Nearly two dozen states sue the Trump administration to halt cuts in medical research funding - by Michael Casey Associated Press, KUNM News
Attorneys general from 22 states, including New Mexico, filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration for slashing funding for medical and public health research at universities nationwide.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston challenges the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health over efforts to reduce funding that goes to so-called indirect costs — including lab, faculty, infrastructure, and utility costs.
The states argue that research into treating and curing human disease "will grind to a halt" and people would lose access to "modern gene editing, vaccines such as flu vaccines, and cures for diseases like cancer, infectious diseases, and addiction."
"We will not allow the Trump Administration to unlawfully undermine our economy, hamstring our competitiveness, or play politics with our public health," Massachusetts Attorney Andrea Campbell said in a statement.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose state has several significant research institutions including Brown University and the University of Rhode Island, said the Trump administration seemed "hell-bent on upending advancement in this country."
"This reduction in funding would seriously threaten the future of this research," Neronha said in a statement. "If you've ever wished for a cure, for better treatment options, for yourself or a loved one, this should feel personal."
In a release, Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the University of New Mexico would see impacts on research into Alzheimer’s, cancer, and substance use disorder if NIH funding is cut. There would also be impacts on potential doctoral fellows and students.
Torrez wrote in statement that New Mexico is proud to join the other states on the lawsuit.
“These NIH grants fuel groundbreaking innovations, lifesaving treatments, and the scientific advancements that have made the United States a global leader in biomedical research,” he wrote. The Trump Administration’s attempt to undermine this funding threatens the very foundation of public health progress, and we stand with our fellow attorneys general in fighting to ensure that universities and research institutions receive the resources they need to continue their vital work.”
Last week, the NIH announced it was cutting payments toward overhead costs for research institutions that receive its grants, a policy that could leave universities with major budget gaps. Currently, some universities receive 50% or more of the amount of a grant to put toward support staff and other needs, but that would be capped at 15%.
The states want the court to declare that rate change unlawful.
The lawsuit detailed how some research institutions would suffer. For example, the University of Michigan stands to lose $181 million in funding. which would impact "425 NIH-funded trials currently underway, including 161 trials aimed at saving lives," according to the suit.
And that, the suit said, would cost jobs. "Implementing this 15% cap will mean the abrupt loss of hundreds of millions of dollars that are already committed to employing tens of thousands of researchers and other workers, putting a halt to countless life-saving health research and cutting-edge technology initiatives," the lawsuit said.
Fifteen cases of measles reported in small West Texas county with high rate of vaccine exemptions - By Sean Murphy and Devi Shastri Associated Press
Fifteen measles cases — mostly in school-aged children — have been confirmed in a small county in West Texas with one of the highest rates of vaccine exemptions in the state.
South Plains Public Health District Director Zach Holbrooks said Monday that his department was first notified in late January about the first two cases in Gaines County, which he said were "two children who had seen a physician in Lubbock."
Some of the cases appear to be connected to private religious schools in the district, said Holbrooks, who cautioned that the investigation is ongoing.
"I wouldn't say they're all connected, but our teams are looking into exposure sites and the background of those cases," he said.
Local health officials set up a drive-through vaccination clinic last week and are offering screening services to residents.
The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60. This month, health officials in metro Atlanta are working to contain a measles case that spread to two unvaccinated family members.
Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. The percentage of kids with exemptions has risen over the last decade from .76% in 2014 to 2.32% last year, according to Texas Department of State Health Services data.
Gaines County has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children who opt out of at least one required vaccine: Nearly 14% of children from kindergarten through grade 12 had an exemption in the 2023-24 school year, which is more than five times the state average of 2.32% and beyond the national rate of 3.3%.
But the number of unvaccinated kids in the county is likely significantly higher, DSHS spokeswoman Lara Anton said, because Gaines County has many children who are homeschooled and whose data would not be reported.
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccines is a two-shot series: The first is recommended at 12 to 15 months old and second between 4 to 6 years old. The vaccine is required to attend most public schools in the U.S.
But vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks. Lawmakers across the country have proposed various vaccine requirement changes at a time when anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is awaiting confirmation as the secretary of Health and Human Services.
