Employees at Albuquerque Wells Fargo vote to unionize in a first for a major U.S. bank - By Nash Jones and Taylor Velazquez, KUNM News
Bankers and tellers at an Albuquerque branch of Wells Fargo voted to form a union Wednesday. It marks the first time workers have won a union election at a major U.S. bank. The employees chose to join the Communications Workers of America as the Wells Fargo Workers United.
Banker Sabrina Perez wrote in a statement that her team’s victory was not just for the Albuquerque-based staff, but all Wells Fargo employees and customers. She says the union will afford the Albuquerque staff “a collective voice to improve the industry.”
She characterized Wells Fargo’s efforts to dissuade employees from organizing as “aggressive.”
Spokesperson for Wells Fargo Ruben Pulido wrote in a statement that the bank respects their employees’ right to unionize, though believes they’d be better off “working directly with the company and its leadership.”
In 2016 Wells Fargo was found to have pressured employees to open unauthorized accounts for clients to meet sales goals. And just last year, a lawsuit alleged routine overtime pay violations.
Perez told KUNM that the impacts of these issues are what led to the union push.
Wells Fargo employees in Bethel, Alaska, will hold a union vote Thursday.
US historians ID a New Mexico soldier killed during WWII, but work remains on thousands of cases - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
After years of combing through military records and making some key deductions, a team of U.S. government historians and researchers has finally put a name to case file X-3212, identifying an Army private from eastern New Mexico named Homer Mitchell who died during World War II.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency this week announced the findings, which were confirmed by laboratory testing and brought closure to Mitchell's family members.
Mitchell is one of nearly 160 service members who have been accounted for over the last fiscal year as part of a massive, yearslong effort headed by the federal agency. The list of service members from various conflicts who have yet to be accounted for tops 81,000, but officials say more than 37,000 of those — mostly from WWII — are considered to be recoverable.
Each case can take years and involves poring through old reports and medical records, said Sean Everette, who leads outreach and communications for the agency.
Work on Mitchell's case began in 2018. Researchers determined that X-3212 had to be one of three soldiers who went missing in the Pachten Forest along Germany's western border, with Mitchell being the strongest possibility.
"It took nearly three years just for the historical research part. It then took the lab almost two more years before Mitchell could be positively identified," Everette said.
Hearing the news was surreal for Mitchell's family, many of whom are military veterans themselves. Scattered from New Mexico to Oklahoma and Texas, they will be gathering next spring in Portales to bury the soldier.
Mind-blowing is how his great niece, Sonja Dennin, described the news, noting that it's been nearly 80 years since Mitchell died.
Mitchell, the youngest among his siblings, had enlisted in 1943 and underwent training at military bases on the other side of the country before shipping out to Europe.
His parents were devastated by his death and the lack of information back then added to the grief, Dennin said Wednesday during a phone interview.
"He was so young and it was so painful to them — the way he was lost and not being able to properly bury him," she said.
Mitchell, 20, was killed on Dec. 10, 1944 as his battalion was hammered by heavy fire from German forces. The battle came just months after he and tens of thousands of other troops landed in Normandy and began their push toward Germany.
The intensity of the mortar and artillery strikes during that December battle made recovering the casualties impossible. It wasn't until after the war that the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe.
They conducted investigations in the area between 1946 and 1950. They were unable to identify Mitchell's remains among what was found and officially declared him Killed in Action in November 1951.
It was learned that after the battle someone buried Mitchell along with three other soldiers at the civilian cemetery in Hüttersdorf, Germany. Those unidentified remains were eventually interred in France, where they had remained until 2021 when historians were able to solidify the link to Mitchell.
Work by the agency's laboratory then ensued.
"They do have a methodical way of going about it," Dennin said, "But, yes, it was comforting to know that when he was initially buried, whoever it was, took care to make sure that he was laid to rest."
Despite remaining family members never getting the chance to know Mitchell, Dennin said they all know of him. An old oval framed portrait of him hung in the home of Dennin's great grandmother until her death. It was passed down to her grandmother and then to her father, who insisted that she take it one day.
