Sandia National Laboratories to cut up to 3% workforce by early fall - Megan Gleason, Albuquerque Journal
Sandia National Laboratories on Thursday announced plans to lay off up to 510 employees.
The news comes nearly two months into the tenure of new Director Laura McGill, who told the Journal when she started in May that the “workforce is in a good place.”
The plan will reduce Sandia’s workforce of nearly 17,000 by between 1% and 3%, which would represent 170 to 510 workers. The “realignment” should finish by early fall, spokesperson Kenny Vigil said via email. It’s not clear when the layoffs will start.
“Sandia is taking proactive steps to ensure the Labs’ long-term sustainability and continue delivering on its critical national security mission,” Vigil said in a statement. “Sandia has developed a restructuring plan to help reduce costs.”
The “restructuring plan” includes a voluntary separation program, if approved by the National Nuclear Security Administration, and limiting external hiring, Vigil said.
The layoffs could possibly stem from a lack of funding for renewable energy work in the labs’ proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. The proposed budget shows $0 in areas such as geothermal, wind and solar technologies.
The layoffs could amount to a big blow for Sandia, which has grown its workforce steadily from 15,533 in FY22 to 16,915 in FY24, according to the labs’ economic reports.
Sandia’s main complex is in Albuquerque, where 13,299 workers are employed, and it has a second principal laboratory in Livermore, California. It also has a presence in Hawaii, Nevada and Washington, D.C.
It’s not clear if the layoffs will be focused in Albuquerque or not.
McGill, who spoke to the Journal in May, said she was worried about how changes at a federal level could impact the labs, in response to a question. At the time, she was more directly referencing recent turmoil at the NNSA, when news of layoffs — and then rehiring — was happening.
“Our federal partners are absolutely key to our ability to work,” McGill said.
Los Lunas fires allegedly caused by tossed cigarette - Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
Authorities say the suspect in a devastating fire told an acquaintance he wanted to show his children how fast fire can spread. The man said he did so by flicking a lit cigarette into the Rio Grande bosque behind a stretch of homes.
The result, according to Valencia County deputies, was the Cotton Fire 1, a blaze that jumped into an adjacent neighborhood and torched nearly a dozen homes. Hundreds were forced to flee with whatever belongings they could gather at a moment’s notice.
The suspect, 31-year-old Jacob LaHair, of Los Lunas, was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with one count of negligent arson and one count of criminal damage to property over $1,000. The charges are fourth-degree felonies.
LaHair’s attorney was not available for comment Thursday.
A criminal complaint filed in Los Lunas Magistrate Court unveiled the first details as to how authorities believe the fire began.
“Jacob LaHair advised (a witness) he started the fire by demonstrating to his children how fast cotton burns and proceeded to flick his cigarette onto the cotton located in the bosque,” according to the criminal complaint. The witness told deputies that LaHair “was laughing and making jokes” about starting the blaze.
Firefighters responded to a wildfire call at 2:36 p.m. in the riverside forest before the flames jumped to homes along Las Rosas Road, on the west side of the Rio Grande, south of the Main Street bridge.
The initial fire was joined by another on Sunday, the Cotton Fire 2, which sparked on the opposite side of the river. The two blazes were eventually named the Desert Willow Complex Fire.
On Tuesday, a man reported seeing LaHair walking away from the Cotton 1 Fire. LaHair told the man he was “trying to help stop the fire,” the criminal complaint said. The man’s wife took photos of LaHair as he left the area.
Deputies received another report on Wednesday from a resident who said LaHair told them he lit the fire with a cigarette, according to the complaint. The Valencia County Sheriff’s Office went to look for LaHair at a home where he had been staying.
LaHair “was not being himself,” a woman at the residence told deputies. The woman told deputies that LaHair said on Tuesday he started the fire by accident.
The woman called LaHair and told him authorities wanted to question him about the fire. The complaint states that after an arson investigator got on the phone, LaHair hung up and didn’t answer any calls.
LaHair turned himself in to the Los Lunas Police Department on Wednesday.
