As many as 200 homes damaged as officials survey the aftermath of a deadly New Mexico flood - Morgan Lee, Susan Montoya Bryan, and Roberto Rosales, Associated Press
At least 200 homes were damaged during a deadly flash flood in the mountain village of Ruidoso, and local emergency managers warned Wednesday that number could more than double as teams survey more neighborhoods.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was among the officials who took an aerial tour of Ruidoso and the surrounding area as they looked to bolster their case for more federal assistance for the community, which has been battered over the past year by wildfires and repeated flooding.
The governor said the state has received partial approval for a federal emergency declaration, freeing up personnel to help with search and rescue efforts and incident management. She called it the first step, saying Ruidoso will need much more.
"We will continue working with the federal government for every dollar and resource necessary to help this resilient community fully recover from these devastating floods,” she said.
An intense bout of monsoon rains set the disaster in motion Tuesday afternoon. Water rushed from the surrounding mountainside, overwhelming the Rio Ruidoso and taking with it a man and two children who had been camping at a riverside RV park. Their bodies were found downstream. One person is still unaccounted for.
Lujan Grisham expressed her condolences and wished a speedy recovery for the parents of the 4-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy who were killed. She said it will be an emotional journey.
“There are no words that can take away that devastation,” she said. “We are truly heartsick.”
Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, whose district includes Ruidoso and surrounding Lincoln County, told reporters more rain is coming and that residents remain at risk. She urged people to follow emergency orders, saying “we cannot lose another life.”
A community rebuilds — againBroken tree limbs, twisted metal, crumpled cars and muddy debris remain as crews work to clear roads and culverts wrecked by the flooding.
Tracy Haragan, a lifelong Ruidoso resident on the verge of retirement, watched from his home as a surging river carried away the contents of nine nearby residences.
“You watched everything they owned, everything they had — everything went down,” he said.
A popular summer retreat, Ruidoso is no stranger to tragedy. It has spent a year rebuilding following destructive wildfires last summer and the flooding that followed.
This time, the floodwaters went even higher, with the Rio Ruidoso rising more than 20 feet (6 meters) on Tuesday to set a record. Officials said the area received about 3.5 inches (9 centimeters) of rain over the South Fork burn scar in just an hour and a half.
“It is such a great town, it just takes a tail-whipping every once in a while,” Haragan said. “We always survive.”
Requests for aidThe river runs thick with sediment that can settle and raise future water levels. Stansbury said already-promised federal funding to remove silt from the riverbed would help mitigate future flooding, but that the community would need continued help for the next decade after suffering successive catastrophes.
Lujan Grisham said the federal government likely will advance $15 million — from the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — to jumpstart recovery efforts. That amount could climb to more than $100 million in the coming months as Ruidoso tries to rebuild and mitigate future floods.
The governor said officials need to rethink how funding is doled out to reduce the risks of future flooding, in efforts that might restore watersheds and forests.
Ruidoso has also recently requested $100 million in federal aid to convert flood-prone private land to public property after successive years of violent flooding.
The mayor emphasized Thursday that the flood damage was far greater than he and others had realized, highlighting damage to water lines and distribution points for potable drinking water.
“Things have changed,” Crawford said. “There was a lot more damage than what we had assumed and what we thought in the beginning. ... We’ve had to take a step back to move forward.”
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Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Bryan from Albuquerque. Associated Press writers Matthew Brown in Denver and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
Senator Lujan defends public broadcasting’s role in natural disasters – by Megan Kamerick, KUNM News
In the wake of flash flooding in Ruidoso, U.S. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico took to the Senate floor Wednesday to defend public media and its role in keeping people informed during disasters.
Lujan joined other Senators in defending public media as a vote looms to claw back federal funding already appropriated by Congress. He recalled the 2022 Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak wildfire, the worst in state history, saying local radio stations and public broadcasters provided real-time information about evacuations, shelters, resources.
“At a time when mobile phones weren’t working, most communications were down, it was only these local radio stations who were also benefiting from the transmitters from public broadcasting that they were able to communicate with so many constituents,” Lujan said.
The bill would eliminate $1 billion dollars already approved for public media. Stations like KUNM rely on these funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help buy programming. This rescission process only requires a simple majority vote in both chambers and it has already passed the Senate.