One of the early Gaines County cases traveled to neighboring New Mexico while they were still infectious, Anton said, but there were no immediate reports of infection. New Mexico Department of Health spokesman Robert Nott said the agency has been in communication with Texas officials but there was no known exposure to measles in his state.
"We're going to watch this very closely," Nott said.
Two cases of measles were reported in early January in the Houston area, but Holbrooks said the West Texas cases don't appear to be connected.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw some 3 million to 4 million cases per year. Now, it's usually fewer than 200 in a normal year.
New Mexico higher education still navigating Trump's Title IX rules - Kevin Opsahl, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico’s higher education institutions are adjusting to the Trump administration’s announcement that it will begin enforcing its controversial Title IX rules.
The University of New Mexico and Central New Mexico Community College said Tuesday that they have implemented or will continue to follow, respectively, President Donald Trump’s rules. These include narrowing the definition of sexual harassment; returning to live hearings with cross-examination during campus sexual assault disciplinary proceedings; and enforcing protections based on biological sex.
Higher education institutions had already been returning to Title IX guidelines put in place in the final weeks of Trump’s first term in 2020 after a Kentucky federal judge on Jan. 9 effectively scrapped then-President Joe Biden’s Title IX regulations, which had gone into effect Aug. 1. That judge ruled Biden’s regulations — which expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students — were unlawful and could not be enforced nationwide. New Mexico was not part of the lawsuit, but numerous state institutions were impacted.
The move is part of a flurry of Trump executive orders in the first weeks of his new administration targeting transgender Americans. He’s also denied them identification documents such as passports — only allowing sex at birth to be included, imposed a nationwide restriction on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, launched investigations into schools with gender neutral bathrooms, criminalized teacher support for transgender students and required the Federal Bureau of Prisons to move the estimated 1,500 transgender women in custody to be housed with men.
UNM Chief Compliance Officer Francie Cordova said her office has fielded inquiries from students, parents, faculty and staff about the rule changes — not just on the transgender changes, but also for those on sexual harassment.
“They’re concerned about being unsafe or the fact that they won’t be protected,” Cordova said.
William Nutt, Title IX coordinator and executive director of the Office of Institutional Equity at New Mexico State University, said his office has not had “loads” of complaints but said it’s normal for people to be concerned “in a highly charged political environment.”
The rules fall under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools. Trump has said he wants to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, which provides oversight of Title IX. Trump has nominated Linda McMahon, his administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019, as education secretary. McMahon’s nomination hearing before a Senate committee is scheduled for Feb. 13.
DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER
In a Feb. 4 Dear Colleague letter to higher education institutions and K-12 schools, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights with the U.S. Department of Education, said the agency would enforce Trump-era rules, which were once championed by Betsy DeVos, the secretary of Education during the president’s first term.
Trainor’s letter said the administration would review all pending Title IX cases from the previous year, Trainor said. Some of these cases are at UNM, New Mexico State University and Albuquerque Public Schools, according to an online list of pending cases generated by the department’s website.
Additionally, Title IX laws must enforce Trump’s recent executive order explicitly stating that sex means the “immutable biological classification as either male or female,” Trainor said.
ENFORCING BIDEN-ERA RULES
Biden’s rules, which went into effect Aug. 1, included broadening protections to include students’ sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy and parenting status; extending jurisdiction of higher education sexual assault cases to off-campus and international incidents; removing the mandate for hearings; and allowing students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
NMSU prepared to implement Biden-era rules but never did, Nutt said.
Cordova said UNM amended its Title IX regulations to reflect Biden’s rules, hosting town halls about them before changing language on the university’s website.
But UNM also kept Trump’s rules, citing a Biden provision that said the 2020 rules should be used for all cases prior to Aug. 1, Cordova said.
“It’s kind of been table tennis, more than even football, I think, with Title IX, going back and forth between administrations,” she said.
ENFORCING TRUMP’S RULES
Trainor’s recent letter bore little impact on UNM since the university was already using Trump’s rules, Cordova said.
