Governor signs $10.21 billion budget bill - By Megan Myscofski, KUNM News
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a new, $10.21 billion state budget into law Wednesday. That is an almost 7% increase in recurring spending from last year.
It also maintains reserves at a level that’s about a third of the budget.
Wednesday was the last day for the governor to sign or veto legislation from this year’s legislative session. While information is still rolling out, the secretary of state’s website currently says she has signed 69 bills into law.
The Legislature passed 72 bills this year. If the governor takes no action on a bill, that is known as a pocket veto, and she is not required to say why she chose not to sign.
The budget includes a 3% raise for state employees.
It also includes about $20 million for homelessness initiatives and $90 million for literacy programs.
About $100 million will go towards water and wastewater projects as well as $540 million for road improvements and $300 million for the Conservation Legacy Permanent Fund.
Jury convicts movie armorer of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter on Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie "Rust."
The verdict against movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm.
Gutierrez-Reed aso had faced a second charge, of tampering with evidence, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection. She was found not guilty on that count.
Immediately after the verdict was read out in court, the judge ordered the 24-year-old armorer placed into the custody of deputies. Lead attorney Jason Bowles said afterward that Gutierrez-Reed will appeal the conviction, which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on "Rust," was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on a movie set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.
The trial in Santa Fe was a preamble to the actor's scheduled trial in July on the single charge of involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty. Messages seeking comment about Wednesday's verdict from Baldwin's spokeswoman and a lawyer were not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said earlier at trial that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the set of "Rust" at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, arguing that rounds lingered for at least 12 days until the fatal shooting.
In closing arguments, prosecutor Kari Morrissey described "constant, never-ending safety failures" on the set of "Rust" and Gutierrez-Reed's "astonishing lack of diligence" with gun safety.
"We end exactly where we began — in the pursuit of justice for Halyna Hutchins," Morrissey had told jurors before they began deliberating. "Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable."
Prosecutors contended that the armorer repeatedly skipped or skimped on standard gun-safety protocols that might have detected the live rounds. "This was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with dummies," Morrissey said.
Defense attorneys said the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed's control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin. At trial they cited sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.
Prosecutors did not come close to proving where the live rounds originated and failed to fully investigate an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier, the defense said at trial.
Bowles, the defense attorney, had told jurors that no one in the cast and crew thought there were live rounds on set and Gutierrez-Reed could not have foreseen that Baldwin would "go off-script" when he pointed the revolver at Hutchins. Investigators found no video recordings of the shooting.
"It was not in the script for Mr. Baldwin to point the weapon," Bowles said. "She didn't know that Mr. Baldwin was going to do what he did."
To drive the point home, Bowles played a video outtake in which Baldwin fired a revolver loaded with blanks — including a shot after a director calls "cut."
On the day of the shooting, Bowles said, Gutierrez-Reed alone was segregated in a police car away from others, becoming a convenient scapegoat.
"You had a production company on a shoestring budget, an A-list actor that was really running the show," Bowles said. "At the end, they had somebody they could all blame."
Dozens of witnesses had testified during the 10-day trial, from FBI experts in firearms and crime-scene forensics to a camera dolly operator who described the fatal gunshot and watching Hutchins go flush and lose feeling in her legs before death.
The prosecution painstakingly assembled photographic evidence it said traced the arrival and spread of live rounds on set, and argued that Gutierrez-Reed repeatedly missed opportunities to ensure safety and treated basic gun protocols as optional.
The defense had cast doubt on the relevance of photographs of ammunition, noting FBI testimony that live rounds can't be fully distinguished from dummy ones on sight.
Bowles began his closing arguments by highlighting testimony from "Rust" armorer Sarah Zachry saying that, in a panic in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, she threw out ammunition from guns used by actors other than Baldwin. That undermined all evidence about the sources of ammunition, the defense argued.
