Fourth of July cookout costs are 19% higher than in 2019 but less than last year — Cami Koons, Iowa Capital Dispatch
The average cost for a 10-person Fourth of July will cost $70.92, which is 30 cents less than last summer, but the second highest cookout cost since 2013 when American Farm Bureau Federation began its annual survey on the topic.
Beef, canned goods and hand-picked crops have the highest price increases from last year, due likely to low domestic cattle inventory, aluminum tariffs and the cost of labor.
The American Farm Bureau survey assumes a gathering of 10 people who will consume: cheeseburgers, chicken breasts, pork chops, potato chips, canned pork and beans, fresh strawberries, homemade potato salad, fresh-squeezed lemonade, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream.
Canned of pork and beans had the steepest increase, 8.2% or 20 cents, from last year. The bureau said labor costs along the supply chain and steep tariffs on aluminum are likely to blame.
Homemade lemonade will also cost 20 cents more per pitcher this year, and strawberries 8 cents more per pound, due to a continued trend of high labor costs in the specialty crop sector.
The cost of ground beef also increased to $13.33 for two pounds, which is nearly 60 cents more than the $12.77 cost in 2024. While normally a crowd favorite, it will cost families nearly $20 to make 10 cheeseburgers this weekend, according to the survey prices.
U.S. cattle herd size has been declining since 2019, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the 2025 herd size was 8% lower than 2019 herd. The amount of beef imported to the U.S. has also gone up in the time frame.
Pork chops, on the other hand, had the largest decrease in price from last year. Three pounds of pork chops this weekend should run consumers about $14.13, which is nearly 9% less than the cut cost last year. The survey concludes this is due to high domestic pork supplies.
The cost of chicken breasts declined slightly from last year’s cookout prices but the cost of eggs increased, which made potato salad about 20 cents more expensive this year. Poultry have been affected by the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza, which has caused fluctuating prices as the supply chains are impacted.
Since January, U.S. has imported about 10 times the amount of shell eggs it imported in the same period in 2024 as part of the administration’s plan to combat the bird flu. Wholesale egg prices have declined by more than 60% since January, but the American Farm Bureau report shows the cost for consumers for just four eggs is up 54% from last summer.
The bureau survey also breaks prices down by region and found cookouts on the East Coast are the cheapest this year at $63.79, followed by the south who can feed a party of 10 for $68.93. Gatherings in the West average at $73.50 and Midwestern gatherings come in as the second most expensive at $69.87
FARMERS NT POCKETINGFAIR SHARE, ADVOCATES SAY
Consumer increases don’t necessarily mean higher prices for farmers, however. On average, farmers and ranchers receive about $0.16 per consumer dollar spent on food, according to the latest “Farmer’s Share” report from National Farmers Union.
Rob Larew, the organization’s president said it’s important to highlight the “growing imbalance” in the food system.
“Family farmers and ranchers are working harder than ever, yet taking home less, while corporate monopolies in processing, distribution, and retail rake in record profits,” Larew said. “Farmers deserve a fair share of the food dollar, and consumers deserve a food system that works for everyone, not just a handful of powerful corporations.”
According to the report, a rancher takes home $2.08 on a one pound package of ground beef sold for $5.99. A lettuce farmer gets an even lower cut, receiving about 8.2% of the consumer dollar.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
‘It’s not over’: New Mexico doctor discusses the lasting effects of COVID-19 — Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
One of the biggest misconceptions about COVID-19 is that the pandemic is over, said Dr. Michelle Harkins, a physician and clinical researcher at the University of New Mexico.
“Well, it’s not over,” Harkins told Source NM in an interview this week. “The pandemic is smoldering. There are still people that are getting sick. You can still get COVID. There’s still a significant burden of Long COVID that we’re going to have to address.”
The most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention national early indicators, updated on July 30, show that 3% of tests for COVID are coming back positive, and 0.4% of patients in emergency rooms have the infection.
Harkins works as co-medical director of the Post-COVID Primary Care TeleECHO program, which is meant to help primary care providers recognize and diagnose Long COVID, a chronic condition defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an illness that follows a SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least three months. Long COVID includes a variety of symptoms, including respiratory, neurological and digestive ones.
Harkins also is the division chief at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center’s Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine. UNM on June 24 promoted Harkins and four others to distinguished professors, after UNM HSC Internal Medicine Department Chair Mark Unruh nominated her.
“I’ve just been afforded a lot of opportunity here and a lot of great support from my colleagues and my mentors, and I just love my job,” Harkins said. “It is an incredible honor.”
Harkins said there’s a lot of misinformation that claims people no longer need to receive vaccines or wear masks. In fact, vaccination is protective against severe sickness and Long COVID, she said.
“I personally still wear a mask when I’m on a plane and in the airports, because I don’t want to get sick, and I don’t want to bring it home to a family member, or ruin a trip that I’m supposed to go on because I have COVID,” Harkins said.
