New Mexico village to have police agency again after 3 years - Associated Press
Residents of a small northern New Mexico community will soon see police officers patrolling the streets in vehicles marked with the village's name for the first time in three years.
The Questa Police Department is scheduled to reopen April 1 with four police officers led by the village's new police chief, Ronald Montez Jr. The Taos News was the first to report the police department's expected return.
Home to about 1,700 residents, Questa is about a 30-minute drive north of the popular tourist destination of Taos and serves as the gateway for the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.
"Without a law enforcement agency, traffic infractions and stuff like that were never really enforced," Montez, a former New Mexico State Police officer, told Taos News.
Questa has been without a police department since 2020, when then-police Chief Nicolas Lamendola and all three of the village's officers resigned for still-unknown reasons.
To fill the gap, the Taos County Sheriff's Office has been providing police services to the village under a contract that ends next month. Residents have said sheriff's deputies were sometimes slow to respond.
Questa Mayor John Anthony Ortega began rebuilding the village's police force soon after he was sworn in last April, fulfilling a promise he had made on the campaign trail.
"It's pretty exciting," Ortega said. "I think, at the end of the day, even though it took longer than I and many of the citizens would have wanted, we're getting a better department."
New Mexico tribe keeps title to portion of national preserve - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
A Native American tribe has been granted title to a portion of a national preserve in northern New Mexico following a years long court battle against the federal government, a ruling that could provide hope to other tribes seeking to regain rights to their traditional homelands.
The 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals issued a split ruling Wednesday in the case brought by Jemez Pueblo over lands it was seeking to reclaim in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
The pueblo had argued its aboriginal property rights — or rights to occupy and use land as their ancestors did — were never extinguished despite a lower court ruling in 2019 that found the U.S. government had clear title to the expansive preserve. Following an appeal and a subsequent trial, the pueblo opted to narrow its claims to four specific areas within Valles Caldera's boundaries.
The latest ruling acknowledged the pueblo's title to an area known as Banco Bonito but rejected claims to three other areas, with the court saying the tribe had not put the government on notice that it was seeking claim to those specific areas.
Legal experts say the partial victory marks the first time in the U.S. that a tribe has ever demanded the return of an aboriginal title that has not been extinguished, or terminated, and gone to court successfully to recover it. Still they say it's unclear what the broader implications will be for future land disputes as more tribes seek to reclaim traditional homelands.
Jemez Pueblo officials could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday, and the National Park Service declined to comment on the decision, saying only that the litigation was pending.
Both the pueblo and federal government still could appeal Wednesday ruling.
Robert Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center in Montana, called it a long and complex case.
"I think one of the most significant things is that it made what I believe is a breakthrough in determining that tribes can reclaim land to which they have aboriginal title that has not been lawfully extinguished," he said. "That point was not at all clear in the past."
The appellate ruling unwinds a previous lower court finding that Jemez Pueblo would have had to maintain control over Banco Bonito before and after 1860 — when the government granted the land to private owners — in order to keep its title. Judge Gregory Phillips wrote that creating such a hurdle would likely keep other tribes from "establishing aboriginal title into the modern era."
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Nancy Moritz argued that relying on a tribe's exclusive use of an area "for a long time" during any time period could subject the government to new aboriginal title claims.
"There is no reason tribes nationwide could not file similar claims seeking aboriginal title to lands within the 18 other national preserves scattered throughout the United States or, for that matter, to any lands owned or later acquired by the government," Moritz wrote.
Jemez Pueblo considers Valles Caldera a spiritual sanctuary and part of its traditional homeland. It's home to vast grasslands, the remnants of a massive volcanic eruption and one of New Mexico's most famous elk herds.
The court record states that for over 800 years, many tribes and pueblos have used Valles Caldera for hunting, gathering and various cultural and religious practices. Redondo Peak, the highest mountain in the caldera, is a site long used as part of religious pilgrimages and is home to several shrines.
Jemez Pueblo first sued the federal government in 2012, saying tribes have legal and just claims to retain possession of land that they have historically occupied within the United States. The legal fight came as members of Congress and others started to push for management of the sprawling preserve to be transferred to the National Park Service.
When the tribe first made its case before the appellate court in 2014, then-Pueblo Gov. Joshua Madalena described Valles Caldera as the tribe's spiritual mother, likening it to the Vatican for Catholics. Many of the court filings are redacted, seeking to keep secret details about traditions and culturally significant locations.