Prosecutors said six live rounds found on set bear mostly identical characteristics and don't match live rounds seized from the movie's supplier in Albuquerque. Defense attorneys said the cluttered supply office was not searched until a month after the shooting, undermining the significance of physical evidence.
Despite February snows, New Mexico drought to continue - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
As much of New Mexico enters its driest (and often windiest) season, the drought blanketing much of the state will persist, according to national and local forecasts.
Recent snows have boosted high-elevation snowpacks, which were below the average at the start of the winter season. Current snowpacks for the Rio Grande headwaters are near normal, with some of them above average.
But even good news is not enough to make a dent in drought impacts. This warmer and often-dry winter poses concerns for water making it into streams and rivers, and increases fire risks from the forests to the grasslands.
“Everything points to March being a wetter month. But wetter is not wet in New Mexico,” said Andrew Mangham, a hydrologist at the Albuquerque office of the National Weather Service. “Wetter means in a lot of parts of the state that monthly average precipitation can range from a 10th of an inch to a third of an inch – so, wetter than that doesn’t necessarily translate to five inches of water coming down and fixing our water supply.
Forecasters predict the atmospheric trends will tilt back towards La Niña this summer, loading the dice for patterns of warmer and drier weather in the Southwest.
“Generally, La Niña is not good news for drought outlook and replenishing water supply reservoirs,” Mangham said.
DROUGHT CONDITIONS
Nearly 98% of the state is experiencing some intensity of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which already increases fire danger and lower soil moisture.
Current forecasts don’t hold much hope for relief.
Tom Bird, a forecaster with the National Weather Service office in Santa Teresa, said southern New Mexico and far west Texas should see droughts persist and not improve, as little rain or snow are expected for March, April or May.
“But below-normal for March and April especially, is next-to-nothing anyway,” Bird said.
The Southeast portion of the state has been under the most extreme drought conditions, since at least September. Continued soil degradation poses threats to farming and ranching in the southeastern portion of New Mexico and increases the risk of dust storms, said Dave DuBois, the state Climatologist.
“We’re concerned about the agricultural impacts and wind erosion,” DuBois said.
Dust storms pose grave threats, with one person losing their life in aseven-vehicle crash last week outside of Roswell. In 2017,six people died in a 25-car pileup on Interstate 10 near Lordsburg.
Last year’s surprise snows in March offered a boost of runoff for much of the bosques, crops and riparian ecosystems in the late spring. But by summer, the seasonal monsoon storm patterns failed to appear after a ridge of high pressure prevented storm formations. After the ‘non-soon’ season came a dry autumn.
DuBois said even as New Mexico and Colorado’s snowpacks are near or above average, it was still smaller than last year.
“But I guess I can’t complain if we’re near normal,” he said.
Snow isn’t instant drought relief, said Tony Anderson, a Cheyenne, Wyoming-based hydrologist for the National Weather Service, during an Intermountain West Drought presentation in late February.
“It’s hard for me to translate snow into drought relief until I see that snow turn into liquid water,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of like money that’s owed to me. Until that check hits the bank and clears, I don’t count that as an asset just yet.”
FIRE WATCH
Last summer was the second driest on record for the last 128 years, followed by a dry autumn, said Kerry Jones, a meteorologist for the U.S. Forest Service office in Santa Fe. While winter has had a decent showing, New Mexico is about to enter peak fire season. “Fire season is almost year round, somewhere in the state,” Jones said.
There’s some hope that rain or snow may “stay active,” in northern and eastern New Mexico during March, he said, but fire concerns increase with warmer temperatures and more wind.
“It’s the driest time for a lot of the central and western parts of the state, but it’s definitely not the case for the east and northeast,” Jones said.
The high plains areas of Eastern New Mexico, which can experience thunderstorms with little rain, and the Interstate 25 corridor from Raton to Las Vegas down through Albuquerque are top of the list.
“Those are the areas of most immediate concern,” Jones said.