That portrait will accompany Dennin and her family for the trip to Portales in the spring so it can be displayed during Mitchell's burial.
The checkered history of the poinsettia's namesake and the flower's origins get new attention - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Like Christmas trees, Santa and reindeer, the poinsettia has long been a ubiquitous symbol of the holiday season in the U.S. and across Europe.
But now, nearly 200 years after the plant with the bright crimson leaves was introduced in the U.S., attention is once again turning to the poinsettia's origins and the checkered history of its namesake, a slaveowner and lawmaker who played a part in the forced removal of Native Americans from their land. Some people would now rather call the plant by the name of its Indigenous origin in southern Mexico.
Some things to know:
WHERE DID THE NAME POINSETTIA COME FROM?
The name comes from the amateur botanist and statesman Joel Roberts Poinsett, who happened upon the plant in 1828 during his tenure as the first U.S. minister to the newly independent Mexico.
Poinsett, who was interested in science as well as potential cash crops, sent clippings of the plant to his home in South Carolina and to a botanist in Philadelphia, who affixed the eponymous name to the plant in gratitude.
A life-size bronze statue of Poinsett still stands in his honor in downtown Greenville, South Carolina.
However, he was cast out of Mexico within a year of his discovery, having earned a local reputation for intrusive political maneuvering that extended to a network of secretive masonic lodges and schemes to contain British influence.
IS THE 'POINSETTIA' NAME LOSING ITS LUSTER?
As more people learn of its namesake's complicated history, the name "poinsettia" has become less attractive in the United States.
Unvarnished published accounts reveal Poinsett as a disruptive advocate for business interests abroad, a slaveholder on a rice plantation in the U.S., and a secretary of war who helped oversee the forced removal of Native Americans, including the westward relocation of Cherokee populations to Oklahoma known as the "Trail of Tears."
In a new biography titled "Flowers, Guns and Money," historian Lindsay Schakenbach Regele describes the cosmopolitan Poinsett as a political and economic pragmatist who conspired with a Chilean independence leader and colluded with British bankers in Mexico. Though he was a slaveowner, he opposed secession, and he didn't live to see the Civil War.
Schakenbach Regele renders tough judgment on Poinsett's treatment of and regard for Indigenous peoples.
"Because Poinsett belonged to learned societies, contributed to botanists' collections, and purchased art from Europe, he could more readily justify the expulsion of Natives from their homes," she writes.
A CHRISTMAS FLOWER OF MANY NAMES
The cultivation of the plant dates back to the Aztec empire in Mexico 500 years ago.
Among Nahuatl-speaking communities of Mexico, the plant is known as the cuetlaxochitl (kwet-la-SHO-sheet), meaning "flower that withers." It's an apt description of the thin red leaves on wild varieties of the plant that grow to heights above 10 feet (3 meters).
Year-end holiday markets in Latin America brim with the potted plant known in Spanish as the "flor de Nochebuena," or "flower of Christmas Eve," which is entwined with celebrations of the night before Christmas. The "Nochebuena" name is traced to early Franciscan friars who arrived from Spain in the 16th century. Spaniards once called it "scarlet cloth."
Additional nicknames abound: "Santa Catarina" in Mexico, "estrella federal," or "federal star" in Argentina and "penacho de Incan," or "headdress" in Peru.
Ascribed in the 19th century, the Latin name, Euphorbia pulcherrima, means "the most beautiful" of a diverse genus with a milky sap of latex.
SO WHAT IS ITS PREFERRED NAME?
"Cuetaxochitl" is winning over some enthusiasts among Mexican youths, including the diaspora in the U.S., according to Elena Jackson Albarrán, a professor of Mexican history and global and intercultural studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
"I've seen a trend towards people openly saying: 'Don't call this flower either poinsettia or Nochebuena. It's cuetlaxochitl,'" said Jackson Albarrán. "There's going to be a big cohort of people who are like, 'Who cares?'"
Most ordinary people in Mexico never say "poinsettia" and don't talk about Poinsett, according to Laura Trejo, a Mexican biologist who is leading studies on the genetic history of the U.S. poinsettia.
