Jury selection opens in terrorism trial of extended family members dating to 2018 New Mexico raid - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Jury selection began Monday in federal court as members of an extended family confronted kidnapping and terrorism charges stemming from the search for a missing 3-year-old boy by agents who raided a squalid New Mexico encampment in 2018.
The boy's badly decomposed remains were eventually found in an underground tunnel at the compound on the outskirts of Amalia near the Colorado line. Authorities allege the family engaged in firearms and tactical training in preparation for attacks against government, tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.
An exact cause of death was never determined amid accusations that the boy, who was sickly, had been deprived of crucial medication linked to disabilities. Federal prosecutors opted for kidnapping charges.
The two men and two women on trial have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to support planned attacks on U.S. law enforcement officers, military members and government employees. They also deny the kidnapping charges leveled against three of the defendants.
Albuquerque-based U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson has set aside four weeks for the trial, with dozens of witnesses scheduled to testify.
A grand jury indictment alleges that defendant Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and partner Jany Leveille, a Haitian national, instructed people at the compound to be prepared to engage in jihad and die as martyrs.
Leveille also was initially charged with kidnapping and terrorism-related charges but she has agreed to accept a reduced sentence on weapons charges. Neither Leveille nor her attorneys appeared at the defense table in court Monday.
Leveille came to the U.S. in 1998 and stayed on a visa and work permit that later expired and immigration authorities denied an application for permanent residency.
Attorneys for the defendants have said their clients would not be facing terrorism-related charges if they were not Muslim and that prosecutors are highlighting speculative and imagined theories about terrorist activities.
Potential jurors are being surveyed on their opinions about the Islamic religion, Muslims and alternatives to traditional medicine.
The grandfather of the missing boy is the Muslim cleric Siraj Wahhaj, who leads a well-known New York City mosque that has attracted radicals over the years, including a man who later helped bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.
Siraj Wahhaj could not be reached immediately by phone or email, but previously said his son and namesake is high-strung but not an extremist, and his two detained daughters are the "sweetest kinds of people."
Sheriff's deputies and state agents arrived in August 2018 to find the defendants with 11 hungry children living without running water or sanitation at the encampment encircled by berms of tires with an adjacent shooting range. They reported seizing an assortment of guns and ammunition, authorities said.
FBI interviews with the children led authorities to the boy's remains.
The boy, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, was reported missing by his mother in Georgia in December 2017. Around that time, authorities say, the boy's father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, set out with relatives and a cache of guns on a car journey to rural Alabama and then to New Mexico to start over on a parcel of high-desert scrubland near a tiny, crossroads town.
Prosecutors plan to present evidence that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille performed daily prayer rituals over the boy, even as he cried and foamed at the mouth, while depriving him of crucial medication.
They say the boy's dead body was hidden and washed for months in the belief by Leveille that it could one day return as a messiah, who would explain what corrupt government and private institutions must be eliminated. In the 2018 raid, authorities reported seizing handwritten journals, laptops, phones and video of tactical training from the compound.
The four defendants at trial — including sisters Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhanah Wahhaj, and Subhanah's husband, Lucas Morton — were charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, providing material support to each other as potential terrorists, amid tactical drills at the New Mexico compound. Morton and Siraj Ibn Wahhaj additionally are charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. government personnel.
Kidnapping charges are pending against three defendants but not Siraj Ibn Wahhaj because of his legal status as the deceased boy's father. Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Morton have waived their right to legal counsel and will provide their own defense in court, with limited legal assistance.
Defense attorneys have called the FBI's theories about terrorism activities at the Amalia compound speculative and unfounded. They also said there were no specific threats to the general public or individuals and that incriminating information was coerced from children in cooperation with child protective services.
The trial was delayed repeatedly over the course of five years during the COVID-19 pandemic and deliberations about the mental competency of the defendants.
Proposed state rule would mandate EV charging stations in new construction - Albuquerque Journal, KUNM News
A proposed state rule would mandate charging stations for electric vehicles in new construction.
The Albuquerque Journal reports a proposed code change would require projects to include EV charging infrastructure in parking facilities.
A draft of the rule provided to the Journal shows the proposed amendment to construction rules would require between 1% and 20% of parking spaces to be designated as what are called Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment spaces, which would be ready to charge EVs.