“Stripping $1.1 billion from public broadcasting puts millions of lives at risk, including first responders and families who depend on emergency radio systems and public broadcasts to stay informed and stay safe,” Lujan said.
A report released this week by Democratic Washington Senator Maria Cantwell highlights the essential role public broadcasters play in rural areas where they may be one of the only sources of information during disasters.
A vote on the rescission bill must take place by July 18 or else the proposal will expire.
New Mexico village rebuilds all over again after record-breaking flash flood kills 3 - By Morgan Lee, Susan Montoya Bryan, and Roberto Rosales, Associated Press
RUIDOSO, N.M. (AP) — The mountain village of Ruidoso returned to the grim rituals of rebuilding after deadly flash flooding, just one year after other natural disasters — a wildfire and intense flooding — reshaped the popular vacation getaway.
Broken tree limbs, twisted metal, crumpled cars and muddy debris remained as crews worked to clear roads and culverts in the wake of Tuesday's flash flood that killed three people — including two children — and significantly damaged as many as 50 homes, with one home carried away entirely.
Tracy Haragan, a Ruidoso native on the verge of retirement, watched from his home as a surging river carried away the contents of nine nearby residences.
"You watched everything they owned, everything they had — everything went down," he said.
An intense bout of monsoon rains set the disaster in motion Tuesday. Water rushed from the surrounding mountainside, overwhelming the Rio Ruidoso and taking with it a man and two children from an RV park along the river. The bodies were found downstream during search and rescue efforts.
The children — a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy — had been camping with their parents when they were swept away. Their father and mother were being treated for injuries at a hospital in Texas, according to officials at Fort Bliss, where the father is stationed.
Mayor Lynn Crawford said hearts are broken over the lives lost and stomachs are in knots as residents begin to take stock of the damage.
"It is such a great town, it just takes a tail-whipping every once in a while," Haragan said. "We always survive."
Rebuilding — again
A popular summer retreat, Ruidoso is no stranger to tragedy. It has spent a year rebuilding following destructive wildfires last summer and the flooding that followed.
Rebuilding again in Ruidoso will be hard, if not impossible, said Riverside RV Park owner Barbara Arthur.
Arthur says her guests scrambled up a nearby slope when the river started coursing through the site Tuesday afternoon. She also lost her home in flood.
It was the sixth time the river rose in the last several weeks and by far the worst, she said. And Tuesday's rainfall was more than could be absorbed by the hillsides and canyons within a wildfire burn scar.
Setting records
The floodwaters of the Rio Ruidoso rose more than 20 feet on Tuesday to set a record high-water mark, said National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Shoemake in Albuquerque. That eclipsed the previously recorded high in July 2024 by nearly 5 feet.
About 3.5 inches of rain fell over the South Fork burn scar in just an hour and a half, Crawford said. As little as a quarter of an inch of rain over a burn scar can cause flooding.
"They were probably already getting some runoff from upstream before it even actually started raining on top of the wildfire burn scar," Shoemake said. "It really was just kind of a terrible coincidence of events that led to that."
He likened the intense rainfall to a 100-year storm, which has a 1% chance of happening in any given year.
Cleanup begins
Emergency crews completed dozens of swift water rescues before the water receded Tuesday. Two National Guard teams and several local crews already were in the area when the flooding began, said Danielle Silva of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham requested a presidential disaster declaration, tallying more than $50 million in emergency response expenditures, including water rescues, and damage to public infrastructure, including toppled bridges and washed out roadways. The estimate includes flood damage at Ruidoso and beyond from monsoon rainstorms since late June.
Ruidoso has also recently requested $100 million in federal aid to convert flood-prone private land to public property after successive years of violent flooding laid bare the dangers of an expanded flood plain.
The floods at Ruidoso came just days after flash floods in Texas killed at least 120 people and left more than 160 people missing.
Bracing for more
Local officials said the village, as the flood hit, was still in the process of replacing outdoor warning sirens destroyed in last year's wildfire and reassessing risks along the local flood plain.
Crawford reiterated Wednesday that Ruidoso will continue to be in the crosshairs with each monsoon, as there's still work to do to recover from the wildfire. The rainy season begins in June and runs through September.
The river, meanwhile, is running thick with sediment that can settle and raise future water levels.