She said UNM continues to conduct live hearings in its Title IX investigations, which happens to be one of the most controversial elements of the Trump rules. In this setting, the accused students can cross-examine their accusers through an adviser, according to The Associated Press. The Biden rule made live hearings optional, though some courts had previously upheld an accused student’s right to cross-examination, the AP said.
Cordova said UNM has built-in safeguards in which university officials, as opposed to the parties involved, question one another.
“It’s still traumatic, but I think our hearing office has been very intentional about ... doing things that are the least traumatizing for either party,” Cordova said.
Her message to the UNM campus community in light of the rule changes is that, “We will work our hardest to make sure people always feel safe and comfortable on campus.”
Bill would create alert system for missing Indigenous people - Bella Davis, New Mexico In-Depth via Source New Mexico
Two state lawmakers are trying to create a “Turquoise Alert” system in New Mexico for sending out statewide alerts when Indigenous people go missing.
Sen. Angel Charley (Laguna Pueblo/Zuni Pueblo/Diné), D-Acoma, and Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta (Diné), D-To’hajiilee, are sponsoring Senate Bill 41.
“I’ve done this advocacy for years,” said Charley, who is a former executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women. “So to be on this side and get to implement what we know families have been asking for and what will work, it’s just the most powerful thing that I could imagine in my journey of this work.”
There are 198 Native Americans missing from New Mexico and the Navajo Nation, according to an FBI list.
“In New Mexico on any given day, we know that there are hundreds of missing Native Americans. We also know that the first 48 hours are crucial to finding someone,” New Mexico Indian Affairs Secretary Josett Monette (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians) told a crowd gathered at the Roundhouse on Friday for American Indian Day.
The alert system would “ensure that those critical hours are not missed,” Monette said, adding it should function similarly to other missing persons advisories, like Amber Alerts.
If passed by the Legislature, the bill, which does not include an appropriation, would amend the state Missing Persons Information and Reporting Act to include a Turquoise Alert. The Department of Public Safety would be tasked with developing a plan for getting the alerts out to law enforcement agencies and the public as quickly as possible.
At least three other states — Colorado, Washington and California — have passed similar legislation in recent years.
Since lawmakers in Washington mandated a system in 2022, the State Patrol had issued 114 alerts as of August last year, and the subjects of 111 of those alerts were located, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
Court grants request to block detained Venezuelan immigrants from being sent to Guantanamo - Associated Press
A federal court on Sunday blocked the Trump administration from sending three Venezuelan immigrants held in New Mexico to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba as part of the president's immigration crackdown.
In a legal filing earlier in the day, lawyers for the men said the detainees "fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantanamo, i.e. Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang."
It asked a U.S. District Court in New Mexico for a temporary restraining order blocking their transfer, adding that "the mere uncertainty the government has created surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to authorize the modest injunction."
During a brief hearing, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales granted the temporary order, which was opposed by the government, said Jessica Vosburgh, an attorney for the three men.
"It's short term. This will get revisited and further fleshed out in the weeks to come," Vosburgh told The Associated Press.
A message seeking comment was left for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.
The filing came as part of a lawsuit on behalf of the three men filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and Las Americas Immigrant Advisory Center.
The Tren de Aragua gang originated in a lawless prison in the central Venezuelan state of Aragua more than a decade ago and has expanded in recent years as millions of desperate Venezuelans fled President President Nicolás Maduro 's rule and migrated to other parts of Latin America or the U.S.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last week that flights of detainees had landed at Guantanamo. Immigrant rights groups sent a letter Friday demanding access to people who have been sent there, saying the base should not be used as a "legal black hole."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that more than 8,000 people have been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump has vowed to deport millions of the estimated 11.7 million people in the U.S. illegally.
Mexican long-nosed bats are no strangers to southeastern Arizona. The proof is in the saliva - By Ty Oneil and Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press
Scientists have long suspected that Mexican long-nosed bats migrate through southeastern Arizona, but without capturing and measuring the night-flying creatures, proof has been elusive.
Researchers say they now have a way to tell the endangered species apart from other bats by analyzing saliva the nocturnal mammals leave behind when sipping nectar from plants and residential hummingbird feeders.
Bat Conservation International, a nonprofit group working to end the extinction of bat species worldwide, teamed up with residents from southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and west Texas for the saliva swabbing campaign.