Other spaces would have to be built with infrastructure that would make it possible to install more charging spaces.
The paper reports once a draft of the proposed amendment is finalized, a public hearing will be held before it heads to the Construction Industries Commission.
About 1% of the cars registered in the state are fully electric or plug-in hybrids. However, since 2016, the number of registered plug-in hybrids in the state has increased five-fold. For electric vehicles, that number has increased 13 times.
Between September 2022 and September 2023 the state added 30 public charging stations, bringing the total to 543. Most are in Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces.
Santa Fe National Forest begins prescribed fire in the Cuba district - Alice Fordham, KUNM News
The Santa Fe National Forest has begun a prescribed fire in the Cuba district, which is planned to cover more than 2,000 acres.
The Golondrina prescribed fire is north of the community of Gallina, and is taking place after community input.
Santa Fe National Forest Supervisor Shaun Sanchez said in a press release that he appreciated the questions and input from community members.
Following the devastating Calf Canyon/Hermit's Peak fire which began as prescribed fires and ended up destroying hundreds of homes in New Mexico last year, there was a nationwide Forest Service pause on new prescribed burns.
That was followed by a new set of guidelines.
All prescribed fires now have expanded contingency resources, which can include more people on site in case a fire gets out of control. Also, after a fire, infrared sensors will ensure there are no more heat sources lingering undetected.
The Golondrina burn is expected to last two days. After that, another prescribed fire is planned in the Coyote Ranger District.
First baby placed in a safe 'baby box' in Hobbs is healthy - Alice Fordham, KUNM News
The first baby placed in a safe "baby box" in a fire station in Hobbs is healthy, according to officials.
The box was established at the city's fire station in May this year, designed to be a safe place for parents in crisis to surrender babies under 90 days old.
When a baby is placed in the box, which contains an incubator, an alarm is triggered and alerts sent to staff of the fire station and other personnel.
On Saturday, the box was used for the first time, when a newborn baby was placed inside and immediately transported to a nearby hospital.
It was installed following the case of Alexa Avila, who abandoned a baby in a dumpster in Hobbs in January last year. The baby was found alive, but Avila was convicted of child abuse involving great bodily harm.
State Senator David Gallegos (R-Eunice) campaigned for the installation of the box and said at a press conference Monday that he thanked the mother who made: "this selfless act allowing her child to have a life."
Officials said whoever deposited the baby would remain anonymous and there would be no further investigation as there were no signs of neglect.
The city of Española also has a similar box at the city's main fire station.
Pilot dies in crash of an ultralight in central New Mexico - Associated Press
One person has died in the crash of an ultralight in central New Mexico, authorities said Monday.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said the crash occurred around 6 p.m. Sunday near the Truth or Consequences airport and the pilot was the only person aboard.
New Mexico State Police said they were holding the scene for the FAA to investigate.
But FAA officials said their agency doesn't investigate unregistered ultralight or glider accidents because they don't meet the definition of an aircraft.
State Police didn't immediately release the name of the person who died or any details about the crash.
Birthplace of the atomic bomb braces for its biggest mission since the top-secret Manhattan Project — Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Los Alamos was the perfect spot for the U.S. government's top-secret Manhattan Project.
Almost overnight, the ranching enclave on a remote plateau in northern New Mexico was transformed into a makeshift home for scientists, engineers and young soldiers racing to develop the world's first atomic bomb. Dirt roads were hastily built and temporary housing came in the form of huts and tents as the outpost's population ballooned.
The community is facing growing pains again, 80 years later, as Los Alamos National Laboratory takes part in the nation's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since World War II. The mission calls for modernizing the arsenal with droves of new workers producing plutonium cores — key components for nuclear weapons.
Some 3,300 workers have been hired in the last two years, with the workforce now topping more than 17,270. Close to half of them commute to work from elsewhere in northern New Mexico and from as far away as Albuquerque, helping to nearly double Los Alamos' population during the work week.
While advancements in technology have changed the way work is done at Los Alamos, some things remain the same for this company town. The secrecy and unwavering sense of duty that were woven into the community's fabric during the 1940s remain.
James Owen, the associate lab director for weapons engineering, has spent more than 25 years working in the nuclear weapons program.
"What we do is meaningful. This isn't a job, it's a vocation and there's a sense of contribution that comes with that," Owen said in an interview with The Associated Press following a rare tour of the facility where workers are preparing to piece together plutonium cores by hand. "The downside is we can't tell people about all the cool things we do here."