While no therapies currently exist for Long COVID, Harkins told Source NM that she advises doctors to talk to their patients, believe them and work with them to figure out their goals as we wait to understand what treatments will help.
“Long COVID is not one-size-fits-all,” she said. “We know it’s a huge burden to patients, and patients need answers. No one was listening to them. People were gaslighting them, and it’s real.”
Her co-director Dr. Alisha Parada runs the only Long COVID clinic in New Mexico, where Harkins follows up with patients in her research.
What’s needed are multidisciplinary clinics to address the myriad of symptom complexes that Long COVID patients face, Harkins testified before Congress in January 2024.
“A Long COVID patient might come to a multidisciplinary clinic and need to see a neurologist, a cardiologist, and an internist, all for the same diagnosis of Long Covid,” Harkins told the U.S. Senate HELP Committee.
Earlier in the pandemic, Harkins started a different Project ECHO training program for doctors to treat patients hospitalized with acute COVID-19. She turned her focus to a Long COVID clinic for primary care providers when she received new funding.
She led clinical trials for acute COVID treatments, including those that established the effectiveness of antiviral remdesivir and anti-inflammatory baricitinib.
Those led Harkins and her team to become involved in the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER study, which is due to end in October. She and her colleagues have been observing 148 adult patients as part of that study.
Harkins said her team has finished a clinical trial for the oral antiviral Paxlovid, and are currently running two other trials, RECOVER-ENERGIZE Post-Exertional Malaise and RECOVER-SLEEP Complex Sleep Disturbances.
In August, Harkins, Parada and UNM nurse practitioner Debora Bear will join leading Long COVID and other infection-associated chronic condition researchers at a conference in Santa Fe, where they will meet others who manage the disease.
“I’m very excited to go,” she said. “We will learn from others and share our experiences, and see what we can bring home.”
NMSU to offer state's first artificial intelligence degree -
Roz Brown, New Mexico News Connection
Artificial intelligence is expected to significantly change people's lives and New Mexico State University is meeting the challenge by offering the state's first AI degree.
The higher ed institution located in Las Cruces will introduce the state's first Bachelor of Science degree in AI starting in fall 2026.
Enrico Pontelli, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at New Mexico State University, felt AI should not only be taught at Ivy League schools but made accessible to learners in New Mexico. He said no matter what kind of job you have, learning a bit about AI is essential.
"We see a lot of students who come to college, they understand something about AI but they don't understand how to use it properly," Pontelli explained. "AI can be a great tool to learn, using AI as your companion to help you, not to replace you."
Pontelli noted the university's bachelor of science degree is not only for students just out of high school but for those whose current job may demand new skills. He hopes the university's training will eventually include graduate programs and offer micro-credentials to community members.
AI jobs are those in which a significant portion of the tasks can be performed or aided by artificial intelligence. Pontelli knows a lot of fear has been generated around the emerging technology but said it is nothing to be afraid of and it isn't going away.
"There is a lot of talk about, 'Yeah, I'm losing my job to AI,'" Pontelli observed. "Nobody's going to lose their job to AI. People are going to lose their job to people that know how to use AI."
By offering the degree, Pontelli hopes graduates can contribute to the state's economic development and use AI to work on solutions to address societal and environmental challenges. He added the new program dovetails with the 2024 launch of the statewide New Mexico Artificial Intelligence Consortium.
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
New State Fair board meets, mulling International District revival and $500 million investment — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A board the New Mexico Legislature created earlier this year took its first steps Thursday toward what could be a $500 million investment in a long-struggling neighborhood in the heart of Albuquerque, a process that could also result in the relocation of the New Mexico State Fair.
At the New Mexico State Fair Tax District Board’s first meeting, members committed to statewide standards around open meetings and procurement; announced the hiring of a design firm tasked with creating a master plan for the fairgrounds; and outlined how the New Mexico State Fair Commission will employ eminent domain to buy out business owners in one corner of the fairgrounds.
Members include New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and New Mexico Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), along with other state, county and city leaders.
The board is empowered to raise property taxes and issue up to $500 million in bonds to fund the development. The bonds are backed primarily by future gaming revenue taxes generated at the Downs casino and racino, which holds a multi-decade lease on property within the fairgrounds perimeter.
Based on expected taxes and current interest rates, the board could quickly raise up to $170 million in bonds to finance the project, according to a report from the Legislative Finance Committee.
Lawmakers early this year passed Senate Bill 481, which established the new special tax district and board membership. The board also announced Thursday that Stantec, an international design firm, had won a competitive bid awarding it $850,000 to come up with a master plan for the fairgrounds.
Stantec also developed the master plan for Netflix’s Mesa del Sol campus south of Albuquerque, along with mixed-use developments in Denver and El Paso.