"I feel like it's only the historians, the diplomats and, well, the politicians who know the history of Poinsett," Trejo said.
THE MEXICAN ROOTS OF U.S. POINSETTIAS
Mexican biologists in recent years have traced the genetic stock of U.S. poinsettia plants to a wild variant in the Pacific coastal state of Guerrero, verifying lore about Poinsett's pivotal encounter there. The scientists also are researching a rich, untapped diversity of other wild variants, in efforts that may help guard against the poaching of plants and theft of genetic information.
The flower still grows wild along Mexico's Pacific Coast and parts of Central America as far as Costa Rica.
Trejo, of the National Council of Science and Technology in the central state of Tlaxcala, said some informal outdoor markets still sell the "sun cuetlaxochitl" that resemble wild varieties, alongside modern patented varieties.
In her field research travels, Trejo has found households that preserve ancient traditions associated with the flower.
"It's clear to us that this plant, since the pre-Hispanic era, is a ceremonial plant, an offering, because it's still in our culture, in the interior of the county, to cut the flowers and take them to the altars," she said in Spanish. "And this is primarily associated with the maternal goddesses: with Coatlicue, Tonantzin and now with the Virgin Mary."
A LASTING FIGURE IN HISTORY
Regardless of his troubled history, Poinsett's legacy as an explorer and collector continues to loom large: Some 1,800 meticulously tended poinsettias are delivered in November and December from greenhouses in Maryland to a long list of museums in Washington, D.C., affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
A "pink-champagne" cultivar adorns the National Portrait Gallery this year.
Poinsett's name may also live on for his connection to other areas of U.S. culture. He advocated for the establishment of a national science museum, and in part due to his efforts, a fortune bequeathed by British scientist James Smithson was used to underwrite the creation of the Smithsonian Institution.
Otero County OKs contract for juvenile detention with San Juan County - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Otero county commissioners agreed to increased costs to hold minors arrested in Otero County at a Four Corners detention center under a contract awarded Dec. 7.
The Otero County Commission gave the nod to the San Juan Juvenile Detention Center in Farmington to keep arrested minors as a back-up option if Doña Ana County cannot take them. San Juan will charge $275 per-person, per-day, according to the new contract.
The contract was among the 15 items unanimously approved on the consent agenda at the end of the final regular meeting for the commission in Southern New Mexico..
There are no juvenile detention facilities in Otero County.
Instead, like most New Mexico counties, the county has contracts and agreements with the other detention centers that are licensed to hold arrested minors. One facility is in Doña Ana County, another is in Bernalillo County and the third in San Juan County.
In notes on the contracts, county employees said Doña Ana is the first facility contacted, and San Juan is only used in emergency situations, when closer facilities are full, said Nena Sisler, who is the correctional services director at Otero County.
“The nearest authorized facility in Doña Ana County is often full and unable to take our juvenile detainees,” Sisler wrote on the agenda request. “The purpose of this agreement is to secure a back-up facility where we can take juvenile detainees, when other facilities are at capacity.”
RISING COSTS OF JUVENILE DETENTION
The costs for juvenile detention are rising across the state, even as the number of youth coming into those facilities is falling,according to reports from the Legislative Finance Committee, and the state’s child welfare agency.
The New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department continues to project that the number of youth held in secure facilities will continue to drop.
The most recent contracts signed in 2020 show that holding arrested minors in Bernalillo County costs $225 per-person per-day, while in Doña Ana County, the cost is $185 per day. The Doña Ana cost was increased to $200 per-person, per-day in July 2022, according to Doña Ana detention officials.
Invoices to Otero County in 2023 for holding minors in custody all came from Doña Ana.
Since the beginning of 2023, Doña Ana County has invoiced Otero officials $114,400 for holding minors in custody. The most recent invoice was for October, in which Doña Ana County billed $1,200 to Otero County.
In fiscal year 2023, Otero County overspent its budget for holding juvenile detainees. The county originally estimated $100,000, but required another $32,400 in transfers to cover the costs, according to the July year-to date budget report.