While the priority at Los Alamos is maintaining the nuclear stockpile, the lab also conducts a range of national security work and research in diverse fields of space exploration, supercomputing, renewable energy and efforts to limit global threats from disease and cyberattacks.
The welcome sign on the way into town reads: "Where discoveries are made."
The headline grabber, though, is the production of plutonium cores.
Lab managers and employees defend the massive undertaking as necessary in the face of global political instability. With most people in Los Alamos connected to the lab, opposition is rare.
But watchdog groups and non-proliferation advocates question the need for new weapons and the growing price tag.
"For some time Los Alamosans have seemed numbed out, very involved in superficial activities but there is a very big hole in the middle where thoughtful discourse might live," Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nonprofit that has been challenging the lab over safety, security and budget concerns, said in an email.
Town officials are grappling with the effects of expansion at the lab, much like the military generals who scrambled to erect the secret city on the hill in 1943.
The labor market is stressed, housing is in short supply and traffic is growing. There are few options for expansion in a town bordered by the national forest, a national park and Native American land, leaving county officials to reconsider zoning rules to allow developers to be more creative with infill projects.
Still, officials acknowledge it will take time for those changes to catch up with demand and for prices to normalize in what is already one of the most affluent counties in the U.S. With the lab being the largest employer, Los Alamos also boasts the highest per-capita levels of educational attainment with many residents holding master's degrees and Ph.Ds.
Owen is originally from Peñasco, a Hispanic village in neighboring Taos County. His fascination with science was sparked by a high school field trip where he learned about explosions and implosions. It wasn't long before he landed a summer job at the lab and went on to earn engineering degrees that helped him move up through the ranks.
Los Alamos taps into regional schools as a generational pipeline. Grandfathers work as machinists. Mothers solder key components. And daughters become experts at tracking radiation.
Alexandra Martinez, 40, grew up in nearby Chimayo and is the latest in her family to work at Los Alamos. She chuckles when asked if she was born into it.
"That's what I wanted — the ability to do something great," said Martinez, a radiation control technician who is stationed at PF-4, the highly classified complex that is being transformed into a more modern plutonium pit factory.
She must pass through fencing topped with concertina wire and checkpoints manned by armed guards. The layers of security are more sophisticated than those from the Manhattan Project era, when all incoming and outgoing mail was censored and telephone calls were monitored.
Los Alamos became an open city when the security gates came down in 1957. Still, many parts — including historic sites related to the Manhattan Project — remain off limits. Tourists have to settle for selfies near the town square with the bronze statue of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Across the street, rangers at the Manhattan Project National Historical Park visitor center answer questions about where scientists lived and where parties and town halls were held. A chalkboard hangs in the corner, covered in yellow sticky notes left by visitors. Some of the hand-written notes touch on the complicated legacy left by the creation of nuclear weapons.
It's a conversation that was reignited with the release of Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer." The film put the spotlight on Los Alamos and its history, prompting more people to visit over the summer.
The attention also boosted an ongoing effort to expand the federal government's radiation compensation program to cover people in several western states, including residents in southern New Mexico where the Trinity Test of the first atomic bomb was conducted in 1945.
Aside from pressing questions about the morality of nuclear weapons, watchdogs argue the federal government's modernization effort already has outpaced spending predictions and is years behind schedule. Independent government analysts issued a report earlier this month that outlined the growing budget and schedule delays.
For lab managers, the task has not been easy. Modern health and safety requirements mean new constraints Manhattan Project bosses never had to contemplate. And yet, just like their predecessors, Owen said officials feel a sense of urgency amid intensifying global threats.
"What's being asked is that we all need to do better in a faster amount of time," he said.
Judge sides with ACLU, orders Albuquerque to pause removal of homeless people's belongings — Associated Press
The city of Albuquerque will be banned under a court order from seizing or destroying property of people who are homeless.
A Bernalillo County District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction Thursday that Albuquerque will have to follow starting Nov. 1.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and others filed a lawsuit last December on behalf of several unhoused residents. In the suit, they argued homeless encampment sweeps were unconstitutional.
They asked a judge to stop officials in the state's largest city from destroying homeless encampments and jailing and fining people who are living on the street.