Lujan Grisham, Stewart and others have touted the potential dramatic change at the fairgrounds as a way to rescue the adjacent International District, which has long been plagued with high poverty and crime rates. Some neighborhood advocates have raised concerns about who will benefit from the investment and whether it will gentrify a working-class neighborhood.
While no decisions have been made about whether the re-envisioning of the Expo New Mexico property will mean the relocation of the fairgrounds, Lujan Grisham said Thursday that Stantec will be giving serious consideration to that possibility as it completes options for the master plan.
The fair has been held at Expo New Mexico since 1938.
Redeveloping the area could also allow the state to build more housing units in a state and city with a severe housing shortage, advocates have said. “This state land in the heart of New Mexico’s largest city presents a unique opportunity to create badly needed new housing for the workforce, while spurring massive private investment,” Lujan Grisham said in a December news release touting the plan.
Martin Chavez, the former Albuquerque mayor, is spearheading the project as the governor’s senior adviser. He told Source New Mexico after the meeting that while the project has never been intended as an affordable housing development, that new mixed-income housing is a key component of the new master plan Stantec is working on.
That said, there is no minimum number of housing units that the firm is required to develop a plan around, he said.
The board has much else to iron out for the development to occur, including Expo New Mexico’s forced acquisition of a handful of businesses, including restaurants and a tire shop, on the southwest corner of the property near Central Avenue and San Pedro Avenue.
Ricky Serna, the state Transportation Department secretary, said his agency will support Expo New Mexico as it handles the eminent domain process and outlined next steps at the Thursday meeting.
State officials said they will soon approach business owners in the area with offers to buy their properties, offers that contemplate the value of the businesses, costs to relocate and the property themselves.
Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa raised concerns about whether the business owners would be fairly compensated and whether buying them out would just result in more vacant buildings in a neighborhood with a lot of them. She pointed out that the nearby Wal-mart and two national pharmacy chains across the street have left.
Lujan Grisham responded the state would own the buildings and would manage them as productively as possible during the “parallel planning” regarding the redevelopment that is occurring at the same time the state is acquiring the buildings.
Keller, attending the meeting remotely, said he’s seen repeated state efforts to redevelop the fairgrounds and invest in the International District that have dissipated without action. The passage of Senate Bill 481 and the meeting Thursday were already more action than he’s seen in years, he said.
“This is real, and that’s good,” he said. “So I just want to appreciate a little bit of bias towards action, so that’s what we need, and I’m confident that we’ll do it in a fair and appropriate way.”
Monsoon season brings the promise of rain for the arid southwestern US — Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Clouds build up in the early afternoon and gusty winds push in every direction. The skies darken and then comes the rain — often a downpour that is gone as quickly as it came.
This seasonal dance choreographed by Mother Nature marks a special time for the U.S. Southwest and Mexico. It is when residents clasp their hands, hoping for much-needed moisture to dampen the threat of wildfires and keep rivers flowing.
Forecasters say it has been a wet start to this year's monsoon season, which officially began June 15 and runs through the end of September. Parts of New Mexico and West Texas have been doused with rain, while Arizona and Nevada have been hit with dust storms, which are a common hazard of the season.
In Las Vegas, monsoon season muscled its way in on the first day of July with bursts of powerful thunderstorms and dust storms that toppled power lines, uprooted trees and snapped utility poles throughout the city, shocking the power grid. Tens of thousands of people were without power for some time.
And in other parts of the world, monsoons often mean months of never-ending rain.
In North America, the season can have considerable variability. The bursts and breaks depend on how much moisture is circulating and which way the wind blows.
Easing drought
The monsoon relies on the buildup of summer heat and shifting wind direction, which helps funnel moisture from distant bodies of water to areas where rain is sparse.
Just ahead of the monsoon, officials with the Navajo Nation declared an emergency because of worsening drought conditions across the reservation, which spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
Below-average precipitation month after month has left little forage for livestock, and fire danger has ramped up as pockets of moderate and severe drought expand. Ranchers and farmers are being urged to reduce their herds, shift to drought-tolerant crops and limit irrigation.
New Mexico's governor also declared an emergency in May because of severe drought and escalating fire risk.
Forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Integrated Drought Information System say monsoonal rainfall only provides a fraction of the West's water supplies, with the majority coming from snowpack. Still, summer rains can reduce drought impacts by lessening the demand for water stored in reservoirs, recharging soil moisture and groundwater, and reducing the risk of wildfires.
New Mexico and Arizona typically stand to benefit the most from the North American monsoon, getting anywhere between 10% to 60% of their annual precipitation during the season. It has a lesser influence in Nevada and California, though southern Nevada on average gets 20% to 25% of its precipitation during the summer.
Along the Rio Grande at the base of the Jemez Mountains, Santa Ana Pueblo farmers are eagerly watching the afternoon skies. Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo said they have already had several good downpours, and he wouldn't mind more.