Federal attorneys initially argued that the tribe's aboriginal title was essentially extinguished when surveyors, working under the authority of Congress, determined the land was vacant and turned it over to land grant heirs in 1860 as part of a swap.
The federal government purchased the property in 2000 with the goal of operating it as a working ranch while developing recreational opportunities for the public. It was eventually taken over by the Park Service.
Coulter said the ruling by the 10th Circuit panel of judges is significant even though Jemez Pueblo didn't get everything it had hoped for.
"We've seen generations of judicial decisions where the courts simply were not willing to apply the law in a straightforward manner in Indian cases," he said.
New Mexico OKs its 1st wildlife bridges to limit collisions - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
New Mexico will build its first wildlife highway overpasses for free-roaming cougars, black bears, bighorn sheep and other creatures large and small and will also set aside $100 million for conservation projects, under two bills signed Thursday by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Advocates for the initiatives say the state stands to capture millions of dollars in federal matching funds for wildlife crossings and an array of established conservation programs. New Mexico hopes to expand efforts ranging from river stewardship to outdoor adventures for young people from low-income households.
The state's first wildlife bridge is likely to span a state highway that traverses remote desert oilfields and Native American lands of the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation and several pueblo communities, including a treacherous hotspot for wildlife-auto collisions north of Cuba, New Mexico.
Several hundred large animals — primarily deer and elk — are killed in the state each year by collisions that can also total cars and severely injure human passengers. The state estimates property damage from such wrecks at nearly $20 million annually, while unbroken roads also fracture habitats for monitored species of concern including the ornate box turtle, white-nosed coati and gila monster.
Recent casualties include a roughly 4-year-old mountain lion that previously bore kittens and was struck and killed on State Highway 550 at Santa Ana Pueblo in January at night.
Glenn Harper, manager of the Santa Ana Pueblo Range and Wildlife Division, said the pueblo is committed to establishing safe corridors for wildlife and that it shared a trove of GPS tracking data when state agencies were identifying the first crucial locations for bridges. The state Legislature commissioned the plan in 2019.
"We have a pretty good sense of where these animals want to cross the highway," Harper said. "As communities are growing around the pueblo, it becomes a cultural preservation issue. The pueblo is closely tied and entwined with the natural world."
Nearby states including Colorado, Arizona, Utah and Nevada already have invested substantially in wildlife crossings. And California last year broke ground on what it bills as the world's largest — a bridge over a major Southern California highway for mountain lions and other animals hemmed in by urban sprawl.
The second New Mexico bill signed Thursday places $50 million in a permanent trust aimed at generating investment earnings, plus a $50 million spending account to underwrite established programs in environmental stewardship, forest management, watershed health, outdoor recreation, agriculture, historic preservation and species protection.
Many Republicans in the legislative minority opposed the conservation trust bill over concerns the state might expand public land holdings by unfairly outbidding individuals including ranchers. Opposition among Republican legislators to the wildlife crossings plan was more muted.
The state joins others in the Western U.S. that already fund their own, similar conservation trusts that help them apply for federal financial awards. Such trusts are underwritten by lottery proceeds, taxes on cannabis or money borrowed from bond investors, said Brittany Fallon of the conservation group Western Resource Advocates.
At a signing ceremony inside an REI Co-op store, Lujan Grisham highlighted New Mexico's efforts to set aside billions in investment accounts for future spending on conservation programs, infrastructure and early childhood education.
More is needed to ensure natural wonders survive the next 50 years amid a financial windfall in state income linked to local oil production, she added.
"We have to start thinking big in the context of how expensive it is to do the right public safety and conservation work," Lujan Grisham said. "It is in fact expensive because it is a generational investment in the well-being" of New Mexico.
Last week the Legislature sent the governor a record $9.6 billion annual spending proposal, along with a $1.1 billion tax relief package. She has until April 7 to veto any provisions.
EPA looks to limit toxic ‘forever chemicals.’ Here’s what New Mexicans should know - By Danielle Prokop,Source New Mexico
After months of delays, federal officials released a proposed rule last week that would curb the levels of toxic “forever chemicals” in drinking water nationwide.
