Arson suspected as new fire sparks latest round of evacuations in Los Lunas - Gregory R.C. Hasman, Albuquerque Journal
At least one new fire began Sunday, hours after another one destroyed a dozen homes and injured several firefighters, and they appear to be “human caused,” according to the fire chief.
“We’ve had two new starts (in the bosque) ... which means we have an arsonist in the bosque starting fires,” Valencia County Fire Chief Matt Propp told the Valencia County News-Bulletin on Sunday morning.
He said the state fire marshal, New Mexico State Police and other agencies are investigating the Cotton Fire, which started Saturday, and the Cotton 2 Fire that was discovered on the west side of the Rio Grande on Sunday at 9:30 a.m.
The blazes, called the Desert Willow Complex Fire, have burned 260 acres, damaged more than 50 structures and evacuations have affected about 1,300 residents, according to a Sunday night update from the New Mexico Forestry Division. The fire was 0% contained.
Eight people affected by Saturday’s Cotton Fire were staying at the housing shelter inside the Daniel Fernandez Recreational Center, 1103 N.M. 314 in Los Lunas, American Red Cross of Arizona & New Mexico spokesperson Georgi Donchetz said.
Los Lunas resident Rosa Bustillos was not among them. Instead, she sat outside her home off Las Rosas Drive in Carson Park with her family Sunday morning, looking back at a hectic 24 hours.
At about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Bustillos was home when it caught fire. When firefighters arrived, they told her to leave, but she refused. She took out a water hose and helped fight a fire in the back of her house — with the help of her son and son-in-law — before taking her puppies, her son’s medicine, clothes and paperwork and evacuating, Bustillos’ daughter Perla Delgado said.
Bustillos’ home was partially burnt and received smoke and water damage, but many of their neighbors’ homes on Las Rosas were destroyed.
“It feels unreal,” Bustillos said.
A couple of miles northeast of her home, plumes of smoke filled the sky.
At about 10:30 a.m. Sunday, the Valencia County Fire Department told people on Peach Blossom Road, Orange Blossom Street and Mountain Laurel Street, east of the Rio Grande, to evacuate. After 3 p.m., residents off Forgotten Promise Lane in Peralta were told to leave.
“If you see anyone suspicious in the bosque area, please call law enforcement and get a description of any persons seen,” the Valencia County Fire Department wrote in a social media post.
Propp said there were reports of a person fleeing from the site of the fire that started on Saturday.
Saturday’s fire caused 12 firefighters to be treated for “smoke and heat injuries,” he said. At least two of them were sent to an Albuquerque hospital.
The fire complex has destroyed nine structures, four other structures received major damage and one had minor damage. There were also 36 structures that were affected by smoke or slurry drops.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced on Saturday the state is receiving federal emergency funding to send additional firefighters and resources to battle the fires.
“I’m deeply grateful to the firefighters and first responders who continue to battle this fire under challenging circumstances,” she said in a statement. “Additional resources are on the way to enhance local firefighting capacity and protect our communities.”
Man accused of setting bosque fire in Northwest Albuquerque - Matthew Reisen, Albuquerque Journal
Police arrested a man who allegedly set fire to the bosque Saturday afternoon in Northwest Albuquerque.
Rebecca Atkins, an Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson, said 45-year-old Sean Taylor was in custody. Court records show Taylor, who has no criminal history, is charged with arson (over $2,500 in damage), a third-degree felony.
A witness initially told police Taylor wasn’t the man he saw leave the bosque with a lighter in his hand, but then identified Taylor as the suspect after he got closer to him, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Taylor denied starting the fire but told police he had a lighter in his backpack.
The small fire near Alameda was only the latest in a string of human-caused fires set along the Rio Grande over the past week.
Four total fires were extinguished in the bosque between Monday and Thursday, two near Montaño and two near Tingley Beach. Albuquerque Fire Rescue officials have said those fires were “without a doubt” human-caused and agencies had beefed up riverside patrols to spot blazes.
Atkins said APD is investigating whether Taylor had anything to do with two of those fires, “however at this time, they do not suspect him.”
Around noon on Saturday, police responded to a fire on the east side of the river near Alameda amid reports of a man with a dog and camouflage backpack leaving the area with a lighter, according to the complaint. Bernalillo County deputies found Taylor north of the fire near a drainage ditch.
Police said a witness told them a man had walked away from the area where the fire was set with a lighter in his hand. Taylor was released after the witness initially couldn’t identify him as the suspect. However, as Taylor walked by the witness, he changed his mind.
The witness told police he could not see Taylor “that well when he first tried to identify him,” according to the complaint. Taylor told police he saw a man walking around with burnt paper in his hands and dropping ashes from the paper in the bosque.
Police said an open space biologist told them, “every acre of land that is destroyed on the Rio Grande costs approximately $5,000 to clean and restore the wildlife.”
Atkins said did not say what additional evidence tied Taylor to the blaze.
“Thanks to the quick action and determination of our officers, we were able to identify and apprehend a suspect before more damage was done,” said APD Chief Harold Medina. “The bosque is one of Albuquerque’s most cherished natural spaces, and our Open Space officers are essential to protecting it — not just from wildfires, but from those who seek to harm it intentionally.”
Judge rules Trump administration can't require states to help on immigration to get transport money - By Michael Casey and Rebecca Boone, Associated Press
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in transportation funds from states that don’t agree to participate in some immigration enforcement actions.
Twenty states sued after they said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to cut off funding to states that refused to comply with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. barred federal transportation officials from carrying out that threat before the lawsuit is fully resolved.