The samples of saliva left along potential migration routes were sent to a lab at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where researchers looked for environmental DNA — or eDNA — to confirm that the bats cycle through Arizona and consider the region their part-time home.
The Mexican long-nosed bat has been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1988, and is the only one in Arizona with that federal protection. It is an important species for pollinating cactus, agave and other desert plants.
Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department announced the discovery in late January. While expanding Arizona's list of bat species to 29 is exciting, wildlife managers say the use of this novel, noninvasive method to nail it down also deserves to be celebrated.
"If we were trying to identify the species in the absence of eDNA, biologists could spend hours and hours trying to catch one of these bats, and even then, you're not guaranteed to be successful," said Angie McIntire, a bat specialist for the Arizona's Game and Fish Department. "By sampling the environment, eDNA gives us an additional tool for our toolkit."
Every spring, Mexican long-nosed bats traverse a lengthy migratory path north from Mexico into the southwestern U.S., following the sweet nectar of their favorite blooming plants like breadcrumbs. They return along the same route in the fall.
The bat conservation group recruited ordinary citizens for the mission, giving them kits to swab samples from bird feeders throughout the summer and fall.
Inside the university lab, microbiology major Anna Riley extracted the DNA from hundreds of samples and ran them through machines that ultimately could detect the presence of bats. Part of the work involved a steady hand, with Riley using a syringe of sorts to transfer diluted DNA into tiny vials before popping them into a centrifuge.
Sample after sample, vial after vial, the meticulous work took months.
"There's a big database that has DNA sequences of not every animal but most species, and so we could compare our DNA sequences we got from these samples to what's in the database," Riley said. "A little bit like a Google search — you've got your question, you're asking Google, you plug it into the database, and it turns up you've got a bat, and you have this kind of bat."
Kristen Lear, of the conservation group, said the collection of eDNA has been used successfully for determining the presence of other kinds of wildlife in various environments, so the group proposed trying it with bats.
"They do apparently leave behind a lot of spit on these plants and hummingbird feeders," Lear said.
___
ONeil reported from Las Vegas. Gabriel Sandoval, a corps member for the Associated Press/ Report for America Statehouse News Initiative, in Phoenix contributed to this report.
Former Albuquerque officers charged in DWI corruption case - By Matthew Reisen and Colleen Heild, Albuquerque Journal
Two former Albuquerque DWI officers have taken plea deals in one of the largest corruption cases to hit local law enforcement.
Honorio Alba Jr. and Joshua Montaño pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering, receiving a bribe, interference with commerce by extortion and conspiracy charges in U.S. District Court.
The plea deals came two weeks after a private investigator, Ricardo "Rick" Mendez, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges in a case where officers allegedly took kickbacks to help a local lawyer get DWI cases dismissed.
The development makes Alba and Montaño the first law enforcement officers to be charged in the FBI's ongoing investigation into the "DWI Enterprise."
Mendez, 53, in his plea agreement, told federal agents the scheme also involved personnel from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office and New Mexico State Police.
APD has placed 12 officers on leave and 10 have since resigned, retired or been fired as the department conducted its own internal probe into the allegations. BCSO has placed one deputy on leave, and State Police has said it has not found any of its officers were involved.
Both Montaño and Alba resigned before they were scheduled to meet with APD Internal Affairs about the allegations.
The investigation came to light in January 2024 when FBI agents raided the homes of Alba, Montaño, Mendez and the law office of Attorney Thomas Clear III, whom Mendez worked for.
Clear has not been charged in the case, but Mendez said in his plea agreement that the pair worked hand-in-hand with law enforcement to run the scheme since 2008.
Filings by federal prosecutors say the “DWI Enterprise” involved law enforcement using coded language, teaching the scheme to new recruits and asking supervisors to make sure it stayed under wraps.
In the fallout of the investigation, and because the officers’ credibility potentially could be questioned, 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman’s office has dismissed more than 200 DWI cases that had been filed and were pending at the time of the FBI searches.
Court records show Clear has not taken on a criminal case since the day FBI agents raided his office. He also resigned as longtime chairman of the state Public Defender Commission, which governs the state Law Office of the Public Defender.