The toxic, persistent chemicals have already impacted New Mexico’s water, although state officials are still unsure how many communities are affected. New Mexico taxpayers have already spent millions of dollars identifying and remediating PFAS contamination in groundwater from two air force bases in Eastern and Southern New Mexico. A Clovis dairy farmer had to euthanize 3,665 cows last year after they consumed water from contaminated wells.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it plans to release the final rule in September 2024, but there remains a lengthy process to get there. Once the agency publishes the new rule in the Federal Register, that starts a 60-day clock for public input. In that period, the agency can tweak or change the rules based on comments from industry, regulators and the public.
Typically, when a new rule is put on the books, agencies and municipalities have a two-year period to adjust, said John Rhoderick, the director of the Water Protection Division at the New Mexico Environment Department.
Rhoderick called on New Mexico’s water systems to apply for federal funding and upgrade filtration, which would put the state “in a good position” when the rule goes into effect. More than $32 million is available this year to rebuild or replace water treatment processes so they can handle PFAS, or test for the compounds.
“We’re treating it like we have a two-year window to make this happen,” Rhoderick said. “So by the time that window closes and enforcement comes into play, we want to be ahead of the curve, and our communities would not be feeling drastic impacts from it.”
WHAT IS THE CHANGE?
The EPA is specifically limiting six types of synthetic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — also known as PFAS. Those are PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX chemicals.
There are more than 9,000 identified PFAS in thousands of commercial products around the world. The human-made chemicals are used in manufacturing, non-stick cookware, carpeting, household cleaning supplies, take-out containers, firefighting foams, papers, paints and waterproof fabrics.
These chemicals resist decay, and they don’t break down from exposure to the sun, water or microorganisms. Instead, PFAS accumulate in soil and water — and also in the bodies of animals and humans. They pose health risks, even in extremely small doses. They’ve been linked to lower birth weights, cancers and reproductive harm, among other health problems. Research into health impacts and how much of the chemicals ever leave the human body is ongoing. Blood tests in 2000 showed that 98% of subjects in the U.S. had measurable amounts of PFAS in their bloodstream.
Two of the most well-known compounds — PFOA and PFOS — would be limited to a proposed 4 parts per trillion. Think four drops in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water. This “maximum contaminant level” standard is a harder rule and much tougher than the previous recommendations of 70 parts per trillion. The proposed rule also creates a “hazard index,” a tool used to calculate potential health risks for the other four compounds — whether alone or mixed.
Under the proposed rule, public systems would be responsible for monitoring PFAS, telling the public how much of the chemicals are in drinking water and treating the water if PFAS concentrations exceed the standards.
One important note is that the standard applies to the water flowing into your home, not just a well the water system is using. If one well has higher levels of contaminants, it is standard practice for utilities to blend water from multiple wells.
This rule would only impact public water systems, which have at least 15 connections or serve at least 25 people. Private well water quality is unregulated in New Mexico. The state has a resource guide to private well filtration here. Boiling water will not remove the compounds from water.
The proposed rule at 4 parts per trillion is “a manageable level that labs can actually test to,” said Joe Martinez, the drinking water bureau chief at NMED. He expects water systems may have to take samples every three months for PFAS.
ARE PFAS IN MY DRINKING WATER?
PFAS are widespread, with international studies finding measurable amounts even in raindrops, but Martinez said NMED is still trying to determine how widespread PFAS are in New Mexicans’ drinking water.
“We don’t know the full extent at this point, because we haven’t been able to sample every public water system source out there,” he said.
NMED found PFAS in at least 15 water systems in New Mexico, according to tests performed with federal assistance in 2021. The communities most impacted are in Curry County and Otero County, according to that data. That’s also where PFAS plumes infiltrated the groundwater thanks to decades of nearby military bases using firefighting foam.
The state tests for 28 compounds, and only six have the proposed limits.
“We have a better understanding today than maybe we did five years ago,” Martinez said.
PFAS testing is ongoing in other communities, and another round of sampling should be complete at the end of June, said NMED spokesperson Matthew Maez.
In addition to water systems, tests found PFAS levels exceeding the proposed standard in the Rio Grande, Canadian, San Juan, Animas and Pecos Rivers. The highest concentration was found at the Valle de Oro gage on the Rio Grande. In one test, a mix of eight PFAS concentrations were 156 parts per trillion.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Many of New Mexico’s systems are small — under 10,000 connections — and most of those serve rural spaces, said Bill Conner, the executive director at the New Mexico Rural Water Association.