But that will be for the spirits to decide, Armijo said. "You know, it's not up to us," he said.
Flooding fears
With summer rains come increased river flows and in some cases flooding in normally dry washes and across the scars left by wildfires.
Sandbag stations have been set up in communities across the region — from Tucson, Arizona, to Albuquerque and San Antonio, Texas. In Española, state transportation workers have closed a historic bridge that funnels traffic across the Rio Grande, citing concerns about higher flows further eroding a concrete pier.
On the edge of the Gila National Forest, New Mexico National Guard troops have delivered dozens of pallets of filled sandbags for residents who are preparing for flooding following a blaze that has charred about 74 square miles (192 square kilometers).
Meanwhile, hundreds of firefighters are hoping for higher humidity and rain to tamp down a wildfire that is racing through a mountainous area of the Navajo Nation. Fire officials reported that the flames made a 6-mile (9.7-kilometer) run in a matter of hours.
Once the fire is out, land managers acknowledge that the monsoon will be a mixed blessing, as rainfall on the charred hillsides will surely result in surges of runoff filled with ash and debris.
A tie that binds
Just as light and shadow move across the mesa tops beyond artist Daniel McCoy's studio, the Rio Grande pulses with each downpour, turning into what looks like a sudsy caramel concoction as it carries away sediment.
The river and the desert badlands and purple mountain peaks that border it are the inspiration for the giant canvasses McCoy is preparing for an upcoming show at the Hecho a Mano gallery in Santa Fe.
McCoy, who is Muskogee (Creek) and Potawatomi, grew up working on a farm with his grandfather in Oklahoma. He and his green thumb faced new challenges when he moved to the arid Southwest, where water shortages often lead to mandatory rationing and pleas for prayers.
A sign down the street from his studio reads in Spanish: "El Agua No Se Vende. El Agua Se Defiende." It means water isn't for sale, and the right to access the finite resource should be defended.
"It's made me mindful more than I ever thought I would be," he said of hearing stories from longtime locals about the preciousness of water.
But McCoy fits right in, living by the seasons and learning to tend to his drinking water well.
"When you're outside working, it's a different kind of time. You live more by what the sun's doing and what the water's doing," he said. "And so it's good to be connected to that."
The House gives final approval to Trump's big tax bill in a milestone for his second-term agenda - By Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Leah Askarinam and Matt Brown, Associated Press
House Republicans propelled President Donald Trump's big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill to final passage Thursday in Congress, overcoming multiple setbacks to approve his signature second-term policy package before a Fourth of July deadline.
The tight roll call, 218-214, came at a potentially high political cost, with two Republicans joining all Democrats opposed. GOP leaders worked overnight and the president himself leaned on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York delayed voting for more than eight hours by seizing control of the floor with a record-breaking speech against the bill.
Trump celebrated his political victory in Iowa, where he attended the kickoff for a year of events marking the country's upcoming 250th anniversary.
"I want to thank Republican congressmen and women, because what they did is incredible," he said. The president complained that Democrats voted against the bill because "they hate Trump — but I hate them too."
Trump said he plans to sign the legislation on Friday at the White House.
The outcome delivers a milestone for the president and for his party. It was a long-shot effort to compile a lengthy list of GOP priorities into what they called his "one big beautiful bill," at nearly 900 pages. With Democrats unified in opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump's return to the White House, aided by Republican control of Congress.
"You get tired of winning yet?" said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., invoking Trump as he called the vote.
"With one big beautiful bill we are going to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before," he said.
Republicans celebrated with a rendition of the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.," a song the president often plays at his rallies, during a ceremony afterward.
Tax breaks and safety net cuts
At its core, the package's priority is $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in 2017 during Trump's first term that would expire if Congress failed to act, along with new ones. This includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year.
There's also a hefty investment, some $350 billion, in national security and Trump's deportation agenda and to help develop the "Golden Dome" defensive system over the U.S.
To help offset the lost tax revenue, the package includes $1.2 trillion in cutbacks to the Medicaid health care and food stamps, largely by imposing new work requirements, including for some parents and older people, and a major rollback of green energy tax credits.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the decade and 11.8 million more people will go without health coverage.
"This was a generational opportunity to deliver the most comprehensive and consequential set of conservative reforms in modern history, and that's exactly what we're doing," said Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the House Budget Committee chairman.
Democrats united against the big 'ugly bill'
Democrats unified against the bill as a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on the backs of the working class and most vulnerable in society, what they called "trickle down cruelty."
Jeffries began the speech at 4:53 a.m. EDT and finished at 1:37 p.m. EDT, 8 hours, 44 minutes later, a record, as he argued against what he called Trump's "big ugly bill."
"We're better than this," said Jeffries, who used a leader's prerogative for unlimited debate, and read letter after letter from Americans writing about their reliance of the health care programs.
