Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and ex-New Mexico governor, flew to Moscow on the plane of FedEx chief executive Fred Smith for a meeting with Russian government officials. It was a continuation of negotiations they'd been having for the release of Reed and another jailed American, corporate security executive Paul Whelan.
They left with the contours in place for the one-for-one swap that ultimately took place.
In Texas, Joey and Paula Reed were worrying that Russia's war with Ukraine, and resulting tensions with the U.S., could close off communication channels and prevent any common ground for negotiations. During meetings with administration officials in the last year — including with the Justice Department, which prosecuted Yaroshenko — the couple expressed support for a swap but say they weren't led to think that was a viable option.
"They didn't say: 'Oh, we agree with you, that's a great deal. That's a good point,'" Paula Reed said in a February interview with The Associated Press. "They didn't say anything like that. They just said: 'We hear you. Thank you very much.'"
But weeks into the war, the couple did something that got the White House's attention.
As Biden traveled to Texas to support veterans, the Reeds stood along the motorcade route in hopes of getting meaningful face-time with the president. That didn't happen, though he did speak by phone with the couple. Later that month, they arrived in Washington and stood with signs near the White House, hoping again to meet with the president.
This time, they were invited into the Oval Office for a sit-down with Biden and other administration officials. The White House issued a statement that night reiterating its commitment to getting Reed and Whelan home, an issue that senior officials had raised in private meetings with Russian leaders.
The meeting was a rare bit of presidential access for the family of an American detainee, especially since Biden himself has been less public than his predecessor, Donald Trump, about efforts to get Americans home. Behind the scenes, though, Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were raising the cases with the Russians, and Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, was working on the issue too.
Hovering in the background was Reed's health. In March, Reed told his parents he'd been coughing up blood several times a day, had pain in his lung and a broken rib. Last year, he contracted COVID-19. Even on Wednesday, his parents were taken aback by how thin their son looked during video footage of the transfer. They said they expected that he'd need medical care before resuming his daily life in Texas.
Paula Reed told ABC's "Good Morning America" that Trevor was getting testing done, and his sister, Taylor, said that his "spirits are bright."
"He's telling stories," she said. "He's flirting with the nurse staff. It's great. It's great to see."
His health issues also alarmed U.S. officials.
"That, I think, contributed to really ratcheting up the conversations on this issue, getting to a point where we were able to make this arrangement, getting to a point where we were able to turn to some of the logistics of simply getting it done," a senior administration official told reporters in a background briefing this week.
Separately, a lawyer for Yaroshenko has said his client also suffered from multiple health problems and had earlier tried unsuccessfully to have him freed early from prison on compassionate release grounds because of the pandemic.
Left out of any deal were Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges that his family says are fabricated, and Brittney Griner, a WNBA star detained in February after Russian authorities said a search of her bag revealed a cannabis derivative.
The Whelan family said in a statement that it was happy about Reed's release but troubled that their loved one wasn't part of it.
"Paul has already spent 3 and a quarter years as a Russian hostage," the statement said. "Is President Biden's failure to bring Paul home an admission that some cases are too hard to solve? Is the Administration's piecemeal approach picking low-hanging fruit?"
Richardson, who has helped facilitate multiple releases of American detainees and hostages in recent years, said the Biden team deserves recognition for authorizing this particular swap at a time when U.S.-Russia relations were so low.
"It doesn't matter who gets credit," Richardson said, "as long as hostages like Trevor Reed are home."
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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.etuckerAP
Big US energy transmission projects inch closer to approval - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
The federal government has finished another environmental review of a proposed transmission line that will carry wind-generated electricity from rural New Mexico to big cities in the West and similar reviews are planned for two more projects that would span parts of Utah and Nevada, the U.S. Interior Department announced Thursday.
The regulatory steps came a day after the Biden administration announced a $2.5 billion initiative to make the nation's power grid more effective at withstanding catastrophic disasters caused by climate change. It's also part of the administration's goal to create a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.
The SunZia transmission project in New Mexico has been more than a decade in the making. After an initial review over several years, the Bureau of Land Management authorized a right-of-way grant on federal lands.
That had to be revisited when developers in 2021 submitted a new application modifying the route after the U.S. Defense Department and others raised concerns about the path of the high-voltage lines.
A final decision on the right of way application is expected this summer, following a public comment period.
The Biden administration is just the latest to promise speeding up development and modernization of the nation's energy infrastructure through expedited federal permitting and regulatory reforms. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump also vowed to roll back bureaucracy.
While the other two transmission projects are in the early stages of the regulatory process, the experience in New Mexico illustrates the complicated nature of getting electricity from remote areas to population centers.
The siting of hundreds of miles of transmission lines, power poles and electric substations often involve a checkerboard of private, state and federal land that sometimes include environmentally sensitive areas.
Federal officials said Thursday that the projects have the potential to move 10,000 megawatts of electricity generated by wind and solar resources.
"Transmission projects like those advanced today offer a promising path for diversifying our national energy portfolio and connecting more renewable energy, while at the same time combating climate change and investing in communities," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
Aside from new transmission lines, maintenance and repair costs for existing electricity infrastructure have ballooned to more than $40 billion annually as many utilities struggle to upgrade decades-old equipment. Customers usually bear the costs.