The professional organization lends technical assistance to water systems around the state, and he said PFAS is one of the top concerns.
There’s a limited number of engineers and contractors who can install new and expensive upgrades to water systems, he predicted, and small systems may have to compete with larger cities to contract for improvements.
“To treat and remediate for PFAS is going to be very expensive,” Collins said. “Even if they get the funding to get the proper treatment process or equipment, it’s not only the cost — it may also increase the certification level to operate that equipment.”
Water systems across the country are facing an operator shortage, making it difficult to replace an aging workforce, he said.
NMED officials agreed limited engineering firms and contractors pose a challenge but urged systems to consider upgrading sooner.
“If communities come forward for the funding now, then that puts them ahead of the curve,” Martinez said. “You may get one of these treatment plants installed by the time that this rule becomes effective.”
Without the final rule in place, there remains a lot of unanswered questions. One of the biggest is what penalties will look like when water systems aren’t compliant with PFAS rules.
Rhoderick said while he doesn’t know, but he expects the EPA to offer exceptions for small water systems dealing with PFAS.
“We think they’d target the generators of the PFAS,”Rhoderick said, “rather than the unintended victims.”
Indigenous artists help skateboarding earn stamp of approval - By Terry Tang Associated Press
Years ago, skateboarding was branded as a hobby for rebels or stoners in city streets, schoolyards and back alleys. Those days are long gone.
Skateboarding, which has Native Hawaiian roots connected to surfing, no longer is on the fringes. It became an Olympic sport in 2020. There are numerous amateur and professional skateboarding competitions in the U.S. And on Friday, the U.S. Postal Service is issuing stamps that laud the sport — and what Indigenous groups have brought to the skating culture.
Di'Orr Greenwood, 27, an artist born and raised on the Navajo Nation in Arizona whose work is featured on the new stamps, says it's a long way from when she was a kid and people always kicked her out of certain spots just for skating.
"Now it's like being accepted on a global scale," Greenwood said. "There's so many skateboarders I know that are extremely proud of it."
The postal agency ceremoniously unveiled the "Art of the Skateboard" stamps in a Phoenix skate park as a skateboarding competition was going on nearby.
The stamps feature skateboard artists from around the country, including Greenwood and Crystal Worl, who is Tlingit Athabascan. William James Taylor Jr., an artist from Virginia, and Federico "MasPaz" Frum, a Colombian-born muralist in Washington, D.C., round out the quartet of featured artists. Everyone but Taylor was in attendance.
"Over time skateboards themselves have become works of art highlighting artists' creativity, boldness and energy," William Zollars, of the USPS Board of Governors, told an audience of city officials and supporters. "As an American institution older than the country itself, the Postal Service is always looking for ways to highlight and honor stories and histories that are unique to the United States."
The stamps underscore the prevalence of skateboarding, especially in Indian Country where the demand for skate parks is growing.
The artists see the stamp as a small canvas, a functional art piece that will be seen across the U.S. and beyond.
"Maybe I'll get a letter in the mail that someone sent me with my stamp on it," said Worl, 35, who lives in Juneau, Alaska. "I think that's when it will really hit home with the excitement of that."
Antonio Alcalá, USPS art director, led the search for artists to paint skate decks for the project. After settling on a final design, each artist received a skateboard from Alcalá to work on. He then photographed the maple skate decks and incorporated them into an illustration of a young person holding up a skateboard for display. The person is seen in muted colors to draw attention to the skate deck.
Alcalá used social media to seek out artists who, besides being talented, were knowledgeable about skateboarding culture. Worl was already on his radar because her brother, Rico, designed the Raven Story stamp in 2021, which honored a central figure in Indigenous stories along the coast in the Pacific Northwest.
The Worl siblings run an online shop called Trickster Company with fashions, home goods and other merchandise with Indigenous and modern twists. For her skate deck, Crystal Worl paid homage to her clan and her love of the water with a Sockeye salmon against a blue and indigo background.
She was careful about choosing what to highlight.
"There are certain designs, patterns and stories that belong to certain clans and you have to have permission even as an Indigenous person to share certain stories or designs," Worl said.
The only times Navajo culture has been featured in stamps is with rugs or necklaces. Greenwood, who tried out for the U.S. Women's Olympic skateboarding team, knew immediately she wanted to incorporate her heritage in a modern way. Her nods to the Navajo culture include a turquoise inlay and a depiction of eagle feathers, which are used to give blessings.