The village's tourism-based economy also has been thrown into turmoil again. With floodwaters running through Ruidoso Downs, one of the horse track's signature races that was scheduled to start Friday has been derailed.
The mayor said people are anxious as the monsoon is sure to bring more rain throughout the summer.
"Yesterday was a good lesson — you know, that Mother Nature is a much bigger, powerful force than we are," he said Wednesday. "And that we can do a lot of things to protect ourselves and to try to help direct and whatever, but we cannot control."
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Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Bryan from Albuquerque. Associated Press writers Matt Brown in Denver and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque contributed to this report.
Federal watchdog urges more oversight of WIPP maintenance - by Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Degraded infrastructure and lax federal oversight of maintenance contractors threatens future operation of the only underground nuclear storage site in Southern New Mexico, according to a recent report issued by a federal watchdog.
Maintenance concerns at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which lies underground in a saltbed outside of Carlsbad, comes as federal officials plan to accept radioactive waste until the 2080s — more than 50 years beyond the original expectation.
The federal government contracts out daily operations and maintenance at WIPP, and has used the Salado Isolation Mining Contractors at the site since 2022.
In June, the Government Accountability Office issued its findings on WIPP maintenance and facilities, noting that more than half of the necessary equipment and infrastructure (called “mission-critical”) is reported to be in “poor and substandard conditions.”
The report notes that according to the U.S. Department of Energy — which oversees U.S. nuclear weapons programs, including disposal — having infrastructure in poor condition “increases the potential for infrastructure failure, allowing greater risk of unforeseen delay to waste disposal operations or shutdown of the site.”
Federal officials in the Carlsbad Field Office said WIPP has been in a “reactionary mode” to keep up with repairs and aging equipment since a series of 2014 accidents, which shut down operations for several years, according to the report.
WIPP only had a projected lifespan of 25 years, Don Hancock, a decades-long anti-nuclear advocate in New Mexico with the Southwest Research and Information Center, told Source NM.
“Because of the obsolescence of many things in this facility, these problems will continue to occur,” Hancock said. “This facility was never supposed to, and won’t, successfully operate for 80 to 85 years without other accidents.”
The report noted some improvements since a 2016 review, which documented more than $37 million worth of repairs that occurred behind schedule and with missed deadlines. However, new problems have since emerged.
Those problems include a shaft used to transport salt removed from underground that underwent emergency refurbishment in 2024 due to “a high risk of failure,” after salt pushed into the shaft faster than expected. The report noted that other replacements were needed, such as a salt hoist built 1924 and installed at WIPP in 1984.
Contractors have identified more than 100 priority repairs at WIPP, which extend into 2033, but missing or incomplete data about the condition of the infrastructure have continued to occur, the report found. Federal officials failed to hold contractors accountable for the lapses and did not set timelines for fixes to be in place, the report said.
The report concludes that federal officials need to enact further oversight, such as grading contractors on their long-term planning efforts in contract evaluations; ensuring data issues are addressed; and setting deadlines to implement fixes.
In a response letter, U.S. Department of Energy officials agreed to the recommendations, and said they would implement them in 2025 and 2026.
Hancock said the report highlights the need for further nuclear storage options, outside of New Mexico.
“As long as WIPP is the only repository — whether it’s safe or not, whether it’s obsolete or not, whether it’s falling apart or not, whether they’re adequately maintaining it or not — if it’s the only one, everything ultimately will be shoehorned in,” Hancock said.
NM Supreme Court imposes strict deadlines on criminal cases in Santa Fe area - by Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s highest court on Wednesday morning issued a new rule requiring criminal cases in three counties in Northern New Mexico to be resolved more quickly.
The rule comes at the request of judges in the First Judicial District Court, which covers Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties, who asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to adopt a special local rule called a “case management order.” The district’s time to resolve criminal cases is about 42% higher than the statewide average, according to an Administrative Office of the Courts news release.
The new rule requires most criminal cases — with the exception of ones with “unusually high complexity”— be resolved within seven to 10 months, and follows the deployment of the case management pilot program in several other judicial districts around the state.