The last time San Juan County invoiced Otero for holding minors in detention was in December 2020, according to invoice receipts. The amount was for $4,865, but it’s unclear from the receipt how many minors were held, or if there were any additional medical costs.
The new contract with San Juan charges more than one and a half the previous 2019 contract’s rate, which was $185 per-person, daily.
Vigil for Palestinians planned for Wednesday - Megan Myscofski, KUNM News
New Mexicans for Palestine will hold a vigil Wednesday in Albuquerque.
The group is a coalition among several groups including the Southwest Coalition for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
It launched four billboards around the city last week calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and urging New Mexicans to contact their Congressional representatives. The signs will be up through the holidays.
The vigil will take place at 3 p.m. at the Montaño Rail Runner station where one of the billboards is located.
The group is calling on the New Mexico Congressional Delegation to support a ceasefire. RepresentativesGabe Vasquez andTeresa Leger-Fernandez have already released statements in support of that position.
Feral cattle in Gila likely spared aerial gunning in 2024 - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The U.S. Forest Service determined it will not be using helicopters and guns to cull cattle loose in the Gila National Forest next year.
Federal officials said aerial operations were unnecessary, because of a smaller herd size, according to a Dec. 5 federal court filing for the District of New Mexico.
“Forest Service estimates that the number of remaining Gila Cattle is roughly in the neighborhood of 10-20 animals, with some degree of uncertainty outside that range due to the large area at issue and the evasive nature of the animals,” the filing stated. “As a result of this estimate, Federal Respondents do not intend to proceed with aerial lethal removal operations of the Gila Cattle in February 2024.”
Federal officials said any removals in 2024 would be ground-based roundups.
THE CONTEXT
Feral cows in the Gila have been a long-standing issue.
The U.S. Forest Service said it stemmed from action taken in the mid-1970s, after a rancher with a federal grazing permit declared bankruptcy and abandoned his cattle in the national forest.
Local and national nonprofit conservation organizations applauded efforts to remove the cattle, noting that their defecation and erosion in riparian environments, and potential for habitat destruction threaten federally-listed species living in the Gila Wilderness.
Over the years, 756 cattle were removed (dead or alive) from the Gila Wilderness, the Forest Service said in a 2022 press release. Of those cattle, only one cow captured in 1998 was branded. The rest did not have an ear tag, brand or other marker of ownership.
Federal officials saidnearly half the feral cattle rounded up on the ground do not survive capture and removal, “due to stress and self-inflicted injury.”
In 2022, the National Forest Service saidit killed 65 cattle during a two-day arial operation, but the practice ignited further criticism in 2023. The issue touched on emotionally-charged issues such as endangered species protections, animal cruelty and federal lands management. The fracas between the federal government, cattle organizations and conservation groups sparked national stories from a variety of outlets.
In February, a special team of federal officials sniped 19 cattle from a helicopteron public lands, after vocal objections from state cattle organizations.
Days before the scheduled operation, the New Mexico Cattle Grower’s Association, ranchers and the Humane Farming Association sued federal officials. In court filings, they called the practice “unlawful, cruel and environmentally harmful.”
The groups said that federal officials failed to provide 75-days of notice, and raised concerns that wildfires destroyed fences that allowed branded cattle to mingle with the unowned, unbranded cattle.
Their lawyers disputed whether the cattle in the Gila were feral – a domesticated animal returned to a wild state.
Forest officials argued that the federal district court was the wrong venue for the action.
A federal judge overruled the cattlemans’ injunction to stop the action, saying there was proper notification, and ruled that the cows were feral animals.
Killing the unbranded cattle was necessary to protect hikers, waterways and habitats for threatened and endangered species, said Camille Howes, the supervisor at the Gila National Forest.
“The feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness have been aggressive towards wilderness visitors, graze year-round, and trample stream banks and springs, causing erosion and sedimentation,” Howes said in a February statement.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham weighed in after the U.S. Forest Service shot the 19 cattle, saying she was disappointed in the “lack of meaningful, long-term engagement with New Mexico stakeholders on controversial matters like this one,” and likened it to processes such as prescribed burns.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association joined with others and sued to seek a permanent stop of the Forest Service shooting cattle from the air in the Gila Wilderness. The federal judge allowed the conservation nonprofit The Center for Biological Diversity to intervene in the lawsuit, which is still ongoing.