"I never thought that I'd be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene," Jeffries said. "It's a crime scene, going after the health, and the safety, and the well-being of the American people."
And as Democrats, he said, "We want no part of it."
Tensions ran high. As fellow Democrats chanted Jeffries' name, a top Republican, Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, called his speech "a bunch of hogwash."
Hauling the package through the Congress has been difficult from the start. Republicans have struggled mightily with the bill nearly every step of the way, quarreling in the House and Senate, and often succeeding only by the narrowest of margins: just one vote.
The Senate passed the package days earlier with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie vote. The slim majority in the House left Republicans little room for defections.
"It wasn't beautiful enough for me to vote for it," said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Also voting no was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who said he was concerned about cuts to Medicaid.
Once Johnson gaveled the tally, Republicans cheered "USA!" and flashed Trump-style thumbs-up to the cameras.
Political costs of saying no
Despite their discomfort with various aspects of the sprawling package, in some ways it became too big to fail — in part because Republicans found it difficult to buck Trump.
As Wednesday's stalled floor action dragged overnight, Trump railed against the delays.
"What are the Republicans waiting for???" the president said in a midnight-hour post.
Johnson relied heavily on White House Cabinet secretaries, lawyers and others to satisfy skeptical GOP holdouts. Moderate Republicans worried about the severity of cuts while conservatives pressed for steeper reductions. Lawmakers said they were being told the administration could provide executive actions, projects or other provisions in their districts back home.
The alternative was clear. Republicans who staked out opposition to the bill, including Massie of Kentucky and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, were being warned by Trump's well-funded political operation. Tillis soon after announced he would not seek reelection.
Rollback of past presidential agendas
In many ways, the package is a repudiation of the agendas of the last two Democratic presidents, a chiseling away at the Medicaid expansion from Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, and a pullback of Joe Biden's climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Democrats have described the bill in dire terms, warning that cuts to Medicaid, which some 80 million Americans rely on, would result in lives lost. Food stamps that help feed more than 40 million people would "rip food from the mouths of hungry children, hungry veterans and hungry seniors," Jeffries said.
Republicans say the tax breaks will prevent a tax hike on households and grow the economy. They maintain they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.
The Tax Policy Center, which provides nonpartisan analysis of tax and budget policy, projected the bill would result next year in a $150 tax break for the lowest quintile of Americans, a $1,750 tax cut for the middle quintile and a $10,950 tax cut for the top quintile. That's compared with what they would face if the 2017 tax cuts expired.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Joey Cappelletti and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.
US expands militarized zones to 1/3 of southern border, stirring controversy - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Orange no-entry signs posted by the U.S. military in English and Spanish dot the New Mexico desert, where a border wall cuts past onion fields and parched ranches with tufts of tall grass growing amidst wiry brush and yucca trees.
The Army has posted thousands of the warnings in New Mexico and western Texas, declaring a "restricted area by authority of the commander." It's part of a major shift that has thrust the military into border enforcement with Mexico like never before.
The move places long stretches of the border under the supervision of nearby military bases, empowering U.S. troops to detain people who enter the country illegally and sidestep a law prohibiting military involvement in civilian law enforcement. It is done under the authority of the national emergency on the border declared by President Donald Trump on his first day in office.
U.S. authorities say the zones are needed to close gaps in border enforcement and help in the wider fight against human smuggling networks and brutal drug cartels.
The militarization is being challenged in court, and has been criticized by civil rights advocates, humanitarian aid groups and outdoor enthusiasts who object to being blocked from public lands while troops have free rein.
Abbey Carpenter, a leader of a search-and-rescue group for missing migrants, said public access is being denied across sweltering stretches of desert where migrant deaths have surged.
"Maybe there are more deaths, but we don't know," she said.
Military expansion
Two militarized zones form a buffer along 230 miles (370 kilometers) of border, from Fort Hancock, Texas, through El Paso and westward across vast New Mexico ranchlands.
The Defense Department added an additional 250-mile (400-kilometer) zone last week in Texas' Rio Grande Valley and plans another near Yuma, Arizona. Combined, the zones will cover nearly one-third of the U.S. border with Mexico.
They are patrolled by at least 7,600 members of the armed forces, vastly expanding the U.S. government presence on the border.
Reaction to the military buffer has been mixed among residents of New Mexico's rural Luna County, where a strong culture of individual liberty is tempered by the desire to squelch networks bringing migrants and contraband across the border.
"We as a family have always been very supportive of the mission, and very supportive of border security," said James Johnson, a fourth-generation farmer overseeing seasonal laborers as they filled giant plastic crates with onions, earning $22 per container.
Military deployments under prior presidents put "eyes and ears" on the border, Johnson said. This version is "trying to give some teeth."
But some hunters and hikers fear they're being locked out of a rugged and cherished landscape.