For now, the city cannot remove people's belongings without notice or an opportunity for a hearing or a way to reclaim them. The only exceptions to the ban are if the property is on school grounds, obstructs streets or poses an immediate safety threat.
The order is only temporary until a final ruling is made.
In a statement, the city called the ruling "dangerous" and intends to challenge it. Officials also warned it "would severely limit our ability to keep our city clean and safe, while getting people connected to the help they need."
In Phoenix, a judge ruled Wednesday that Phoenix must permanently clear the city's largest homeless encampment by Nov. 4. Property owners and residents filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court, saying the city had let the tent city become a public nuisance. The city said it was following a law that prevents it from criminalizing public camping.
Phoenix is also dealing with a separate lawsuit in federal court. A federal judge in December issued an emergency injunction prohibiting authorities from enforcing sleeping and camping bans on anyone who cannot obtain a bed in a shelter.
MDC seeks $2.1M under N.M. emergency order that sends more state patrols to Albuquerque — KUNM News, Source New Mexico
More police are patrolling Albuquerque under the state’s recent gun-violence public health order, potentially sending hundreds more people to the Metropolitan Detention Center in the coming weeks, so the short-staffed local jail is asking for millions in funding.
MDC will likely see a spike in the number of people being incarcerated before they go to trial since the order instructs State Police to send additional officers to the city, and officials are requesting $2.1 million from the state’s governor to handle it.
In a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Sept. 14, the Bernalillo County government asked for $2.1 million in “emergency public health funding” to reopen four cell pods to make space for more people to be incarcerated.
“These pods will require correctional officers to supervise the inmates, creating additional posts and overtime,” County Manager Julie Morgas Baca wrote.
Officials are also looking to send more inmates to other jails around the state to avoid overfilling MDC.
“MDC will need to secure agreements with other jails to ensure our count does not exceed our mandated population capacity,” Morgas Baca wrote.
Crowding and conditions at the jail have sparked litigation for decades, leading to court-ordered reforms at the jail under an agreement known as the McClendon settlement.
The jail’s funding request marks the first and so far only time a local government has asked for funding under the public health order enacted on Sept. 9. A spokesperson for the governor confirmed on Friday they received Morgas Baca’s letter.
The governor’s Senior Public Safety Advisor Ben Baker and former State Police chief Pete Kassetas, Lujan Grisham’s newly hired crime commissioner, “are in active conversation with leaders from Bernalillo County and MDC,” Caroline Sweeney said.
CAPACITY AND CROWDING
A federal judge blocked part of the order restricting firearms in the county on Sept. 13, but left the rest of it in place, including a surge of New Mexico State Police officers into the county to arrest people on outstanding warrants.
The county anticipates an additional 350 people heading to jail as a result of the “initial roundup,” which would fill MDC to its limit, Morgas Baca wrote.
New Mexico State Police confirmed the dispatch of extra officers to “assist local agencies in criminal enforcement” but have not said how many officers will go into the area and for how long.
State Police Public Information Officer Ray Wilson said on Sept. 14 the agency was “still in the initial process of developing an operational plan.”
Bennett Baur, the state’s chief public defender, said state officials need to consider how they spend their money on clearing warrants.
While having police go to someone’s house is necessary in some cases, Baur said, it is one of the most dangerous ways to approach the situation — for both police and the people they are trying to arrest.
“There’s no evidence that those people are committing more crimes than the general population,” Baur told Source New Mexico on Thursday. “We have to look at what is the best way for public safety to address that, and just talking about law enforcement going to people’s homes or rounding them up in the community is not only not cost effective, but in many ways creates more dangerous situations.”
The safe surrender program, where people turn themselves in over Zoom, has proven “extremely successful and cost effective,” Baur said, getting hundreds of people’s cases back on track.
Morgas Baca wrote that in the last six months, the jail has held an average of 1,460 people, at one point reaching a high of 1,600 people. More than 22 full-time guards would be needed to oversee the four extra cell pods, according to a breakdown by MDC Warden Jason Jones attached to the county manager’s letter.
Twenty-six people have died at the jail since 2020, the Albuquerque Journal reported at the time the public health order came down.
SENDING IN THE GUARD
The day after the county manager’s letter, Lujan Grisham narrowed the public health order and told reporters in the Bernalillo County Commission chambers that she’s willing to send help from three state agencies to alleviate staff shortages at the jail.