WATER SUPPLIES
Most of the Rio Grande’s water starts as snow in the mountains of the San Juans and Sangre De Cristo mountains in southern Colorado and New Mexico. Much of the snow is at higher elevations, often making it more powdery and less moist.
“The snow water equivalent at those higher altitudes can be a little bit lackluster,” Mangham said.
Elephant Butte, the state’s largest reservoir, is only at 25% of its 2.2 million acre feet capacity, as of the most recent Bureau of Reclamation measure last week. That’s well below the average for this time of year, at just over 60% full.
Less water in rivers means shorter irrigation seasons for farmers and have massive ecological impacts, Magham said, such as limiting water releases for fish spawning downstream.
But there’s still a lot we don’t know, such as how the monsoons will behave this year.
“Monsoon prediction is notoriously difficult,” he said. “Things look pretty rough right now in terms of water supply, things look pretty bad in terms of fire season. But a lot of that could turn around, if we get a strong monsoon season.”
States in Colorado River basin pitch new ways to absorb shortages but clash on the approach - By Amy Taxin And Brittany Peterson Associated Press
The seven U.S. states that draw water from the Colorado River basin are suggesting new ways to determine how the increasingly scarce resource is divvied up when the river can't provide what it historically promised.
The Upper Basin and the Lower Basin states, as neighbors, don't agree on the approach.
Under a proposal released Wednesday by Arizona, California and Nevada, the water level at Lake Mead — one of the two largest of the Colorado River reservoirs — no longer would determine the extent of water cuts like it currently does. The three Lower Basin states also want what they say is a more equitable way of distributing cuts that would be a 50-50 split between the basins once a threshold is hit.
"This is not a problem that is caused by one sector, by one state, by one basin. It is a basin-wide problem, and it requires a basin-wide solution," John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, told reporters Wednesday.
The Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah submitted their own proposal Tuesday to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It includes addressing water shortages based on the combined capacity of Lake Mead and Lake Powell upstream, instead of the more expansive reservoir system suggested by the Lower Basin. The shortages would trigger various levels of cuts for the Lower Basin.
The Upper Basin proposal also shifts the timing of announcements for any reductions from August predictions for the following January to actual conditions on Oct. 1, the start of the water year. Lower Basin water users typically put in orders for water in mid-October.
The disagreement between the basins isn't new. Reaching a consensus among the states around managing water has never been easy, but it's the ultimate goal.
"The challenges are complex, and given the short amount of time for an initial submittal, it was not possible to reach a seven-state consensus on an alternative at this time," said Becky Mitchell, Colorado's representative to the Upper Colorado River Commission.
Federal officials say there's no immediate threat that the river that serves more than 40 million people can't provide water or produce power. On Tuesday, federal officials credited that to agreements reached across the basin to conserve water and shore up Lake Mead. The Biden administration has spent more than $670 million so far on two dozen conservation projects.
The current rules and guidelines for managing the river expire at the end of 2026. Reclamation will take the states' proposals and consider them in finalizing a plan that's on track to be released in early 2026.
The Colorado River has been in crisis because of a multi-decade drought in the West intensified by climate change, rising demand and overuse. The 1,450-mile river also serves Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes, produces hydropower, and supplies water to farms that grow most of the nation's winter vegetables.
A century-old compact set aside 7.5 million acre-feet of water annually for each basin that's further doled out based on a priority system. An additional 1.5 million acre-feet is set aside for Mexico, where what remains of the heavily tapped river trickles into the Sea of Cortez. Current inflows average just 14.8 million acre-feet of water, about 15% less than what was apportioned on paper.
When the river can't provide, states are forced to take less. Arizona and Nevada, as the junior users in the Lower Basin, have absorbed cuts the past two years, as has Mexico.
The Upper Basin states say they're at the mercy of Mother Nature and generally don't use their full apportionment because of poor hydrology and, therefore, shouldn't be subject to mandatory cuts.