Ice storms, hurricanes, wildfires and other extreme weather have knocked out large parts of U.S. electrical networks with increasing frequency in recent years, according to an Associated Press analysis that found power outages from severe weather doubled over the past two decade.
New Mexico's renewable energy authority is among those invested in the SunZia project, which would include about 520 miles of transmission lines and a network of substations for getting wind and solar power to Arizona and California. The anchor tenant is Pattern Energy, which has been busy building massive wind farms in central New Mexico.
The proposed Greenlink West Transmission Project in Nevada would run through seven counties from Las Vegas to Reno.
NV Energy has said its investment of more than $2.5 billion in the project is expected to generate $690 million in economic activity and generate thousands of construction jobs.
And the proposed Cross-Tie Transmission Project would be made up of 214 miles of high-voltage lines between central Utah and east-central Nevada within federally designated utility corridors or parallel to existing transmission facilities.
Developers have said the project would relieve congestion on other key regional transmission lines and increase the ability for California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming to import and export renewable energy.
New Mexico resolves 1987 lawsuit by developmentally disabled - Associated Press
A legal battle aimed at providing adequate services to people with developmental disabilities in New Mexico has come to a close after more than three decades.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday that a final U.S. District Court order recognizes the state's establishment of a community-based system that protects the health and safety of intellectually and developmentally disabled New Mexico residents.
The case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed in 1987 that alleged civil rights violations on behalf of developmentally disabled residents at two state-supported institutions. Those facilities closed years ago, but the state's obligations continued under a series of stipulations and decrees.
The state estimates it has spent more than $80 million on the litigation — known as the Jackson v. New Mexico case.
In a court order this week, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar said the original violations have been remedied with lasting improvements.
"This case matters to many New Mexican families, some of whom would prefer to see federal oversight continue, with others accepting that the state will now chart its own course," Robbenhaar said. "The court concludes that the violations that existed at the commencement of this suit have been rectified, that the parties have crafted a durable remedy, and that the defendants have demonstrated a clear intent to safeguard in the long-term the constitutional and statutory rights ... of the developmentally disabled."
Jason Cornwell, director of the state division for developmental disabilities and supports, said the court order "makes clear that the system of care in New Mexico is sound, sustainable, and durable."
He also emphasized that state's mission is to ensure that individuals with disabilities can "live the lives that they prefer in the communities of their choice."
Democrats weigh additional tax cuts amid financial windfall - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
The Legislature's lead budget negotiator wants New Mexico lawmakers to consider greatly reducing tax rates on person income — or eliminating the tax.
Democratic state Rep. Patricia Lundstrom of Gallup made the proposal in a newsletter this week distributed by the Legislature's budget and accountability office. The House is up for election in November before its next regulator legislative session in 2023.
Lundstrom serves as chairwoman of the Legislature's lead budget writing committee and notes that state government receives nearly $2 billion annually in taxes on personal income — equal to almost one-quarter of annual general fund spending obligations.
"The idea of reducing or eliminating personal income taxes is not without its challenges," Lundstrom said. "The state can't eliminate the tax without making up at least some of the revenue somewhere else."
Personal income taxes are a fast growing source of revenue for the state, propelled by a newly increased top rate of 5.9% on higher incomes. Rates start at 1.7% for low-income residents.
The proposal was met with concern among Democrats that New Mexico's overall tax burden might shift toward lower-income residents, amid increased reliance on income from the oil and natural gas industry.
Lawmakers this year increased spending, cut taxes and approved payments of up to $1,500 per household to offset rising consumer prices, amid a financial windfall in federal pandemic aid and income linked to record setting oil production.
"We do have record incomes coming through but that also means those are still coming from oil and gas," state Rep. Andrea Romero of Santa Fe said Thursday. "We're in a boom cycle right now. But what follows the boom? It's inevitable. ... We have to be really smart."
The tax relief includes a slight reduction in gross receipts taxes on sales and business transactions and the elimination of taxes on social security income for retirees earning less than $100,000, or households earning under $150,000. General fund spending increases by $1 billion, or 14%, for the fiscal year starting July 1.
Lundstrom lists several states in the southeastern U.S. that have recently proposed or enacted reductions in personal income tax rates. She said said New Mexico has "hefty" financial reserves to ensure stability in state spending.
New Mexico increases child care funding, still highest in US - By Cedar Attanasio Associated Press / Report For America
New Mexico is increasing child care subsidies that are already the most generous and broadly available in the U.S.
Low and middle-income New Mexico families have had access to the most generous child care subsidies in the country since last June, but they still paid as much as $900 per month for one child. Starting next week, the copay will be waived and child care will be basically free for all families up to nearly twice the median income in the state.
They're the latest copay waivers approved by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who made the announcement Thursday at a child care center in Albuquerque. She also announced grants to child care centers and additional subsidies to child care workers pursuing professional training.
"The announcements today support a universal early childhood education and care system that increases access, maximizes parent choice, and supports early childhood professionals," Lujan Grisham said.