“The Court finds that the States have demonstrated they will face irreparable and continuing harm if forced to agree to Defendants’ unlawful and unconstitutional immigration conditions imposed in order to receive federal transportation grant funds,” wrote McConnell, the chief judge for the federal district of Rhode island. “The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding, are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers, are at risk of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, and will have to scale back, reconsider, or cancel ongoing transportation projects.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, in a statement posted on Bluesky, welcomed the ruling.
“The court granted a temporary order halting the Trump administration’s attempt to hold critical funding for states if they don’t comply with their cruel immigration policies,” Campbell said. This would have put critical funding for transportation in MA at risk. It’s not just wrong – it’s illegal."
In statement posted on X, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the ruling wasn't surprising.
“I directed states who want federal DOT money to comply with federal immigration laws,” Duffy said. “But, no surprise, an Obama-appointed judge has ruled that states can openly defy our federal immigration laws. This is judicial activism pure and simple and I will continue to fight in the courts.”
On April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts or risk losing the congressionally appropriated funds. No funding was immediately withheld, but some of the states feared the move was imminent.
Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont filed the lawsuit in May, saying the new so-called “Duffy Directive” put them in an impossible position.
“The States can either attempt to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional condition that would surrender their sovereign control over their own law enforcement officers and reduce immigrants’ willingness to report crimes and participate in public health programs — or they can forfeit tens of billions of dollars of funds they rely on regularly to support the roads, highways, railways, airways, ferries, and bridges that connect their communities and homes,” the attorneys general wrote in court documents.
But acting Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom told the judge that Congress has given the Department of Transportation the legal right to set conditions for the grant money it administers to states, and that requiring compliance and cooperation with federal law enforcement is a reasonable exercise of that discretion. Allowing the federal government to withhold the funds while the lawsuit moves forward doesn’t cause any lasting harm, Bloom wrote in court documents, because that money can always be disbursed later if needed.
But requiring the federal government to release the money to uncooperative states will likely make it impossible to recoup later, if the Department of Transportation wins the case, Bloom said.
Dispensaries say cannabis tax hike could blow customers — and profits — away – Hannah Garcia, Albuquerque Journal
Arin Goold’s cannabis retail business will likely feel the pain of a tax increase set to take effect next month.
“Just to prevent people from walking out the door and going somewhere else, which no one can afford right now, we’re probably going to have to eat that ourselves,” said Goold, owner of Mama and the Girls, which has stores in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. “That’s just going to have to come out of our profit margin, which is already, for everybody, razor thin.”
The cannabis excise tax included in the 2021 Cannabis Regulation Act, which legalized recreational marijuana use, is set to increase incrementally starting in July. The rate is currently 12% — where it has stood since sales started in 2022 — and increases to 13% on July 1. The increases continue until eventually hitting 18% in 2030.
For those like Goold, the increase poses financial threats for family-owned and small cannabis businesses.
Goold describes her dispensary as “middle class” in terms of income, earning between $45,000 and $60,000 per month. While higher than most smaller businesses, admittedly, there was more to running a cannabis shop than she thought.
“Once you’re in it, then you realize, ‘Whoa, everything costs more,’” she said. “You got that green (excise) tax added on that makes it sound like a lot, (but) it’s taking every penny you have just to keep it open.”
The cannabis industry is more difficult to succeed in than most, according to Anthony Luna, co-owner of Luna Leaf. He started the company in 2023 and has been met with challenges since — namely, a saturated market where marijuana shops fight for a limited number of customers — despite the business’ slow and steady growth.
In an effort to retain customers, Luna said his shop will also have to “eat the cost” and offer reduced prices once the tax increases. He estimates that if the business makes $2 million this year, it will lose $20,000 in net profit. The dispensary would need 40 or more consumers spending an average of $45 to make up for this year’s deficit — and another 160 shoppers by 2030.
“(It) just isn’t sustainable, especially when we’ve seen the overall price compression trajectory on top of that,” Luna said. “I really think they will just end up losing more overall revenue in the long run, like other states have already seen.”
WeedMart co-owner David MacNeil described it as a lingering fear of losing clientele to large dispensary chains because they don’t want to, or can’t, pay the increases.
“The 1% keeps adding up: the 1% on eggs, the 1% on gas, the 1% on weed,” MacNeil said. “It all boils down to the more we tax any product, the less people spend.”
Cannabis experts, like Matt Kennicott, worry the increase in prices may also drive consumers to the illicit market to “find what they need for a lot cheaper.”
The tax rate increase is set in law, and the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department, which oversees the Cannabis Control Division, doesn’t have the authority to change the rates. The state Taxation and Revenue Department collects the money generated from cannabis excise taxes.
The CCD cannot speculate about what the increase may do to sales, RLD spokesperson Andrea Brown said.
One legislator did make an effort this year to stall the incremental tax increases. But the bill, sponsored by Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, never received a committee hearing during the 2025 legislative session.
Ben Lewinger, former executive director of the New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, said legislators thought it would’ve been difficult to halt the increase by July anyway, as it was already accounted for in the fiscal year 2026 budget.
He said the chamber plans to advocate for tax rate decreases in next year’s 30-day session, aiming to eventually lower it to 10%. Duhigg didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from the Journal on whether she plans to sponsor such legislation.
“New Mexico right now, with that 12 or 13%, we’re still right in the middle. We’re still right in that sweet spot of what the average consumer would pay,” Lewinger said. “But if we keep increasing, we’re going to move out of that sweet spot.”