"Upper Division states and our water users live within the means of what the river provides every single year," said Amy Ostdiek, with the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
The Lower Basin relies on snowmelt and storage held at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which serve as barometers of the river's health, for water deliveries.
The Lower Basin states are imploring Reclamation to take a more expansive view of river management and factor in other system reservoirs that, together, could hold 58 million acre-feet of water. An acre-foot serves roughly two to three U.S. households per year.
They are proposing that once the system drops below 58% of capacity, the Lower Basin would shoulder 1.5 million acre-feet in cuts. If the system falls to 38% of capacity, additional cuts should be evenly split between the upper and lower basins, they said.
The Lower Basin states want the plan to last until 2060, arguing a need to give certainty to users so they can make long-term investments in water-saving infrastructure, Entsminger said. The Upper Basin is arguing for a much shorter time frame.
In years past, the Lower Basin states butted heads on water reductions but presented a united front Wednesday. Officials from those states said they want their counterparts in the Upper Basin to make more firm commitments to share in protecting the river's health.
"We are trying to take a compromise position in the Lower Basin and we'd like to see the same out of the Upper Basin," said JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California.
Defendants in US terrorism and kidnapping case scheduled for sentencing in New Mexico - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A U.S. judge is expected to hand down sentences Wednesday for five defendants in a federal terrorism and kidnapping case that stemmed from the search for a toddler who went missing from Georgia in late 2017 that ended months later with a raid on a squalid compound in northern New Mexico.
The sentencing hearing comes months after jurors convicted four of the family members in what prosecutors had called a "sick end-of-times scheme." Each faces up to life in prison for their convictions.
Defense attorneys have indicated they plan to appeal.
The key defendant — Jany Leveille, a Haitian national — avoided being part of a three-week trial last fall by pleading guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and being in possession of a firearm while unlawfully in the United States. Under the terms of her plea agreement, she faces up to 17 years in prison.
Prosecutors said during the trial that it was under Leveille's instruction that the family fled Georgia with the boy, ending up in a remote stretch of the high desert where they conducted firearms and tactical training to prepare for attacks against the government. It was tied to a belief that the boy would be resurrected and then tell them which corrupt government and private institutions needed be eliminated.
Some of Leveille's writings about the plans were presented as evidence during the trial.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the boy's father and Leveille's partner, was convicted of three terrorism-related charges. Wahhaj's brother-in-law, Lucas Morton, also was convicted of terrorism charges, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and kidnapping that resulted in the boy's death. Wahhaj's two sisters — Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj — were convicted only on the kidnapping charges.
In a case that took years to get to trial, jurors heard weeks of testimony from children who had lived with their parents at the compound, other family members, firearms experts, doctors and forensic technicians. The defendants, who are Muslim, argued that federal authorities targeted them because of their religion.
Authorities raided the family's compound in August 2018, finding 11 hungry children and dismal living conditions without running water. They also found 11 firearms and ammunition that were used at a makeshift shooting range on the property on the outskirts of Amalia near the Colorado state line.
The remains of Wahhaj's 3-year-old son, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, were found in an underground tunnel at the compound. Testimony during the trial indicated that the boy died just weeks after arriving in New Mexico and that his body was kept for months with Leveille promising the others that he would be resurrected.
An exact cause of death was never determined amid accusations that the boy, who had frequent seizures, had been deprived of crucial medication.
Workplace safety regulator says management failed in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Complaints by a movie weapons supervisor to managers went unheeded as she sought more time and resources to fulfill safety duties on the set of the Western movie "Rust," where actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer, a workplace safety investigator testified Tuesday at trial.
Defense attorneys for armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed called the inspector among their first witnesses to refute allegations of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal in October 2021.
Lorenzo Montoya, of the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau, conducted a six-month investigation of the shooting and whether managers affiliated with Rust Movie Productions complied with state workplace safety regulations.