Lack of staffing, space and “prompt screening” of people arrested and taken to the jail are a “significant contributor to these public health emergencies by keeping police officers off the streets while they wait for arrestees to be processed,” Health Secretary Patrick Allen wrote in the updated order.
Kassetas said during the Sept. 15 news conference announcing the modified order that an officer was stuck at the jail for four hours the day before trying to book someone they had arrested “because booking was full.”
“The governor has asked us for solutions, and we’re going to come up with: How do we speed those processes up to get those officers back out in the streets in the metro to be proactive?” Kassetas said.
Lujan Grisham said the N.M. National Guard, the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and the Department of Corrections stand ready to go into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
“If we can use Guard or Homeland Security personnel or Corrections personnel — which today we believe we can — to stand up bookings and medical screenings, we’re going to do that,” she said.
That need has to be identified by county officials, she said, “but there is some degree of discussion about whether or not that’s immediately necessary.”
“Instead of waiting to have the data and have everyone agree, what’s on first, what’s on second, we’re just going to make sure that we’re ready to stand it up and invest immediately,” Lujan Grisham said.
Morgas Baca told Source New Mexico on Tuesday that jail staff will see how things go under the emergency order, and weigh how and whether to take the governor up on her offer. “Any changes made at MDC would be in conjunction with our medical partner, UNM Hospital, and in accordance with our requirements under the federal McClendon settlement,” she said.
The doctors in charge of medical care at the jail say they are not asking for help.
A spokesperson for UNM Hospital confirmed Tuesday they are not requesting assistance from the governor for health care staffing.
Since UNMH took over care at the jail, they “have made a significant number of hires and we continue to hire to ensure we are providing the high- quality care that UNM Hospital is known for,” said spokesperson Christopher Ramirez.
It would not be the first time that the New Mexico National Guard has been sent into the jail.
The Bernalillo County Commission asked for the Guard’s help in January 2022 after a psychiatric nurse warned that the medical and psychiatric staff shortage — compounded by a lack of correctional officers — is a “recipe for disaster.”
NEXT UP: THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
The jail’s request comports with the governor’s yearslong push to keep more people behind bars before trial.
Changing the law to make it easier for prosecutors to hold people who are accused but not convicted of a crime in jail has been a top priority of Lujan Grisham, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman and other prominent Democrats in the Roundhouse.
It has faced stiff opposition from lawmakers, public defenders and civil rights advocates who say it would overturn New Mexicans’ fundamental right to due process and the legal presumption in the U.S. that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
The criminal legal system in New Mexico is not very good at deciding who actually needs to be in jail, Baur said.
“The bureaucracy of arrests and processing is frankly broken,” he said. “There are so many people that are in jail that don’t need to be in jail.”
When Lujan Grisham first announced the new public health order, she said she will continue to push for this change in upcoming legislative sessions.
“I think, following the federal system, and having a rebuttable presumption — that if it’s a repeat, and violent offender — that those folks should have no ability to be released, pending that rebuttable debate about why they’re not too dangerous to be held until the trial,” she said. “I’ll ask for that again, and I have asked for any number of criminal penalty enhancements.”
Jury selection set to open in terrorism trial of extended family stemming from 2018 New Mexico raid — Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Jury selection is set to open Monday in federal court as members of an extended family face kidnapping and terrorism charges stemming from a raid of their squalid New Mexico encampment in 2018 by agents seeking a sickly, missing 3-year-old boy.
The boy's badly decomposed remains were eventually found in an underground tunnel at the compound on the outskirts of Amalia near the Colorado line. Authorities allege the family engaged in firearms and tactical training in preparation for attacks against government, tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.
An exact cause of death was never determined amid accusations that the boy was deprived of crucial medication linked to disabilities. Federal prosecutors opted for kidnapping charges.
Two men and three women have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to support planned attacks on U.S. law enforcement officers, military members and government employees. They also deny the kidnapping charges leveled against four of the defendants.
Albuquerque-based U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson has set aside four weeks for the trial, with dozens of witnesses scheduled to testify.
A grand jury indictment alleges Jany Leveille, a Haitian national, and partner Siraj Ibn Wahhaj instructed people at the compound to be prepared to engage in jihad and die as martyrs, and that another relative was invited to bring money and firearms.