"I was born and raised with my great-grandmother, who looked at a stamp kind of like how a young kid would look at an iPhone 13," Greenwood said. "She entrusted every important news and every important document and everything to a stamp to send it and trust that it got there."
Skateboarding has become a staple across Indian Country. A skate park opened in August on the Hopi reservation. Skateboarders on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona recently got funding for one from pro skateboarder Tony Hawk's nonprofit, The Skatepark Project. Youth-organized competitions take place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Dustinn Craig, a White Mountain Apache filmmaker and "lifer" skateboarder in Arizona, has made documentaries and short films on the sport. The 47-year-old remembers how skateboarding was seen as dorky and anti-establishment when he was a kid hiding "a useless wooden toy" in his locker. At the same time, Craig credits skateboarding culture as "my arts and humanities education."
So he is wary of the mainstream's embrace, as well as the sometimes clique-ish nature, of today's skateboarding world.
"For those of us who have been in it for a very long time, it's kind of insulting because I think a lot of the popularity has been due to the proliferation of access to the visuals of the youth culture skateboarding through the internet and social media," Craig said. "So, I feel like it really sort of trivializes and sort of robs Native youth of authenticity of the older skateboard culture that I was raised on."
He acknowledges that he may come off as the "grumpy old man" to younger Indigenous skateboarders who are open to collaborating with outsiders.
The four skateboards designed by the artists will eventually be transferred to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, said Jonathan Castillo, USPS spokesperson.
The stamps, which will have a printing of 18 million, will be available at post offices and on the USPS website beginning Friday. For the artists, being part of a project that feels low-tech in this age of social media is exciting.
"It's like the physical thing is special because you go out of your way to go to the post office, buy the stamps and write something," Worl said.
Albuquerque Starbucks workers partake in national strike for union rights - By Megan Gleason,Source New Mexico
At an Albuquerque Starbucks normally packed with customers looking for a morning jolt, one single car crept through the drive-through. Another woman who drove up to get her coffee decided to go somewhere else.
Why?
Starbucks workers and supporters picketed in front of the Old Town location off Interstate 40 and Rio Grande Blvd. on Wednesday as part of a national strike pushing for union rights and better working conditions.
This comes amid allegations of anti-union action and sentiments from Starbucks around the nation. Over 250 stores in the U.S. have voted to unionize. The Albuquerque Old Town location is the first and only store in New Mexico to successfully pass a vote to unionize.
Madz Dazzo is a barista working at the Albuquerque location and a leader in the store’s unionization process. She said since the vote to unionize passed the National Labor Relations Board about half a year ago, workers have been struggling with disciplinary actions in the workplace.
The store has yet to begin the bargaining process too.
Instead, she said management is writing workers up, including herself, for things they normally wouldn’t be punished for, like being a few minutes late to work or forgetting to do a COVID check. Workers supporting the union have seen their hours cut as well, she said, forcing people to get second jobs to support themselves.
Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said the company denies allegations of union busting and has honored the National Labor Relations Board process.
“To the extent claims have been brought against Starbucks for violation of labor laws, the company strongly denies any wrongdoing and has committed to exercising its right to defend itself,” Trull said via email.
Starbucks Workers United, a national collective helping stores unionize, is pursuing multiple lawsuits against the coffee company, which the company is actively fighting.
Tiffany Martinez is a shift supervisor at the Albuquerque Old Town location. She said management has remarked they cut hours because the workers aren’t utilizing their time well, which she denied. Martinez said wait times at this location have shot up due to the lack of people working at a given time.
“On a daily basis, we struggle with the amount of people that we have,” Martinez said.
She said workers will likely suffer more negative consequences from management after this strike. “I’m sure they’re gonna be looking for reasons to write people up,” she said.
Martinez said it’s nice to know that New Mexico workers aren’t the only ones striking on Wednesday because they’re struggling to get better working conditions. “Other partners are out there, feeling the same thing that we are,” she said.
There are more than 100 stores with workers on strike on Wednesday, according to Starbucks Workers United. However, Trull said Starbucks hasn’t seen that number reflected in operations and nearly every store still remains open for customers.