His inspection produced a scathing narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including observations that weapons specialists were not allowed to make decisions about additional safety training and didn't respond to Gutierrez-Reed's complaints. The report also found that managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting and requests to provide more training.
Defense attorneys argue the Gutierrez-Reed, who has pleaded not guilty, is being unfairly scapegoated for problems beyond her control, including Baldwin's handling of the weapons on the set of the Western movie in 2021.
Montoya said Gutierrez-Reed's requests for more time and resources as an armorer went unheeded.
"Rust Movie Productions identified a hazard," Montoya said. "They adopted firearms safety policies, but they totally failed to enforce them, train their employees on them, practice them, reference them. Nothing. They adopted it, and it stopped at the word adoption. Nothing further happened."
In a counterpoint to those findings, prosecutors previously introduced testimony from on-set producer Gabrielle Pickle that she responded to gun-safety concerns on the set of "Rust" by providing more days — 10 days, increased from five — for Gutierrez-Reed to devote to her armorer duties, instead of other responsibilities in the props department.
Prosecutors say Gutierrez-Reed is to blame for unwittingly bringing live ammunition on set and that she flouted basic safety protocols for weapons handling.
Dozens of witnesses have testified at a trial that began with jury selection on Feb. 21, including eyewitnesses to the shooting, FBI evidence analysts, an ammunition supplier to "Rust," and the film director who was wounded in the shooting and survived.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on "Rust," was separately indicted by a grand jury last month on an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection with the fatal shooting of Hutchins. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled for July.
Baldwin was pointing the gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on the set outside of Santa Fe when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
Rust Movie Productions paid a $100,000 fine to resolve the state workplace safety findings.
In other testimony Tuesday, state Occupational Health and Safety Bureau Chief Robert Genoway said "Rust" producers should have known about hazardous conditions on set and taken action before the fatal shooting. He set the initial fine against Rust Movie Productions at the maximum under state law of $130,000.
Pressed by prosecutor Jason Lewis, Genoway acknowledge his previous comments that Gutierrez-Reed contributed to safety breakdowns.
Former homicide detective Scott Elliott, an expert witness for the defense, highlighted shortcomings in the investigation that led to charges against Gutierrez-Reed, noting that she was confined to a police car in the immediate aftermath of the shooting while other witnesses including Baldwin commingled and made phone calls.
Elliott said interactions between witnesses can lead them to misremember details of what they saw, and he also faulted investigators for waiting weeks after the shooting to search an Albuquerque ammunition supplier.
The perils of firearms got some unwelcome attention in the courtroom when one witness inadvertently pointed a gun or replica toward the judge, and a law enforcement deputy intervened to lower the weapon.
A second charge against Gutierrez-Reed of evidence tampering stems from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection.
Antoine Predock, internationally renowned architect and motorcycle aficionado, dies at 87 - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Known for his ability to tap into the spirit of any landscape and weave its characteristics into his designs, internationally renowned architect and avid motorcyclist Antoine Predock is being remembered for his rare brand of creativity. He died Saturday at his home in Albuquerque, according to longtime friends and colleagues. He was 87.
Over six decades, Predock created buildings around the world — from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the College of Media and Communication in Qatar to public spaces that included the Padres baseball stadium in San Diego, the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix and Austin's City Hall.
His projects would start with sketches and collages, a method that friends and colleagues say has helped to inspire younger generations of architects as they learn how to incorporate buildings into communities and create spaces that make visitors feel as though they are on a journey.
That was Predock's motivation — for people to be moved when they walked into his buildings.
He said during a 2018 interview with The Associated Press that his designs were choreographic. He said some of his inspiration for the choreography came from the sensations he would get while riding any of his many motorcycles — some of which were on display in his studio.
"It's not like you have to follow a certain path. It's open-ended options and you can choose your own routes through it," he said of one design. "I don't like one-liner buildings where you kind of walk in and you get it all in one shot. It should be more of an accumulation of events and experiences and perceptions."
