Challenges await new education secretary in New Mexico – Associated Press
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tapped a Hispanic school superintendent from southern New Mexico on Tuesday to oversee the state's K-12 education system as secretary of the Public Education Department.
Arsenio Romero, a native of Belen and veteran superintendent of school districts stretching from the Mexico border to Los Lunas near Albuquerque, takes up the position March 6.
The Public Education Department is grappling with surging absenteeism among students and below-average high school graduation rates. Student proficiency is lagging in subjects from math and science to reading and writing, even as the state has ramped up K-12 spending in recent years including for teacher salaries and programs aimed at expanding classroom instructional time.
According to the results of student assessments announced in September 2022, only 25% of those tested were proficient or better in math, and about a third were proficient or better in science and reading and writing.
In a statement, Lujan Grisham highlighted Romero's "vision and experience" as a former teacher and principal. Romero will become the fourth education secretary since Lujan Grisham took office in January 2019.
He previously served as superintendent of Los Lunas Schools as well as Deming Public Schools, where some students cross the border from Mexico each day to attend classes.
Romero also oversaw school curricula as an assistant superintendent in the Roswell Independent School District, located in a conservative, oil-producing region.
New Mexico has begun investing heavily in early childhood education in hopes of making lasting academic gains, partly through an expansion of pre-K at public schools overseen by the Public Education Department, as well as with private providers.
Voters last year approved increased withdrawals from another multibillion-dollar trust to bolster K-12 spending and additional programs overseen by a recently formed agency, the Early Childhood Education and Care Department.
At the same time, lawmakers are responding to litigation from school districts and parents that highlights deficiencies in public educational opportunities for vulnerable children from minority communities, non-English-speaking households, impoverished families and students with disabilities.
Democratic governors form alliance on abortion rights - By Bill Barrow And Geoff Mulvihill Associated Press
Democratic governors in 20 states are launching a network intended to strengthen abortion access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision nixing a woman's constitutional right to end a pregnancy and instead shifting regulatory powers over the procedure to state governments.
Organizers, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, described the Reproductive Freedom Alliance as a way for governors and their staffs to share best practices and affirm abortion rights for the approximately 170 million Americans who live in the consortium's footprint — and even ensuring services for the remainder of U.S. residents who live in states with more restrictive laws.
"We can all coalesce," New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in an interview ahead of a Tuesday announcement. She added that the court's Dobbs decision that ended a national right to abortion "horrified" and put pressure on governors to act. "This is leveraging our strengths ... to have more of a national voice."
That includes, organizers said, sharing model statutory language and executive orders protecting abortion access, ways to protect abortion providers from prosecution, strategies to maximize federal financing for reproductive health care such as birth control, and support for manufacturers of abortion medication and contraceptives that face potential new restrictions from conservatives.
Lujan Grisham noted the launch comes as a federal court in Texas considers a challenge to the nationwide availability of medication abortion, which now accounts for the majority of abortions in the U.S.
In a statement, Newsom called the effort, which he and his aides spent months organizing, "a moral obligation" and a "firewall" to protect "fundamental rights."
The group includes executives of heavily Democratic states like California, where voters overwhelmingly approve of abortion rights, but also involves every presidential battleground state led by a Democrat, including Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tony Evers of Wisconsin.
The alliance has secured its initial funding from the California Wellness Foundation and the Rosenberg Foundation, not-for-profits that often steer money to public health efforts focused on disadvantaged communities.
While the organization is billed as national and nonpartisan, the makeup underscores that abortion access since Dobbs has settled essentially into two Americas that broadly track the platforms of the nation's two major parties. That means greater access in states controlled by Democrats, tighter restrictions or practically outright bans in those controlled by Republicans.
For example, 22 Democratic-run states have weighed in on the Texas challenge to medical abortions that was filed by many of the same litigant states that worked together to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. A similar contingent of Republican-led states has filed briefs in the Texas case urging a judge to reverse a decades-old approval by the Food and Drug Administration of medical abortions.
Still, Newsom aides said the group would welcome Republicans, though they declined to name any GOP executives that Newsom or other Democratic governors might be recruiting to the consortium. Indeed, a handful of Republican governors support abortion rights broadly.
Lujan Grisham mentioned New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who has sent mixed messages on the issue. Sununu signed a state budget in 2021 that included a ban on abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy but also said after the Dobbs decision that abortion would remain legal in his state. He endorsed candidates in the November elections who favored further restrictions but also supports adding exemptions to the current law for victims of rape and incest.
Lujan Grisham acknowledged that the alliance cannot make national policy or even impose policy across state lines. But she said there's practical value in having executives and their staffs have a formal framework to communicate.
She noted that New Mexico lawmakers now are considering how to affirm abortion access with a statute, even though she and others believe the state's constitution already establishes the right.
"The problem is everyone keeps challenging those constitutional interpretations," she said. "We're going to codify equality on abortion rights, reproductive rights and care in as narrow as possible way." New Mexico's process, she said, could become a model for other similarly situated states.