Tribal governments, conservation groups urge feds to keep Chaco protections - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Tribal and Pueblo governments, elected officials and conservation groups this week intensified calls for federal officials to limit the areas surrounding Chaco Canyon from further oil and gas development.
Situated in the Mancos Shale formation in the San Juan Basin, Chaco Canyon holds paramount spiritual and cultural significance to several New Mexico Pueblos, the Hopi Indians of Arizona and the Navajo Nation.
Since the Trump Administration took office, the federal government has moved to reverse a Biden administration policy — Public Land Order No. 7923 — that banned further oil and gas development on federal lands within 10 miles of the historic site for 20 years. This includes a Republican-backed bill in Congress to terminate the order.
On June 17, The National Congress of American Indians, a congress of American Indians and Alaska Natives, adopted a resolution calling on Congress to ratify federal legislation from the New Mexico’ delegation to make the withdrawal permanent. The resolution further called on the U.S. Interior Department to complete a study looking at the area’s resources and consult with tribal governments before any final decision is made.
The buffer zone policy was hard-won, said Pueblo of Acoma Governor Charles Riley, who carried the resolution in the National Congress of American Indians.
“Over a thousand years ago, our Pueblo ancestors called Chaco Canyon and the Greater Chaco Region home, creating one of the most magnificent civilizations in North America,” Riley said in a written statement this week. “Today, we stand at a crossroads where we must choose between short-term energy profits and the permanent preservation of our most sacred ancestral homeland. The choice is clear – we cannot allow the desecration of this World Heritage Site for minimal energy gains.”
A coalition of more than two dozen conservation, Indigenous and historical preservation groups and 38 members of local and state government also this week submitted letters to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, urging him to reverse course on removing the buffer zone.
“Chaco Canyon transcends politics—it is a place of reverence that is beloved throughout our nation,” the letter reads. “The 20-year mineral withdrawal represents years of careful tribal consultation, a triballyled ethnographic study, collaborative design, and thoughtful balancing of multiple uses. It provides essential protection for sacred sites and cultural resources while respecting Tribal sovereignty and development rights.”
By the #s: Nearly a quarter of the Gila is protected as ‘roadless.’ Those protections could be nixed – Patrick Lomann, Source New Mexico
United States Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ announcement June 23 in Santa Fe that her agency is seeking to repeal the “Roadless Rule” has drawn sharp criticism from environmental groups in New Mexico and across the country.
Nixing the rule means 58 million acres of land across the country could lose protections from road construction and logging the areas have enjoyed since 2001. Environmental groups, including New Mexico Wild, have said stripping the protections could spell the end of some of the last wild places in America.
“This will cause immense damage to public lands, drinking water, and wildlife, and also threatens to increase wildfires,” a Climate Forests Campaign, a coalition of environmental groups, said in a joint statement Tuesday.
A news release from New Mexico Wild notes that the Forest Service received 1.6 million comments in favor of the “Roadless Rule” when the agency was considering it more than 20 years ago, “more comments than any other rule in the nation’s history.”
About 1.6 million acres, or about 2,500 square miles, in national forests in New Mexico are currently protected.
A Source New Mexico review of Forest Service data shows that the Gila National Forest, one of five national forests in the state, could lose the most protected land to roads and other development.
More than 730,000 acres of the Gila’s 3.3 million acres of land is currently protected, though about 45,000 acres of it does allow roads to be built or rebuilt under certain circumstances, according to a Source New Mexico review. The Gila National Wilderness recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Rollins, in her speech Monday at the Western Governors’ Association meeting, touted the repeal as a way to protect forests against wildfires and also to put more “logs on trucks” as the Trump administration seeks to rekindle a nationwide logging industry in federal forests.
“The heavy hand of Washington will no longer inhibit the management of our nation’s forests,” she said.
Environmental groups have pushed back against Rollins’ claim that the repeal could reduce the risk of wildfire. New Mexico Wild’s statement Tuesday said “human-caused fire ignitions are far more likely in roaded landscapes.”