Under the rule, whenever a grand jury indicts someone, or a judge finds probable cause that a particular defendant committed an alleged crime, the clock will start ticking for both prosecutors and defense attorneys to accomplish certain tasks by certain deadlines, First Judicial District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington, one of three judges handling criminal cases in the district, told reporters on Wednesday. Ellington, who has been on the bench in the district since 1997, said “it’s just taking longer” to move through those cases than it has historically.
Between June 2023 and July 2024, criminal cases in the First Judicial District took an average of 327 days to finish, the slowest rate of any judicial district in New Mexico, according to data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. The Seventh Judicial District Court in central New Mexico, which had the second highest completion time, took 291 days on average.
Courts have already adopted similar deadlines in the Second Judicial District in New Mexico’s most populous county of Bernalillo; the Third Judicial District, in the second most populous county of Doña Ana; and the Eighth Judicial District, which covers Union, Colfax and Taos counties.
Prosecutors and lawmakers representing some of those areas asked state lawmakers last week to pressure the Supreme Court to either lift or change the rules, arguing that they do not have the resources needed to meet the deadlines. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies predicted that if the rule comes to her district, “thousands of cases are going to be dismissed.”
The rule allows for attorneys to ask for additional time in particular cases and for judges to grant extensions.
Ellington said Wednesday the rule contains various sanctions and consequences for missing deadlines, including dismissed cases, ultimately. Prosecutors could still refile dismissed charges, depending on the circumstances, he said.
First Judicial District Court Chief Judge Bryan Biedscheid said he’s heard complaints from prosecutors and public defenders that individual judges have very different scheduling rules from each other, and part of the case management order comes from a desire to address that concern.
Moreover, Biedscheid said the results from the districts already operating with the case management rule show the rules’ efficacy, and so he and the other judges asked the Supreme Court to bring it to their area.
The rule includes three scheduling tracks, with the simplest cases going to trial within seven months; most other cases going to trial within 300 days or about 10 months; and cases with higher complexity, such as numerous witnesses or extensive scientific evidence, operating without time limits.
Thus, Ellington said he does not expect most serious or complex cases, like homicide for example, to proceed more quickly.
He does, however, expect the new rule to result in faster resolutions in the simpler cases “that really fill up the dockets and add to the delay.” Those include fourth-degree felonies, usually involving nonviolent conduct or crimes against property; along with third- and second-degree felonies, such as drug possession with intent to distribute.
Biedscheid said judges like himself and others who handle civil cases, along with those who handle domestic violence cases, may be called upon to take additional criminal cases in order to share the workload.
“Criminal cases get priority, and they are in fact the most important cases that we have,” he said. “We might run into situations where there’s sort of a logjam. Judges that do not normally handle criminal cases — but are absolutely authorized and qualified to do that — may be jumping in to get those trials done.”
The justices ordered the local rule for Santa Fe to take effect on Jan. 1, 2026. It will only apply to cases filed after that date, Biedscheid said, and does not change any deadlines for existing cases.
Between now and then, the rule will be rolled out through an ongoing conversation between the judges, prosecutors, the state Department of Justice, the Law Offices of the Public Defender, private attorneys and police, Ellington said.
The roll-out date also provides additional time for law enforcement to prepare. Biedscheid said police made judges aware of the logistical challenges of turning over evidence to the state and the defense, and so the rule explicitly allows them to file reports and evidence electronically.
“If anything, this is giving them a lot of lead time if they need to change anything in how they operate to do that,” Ellington said.
Biedscheid said that while switching to the new rule has been hard on judges, police, prosecutors and defense attorneys in other districts, the time it has taken to resolve cases has improved since then.
“It has not been a seamless, perfect, fantasy situation,” Biedscheid said. “I will not be surprised if there are hiccups, some controversies, things like that, early on in this implementation.”
US measles cases surpass 2019 count, while Missouri is latest state with an outbreak - by Devi Shastri, Associated Press
The U.S. is having its worst year for measles spread since 1991, with a total of 1,288 cases nationally and another six months to go. But in Gaines County, Texas, which was once the nation's epicenter for measles activity, health officials said they are no longer seeing ongoing measles transmission.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention count, updated Wednesday, is 14 more cases than in all of 2019, when the U.S. almost lost its status of having eliminated measles. There've been three deaths in the U.S. this year, and all were unvaccinated: two elementary school-aged children in West Texas and an adult in New Mexico.