The copay waivers will run through July of next year, but the administration is hoping to extend it through other funding sources, said Early Childhood Development spokesman Micah McCoy. The administration has stopped and started copayments periodically during the pandemic due to inconsistent funding.
Starting May 1 and running through June 2023, the state will waive child care copays for households at 400% of the poverty line, about $111,000 for a family of four.
This round of waivers is estimated to cost $40 million and is funded by one-time federal pandemic relief. Families will save between $400 and $900 per month based on their income level. Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said in a statement that it will expand eligibility for over 30,000 families.
Lujan Grisham unveiled the most generous and broadly available child care plan last July, which provides at least some subsidies to families at 350% of the poverty line, or about $93,000 for a family of four. Until now, families at the higher end of that income bracket, above 200% of the poverty line, were eligible for some subsidies but not copay waivers.
Other states like New York have raised subsidy eligibility levels by tapping into federal funding, but not as broadly as New Mexico.
16 states that want to electrify USPS fleet file lawsuits - By David Sharp Associated Press
New Mexico and 15 states that want the U.S. Postal Service to electrify its mail delivery vehicles are suing to halt purchases of thousands of gas-powered trucks as the agency modernizes its delivery fleet.
Three separate lawsuits, filed Thursday by the states and environmental groups in New York and California, ask judges to order a more thorough environmental review before the Postal Service moves forward with the next-generation delivery vehicle program.
Plaintiffs contend that purchases of fossil fuel-powered delivery vehicles will cause environmental harm for decades to come. The lawsuits could further delay the Postal Service's efforts to replace the ubiquitous delivery trucks that went into service between 1987 and 1994.
"Louis DeJoy's gas-guzzling fleet guarantees decades of pollution with every postcard and package," said Scott Hochberg, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, referring to the postmaster general.
Attorneys general from 16 states — 14 of which have Democratic governors — sued in San Francisco. A separate lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, CleanAirNow KC and Sierra Club was filed in the same venue. Another was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and United Auto Workers in New York.
All three of them target the environmental review underpinning the Postal Service's planned purchase of up to 165,000 next-generation delivery vehicles over the next decade.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said it's key to stop the process before it's too late.
"Once this purchase goes through, we'll be stuck with more than 100,000 new gas-guzzling vehicles on neighborhood streets, serving homes across our state and across the country, for the next 30 years. There won't be a reset button," he said.
The Postal Service defended the process it followed under DeJoy, a wealthy former logistics executive and Republican donor who was appointed by a board of governors controlled by then-President Donald Trump.
"The Postal Service conducted a robust and thorough review and fully complied with all of our obligations under (the National Environmental Policy Act)," spokesperson Kim Frum said Thursday in an email.
The Postal Service contract calls for 10% of the new vehicles to be electric but the Postal Service contends more electric vehicles can be purchased based on financial outlook and strategic considerations.
The percentage of battery-electric vehicles was doubled — to 20% — in the initial $2.98 billion order for 50,000 vehicles.
Environmental advocates contend the Postal Service's environmental review was inadequate and flawed, and that the contract represented a missed opportunity to electrify the fleet and reduce emissions.
The review process "was so rickety and riddled with error that it failed to meet the basic standards of the National Environmental Policy Act," said Adrian Martinez, senior attorney on Earthjustice's Right to Zero campaign.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the Postal Service used "fatally flawed decision-making" that led to an outcome that was "fiscally and environmentally irresponsible." New York is among the plaintiffs.
If the parties can't agree on a settlement, the lawsuit could drag on for months, possibly into next year, if there are appeals, said University of Richmond School of Law professor Carl Tobias.
The new gasoline-powered vehicles would get 14.7 miles per gallon without air conditioning, compared to 8.4 mpg for the older vehicles, the Postal Service said.
All told, the Postal Service's fleet includes 190,000 local delivery vehicles. More than 141,000 of those are the old models that lack safety features like air bags, anti-lock brakes and backup cameras.
The new vehicles are taller to make it easier for postal carriers to grab packages and parcels that make up a greater share of volume. They also have improved ergonomics and climate control.
The states that sued are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District in California, District of Columbia and city of New York joined that lawsuit, as well.
Agency: Man fatally shot by officer was homicide suspect - Associated Press
A man fatally shot by a New Mexico State Police officer during an April 16 encounter along Interstate 40 was a North Carolina resident sought in a homicide in that state, the police agency said Thursday.
The shooting occurred near Prewitt during a struggle after the officer was dispatched to check on the welfare of a man seen slumped over a car's steering wheel, the agency said in a statement.
When contacted by the officer, Oliver Ashley Toledo Saldivar, 26 got out of the car and charged and tackled the officer, who then shot Saldivar, the statement said.
Saldivar was able to retrieve a gun from his jacket before the officer grabbed the gun and threw it away, the statement said.
A passing truck driver stopped and helped the officer subdue Saldivar, who died at the scene, the statement said.
When the incident occurred, the officer wasn't aware that Saldivar was a suspect in an April 12 homicide in Durham, the statement said.