Appreciation and condolences were shared on Predock's social media pages not long after he died following a slowly progressing illness. He was known for sharing his sketches, along with photographs of his home's vantage point overlooking the Rio Grande valley and memories of his motorcycle adventures.
Robert Gonzalez, dean of the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning, met Predock while attending the University of Texas in Austin. While visiting the university, Predock challenged Gonzalez and his classmates to always think about the place they were designing for and the bigger picture, not just the facade of a building.
"That's been, I think, one of the marks that he left," Gonzalez said Tuesday. "He wanted to really unify all that he did with place and in a much more spiritual and meaningful way."
Predock's portfolio includes residences, hotels, offices, entertainment centers and educational and research facilities around the world. He received the American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal in 2006 as well as the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award.
In nominating Predock for the American Institute of Architects' award, then-committee chairman Thomas S. Howorth said: "Arguably, more than any American architect of any time, Antoine Predock has asserted a personal and place-inspired vision of architecture with such passion and conviction that his buildings have been universally embraced."
Howorth described Predock's buildings as "fearlessly expressive and sincere, simultaneously complex and guileless."
One of Predock's proudest accomplishments was the human rights museum, which was later featured on Canada's $10 bill — opposite of Viola Desmond, a civil rights activist in that country.
Predock had a photocopy of the bill in his pocket — always ready to unfold it and strike up a conversation about the importance of Desmond and the museum project.
Born on June 24, 1936, in Lebanon, Missouri, Predock studied engineering at the University of Missouri and then transferred to the University of New Mexico. He later graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in architecture. In 2017, Predock donated his studio and archives to the University of New Mexico, where he was a professor for decades.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, who on June 24, 2021, declared Antoine Predock Day, said Monday that Predock's work elevated the city.
"He leaves a monumental and personal stamp on our city and around the world," Keller said. "We are forever thankful for him, and he will be deeply missed."
A post on Predock's Instagram page said a memorial service would take place in Albuquerque on June 24.
One of Predock's final projects involved a rail trail in which he envisioned a series of stations that tell the story of the city and celebrate its inhabitants throughout a 7-mile pedestrian parkway loop. He also designed local works like the La Luz community on the city's west side and the UNM School of Architecture.
The school has created the Predock Center to permanently house the architect's collections. Gonzalez said it will be one way in which Predock's legacy will live on and others can learn from him. He noted that one wall at the center lists the names of the more than 300 people who once worked at the studio with Predock, including many who went on to be accomplished architects and professors.
Gonzalez said students who visit the center will be able to see all the steps in Predock's process.
"In that space you feel all of that, you feel all of these catalyzing moments along the way," he said. "And that's a gift he left us. You can't teach that in a classroom. You have to experience it."
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Associated Press writer Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed to this report.
Albuquerque City Council rejects resolution for independent investigation into police chief’s crash - KUNM News,KOB4,ABQ Journal
Albuquerque city councilors Monday night voted 5 -4 against a resolution calling for more outside agencies to investigate a car crash involving Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina.
As KOB-TV reports, tw0 weeks ago, Medina was on his way to a news conference with his wife in an unmarked APD car when he says he saw an encampment of people who were unhoused on a sidewalk and stopped. A court injunction last year mandated that the city not remove encampments on public property, but it allows the city to remove campers who are blocking rights of way. Medina says two men in the vicinity got into an argument and one pulled a gun and fired.
Medina in response ran a red light to avoid the gunfire and crashed into another car, seriously hurting the driver.
Medina admitted that he did not turn on his lapel camera and did not turn on his emergency lights when he drove through the intersection.
The Albuquerque Police Department said the Office of the Superintendent of Police Reform, which is an independent group under Internal Affairs, is currently conducting an investigation into the incident.
The Albuquerque Journal reports the resolution by Councilor Louie Sanchez called for the New Mexico State Police, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and the New Mexico Department of Justice to conduct a joint investigation into the crash. He and councilors Dan Lewis, Dan Champine, and Renee Grout voted in favor.