Defense attorneys have said their clients would not be facing terrorism-related charges if they were not Muslim and that prosecutors are highlighting speculative and imagined theories about terrorist activities.
Potential jurors are being surveyed on their opinions about the Islamic religion, Muslims and alternatives to traditional medicine.
The grandfather of the missing boy is the Muslim cleric Siraj Wahhaj, who leads a well-known New York City mosque that has attracted radicals over the years, including a man who later helped bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.
Siraj Wahhaj could not be reached immediately by phone or email, but previously said his son and namesake is high-strung but not an extremist, and his two detained daughters are the "sweetest kinds of people."
Sheriff's deputies and state agents arrived in August 2018 to find the defendants with 11 hungry children living without running water or sanitation at the encampment encircled by berms of tires with an adjacent shooting range. They reported seizing an assortment of guns and ammunition, authorities said.
FBI interviews with the children led authorities to the boy's remains.
The boy, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, was reported missing by his mother in Georgia in December 2017. Around that time, authorities say, the boy's father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, set out with relatives and a cache of guns on a car journey to rural Alabama and then to New Mexico to start over on a parcel of high-desert scrubland near a tiny, crossroads town.
Prosecutors plan to present evidence that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille performed daily prayer rituals over the boy, even as he cried and foamed at the mouth, while depriving him of crucial medication.
They say the boy's dead body was hidden and washed for months in the belief by Leveille that it could one day return as Jesus Christ, who would explain what corrupt government and private institutions must be eliminated. In the 2018 raid, authorities reported seizing handwritten journals, laptops, phones and video of tactical training from the compound.
The five defendants — including sisters Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhanah Wahhaj, and Subhanah's husband, Lucas Morton — were charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, providing material support to each other as potential terrorists amid tactical drills at the New Mexico compound. Morton, Leveille and Siraj Ibn Wahhaj additionally were charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. government personnel.
Kidnapping charges also were filed against four defendants but not Siraj Ibn Wahhaj because of his legal status as the deceased boy's father. Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Morton have waived their right to legal counsel and will provide their own defense in court.
Defense attorneys have called the FBI's theories about terrorism activities at the Amalia compound speculative and unfounded. They also said there were no specific threats to the general public or individuals and that incriminating information was coerced from children in cooperation with child protective services.
The trial was delayed repeatedly over the course of five years during the COVID-19 pandemic and deliberations about the mental competency of the defendants.
It was unclear how Leveille would proceed as the trial opens. Earlier this year, she signed a tentative agreement with prosecutors to accept a reduced sentence on weapons charges that was not immediately authorized. In March, Leveille provided a notice of her intent to rely upon a defense of temporary insanity.
Leveille came to the U.S. in 1998 and stayed on a visa and work permit that later expired and immigration authorities denied an application for permanent residency.
Biologists look to expand suitable habitat for North America's largest and rarest tortoise — Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
While the average life span of North America's largest and most rare tortoise species is unknown, biologists have said it could span upward of a century.
So saving the endangered species is a long game — one that just got another nudge forward Friday as U.S. wildlife officials finalized an agreement with Ted Turner's Endangered Species Fund that clears the way for the release of more Bolson tortoises on the media mogul's ranch in central New Mexico.
It's a step toward one day releasing the tortoise more broadly in the Southwest as conservationists push the federal government to consider crafting a recovery plan for the species. The tortoise is just the latest example of a growing effort to find new homes for endangered species as climate change and other threats push them from their historic habitats.
Now found only in the grasslands of north-central Mexico, the tortoise once had a much larger range that included the southwestern United States. Fossil records also show it was once present it the southern Great Plains, including parts of Texas and Oklahoma.
The wild population in Mexico is thought to consist of fewer than 2,500 tortoises, and experts say threats to the animals are mounting as they are hunted for food and collected as pets. Their habitat also is shrinking as more desert grasslands are converted to farmland.
While it's been eons since the tortoises roamed wild in what is now New Mexico, Mike Phillips, director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, said it's time for biologists to reconsider what ecological reference points should matter most when talking about the recovery of an imperiled species.
Climate change is reshuffling the ecological deck and changing the importance of historical conditions in the recovery equation, Phillips said. He pointed to the case of the tortoise, noting that suitable habitat is moving north again as conditions in the Southwestern U.S. become drier and warmer.