Now, parties involved in the lawsuit asked a federal judge to postpone a hearing scheduled for December, until February. According to court records, that motion hearing has not yet been rescheduled.
Santa Fe Archbishop supports pope on blessing same-sex unions – Santa Fe New Mexican, Associated Press
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe is backing a decision by Pope Francis to offer blessings to same-sex couples.
The Santa Fe New Mexicanreports Archbishop John C. Wester says the pontiff’s decision is typical of a pope who is trying to make the Catholic Church more welcoming.
The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples. It’s a radical shift in policy aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on same-sex unions.
The Vatican statement was heralded by some as a step toward breaking down discrimination in the Catholic Church. But some LGBTQ+ advocates warned it underscored the church’s idea that same-sex relationships remain inferior to heterosexual partnerships.
The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if the blessings weren’t confused with the ritual of marriage.
The New Mexican reports Wester has previously supported the LGBTQ+ community. In 2022, he and six other bishops signed a statementsupporting LGBTQ+ youth, who are often ostracized and bullied.
What we know about Texas' new law that lets police arrest migrants who enter the US illegally - By Valerie Gonzalez Associated Press
How far can a state go to keep migrants out of the U.S.?
The answer may soon come out of Texas, where a new law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott this week will allow police to arrest migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally and give local judges the authority to order them to leave the country.
Acting quickly, civil rights groups and a Texas border county filed a lawsuit Tuesday that seeks to stop the measure from taking effect in March, calling it unconstitutional. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also blasted the Texas law but wouldn't say whether the Justice Department would challenge it.
Here are some things to know:
WHO CAN BE ARRESTED?
The measure allows any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people who are suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, migrants could either agree to a Texas judge's order to leave the U.S. or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. Migrants who don't leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges.
Arresting officers must have probable cause, which could include witnessing the illegal entry themselves or seeing it on video.
The law cannot be enforced against people lawfully present in the U.S., including those who were granted asylum or who are enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
"The goal of these laws is to make sure that when they see somebody crossing over the border, as the National Guard see, as the Texas Department of Public Safety see, they know they're not profiling. They are seeing with their own eyes people who are violating the law," Abbott said Monday.
However, critics, including Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, worry the law could lead to racial profiling and family separation. American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Texas and some neighboring states issued a travel advisory this week warning people of a possible threat their civil and constitutional rights violations when passing through Texas.
During a news briefing Tuesday, López Obrador said Abbott was looking to score political points with people's lives.
"The Texas governor acts that way because he wants to be the Republican vice-presidential candidate and wants to win popularity with these measures," López Obrador said. "He's not going to win anything. On the contrary, he is going to lose support because there are a lot of Mexicans in Texas, a lot of migrants."
WHERE WILL THE LAW BE ENFORCED?
It can be enforced anywhere in Texas.
Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who carried the bill in the Texas House, says he expects the vast majority of arrests will occur within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Some places are off-limits. Arrests can't be made in public and private schools; churches, synagogues or other established places of worship; hospitals and other health care facilities, including those where sexual assault forensic examinations are conducted.
Under the Texas law, migrants ordered to leave would be sent to ports of entry along the border with Mexico, even if they are not Mexican citizens.
IS THE LAW CONSTITUTIONAL?
Legal experts and immigrant rights group have said the measure is a clear conflict with the U.S. government's authority to regulate immigration.
A key claim in Tuesday's lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other groups is that it violates the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause. The suit accuses Texas of trying "to create a new state system to regulate immigration that completely bypasses and conflicts with the federal system."
Opponents have called the measure the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law — denounced by critics as the "Show Me Your Papers" bill — that was largely struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court's 2012 decision on the Arizona law stated the federal government has exclusive power over immigration.
Abbott and other Republicans have said President Joe Biden is not doing enough to control the 1,950-mile (3,149-kilometer) southern border.