A vast majority of this year's cases are from Texas, where a major outbreak raged through the late winter and spring, but where no new outbreak cases were reported this week. Other states with active outbreaks — which the CDC defines as three or more related cases — include Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah. Missouri confirmed its first outbreak July 3.
North American has three other large outbreaks. The longest, in Ontario, Canada, has resulted in 2,223 cases from mid-October through July 2. The province logged its first death June 5 in a baby who got congenital measles but also had other preexisting conditions.
Another outbreak in Alberta, Canada, has sickened 1,246 as of Wednesday. And the Mexican state of Chihuahua had 2,966 measles cases and eight deaths as of Wednesday, according to data from the state health ministry.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
How many measles cases are there in Texas?Texas stayed steady Tuesday with 753 outbreak-related measles cases across 36 counties, most of them in West Texas, state data shows.
Throughout the outbreak, 99 people have been hospitalized. State health officials estimated less than 1% of cases — fewer than 10 — were actively infectious as of Tuesday.
More than half of Texas’ cases are in Gaines County, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has had 414 cases since late January — just under 2% of its residents. Statewide, only Lamar County has ongoing measles transmission, officials said Tuesday.
The state also said Tuesday there are 39 cases across 19 counties that don’t have a clear link to the outbreak now, but may end up added to it after further investigation.
The April 3 death in Texas was an 8-year-old child, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Local health officials said the child did not have underlying health conditions and died of “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure.” A unvaccinated child with no underlying conditions died of measles in Texas in late February; Kennedy said the child was 6.
How many measles cases are there in New Mexico?New Mexico had 95 measles cases on Tuesday.
While most of the state’s cases are in Lea County, 14 cases are tied to an outbreak in a jail in Luna County.
An unvaccinated adult died of measles-related illness March 6. The person did not seek medical care. Seven people have been hospitalized since the state's outbreak started.
San Juan, Eddy, Chaves, Curry, Doña Ana and Sandoval counties also had measles cases this year.
How many cases are there in Oklahoma?Oklahoma held steady Tuesday for a total of 17 confirmed and three probable cases.
The state health department is not releasing which counties have cases.
How many cases are there in Arizona?Arizona has four cases in Navajo County. They are linked to a single source, the county health department said June 9. All four were unvaccinated and had a history of recent international travel.
How many cases are there in Colorado?Colorado has seen a total of 16 measles cases in 2025, which includes one outbreak of 10 related cases.
The outbreak is linked to a Turkish Airlines flight that landed at Denver International Airport in mid-May. Four of the people were on the flight with the first person diagnosed — an out-of-state traveler not included in the state count — while five got measles from exposure in the airport and one elsewhere.
Health officials are also tracking an unrelated case in a fully vaccinated Boulder County resident who had traveled to Europe. Other counties that have seen measles this year include Archuleta and Pueblo.
How many cases are there in Georgia?Georgia has an outbreak of three cases in metro Atlanta, with the most recent infection confirmed June 18.
The state has confirmed six total cases in 2025. The remaining three are part of an unrelated outbreak from January.
How many cases are there in Illinois?Illinois health officials confirmed a four-case outbreak on May 5 in the far southern part of the state. It grew to eight cases as of June 6, but no new cases were reported in the following weeks, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
The state's other two cases so far this year were in Cook County, and are unrelated to the southern Illinois outbreak.
How many cases are there in Iowa?Iowa has had six total measles cases in 2025.
Four are part of an outbreak in eastern Johnson County, among members of the same household. County health officials said the people are isolating at home, so they don't expect additional spread.
How many cases are there in Kansas?
Kansas added five more cases this week for a total of 87 across 11 counties in the southwestern part of the state, with three hospitalizations. All but three of the cases are connected, and most are in Gray County.
How many measles cases are there in Kentucky?
Central Kentucky has an outbreak of eight cases, the state said Monday. The cases are in Fayette County, which includes Lexington, and neighboring Woodford County.
The state has confirmed 11 total cases this year.
How many cases are there in Michigan?
In northern Michigan, Grand Traverse County has an outbreak of four cases as of Wednesday.
The state declared an earlier outbreak of four cases in Montcalm County, near Grand Rapids in western Michigan, over June 2. The state has had 18 cases total in 2025; eight are linked to outbreaks.