"I don't want to go down there with my hunting rifle and all of a sudden somebody rolls up on me and says that I'm in a military zone," said Ray Trejo, a coordinator for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and a Luna County commissioner. "I don't know if these folks have been taught to deescalate situations."
A former public school teacher of English as a second language, Trejo said military trespassing charges seem inhumane in an economy built on immigrant farm labor.
"If the Army, Border Patrol, law enforcement in general are detaining people for reasons of transporting, of human smuggling, I don't have a problem," he said. "But people are coming into our country to work, stepping now all of a sudden into a military zone, and they have no idea."
Nicole Wieman, an Army command spokesperson, said the Army is negotiating possible public access for recreation and hunting, and will honor private rights to grazing and mining.
Increased punishment
More than 1,400 migrants have been charged with trespassing on military territory, facing a possible 18-month prison sentence for a first offense. That's on top of an illegal entry charge that brings up to six months in custody. After that, most are turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for likely deportation. There have been no apparent arrests of U.S. citizens.
At a federal courthouse in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the banks of the Upper Rio Grande, migrants in drab county jail jumpsuits and chains filed before a magistrate judge on a recent weekday.
A 29-year-old Guatemalan woman struggled to understand instructions through a Spanish interpreter as she pleaded guilty to illegal entry. A judge set aside military trespassing charges for lack of evidence, but sentenced her to two weeks in jail before being transferred for likely deportation.
"She sells pottery, she's a very simple woman with a sixth-grade education," a public defense attorney told the judge. "She told me she's going back and she's going to stay there."
Border crossings
Border Patrol arrests along the southern border this year have dropped to the lowest level in six decades, including a 30% decrease in June from the prior month as attempted crossings dwindle. On June 28, the Border Patrol made only 137 arrests, a stark contrast with late 2023, when arrests topped 10,000 on the busiest days.
The first militarized zones, introduced in April and May, extend west of El Paso past factories and cattle yards to partially encircle the New Mexico border village of Columbus, and its 1,450 residents. It was here that Mexican revolutionary forces led by Pancho Villa crossed into the U.S. in a deadly 1916 raid.
These days, a port of entry at Columbus is where hundreds of children with U.S. citizenship cross daily from a bedroom community in Mexico to board public school buses and attend classes nearby.
Columbus Mayor Philip Skinner, a Republican, says he's seen the occasional military vehicle but no evidence of disruption in an area where illegal crossings have been rare.
"We're kind of not tuned in to this national politics," Skinner said.
Oversight is divided between U.S. Army commands in Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The militarized zones sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.
Russell Johnson, a rancher and former Border Patrol agent, said he welcomes the new militarized zone where his ranch borders Mexico on land leased from the Bureau of Land Management.
"We have seen absolutely almost everything imaginable that can happen on the border, and most of it's bad," he said, recalling off-road vehicle chases on his ranch and lifeless bodies recovered by Border Patrol.
In late April, he said, five armored military vehicles spent several days at a gap in the border wall, where construction was suspended at the outset of the Biden presidency. But, he said, he hasn't seen much of the military in recent weeks.
"The only thing that's really changed is the little extra signage," he said. "We're not seeing the military presence out here like we kind of anticipated."
Court challenges
Federal public defenders have challenged the military's new oversight of public land in New Mexico, seizing on the arrest of a Mexican man for trespassing through remote terrain to test the legal waters.
They decried the designation of a new military zone without congressional authorization "for the sole purpose of enabling military action on American soil" as "a matter of staggering and unpreceded political significance." A judge has not ruled on the issue.
In the meantime, court challenges to trespassing charges in the militarized zone have met with a mixture of convictions and acquittals at trial.
Ryan Ellison, the top federal prosecutor in New Mexico, won trespassing convictions in June against two immigrants who entered a militarized zone again after an initial warning. "There's not going to be an issue as to whether or not they were on notice," he told a recent news conference.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Rebecca Sheff says the federal government is testing a more punitive approach to border enforcement with the new military zones and worries it will be expanded border-wide.
"To the extent the federal government has aspirations to establish a much more hostile military presence along the border, this is a vehicle that they're pushing on to potentially do so. … And that's very concerning," she said.
Health officials warn of West Nile virus threat – KUNM News
The New Mexico Department of Health is recommending New Mexicans take precautions against the West Nile Virus, which can be transmitted through mosquito bites.
Recent rains across New Mexico may cause buildup of standing water, attracting mosquitoes that could be infected. While there are no cases of West Nile so far this season, July and August are usually peak times for the virus.
Common symptoms for the virus include headache, fever, and body aches. Anyone undergoing these symptoms should contact their health provider.
The NMDOH suggests using a few simple prevention methods to keep you and your loved ones safe, including, using insect repellent, keeping windows and doors closed, wearing long clothing which covers skin, and to remove or distance yourself from any water-catching materials that Mosquitos may inhabit- like rain barrels, pet-water bowls and old-tires.