"In his absence, Texas has the constitutional authority to secure our border through historic laws like SB 4," Abbott said in a statement.
The U.S. government has not said whether it will challenge the Texas law, as it did with Arizona's measure.
Mexico's president has indicated his country will intervene.
WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE BORDER?
Abbott signed the law Monday amid an increase in border crossings that has stretched U.S. Customs and Border Protection resources. Troy Miller, the agency's acting commissioner, has called the number of daily arrivals "unprecedented," with illegal crossings topping 10,000 some days across the border in December.
Thousands of asylum-seekers who have crossed are sleeping outside along the border overnight as they wait for federal agents to process them. Most are released with notices to appear in immigration courts, which are backlogged with more than 3 million cases.
Many are crossing at the Texas cities of Eagle Pass and El Paso, where federal officials suspended cross-border rail traffic in response to migrants riding freight trains through Mexico, hopping off just before entering the U.S.
The U.S. government also recently shut down the nearby international crossing between Lukeville, Arizona, and Sonoyta, Mexico, to free Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the port of entry to help with transportation and other support. The agency also has partially closed a few other border ports of entry in recent months, including a pedestrian crossing in San Diego.
___
Associated Press writers Acacia Coronado and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas; Christopher Sherman in Mexico City; and Zeke Miller in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
States trashing troves of masks and pandemic gear as huge, costly stockpiles linger and expire - By Jennifer Peltz And David A. Lieb Associated Press
When the coronavirus pandemic took hold in an unprepared U.S., states scrambled for masks and other protective gear.
Three years later, as the grips of the pandemic have loosened, many states are now trying to deal with an excess of protective gear, ditching their supplies in droves.
With expiration dates passing and few requests to tap into its stockpile, Ohio auctioned off 393,000 gowns for just $2,451 and ended up throwing away another 7.2 million, along with expired masks, gloves and other materials. The now expiring supplies had cost about $29 million in federal money.
A similar reckoning is happening around the country. Items are aging, and as a deadline to allocate federal COVID-19 cash approaches next year, states must decide how much to invest in maintaining warehouses and supply stockpiles.
An Associated Press investigation found that at least 15 states, from Alaska to Vermont, have tossed some of their trove of PPE because of expiration, surpluses and a lack of willing takers.
Into the trash went more than 18 million masks, 22 million gowns, 500,000 gloves, and more. That's not counting states that didn't give the AP exact figures or responded in cases or other measures. Rhode Island said it got rid of 829 tons of PPE; Maryland disposed of over $93 million in supplies.
"What a real waste. That's what happens when you don't prepare, when you have a bust-and-boom public health system," where a lack of planning leads to panicked over-purchasing in emergencies, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "It shows that we really have to do a better job of managing our stockpiles."
The AP sent inquiries about PPE stockpiles to all 50 states over the past several months. About half responded.
States emphasize that they distributed far more gear than they discarded and have gone to great lengths to donate the leftovers. Washington state sent hundreds of thousands of supplies to the Marshall Islands last year, yet ended up throwing out millions more items after they expired.
Many states are keeping at least a portion, and sometimes all, of their remaining protective gear. Some even plan to update their stockpiles.
But others say the vagaries of the pandemic and the PPE supply left no choice but to acquire the items, and now to throw them out, however reluctantly. Expiration dates are set because materials can degrade and might not work as intended. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has set the fair market value of expired supplies at zero dollars.
"Anytime you're involved in a situation where you're recalling how difficult it was to get something in the first place, and then having to watch that go or not be used in the way it was intended to be used, certainly, there's some frustration in that," said Louis Eubank, who runs the South Carolina health department's COVID-19 coordination office. The state has discarded over 650,000 expired masks.
When the virus struck, demand skyrocketed for N95 masks, gloves and gowns. The U.S government's Strategic National Stockpile was underequipped, and states plunged into global bidding wars.
The AP found in 2020 that states spent over $7 billion in a few months on PPE, ventilators and some other high-demand medical devices in a seller's market. Ultimately, the federal government paid for many of the supplies.