Governors' offices in the alliance also have started working with advocacy groups that back abortion access.
Jeanné Lewis, the interim CEO of Faith in Public Life, a progressive multistate faith-based organization, said having states work together to ensure abortion access is essential as states and federal lawmakers continue to consider bans and deeper restrictions.
"It is important for governors to be in conversations now about shared solutions across state lines," she said.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Foundation of America, said states should be working together to protect abortion access, especially given the pending Texas case.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press reporter Holly Ramer contributed from Concord, New Hampshire.
Storm to bring high winds to Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada - Associated Press
A winter storm making its way through the western U.S. is expected bring high winds to parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada with some snow and rain.
The National Weather Service said Tuesday that gusts could reach as much as 55 mph in the Phoenix metro area Wednesday to 70 mph Prescott and the Flagstaff area.
Meteorologists are forecasting up to a foot of snow to fall by Thursday morning in northern Arizona elevations above 5,000 feet.
"Damaging winds and treacherous to impossible driving conditions are expected due to blowing dust and snow," according to the weather service in Flagstaff, where some schools announced closures ahead of the storm.
A storm system was expected to bring high winds, rain and possible snow across New Mexico on Wednesday, including in the Albuquerque area.
The National Weather Service's Albuquerque office issued a high wind warning that will affect most of New Mexico through Thursday morning with several areas seeing some snowfall and wind gusts of up to 70 mph.
A high wind warning was in effect with gusts up to 70 mph expected in some areas of Nevada with Clark County authorities issuing a dust advisory.
5-year firearms enhancement dropped in Baldwin shooting case — Anita Snow, Associated Press
The prosecution in the case of a fatal New Mexico film-set shooting made a stark turnaround Monday, dropping the possibility of a mandatory five-year sentence against Alec Baldwin, new court filings show.
The actor-producer's attorneys had earlier objected to the enhancement, saying it was unconstitutional because it was added after the October 2021 shooting. Legal experts had said Baldwin had a strong chance of seeing it tossed out.
"The prosecutors committed a basic legal error by charging Mr. Baldwin under a version of the firearm-enhancement statue that did not exist on the date of the accident," Baldwin's attorneys said in an earlier court filing.
Baldwin's attorney declined to comment Monday after the reversal by prosecutors, who earlier criticized his efforts to have the sentencing requirement dropped. The related standard for the possibility of a mandatory five years would be reckless disregard of safety "without due caution and circumspection" and carried a higher threshold of wrongdoing.
The remaining alternative standard and set of penalties in the case now requires proof of negligence, which is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine under New Mexico law.
Heather Brewer, spokesperson for the New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney's Office, said in an email earlier this month that the prosecution's focus "will remain on ensuring that justice is served and that everyone — even celebrities with fancy attorneys — is held accountable under the law."
Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the weapons supervisor on the set of the film "Rust," were charged last month with felony involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died shortly after being wounded during rehearsals at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Authorities said Baldwin was pointing a pistol at Hutchins when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
Hutchins' parents and sister have filed a lawsuit over the shooting after a similar suit filed by her husband and son was settled.
Production that was halted by the shooting is expected to resume this spring. Rust Movie Productions said Hutchins' widower, Matthew Hutchins, will be the film's new executive producer with Blanca Cline as the new cinematographer.
Rust Movie Productions said last week a related documentary will detail the completion of the film and the life of Halyna Hutchins.
Souza will return as director when production resumes, although it's unclear in what state the filming will take place.
Rust Movie Productions officials said the use of "working weapons" and "any form of ammunition" will be prohibited on the movie set.
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Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
New Mexico law signed to help wildfire, flooding recovery — Associated Press
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday signed to use zero-interest loans to help local governments in the arid, Southwest state repair or replace public infrastructure damaged by wildfires or subsequent flooding.
The law follows last year's historic Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon blaze that exploded into the largest wildfire in New Mexico's recorded history.
Begun in early April as a prescribed burn by the U.S. government, it grew into a monstrous blaze that blackened more than 530 square miles (1,370 square kilometers). Hundreds of homes in northern New Mexico were lost.
A subsequent report by the U.S. Forest Service said its employees made multiple miscalculations, used inaccurate models and underestimated how dry conditions were. Experts say the resulting environmental harms will endure for decades.
Congress and President Joe Biden have approved nearly $4 billion in recovery funds. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still establishing claims offices.
The state law just signed sets aside $100 million in loans for counties, cities and municipalities to begin work on projects that could include a water treatment plant in Mora County or roads, bridges and fences in Las Vegas, where thousands of residents evacuated last spring.
"This funding will help get infrastructure rebuilt and repaired immediately, empowering our communities to continue to heal," the governor said in a tweet on Monday.
New Mexico's Department of Finance and Administration will manage the loan program.
Supporters of the legislation said earlier that state funding would go toward projects FEMA has indicated it will cover under federal guidelines. That means FEMA funds could be used by the local governments later to repay the state loans.
The U.S. Forest Service has resumed controlled burn operations nationwide after a 90-day pause to review prescribed fire policies and procedures.