Lastly, the evening and cooler hours of the day are peak feeding times for mosquitoes, so as the July 4th holiday comes up, please take extra care to prevent the insect bites during outside activities.
Find more information on the virus and prevention methods by visiting the NMDOH website.
Study: Despite decreasing crime, NM holds more people in its largest jail – Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
Over the last five years, while local jails in the United States have been holding fewer people, New Mexico’s largest jail has been detaining nearly one-third more people while they await their day in court.
That’s according to a recent study of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), located just outside Albuquerque in Bernalillo County.
Even though MDC hasn’t been as crowded in the last 10 years as it was historically, it’s been slowly holding more and more people, said Paul Guerin, director of the Center for Applied Research and Analysis at the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research, which has studied the jail’s population since the 1990s.
Between 2019 and 2024, jail populations in the U.S. decreased by 15.3%, while the MDC’s population has grown by 30.3%, the report states.
Police-reported crime peaked in the U.S. in the 1990s and has generally decreased since, according to the report. While trends in police-reported crime in New Mexico, Bernalillo County and Albuquerque have always exceeded national trends, they have also gone down overall, the report states.
Over the last 10 years, local and state policymakers have affected how many people are booked into MDC and how long they stay there, according to the report. State policies and laws that have reduced these figures include voters’ approval of bail reform in 2016; the state Supreme Court’s case management order in 2015; and the statewide stay-at-home order in March 2020 that slowed the spread of COVID-19, according to the report.
On the other hand, policies that have packed more people into the jail have included New Mexico State Police “surges” in Bernalillo County in 2019 and 2021, and NMSP’s “North Star” operations with the Albuquerque Police Department, the report states.
On any given day last October, MDC held an average of 1,803 people, the highest figure since December 2014, the report states.
While the MDC was designed to hold as many as 2,236 people, it’s not allowed to exceed a cap of 1,950 people under a 2017 settlement agreement between the City of Albuquerque and people incarcerated in the jail who sued more than two decades earlier.
However, the report states that MDC “is closer to the McClendon Cap than ever in the last eight years.”
Guerin told Source NM in an interview that authorities are holding more people in MDC because they’re booking more people into the jail, and holding them there for longer periods of time under more serious charges.
Guerin said people in MDC should primarily be there under lower-level charges because those who are charged with more serious crimes are out of their communities for longer periods of time, so they have fewer chances of returning to jail.
In a given year, approximately 40% of the people held in MDC are there two or more times under less serious charges, the report states.
“The jail is consistently receiving people who are cycling in and out of jail,” Guerin said.
A prior report on pretrial detention found that more than 40% of people who are held in jail while facing felony charges stay in the jail for 120 days on average, only to have their cases dismissed, Guerin said.
The problem, Guerin said, is that these are people the system believes are the most serious offenders, and more than 40% of them don’t receive a conviction, for various reasons, good and bad.
This results in not only wasted money holding people in MDC, but also social costs like people being away from their families and losing their jobs, Guerin said.
The report suggests that policymakers consider whether people in MDC should be there or not.
“We should be more efficient in prosecuting cases if we think they’re guilty,” Guerin said. “I don’t know why we don’t.”
Guerin and co-author Senior Research Scientist Elise Ferguson published the report in June, and it has received disappointingly few reactions, he said.
“We and others who produce information that’s useful for policymakers, often that information is not used,” he said.
Guerin said he thinks what is driving policy instead are people’s impressions, anecdotal stories, politics and sensationalized media coverage.
“Information should drive policy,” he said. “My hope is that information would just inform policy, but I don’t even think we see that oftentimes.”
Proposal to remove protections for Mexican gray wolves could lead to extinction, advocates say – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
A bill introduced Monday, proposing to strip endangered species protections from Mexican gray wolves would mean “unrecoverable losses” for the Southwestern wolves, wildlife advocates said.
Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar’s bill, “Enhancing Safety for Animals Act,” would remove the wolf from the federal list of endangered species and end U.S. population restoration efforts in Mexico. Gosar’s office issued a news release saying “significant attacks by wolves on cattle, elk, moose, and sheep have occurred and have negatively impacted hunters and ranchers throughout Arizona.”
Delisting would also end federal investigation into wolf predation on livestock and reduce federal funding for livestock losses, Michelle Lute, executive director for Wildlife for All, told Source NM, and would further erode recovery programs.
“Stripping federal protections for Mexican gray wolves would invite another extinction,” Lute said. “This is not alarmist, this is what we’re already seeing.”
Mexican gray wolves once lived throughout the mountains and deserts of New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico, but were driven to near-extinction by the 1970s due to years of eradication to keep them from preying on cattle.