"There was no way to know, at the time of purchase, how long the supply deficit would last or what quantities would be needed," Ohio Department of Health spokesperson Ken Gordon said.
Ohio distributed more than 227 million pieces of protective equipment during the pandemic. But as the supply crunch and the health crisis eased, demand faded, especially for gowns.
Now, "states, hospitals, manufacturers – everybody in the whole system -- has extra product," said Linda Rouse O'Neill of the Health Industry Distributors Association.
Given the glut, stockpiled items are selling for bargain prices, if at all. Vermont got $82.50 for 105,000 boot covers and 29 cents apiece for thousands of safety goggles.
Striking a balance between preparedness and surpluses is "a major dilemma" for governments, said Scott Amey of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group. And while politicians vowed in 2020 never to be caught off guard again, "memories are short, budgets are tight," Amey noted.
In Wisconsin, a legislative committee axed from the budget $17.2 million that would have funded a warehouse with an ongoing 60-day supply of PPE for two years.
The state Department of Health Services said it is now "demobilizing the warehouse" and trying to donate the supplies. Already, Wisconsin has tossed nearly 1.7 million masks and almost 1 million gowns.
Minnesota's Department of Health was allocated some money this year for retaining and restocking PPE and is strategizing. For now, emergency response official Deb Radi says the agency expects to dispose of a few expiring gowns.
The Health Industry Distributors Association recommends that product distributors maintain a 60-to-90-day supply to guard against demand spikes. But the group says it's probably unnecessary for everyone in the system — from manufacturers to doctors' offices — to have such a large cushion.
Missouri's health department has maintained a 90-day supply, keeping even expired materials on the presumption that the federal government will OK their use in an emergency. That happened during COVID-19.
"If you don't make the investment – and perhaps the investment that is never used – then you may not be prepared to assist the public when it's needed," Missouri health director Paula Nickelson said.
Pennsylvania officials, by contrast, are aiming for a 15-day stockpile after frank conversations about what they can afford not only to keep, but to keep replacing as items expire, said Andy Pickett, the Health Department's emergency preparedness and response director.
And Nevada can't give its aging PPE away fast enough.
Department of Administration Director Jack Robb said the state is endeavoring to shed the supplies safely and without wasting money but already has discarded some.
But Robb said officials "made the best decisions that they could" when confronted with a disease that has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide, including some of his close friends.
"And I hope we never see anything like that again in our lifetime," he said.
Native American translations are being added to more US road signs to promote language and awareness - By Michael Casey Associated Press
A few years back, Sage Brook Carbone was attending a powwow at the Mashantucket Western Pequot reservation in Connecticut when she noticed signs in the Pequot language.
Carbone, a citizen of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island, thought back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has lived for much of her life. She never saw any street signs honoring Native Americans, nor any featuring Indigenous languages.
She submitted to city officials the idea of adding Native American translations to city street signs. Residents approved her plan and will install about 70 signs featuring the language of the Massachusett Tribe, which English settlers encountered upon their arrival.
"What a great, universal way of teaching language," she said of the project done in consultation with a a member of the Massachusett Tribe and other Native Americans.
"We see multiple languages written almost everywhere, but not on municipal signage," she said. "Living on a numbered street, I thought this is a great opportunity to include Native language with these basic terms that we're all familiar with around the city."
Carbone has joined a growing push around the country to use Indigenous translations on signs to raise awareness about Native American communities. It also is way to revive some Native American languages, highlight a tribe's sovereignty as well as open the door for wider debates on land rights, discrimination and Indigenous representation in the political process.
"We have a moment where there is a search for some reconciliation and justice around Indigenous issues," said Darren Ranco, chair of Native American Programs at the University of Maine and a citizen of the Penobscot Nation. "The signs represent that, but by no means is that the end point around these issues. My concern is that people will think that putting up signs solves the problem, when in fact, it's the beginning point to addressing deeper histories."
At least six states have followed suit, including Iowa, New York, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Signs along U.S. Highway 30 in Iowa include the Meskwaki Nation's own spelling of the tribe, Meskwakiinaki, near its settlement. In upstate New York, bilingual highway signs in the languages of the Seneca, Onondaga and Tuscarora tribes border highways and their reservations.