For high school sports, decisions loom: Follow Trump or state law on transgender athletes - By Steve Karnowski Associated Press
Minnesota's governing body for high school sports says it will follow state law — not President Donald Trump's executive order — and continue to allow transgender athletes to compete in prep athletics.
Associations in some other states signaled they also may defy the president's order, but others were taking a wait-and-see approach.
The Minnesota organization said in an email to member schools Thursday that participation by and eligibility of transgender athletes is controlled by the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which contains protections for LGBTQ+ people, and the state constitution.
"The Minnesota State High School League, similar to other youth sports organizations, is subject to state anti-discrimination laws, which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity," the message said. "Therefore, students in Minnesota are allowed to participate consistent with their gender identity."
Trump signed the order on Wednesday, giving the federal government wide latitude to pull federal funding from entities that "deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities" by allowing transgender athletes to participate. Legal challenges are expected.
In response to Trump's order, the NCAA revised its transgender participation policy to limit women's college sports to athletes assigned as female at birth. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, a governing body for smaller schools, effectively banned transgender athletes in 2023 from women's sports.
"My general reaction is just sadness and anger," said Sawyer Totten, a transgender athlete who competed in cross-country skiing at his Burlington, Vermont, high school. "To see the NCAA almost immediately change its rules to comply with Trump's order and try and pass it quietly was sad and heartbreaking."
The number of transgender athletes competing at the high school and college level is believed to be small, but the topic became a campaign issue for Trump last year as he declared his intent to "keep men out of women's sports." NCAA President Charlie Baker, a former Massachusetts governor, has said there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes competing in sports under his purview.
"Trump's executive order is going after those athletes," Totten, who is now in college, said in a text message to The Associated Press. "I had nothing but positive experiences as a trans athlete in Vermont but it's going to vary state by state. ... I'm glad to see that some states have said that they will not follow Trump's executive order, but they will follow their own state laws."
The California Interscholastic Federation said it complies with a state law that "permits students to participate in school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with the student's gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the student's records," spokeswoman Rebecca Brutlag said in an email Friday.
New Jersey policy notes that "during gender-separated classes or athletic activities, all students must be allowed to participate in a manner consistent with their gender identity."
In Colorado, which has a number of trans-friendly laws, the High School Activities Association requires schools to "perform a confidential evaluation to determine the gender assignment" for transgender athletes. The student and their parents must notify the school that the student's gender identity differs from the one they were assigned at birth.
The New Mexico Activities Association said in a statement that its bylaws say "participating students are required to compete in the gender listed on their original or amended birth certificate." New Mexico allows anyone over age 18, or parents or guardians on behalf of minors, to change the gender on their birth certificates. The association said it will continue to comply with state law and its bylaws.
The Illinois State High School Association said it was awaiting further guidance. The association said its policy on transgender athletes — it "allows participation by students consistent with their gender identity subject to applicable federal and state laws" — continues to be adapted based on guidance from medical experts and state law.
"We will continue to monitor any state legislation or federal guidance that impacts our policy here in Illinois and work with our Board of Directors to make sure that the IHSA and our member high schools remain in compliance with state and federal law," Executive Director Craig Anderson said.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association is also "waiting for further clarification on potential conflicts" between the order and the state's civil rights act, spokesman Geoff Kimmerly said in an email.
The longstanding policy of the Indianapolis-based National Federation of State High School Associations is to leave such decisions up to its state-level affiliates.
"The governance of transgender students' participation in high school athletics programs is handled on a state-by-state basis. In many cases, state governments have issued rulings on this issue," the policy states. "The NFHS does, however, support attempts by member state associations to establish policies that seek to offer competition for all students who wish to be involved in high school sports."
Totten, who started cross-country skiing as a 2-year-old, said competing on his high school team gave him "a sense of belonging and it gave me a place where I could just be myself."
"My coaches and my teammates were all super supportive of me and I never had any issues when it came to competing," he said. "That was my experience as a trans male athlete. No two trans people's journeys are the same."
___
Associated Press reporters Jimmy Golen in Boston; Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Matt Brown in Billings, Montana; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this story.