Two years after the passage of the Endangered Species Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife added the Mexican gray wolf to the list, garnering federal protections. Officials captured the seven remaining wild wolves, and bred them back from extinction. Federal wildlife officials reintroduced the wolves in Arizona and New Mexico in 1998. Today, the national wild population is 286 animals. Reintroduction in Mexico occurred in 2011.
Tensions over the wolf introduction program have escalated in New Mexico, culminating in Catron and Sierra county boards issuing disaster declarations in resolutions earlier this year and asking state officials to step in, end federal wolf releases into the wild and kill wolves that prey on livestock.
Federal delisting would remove federal prohibitions on killing wolves, said Michael Robinson, senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Bypassing the Endangered Species Act to strip all protections from beleaguered Mexican gray wolves and leave them vulnerable to Arizona’s shoot-on-sight laws would cause a massacre,” Robinson said in a statement. “The Southwest’s ecology would suffer, and we’d be left with a sadder, drabber landscape if Gosar and the livestock industry’s cruel vision for wolf extermination becomes law.”
NM Gov: Special session ‘may be necessary’ to address federal fallout from Republican budget bill - By Julia Goldberg, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday she may need to call a special legislative session to address the impact to the state from the Congressional Republicans’ passage of their so-called “big beautiful bill.” The GOP’s tax and spending legislation includes cuts expected to cause millions of Americans to lose health care access through Medicaid; curtail food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and hurt rural hospitals, among other repercussions.
“The Republican budget bill is an abomination that abandons working families and threatens the health and well-being of New Mexicans,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Their vote to slash funding for health care and child nutrition to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich isn’t just bad policy—it’s an outright betrayal.”
The bill, she added, “will hit New Mexico hard. From cuts to Medicaid funding that keeps our rural hospitals open, to reductions in food assistance for children, to threats against education programs that ensure our kids have a brighter future, this budget puts politics over people. It also amounts to an egregious tax hike on Americans who will pay higher prices for health care, electricity, and other services.” The governor noted she is “prepared to call a special session if necessary to protect New Mexicans from their fiscal assault.”
Earlier this week, New Mexico Health Care Authority Secretary Kari Armijo told members of a newly established federal funding stabilization committee that as many as 88,530 New Mexicans will lose their Medicaid coverage due to provisions in the bill. The bill will also likely cause 58,180 New Mexicans to lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, she said.
New Mexico House Democrats issued a statement shortly after federal passage of the bill saying that “out-of-touch” Republicans had passed “the most cruel and backwards bill we have seen in our lifetimes.” Republicans, the statement said, “are kicking folks off their healthcare, shuttering our rural hospitals, letting children and seniors go hungry, and raising costs for all working people, in order to please President Trump and line the pockets of his ultra wealthy donors. This legislation will have a devastating impact on families across our country and right here at home.”
Legislative Finance Committee Director Charles Sallee also told lawmakers this week that New Mexico interest earning record oil and gas revenues will help buffer the state from some of the cuts, which House Democrats noted in their statement.
All three Democratic New Mexico members of the U.S. House of Representatives held a joint news conference shortly after the vote in Washington, D.C., with U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, referring to the tax and spending legislation as a “big, ugly abomination of a bill” and the “biggest rollback in American history, directly attacking our communities.”
Stansbury further cited the effects on New Mexicans’ health care, food security and education, saying the bill “is going to have truly catastrophic impacts for New Mexico.” Republicans, she added, are trying to downplay those impacts.
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) posted her no vote on social media on July 3, 2025. (Courtesy photo) “And so our question is, then, ‘Why did they have to pass it in the dark of night in both the Senate and the House?’ It’s because they know millions of Americans are going to be hurt by it, but they don’t care. Their message to America today is: They won. America loses. They don’t care. You can lose your health care, you can lose your food assistance, you can lose your education. They don’t care.”
That being said, Stansbury added, “We don’t want New Mexicans to lose hope. We want them to use their understanding of what’s about to happen to fuel the fight. We have to take back the House.”
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who represents the southern portion of the state in the 2nd Congressional District, described himself as “furious.”
“This is the biggest tax giveaway to the richest people in this country, and it’s being paid for on the backs of working families,” Vasquez said. “And the saddest thing is, is that it’s taking health care away from those who need it the most.”
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández from the 3rd Congressional District, said she refers to the budget reconciliation bill as the “betrayed for billionaires” bill. Leger Fernández further contrasted and described the types of bills passed under federal Democratic leadership, such as the Affordable Health Care Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, which helped insure all Americans, invested in renewable energy and stimulated the economy, respectively, she said.
“It shouldn’t be that just the wealthy get the good life,” she said. “We all want the good education, a good home, good health care, a beautiful planet to live on, right? That’s the good life. But Republicans are actually, instead of …waking up thinking about the American dream…we are waking up into the American nightmare because their big, ugly bill undoes all the progress that Democrats were making.”