How many cases are there in Missouri?
Missouri has seven cases as of Wednesday.
Five cases are in southwestern Cedar County, and four of those are members of the same family. The fifth case is still under investigation, according to county health director Victoria Barker.
How many cases are there in Montana?
Montana had 25 measles cases as of Wednesday. Seventeen were in Gallatin County, which is where the first cases showed up — Montana’s first in 35 years.
Flathead and Yellowstone counties had two cases each, and Hill County had four cases.
There are outbreaks in neighboring North Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
How many cases are there in North Dakota?
North Dakota, which hadn't seen measles since 2011, was up to 34 cases as of June 6, but has held steady since. Two of the people have been hospitalized. All of the people with confirmed cases were not vaccinated.
There were 16 cases in Williams County in western North Dakota on the Montana border. On the eastern side of the state, there were 10 cases in Grand Forks County and seven cases in Cass County. Burke County, in northwest North Dakota on the border of Saskatchewan, Canada, had one case.
How many cases are there in Utah?
Utah had nine total measles cases as of Tuesday. At least three of the cases are linked, according to the state health department.
State epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen said there are at least three different measles clusters in the state.
Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?
Measles cases also have been reported this year in Alaska, Arkansas, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
Health officials declared earlier outbreaks in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania over after six weeks of no new cases. Tennessee’s outbreak also appears to be over.
Cases and outbreaks in the U.S. are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. The CDC said in May that more than twice as many measles have come from outside of the U.S. compared to May of last year. Most of those are in unvaccinated Americans returning home.
What do you need to know about the MMR vaccine?
The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
Getting another MMR shot as an adult is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says. People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said.
People who have documentation that they had measles are immune and those born before 1957 generally don’t need the shots because so many children got measles back then that they have “presumptive immunity."
Measles has a harder time spreading through communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — due to “herd immunity.” But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.
What are the symptoms of measles?
Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.
The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.
Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
How can you treat measles?There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Albuquerque bus driver arrested in stabbing of rider on the West Side - by Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
A city of Albuquerque bus driver was arrested and charged after allegedly stabbing a passenger to death Wednesday morning near a bus stop on the West Side.
David Gabaldon, 41, is charged with an open count of murder, tampering with evidence and criminal damage to property.
Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement that the Transit Department has “launched an internal review into the actions of the employee involved.”
“Our Transit Department’s highest priority is improving the safety and experience for all our riders, we understand this raises concerns about their efforts and have been working to make sure that all protocols were followed and safety measures were taken,” Keller said.
An ABQ Ride spokesperson did not respond to questions about how long Gabaldon had been a bus driver and if he had any prior incidents.
Officers responded at 6:28 a.m. to a fight near Coors and Interstate 40, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court on Wednesday. Two minutes later, officers were called for a stabbing at the same location.
Police detained Gabaldon while paramedics took the stabbed man to a hospital, where he died.
Gilbert Gallegos, an Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson, said the fatal altercation was sparked after another passenger got on the bus and complained that Gabaldon was late.
Gabaldon told the man, “If he is going to get on the bus, he needs to shut up and get on,” according to the criminal complaint.
The two argued until Gabaldon stopped the Route 155 bus at Coors, south of Iliff, and said he would not move the bus until the passenger who complained got off.
Another rider told Gabaldon he was concerned with how he was speaking to the passenger and that passengers had someplace to be, so he could not stop the bus, Gallegos said in a news release. The two had a physical altercation on the bus before continuing the fight outside.
Before leaving the bus, the man was seen on video grabbing a knife from his backpack, which he later dropped, according to the criminal complaint. Footage obtained by police shows Gabaldon grabbing what police believe was pepper spray and spraying the man’s face.
Police said Gabaldon hit the man again before grabbing a knife from his pocket and stabbing him twice in his left side. The man was taken to a hospital, where he died of his injuries.
Gallegos said the man is not being identified until his family is notified. He said Gabaldon “chose not to make a statement to homicide detectives” after being arrested.
“It is unconscionable that during an ordinary Wednesday morning commute with folks heading to work and morning engagements, that a personal conflict became a traumatic experience that no one should have to witness,” Madeline Skrak, an ABQ Ride spokesperson, said in a news release.