In Wisconsin, six of the 11 federally recognized tribes in the state have installed dual language signs. Wisconsin is derived from the Menominee word Wēskōhsaeh, meaning "a good place" and the word Meskousing, which means "where it lies red" in Algonquian.
"Our partnerships with Wisconsin's Native Nations are deeper than putting up highway signs," WisDOT Secretary Craig Thompson said in a statement. "We are proud of the longstanding commitment to foster meaningful partnerships focused on our future by providing great care and consideration to our past."
Minnesota has put up signs in English and the Dakota or Ojibwe languages on roads and highways that traverse tribal lands, while the southeast Alaska community of Haines this summer erected stop, yield, 'Children at Play' and street name signs in both English and Tlingit.
Douglas Olerud, the mayor at the time, told the Juneau Empire it was healing for him after hearing for years from Tlingit elders that they were not allowed to use their language when sent to boarding schools.
"This is a great way to honor some of those people that have been working really hard to keep their traditions and keep the language alive, and hopefully they can have some small amount of healing from when they were robbed of the culture," he said.
In New Mexico, the state transportation department has been working with tribes for years to include traditional names and artwork along highway overpasses. Travelers heading north from Santa Fe pass under multiple bridges with references to Pojoaque Pueblo in the community's native language of Tewa.
There have also been local efforts in places like Bemidji, Minnesota, where Michael Meuers, a non-Native resident, started the Bemidji Ojibwe Language Project. Since 2009, more than 300 signs in English and Ojibwe have been put up across northern Minnesota, mostly on buildings, including schools. The signs can also be found in hospitals and businesses and are used broadly to spell out names of places and animals, identify things such as elevators, hospital departments, bear crossings — "MAKWA XING" — and food within a grocery store, and include translations for welcome, thank you and other phrases.
"Maybe it's going to open up conversations so that we understand that we are all one people," said Meuers, who worked for the Red Lake Nation for 29 years and started the project after seeing signs in Hawaiian on a visit to the state.
The University of Maine put up dual language signs around its main campus. The Native American Programs, in partnership with the Penobscot Nation, also launched a website where visitors can hear the words spoken by language master Gabe Paul, a Penobscot pronunciation guide.
"For me, and for many of our tribal citizens and descendants, it is a daily reminder that we are in our homeland and we should be "at home" at the university, even though it has felt for generations like it can be an unwelcome place," Ranco said.
But not all efforts to provide dual language signs have gone well.
In New Zealand, the election of a conservative government in October has thrown into doubt efforts by transportation officials to start using road signs written in both English and the Indigenous Māori language.
Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency, earlier this year proposed making 94 road signs bilingual to promote the revitalization of the language.
But many conservatives have been irked by the increased use of Māori words by government agencies. Thousands wrote form submissions opposing the road sign plan, saying it could confuse or distract drivers.
The effort in Cambridge has been welcomed as part of what is called the participatory budgeting process, which allows residents to propose ideas on spending part of the budget. Carbone proposed the sign project and, together with a plan to make improvements to the African American Heritage Trail, it was approved by residents.
"I am so excited to see the final products and the initial run of these signs," Carbone said. "When people traveling around Cambridge see them, they will feel the same way. It will be just different enough to be noticeable but not different enough that it would cause a stir."
Carbone and others also hope the signs open a broader discussion of Native American concerns in the city, including representation in the city government, funding for Native American programs as well as efforts to ensure historical markers offer an accurate portrayal of Indigenous people.
When she first heard about the proposal, Sarah Burks, preservation planner at the Cambridge Historical Commission, acknowledged there were questions. Which signs would get the translations? How would translation be handled? Would this involve extensive research?
The translation on streets signs will be relatively easy for people to understand, she said, and inspire residents to "stop and think" about the Massachusett Tribe and to "recognize the diversity of people in our community."
"It will be attention-grabbing in a good way," she said of the signs, which are expected to go up early next year.
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Associated Press writers Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.