“Rather than publicizing rallies and protests, we encourage Workers United to live up to their obligations by responding to our proposed sessions and meeting us in-person to move the good faith bargaining process forward,” Trull said.
Dazzo said Starbucks has been causing issues of its own at the table. She brought up an instance where company officials walked out of a bargaining session just minutes after it started. Workers have also said they believe the company has deliberately stalled some bargaining sessions and processes.
At one point during the Albuquerque strike, a woman who had just parked in front of the Starbucks asked the picketing workers if the location was unionized. Dazzo and Martinez told her yes but working conditions were still bad, and the woman decided not to get coffee from there after all.
As Martinez and Dazzo held up their pro-union signs off of the busy street in front of the store, passing cars honked in support. They think they’ve been deterring people from the store all morning on Wednesday.
A SLOW-TO-START BARGAINING PROCESS
The unionization process for the New Mexico location has been slow-moving. The National Labor Relations Board counted the ballots in favor of unionization six months ago, but the bargaining process still hasn’t started.
Trull said it can’t start at that location until Starbucks Workers United assigns a union representative. Trull added that there are over 50 stores around the county that also can’t start the process for the same reason.
Naomi Martinez is a volunteer organizer with Starbucks Workers United. She said the board hadn’t heard about any request for the organization to assign a representative to the Albuquerque location. She added that at her own store, there’s a point person for bargaining who does the same for other locations in the region too.
She said now that the collective knows about Starbucks’ representative stipulation, hopefully a bargaining process can start soon. She said Workers United will be “really pushing” for the New Mexico store to get a bargaining date after the national strike on Wednesday.
“Now that we have heard this new message about getting a bargaining representative for the Albuquerque store, I’m hoping that at least we can present them with this false request that they’re wanting, so that we could get the bargaining going there,” she said.
Trull said Starbucks Workers United has also refused to confirm bargaining session dates at other stores until Starbucks agrees to hybrid bargaining.
“Their unilateral insistence on preconditions to bargaining, including hybrid bargaining, is both unlawful and has prevented bargaining from moving forward at many tables,” he said.
Naomi Martinez said the company won’t admit to its many wrongdoings. She said it’s not surprising to hear that they refute anti-union allegations against them.
“Pretty empty words from my perspective, as someone who is already experiencing that for months now,” she said. “They’re never going to admit fault.”
Affirmative consent proposal dies on final day in Santa Fe - By Megan Taros,Source New Mexico
On the penultimate day of the Legislative session, HB 43, which would’ve made affirmative consent the standard for teaching consent in public schools, sat as the final item on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda.
The bill sailed through its previous committees and garnered a commanding House floor vote only to languish in the judiciary committee for a little more than a month. The committee was its final hurdle before a Senate floor vote.
The committee ran out of time and no longer had a quorum when it recessed. Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces), the chair who controls the schedule for the committee, was one of the members that left in the middle of the meeting.
Advocates for the bill were told the committee would return after the Senate floor session Fri., March 17 to wrap up its agenda, but never did. They did not get an explanation as to why.
“My expectation certainly was not that it would be scheduled before the last day,” said Alexandria Taylor, executive director of New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. “I don’t think there’s anything controversial about the bill that it should sit in committee for 30 days until it dies.”
The bill has been trying to make its way through the Legislature since 2019. That year it died after a Senate floor vote. Last year it was ruled not germain to a 30-day Legislative session.
Rep. Liz Thomson (D-Albuquerque) said she was disappointed, but would try to get the bill on Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s priorities in 2024, a 30-day session, or reintroduce it in 2025.
Thomson encouraged lawmakers to educate themselves on the sexual violence women encounter in their lives.
“It amazes me how often men don’t understand how often women get harassed and assaulted,” Thomson said. “There are some who think rape and assault is the stranger breaking in through an open window, but it’s not that.”
While it’s still unclear why the bill was scheduled in its final committee, as the last agenda item, on the final day lawmakers met in that setting, Thomson said other factors muddied debate. She said disinformation about the bill from the right-wing created a false image about its intent. The bill is not about encouraging students to have sex, nor would it create punishments for people who couldn’t prove the obtained affirmative consent, Thomson said. She said not passing the measure sends the message that not receiving affirmative consent is acceptable. She cited a story about a meeting she had with a man who said the bill was needed because when he was growing up, boys would often talk about how to get girls drunk so they could have sex with them.
“I believe that kind of behavior still exists,” she said.