Absent a willingness by wildlife managers to think more broadly, he said, species like the Bolson tortoise could have a bleak future.
"It would seem in a recovery context, historical range should be considered. Prehistoric range sometimes matters too," he said in an interview. "But most importantly, future range — because recovery is all about righting a wrong, it's about improving conditions. The future is what is of great relevance to recovery."
The question that biologists have been trying to answer is whether the Armendaris Ranch makes for a good home.
So far the ranch, spanning more than 560 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) is proving to be an ideal spot. The landscape is similar to that where the tortoises are found in Mexico, and work done on the ranch and at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Carlsbad has resulted in more than 400 tortoises being hatched since 2006.
Depending on weather conditions and forage availability, it can take a few years or more for a hatchling to reach just over 4 inches (110 millimeters) long. They can eventually grow to about 14.5 inches (370 millimeters).
The species was unknown to science until the late 1950s and has never been extensively studied.
"Each and every day we're learning more and more about the Bolson tortoise's natural history," Phillips said.
The goal is to build a robust captive population that can be used as a source for future releases into the wild. That work will include getting state and federal permits to release tortoises outside of the enclosures on Turner lands.
Three arrests made in boy's shooting death that sparked New Mexico governor's aggressive guns ban — Associated Press
A third arrest was made Friday in connection with a shooting outside an Albuquerque baseball stadium that killed an 11-year-old boy and prompted the New Mexico governor to issue a controversial gun ban.
Albuquerque police took Daniel Gomez, 26, into custody a day after two other men were identified as suspects. Police didn't immediately release further details about Gomez's arrest.
Jose Romero, 22, and Nathen Garley, 21, were being held for the Sept. 6 shooting after an Albuquerque Isotopes game in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference.
Medina said the two men had argued with people during the ballgame and mistakenly opened fire on a truck carrying Froylan Villegas and his family as it was leaving the parking lot because it closely resembled the truck of the intended targets.
"These cowards thought they were tough," Medina said in an earlier social media post. "They killed an innocent child."
Romero was already wanted for failing to appear in court in connection with alleged drug dealing, Medina said.
Garley happened to be in custody when he was arrested in connection with the killing. He had been stopped by state police on Sept. 13 while returning from Arizona and authorities found a gun and about 100,000 fentanyl tablets in the car, state Police Chief W. Troy Weisler said at the news conference.
Further investigation linked him to the shooting, authorities alleged.
Garley's case has been assigned to the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender, but the case is still in its early stages, spokesperson Maggie Shepard said Friday. She did not know if Romero would also have a public defender.
The office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Gomez.
Police alleged that the men, both reputed gang members, pulled up in a car and attacked the pickup truck that was leaving the minor league game at Isotopes Stadium.
More than a dozen shots were fired, killing Froylan Villegas and leaving his cousin, Tatiana Villegas, paralyzed from the waist down, authorities said. A GoFundMe account for Tatiana Villegas' recovery has raised nearly $40,000 to date.
The boy's mother and his infant brother were also inside the truck but weren't injured, although two bullets barely missed the other child, police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.
Romero and Garley had had an ongoing feud with another man and argued with him during the baseball game. The man drove a white Dodge pickup truck, Gallegos said.
The victims were in a very similar white Dodge truck that drove by the truck of the intended target, police said.
"It is our belief that these cowards mixed up the two vehicles and shot into the wrong vehicle," the police chief said.
"Investigators used cellphone data and social media to track the movements of several individuals," Gallegos said. "The day after the shooting, the man who was feuding with Romero sent him a message on Instagram indicating they shot at the wrong truck."
The shooting, one of several involving children, prompted New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, to issue an emergency public health order days later suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque. The measure was fought by Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups and a federal judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to block the order pending another court hearing next month.
U.S. District Judge David Urias said that the governor's original order was likely to cause irreparable harm to people deprived of the right to carry a gun in public for self-defense.
Grisham then amended the order to apply only to public parks and playgrounds where children and their families gather.
Biologists in slow and steady race to help North America's largest and rarest tortoise species — Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
While the average lifespan of North America's largest and most rare tortoise species is unknown, biologists have said it could span upward of a century.