Mexican gray wolves boost their numbers, but a lack of genetic diversity remains a threat - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
The wild population of Mexican gray wolves in the southwestern U.S. is still growing, but environmental groups are warning that inbreeding and the resulting genetic crisis within the endangered species will continue to be a threat to long-term survival.
The warning came Tuesday as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and wildlife agencies in Arizona and New Mexico announced the results of an annual survey, saying there were at least 257 wolves roaming parts of the two states. That's 15 more than the year before and the most reported in the wild since the reintroduction program began more than 25 years ago.
While it marks the eighth straight year the population has increased, environmentalists say the higher number is not necessarily a positive development. They contend that it means only that the genetic crisis among Mexican gray wolves will get harder to fix as the population grows.
"The agencies will claim this new benchmark shows a trajectory to success, but they aren't measuring the indicators of genetic diversity which must be addressed with improved policies around adult and family group releases," Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project, said in a statement.
Environmental groups have been pushing for years to get the federal government to release more captive wolves into the wild and to revisit policies that have constrained the population within boundaries that they consider arbitrary. Right now, wolves that wander north of Interstate 40 in both states are captured and either taken back to the wolf recovery zone or placed into captivity, where they might be matched with potential mates.
Federal and state wildlife officials who have been working to restore Mexican wolves to the Southwest argue that genetic management using pups from captivity is showing results. Since 2016, nearly 99 captive-born pups have been placed into 40 wild dens as a way to broaden the genetic pool.
According to the survey, at least 15 fostered wolf pups have survived to breeding age over the past year, and at least 10 fostered wolves have successfully bred and produced litters in the wild.
"Having fostered Mexican wolves survive, disperse, pair up, breed and start packs of their own tells us that fostering is working," Brady McGee, the Mexican wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement.
Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said most of the pups that have been placed into wild dens have disappeared over the years and at least a dozen have turned up dead. While the captive population retains some genetic diversity, he said every Mexican gray wolf in the wild is almost as closely related to the next as siblings are.
Robinson said that artificial feeding of wild wolves by the Fish and Wildlife Service has increased the animals' fertility and pup survival rates without solving the underlying inbreeding. Wildlife managers sometimes use supplemental food caches for the first six months for packs that include fostered pups.
He and others renewed their push Tuesday for releasing more captive wolf families, saying success would be higher.
Ranchers and other rural residents have resisted more releases, saying their livelihoods have been compromised by the ongoing killing of livestock by the wolves.
While compensation funds help alleviate some of the financial hardship that comes from their cattle being killed or the cost of materials and labor for setting up deterrents, they say it's often not enough and that federal standards adopted last year for determining whether livestock was killed by wolves will make getting compensation more difficult.
New Mexico lawmakers included $1.5 million in their budget proposal to help existing compensation efforts over a two-year period, starting next year. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has until Wednesday to sign the budget and other legislation passed during the just-concluded 30-day session.
Commercial air tours over New Mexico's Bandelier National Monument will soon be prohibited - Associated Press
Commercial air tours over New Mexico's Bandelier National Monument and within a half-mile outside its park boundary will soon be prohibited, officials said Tuesday.
The National Park Service and Federal Aviation Administration finalized an air tour management plan for the 50-square-mile (130-kilometer) monument near Los Alamos.
The plan will go into effect within 180 days.
Park officials said the move was made to protect natural and cultural resources, sacred tribal places and wilderness.
The monument is said to have one of the largest concentrations of Ancestral Pueblo archaeological sites in the Southwest.
"Prohibiting commercial air tours protects the cultural and spiritual significance of these lands to tribes and ensures the park experience desired by visitors," Park Superintendent Patrick Suddath said in a statement.
Bandelier was designated as a national monument in 1916 by then-President Woodrow Wilson. It was named for Swiss-American anthropologist Adolph Bandelier.