Thomson said refusing to talk to young people about sex would not stop them from having sex and it will only leave them vulnerable if they’re uninformed about how to properly ask for consent.
Supporters of the bill said they received broad support that has grown over time, especially from students, many of whom have been at the forefront testifying in favor of the bill, writing letters and leading marches. They did not anticipate such a big fight to get the bill heard.
Taylor said she commended those students for showing up to try to affect change.
“They can’t vote for the most part, they can’t get elected for the most part, they can’t make their own policies so they rely on adults to do that,” she said. “And we weren’t able to get this done for them.”
Jess Clark, director of sexual violence prevention at New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, said that while some students have access to affirmative-consent education, as long as it is not a standard across the state, that access won’t be equitable.
But this isn’t the end of the road, he said.
“We will be back, with an even larger coalition,” Clark said. “It is beyond disappointing that students’ access to this education will continue to be dependent on where they live, and we will keep working to change that.”
Registration is open for state’s free summer tutoring - Albuquerque Journal, KUNM News
Amid persistently low math and literacy test scores, New Mexico’s Public Education Department is offering free online summer tutoring in both subjects.
The Albuquerque Journal reports the state is accepting up to 500 students each for early literacy classes and 6th grade math.
Registration is open and classes are filling quickly. The math classes are about half full and there are far fewer slots left in the literacy courses.
PED is aiming to maintain a ratio of five students to each tutor, though is still calling for math tutors on its website.
The online tutoring will take place three times a week for 10 weeks beginning next Tuesday.
Study finds Latinos at higher risk of food insecurity than white counterparts – Astrid Galvan, Axios Latino
Latinos and Black American adults are at a much higher risk of experiencing food insecurity than their white counterparts, according a new study by the Urban Institute.
Axios Latino reports sky-high food price inflation has added financial hardship for families across the country, especially Latinos. That hardship is likely to be exacerbated now that pandemic-era enhanced benefits have ended.
The study, published this week, is based on annual surveys of at least 7,500 people in the U.S. — 1,555 of whom identify as Hispanic or Latino — conducted each December from 2019 to 2022.
According to the study, the shares of Hispanic and Black respondents who reported food insecurity last year were about 50% higher than the share of white adults who reported food insecurity.
Also, 58% of Hispanic respondents in the Urban Institute survey in 2022 said they had reduced the amount of food they bought, compared to 49% of white respondents, the study found. That suggests Hispanic families were less able to absorb the surging costs of food, the study's authors write.
The researchers also found that Hispanic adults were more likely than their white counterparts to report last year dipping into savings (50.5%) or increasing credit card debt (nearly 44%) to pay for higher food costs.
The federal government last month ended pandemic-era increases in the amount of money given to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients.
About 23% (or five million) of SNAP recipients have a Hispanic head of household, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which analyzed 2021 American Community Survey data. The center said about 4 million Hispanic households were expected to lose the boosted assistance.
When fighting hunger, "the first line of the defense is typically the SNAP program, which is difficult to hear considering the erosion of emergency allotments," says study author Kassandra Martinchek, a research associate at the Urban Institute.
Immigrant or mixed-status families may be afraid to access public benefits like the child tax credit, which could contribute to the disproportionate rates of food insecurity among Latinos, says Poonam Gupta, also a research associate at the institute.
"We also have qualitative evidence that things like language barriers, lack of culturally appropriate food is a barrier to Latinx families" accessing food assistance, Gupta adds.
Organizations such as the Christian advocacy group Bread for the World are fighting to reduce hunger, says Marco Grimaldo, a strategist for Latino communities. Grimaldo works with religious leaders across the country, including many in charge of churches that also provide food assistance, to learn the needs of Hispanic families which he says vary greatly depending on factors such as educational attainment, immigration status and how long individuals have been in the U.S.
Grimaldo also says the government should change existing policies to allow legal permanent residents to access public benefits (they currently have to wait five years to do so).
The White House on Friday will host a virtual conference on hunger, nutrition and health as part of an ongoing initiative to combat food insecurity.
Indigenous artists help skateboarding earn stamp of approval - By Terry Tang Associated Press
Years ago, skateboarding was branded as a hobby for rebels or stoners in city streets, schoolyards and back alleys. Those days are long gone.