So saving the endangered species is a long game — one that got another nudge forward Friday as U.S. wildlife officials finalized an agreement with Ted Turner's Endangered Species Fund that clears the way for the release of more Bolson tortoises on the media mogul's ranch in central New Mexico.
The "safe harbor agreement" will facilitate the release of captive tortoises on the Armendaris Ranch to establish a free-ranging population. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said the agreement, which offers private landowners protections from regulations, can serve as a model as officials look for more innovative ways to work within the Endangered Species Act.
Dozens of people gathered for the release Friday of 20 more adult tortoises on the property, which is already home to 23 of them as well as dozens of juvenile ones. With the sun high in the sky and temperatures nearing 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius), the release was held off until the evening to ensure their well-being.
The tortoises usually spend about 85% of the time in their earthen burrows, which in some cases can be about 21 yards (20 meters) long.
Shawn Sartorius, a field supervisor with the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the results of the breeding and restoration efforts for the slow-reproducing and long-lived animals will not be known in his lifetime.
"What we're doing here is establishing a population here that can be handed off to the next generation," Sartorius said.
It's a step toward one day releasing the tortoise more broadly in the Southwest as conservationists push the federal government to consider crafting a recovery plan for the species. The tortoise is just the latest example of a growing effort to find new homes for endangered species as climate change and other threats push them from their historic habitats.
Now found only in the grasslands of north-central Mexico, the tortoise once had a much larger range that included the southwestern United States. Fossil records also show it was once present it the southern Great Plains, including parts of Texas and Oklahoma.
The wild population in Mexico is thought to consist of fewer than 2,500 tortoises, and experts say threats to the animals are mounting as they are hunted for food and collected as pets. Their habitat also is shrinking as more desert grasslands are converted to farmland.
While it's been eons since the tortoises roamed wild in what is now New Mexico, Mike Phillips, director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, said it's time for biologists to reconsider what ecological reference points should matter most when talking about the recovery of an imperiled species.
Climate change is reshuffling the ecological deck and changing the importance of historical conditions in the recovery equation, Phillips said. He pointed to the case of the tortoise, noting that suitable habitat is moving north again as conditions in the Southwestern U.S. become drier and warmer.
Absent a willingness by wildlife managers to think more broadly, he said, species like the Bolson tortoise could have a bleak future.
"It would seem in a recovery context, historical range should be considered. Prehistoric range sometimes matters too," he said in an interview. "But most importantly, future range — because recovery is all about righting a wrong, it's about improving conditions. The future is what is of great relevance to recovery."
Sartorius, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, agreed, saying managers can't look narrowly at historic range and still keep animals like the tortoise on the planet.
The question that biologists have been trying to answer is whether the Armendaris Ranch makes for a good home.
So far the ranch, spanning more than 560 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) is proving to be an ideal spot. The landscape is similar to that where the tortoises are found in Mexico, and work done on the ranch and at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Carlsbad has resulted in more than 400 tortoises being hatched since 2006.
In all, the Turner Endangered Species Fund and its partners have been able to grow the population from 30 tortoises to about 800, said Chris Wiese, who leads the project at the Armendaris Ranch.
"The releases are the essential step to getting them back on the ground and letting them be wild tortoises," she said. "To us, this is the pinnacle of what we do."
The tortoises released Friday will be able to roam freely in the 16.5-acre (6.6-hectare) pen like they would in the wild. They are outfitted with transponders so they can be tracked, and wildlife managers will check in on them once a year.
Depending on weather conditions and forage availability, it can take a few years or more for a hatchling to reach just over 4 inches (110 millimeters) long. They can eventually grow to about 14.5 inches (370 millimeters).
The species was unknown to science until the late 1950s and has never been extensively studied.
"Each and every day we're learning more and more about the Bolson tortoise's natural history," Phillips said.
The goal is to build a robust captive population that can be used as a source for future releases into the wild — both in the U.S. and Mexico. That work will include getting state and federal permits to release tortoises outside of the enclosures on Turner lands.
Those released Friday hit the ground crawling, wandering through clumps of grass and around desert scrub as the Fra Cristobal mountain range loomed in the distance.
It made for a perfect scene as one of the tortoises headed off toward the western edge of the pen, its shadow trailing behind. It was a moment that Wiese and her team have been working toward for years.
"We are not in the business of making pets," she said. "We're in the business of making wild animals and that means you have to let them go."