Since Monday, the USDA website about the “Roadless Rule” has now been updated with next steps about what repeal will look like, including an environmental analysis; consultation with tribes and affected states; and compliance with the Endangered Species Act.
“More information will be released as the rescission process gets underway,” the website says.
See the maps below of each of New Mexico’s national forest, excluding the sliver of Coronado National Forest located in the state’s southwest corner.
The Forest Service map of “roadless inventoried areas” includes the following:
- Areas where road construction is prohibited;
- areas where it is prohibited and also where the Forest Service has recommended it be designated a “wilderness”; and
- areas where road construction is allowed in certain circumstances.
Smugglers to be sentenced in 53 migrant deaths from 2022 human smuggling tragedy in Texas - Associated Press
Two smugglers convicted of federal charges in connection with the deaths of 53 migrants found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022 face up to life in prison when they are scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Ortega are to be the first of several defendants sentenced in the San Antonio tragedy, which remains the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt across the U.S.-Mexico border. A jury convicted the men in March of being part of a human smuggling conspiracy that resulted in death and injury.
Prosecutors described Orduna-Torres as the leader of the smuggling operation inside the U.S. and Gonzales-Ortega as his top assistant.
The immigrants had come from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and had paid between $12,000 and $15,000 each to be smuggled into the United States, according to an indictment in the case. They had made it as far as the Texas border city of Laredo when they were placed into a tractor-trailer with broken air conditioning for a three-hour drive to San Antonio.
As the temperature rose inside the trailer, those inside screamed and banged the walls of the trailer for help or tried to claw their way out, investigators said. Most eventually passed out. When the trailer was opened in San Antonio, 48 people were already dead. Another 16 were taken to hospitals, where five more died. The dead included six children and a pregnant woman.
Investigators said the Orduna-Torres and Gonzales-Ortega worked with human smuggling operations in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and shared routes, guides, stash houses, trucks and trailers. Orduna-Torres provided the address in Laredo where they would be picked up, and Gonzalez-Ortega met them there.
Five other men previously pleaded guilty to felony charges in the smuggling case, including the truck driver Homero Zamorano Jr., who was found hiding near the trailer in some bushes. Zamorano faces up to life in prison when sentenced in December. The other defendants are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.
The incident is the deadliest among tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people attempt to cross the U.S. border from Mexico. Ten immigrants died in 2017 after they were trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart store in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 immigrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio.
Trump administration expands military's role at the border to the southern tip of Texas - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
The Department of Defense is expanding a militarized zone along the southern U.S. border where troops are authorized to detain people who enter illegally for possible federal prosecution on charges of trespassing in a national defense area.
The Air Force announced Wednesday the annexation of a serpentine 250-mile (400-kilometer) stretch of the border in Texas amid a buildup of military forces under President Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border. A Defense Department official said Thursday that the Navy also has been instructed to establish a new national defense area at the border. The official didn't provide further details.
The newly designated national defense area on land and water along the Rio Grande spans two Texas counties and runs alongside cities including Brownsville and McAllen. It will be treated as an extension of Joint Base San Antonio. The Air Force said it's prepared to install warning signs immediately against entry to the area.
The military strategy was pioneered in April along a 170-mile (275-kilometer) stretch of the border in New Mexico and expanded to a swath of western Texas in May. Hunters, hikers and humanitarian aid groups fear that they will no longer have access.
In the newest national defense area, military responsibilities include "enhanced detection and monitoring" and "temporarily detaining trespassers until they are transferred to the appropriate law enforcement authorities," the Air Force said in a statement.
At least three people have been directly detained by troops in New Mexico for processing by Border Patrol. More than 1,400 immigrants have been charged with incursions into the national defense areas, a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to 18 months in prison.
Court challenges to the charges have been met with mixed results.
The militarized border zone is a counterpoint to the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles following protests over Trump's stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.
The troop deployments are testing the limits of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.
Arrests at the border for illegal entry have decreased dramatically this year.
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This story has been corrected to show the Air Force announcement of a new national defense area was made Wednesday, not Monday.