Skateboarding, which has Native Hawaiian roots connected to surfing, no longer is on the fringes. It became an Olympic sport in 2020. There are numerous amateur and professional skateboarding competitions in the U.S. And on Friday, the U.S. Postal Service is issuing stamps that laud the sport — and what Indigenous groups have brought to the skating culture.
Di'Orr Greenwood, 27, an artist born and raised on the Navajo Nation in Arizona whose work is featured on the new stamps, says it's a long way from when she was a kid and people always kicked her out of certain spots just for skating.
"Now it's like being accepted on a global scale," Greenwood said. "There's so many skateboarders I know that are extremely proud of it."
The postal agency is debuting the "Art of the Skateboard" stamps at a Phoenix skate park. The stamps feature skateboard artists from around the country, including Greenwood and Crystal Worl, who is Tlingit Athabascan. William James Taylor Jr., an artist from Virginia, and Federico "MasPaz" Frum, a Colombian-born muralist in Washington, D.C., round out the quartet of featured artists.
The stamps underscore the prevalence of skateboarding, especially in Indian Country where the demand for skate parks is growing.
The artists see the stamp as a small canvas, a functional art piece that will be seen across the U.S. and beyond.
"Maybe I'll get a letter in the mail that someone sent me with my stamp on it," said Worl, 35, who lives in Juneau, Alaska. "I think that's when it will really hit home with the excitement of that."
Antonio Alcalá, USPS art director, led the search for artists to paint skate decks for the project. After settling on a final design, each artist received a skateboard from Alcalá to work on. He then photographed the maple skate decks and incorporated them into an illustration of a young person holding up a skateboard for display. The person is seen in muted colors to draw attention to the skate deck.
Alcalá used social media to seek out artists who, besides being talented, were knowledgeable about skateboarding culture. Worl was already on his radar because her brother, Rico, designed the Raven Story stamp in 2021, which honored a central figure in Indigenous stories along the coast in the Pacific Northwest.
The Worl siblings run an online shop called Trickster Company with fashions, home goods and other merchandise with Indigenous and modern twists. For her skate deck, Crystal Worl paid homage to her clan and her love of the water with a Sockeye salmon against a blue and indigo background.
She was careful about choosing what to highlight.
"There are certain designs, patterns and stories that belong to certain clans and you have to have permission even as an Indigenous person to share certain stories or designs," Worl said.
The only times Navajo culture has been featured in stamps is with rugs or necklaces. Greenwood, who tried out for the U.S. Women's Olympic skateboarding team, knew immediately she wanted to incorporate her heritage in a modern way. Her nods to the Navajo culture include a turquoise inlay and a depiction of eagle feathers, which are used to give blessings.
"I was born and raised with my great-grandmother, who looked at a stamp kind of like how a young kid would look at an iPhone 13," Greenwood said. "She entrusted every important news and every important document and everything to a stamp to send it and trust that it got there."
Skateboarding has become a staple across Indian Country. A skate park opened in August on the Hopi reservation. Skateboarders on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona recently got funding for one from pro skateboarder Tony Hawk's nonprofit, The Skatepark Project. Youth-organized competitions take place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Dustinn Craig, a White Mountain Apache filmmaker and "lifer" skateboarder in Arizona, has made documentaries and short films on the sport. The 47-year-old remembers how skateboarding was seen as dorky and anti-establishment when he was a kid hiding "a useless wooden toy" in his locker. At the same time, Craig credits skateboarding culture as "my arts and humanities education."
So he is wary of the mainstream's embrace, as well as the sometimes clique-ish nature, of today's skateboarding world.
"For those of us who have been in it for a very long time, it's kind of insulting because I think a lot of the popularity has been due to the proliferation of access to the visuals of the youth culture skateboarding through the internet and social media," Craig said. "So, I feel like it really sort of trivializes and sort of robs Native youth of authenticity of the older skateboard culture that I was raised on."
He acknowledges that he may come off as the "grumpy old man" to younger Indigenous skateboarders who are open to collaborating with outsiders.
The four skateboards designed by the artists will eventually be transferred to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, said Jonathan Castillo, USPS spokesperson.
The stamps, which will have a printing of 18 million, will be available at post offices and on the USPS website beginning Friday. For the artists, being part of a project that feels low-tech in this age of social media is exciting.
"It's like the physical thing is special because you go out of your way to go to the post office, buy the stamps and write something," Worl said.