House gives final approval to Trump's $9 billion cut to public broadcasting and foreign aid - By Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press
The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda.
The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature.
"We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step," said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.
No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats' push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.
The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and political unrest endure.
The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump's tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that measure will increase the U.S. debt by about $3.3 trillion over the coming decade.
"No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending," said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
A heavy blow to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years.
The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.
The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to support national programming.
Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate.
Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are "not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert."
As the Senate debated the bill Tuesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher ground.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some money administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states.
But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America's Public Television Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that deal was "at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save."
Inside the cuts to foreign aid
Among the foreign aid cuts are $800 million for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and family reunification for refugees and $496 million to provide food, water and health care for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. There also is a $4.15 billion cut for programs that aim to boost economies and democratic institutions in developing nations.
Democrats argued that the Republican administration's animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America's standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill.
"This is not an America first bill. It's a China first bill because of the void that's being created all across the world," Jeffries said.
The White House argued that many of the cuts would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.
"The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money. We ought not to forget that," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee.
After objections from several Republicans, Senate GOP leaders took out a $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a politically popular program to combat HIV/AIDS that is credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under Republican President George W. Bush.
Looking ahead to future spending fights
Democrats say the bill upends a legislative process that typically requires lawmakers from both parties to work together to fund the nation's priorities.
Triggered by the official rescissions request from the White House, the legislation only needed a simple majority vote to advance in the Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to break a filibuster. That meant Republicans could use their 53-47 majority to pass it along party lines.
Two Republican senators, Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, joined with Democrats in voting against the bill, though a few other Republicans also raised concerns about the process.
"Let's not make a habit of this," said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted for the bill but said he was wary that the White House wasn't providing enough information on what exactly will be cut.
Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the imminent successful passage of the rescissions shows "enthusiasm" for getting the nation's fiscal situation under control.
"We're happy to go to great lengths to get this thing done," he said during a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
In response to questions about the relatively small size of the cuts -- $9 billion -- Vought said that was because "I knew it would be hard" to pass in Congress. Vought said another rescissions package is 'likely to come soon."
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Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
NM launches automatic voter registration, two years after bill signed into law - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
For the last 30-plus years, New Mexico residents have had the option to register to vote while getting a new driver’s license or updating their vehicle registration.
But the state is now automatically registering eligible residents to vote while they’re interacting with Motor Vehicle Division field offices statewide, under the latest Democratic-backed plan to expand voting access.
As of this week, nearly 17,000 state residents had been registered to vote or had their existing registrations updated since July 1, when the new automatic voter registration system took effect, according to state Taxation and Revenue Department data.
“This is a major step forward for voter access and election modernization in New Mexico,” said Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who added the system would make voter registration faster, more accurate and more secure.
But not all state policymakers are convinced.
Sen. James Townsend, R-Artesia, said he’s lost trust in the Secretary of State’s office after a dispute last year over mailers that were sent to more than 100,000 potentially eligible but unregistered voters in New Mexico.
“I think there’s much to be done to protect and sanctify the vote,” Townsend said, while expressing concern residents who are not legally eligible to vote could be registered under the new system.
The automatic voter registration stems from a 2023 state election bill approved by lawmakers — via a vote that broke down largely along party lines — and signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
While some parts of the bill took effect quickly, implementation of the automatic voter registration provision was delayed to give state officials and county clerks ample time to prepare, said Lindsey Bachman, the director of legislative and executive affairs for the Secretary of State’s Office.
She said the Secretary of State’s Office worked with MVD officials for more than a year on getting the new system in place.
Under the new system, individuals who are not eligible to vote are automatically screened out from the vote registration system, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
That could be because they are not yet old enough to vote, are not United States citizens, or are not permanent New Mexico residents.
“Just because someone doesn’t meet the eligibility requirements for automatic voter registration does not mean they’re automatically not a citizen,” Bachman told the Journal.
Meanwhile, people who do not want to be registered to vote can still opt out, but only by returning a notice they receive in the mail from their local county clerk after the MVD transaction.
Eventually, automatic voter registration could also be expanded to other New Mexico state government offices or Native American tribal entities. But those offices would have to meet certain requirements in state law and also enter into a formal agreement with the Secretary of State’s office, Bachman said.
While specifics vary by state, a total of 23 states currently have some sort of automatic voter registration system in place, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
But only nine states have “back-end” systems like New Mexico’s that allow residents to opt out post-transaction after receiving a mailer. Other states with such systems include Oregon, Nevada, Massachusetts and Washington.
New Mexico is approaching a key 2026 election cycle that will feature numerous statewide offices on the ballot, including governor, attorney general, land commissioner and secretary of state. All three of the state’s U.S. House seats will also be up for election next year, as will the U.S. Senate seat held by Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat.
While roughly 69% of the state’s registered voters cast a ballot in last year’s general election, turnout in some previous state elections has been much lower. In the 2022 primary election, for instance, about 25.5% of registered voters ended up voting.
‘We are on track’: Report shows APS student group surpasses math proficiency goals - Noah Alcala Bach, Albuquerque Journal
Sixth and seventh grade Albuquerque Public Schools students identified as underserved by a landmark court ruling are on par with the targets the district has set for them, according to a presentation to the Board of Education on Wednesday.
While the group of students hit the math proficiency targets set for them, they underperformed compared to the classes monitored the previous school year.
“We should be celebrating,” Board Vice President Courtney Jackson said during the meeting. “There is really good news in this report.”
The groups monitored reflect underserved students as defined by the Yazzie-Martinez case in which Wilhelmina Yazzie, the parent of a Native student at Gallup-McKinley County Schools, and Louise Martinez, the parent of a Hispanic student at APS, successfully sued the state for providing an inadequate education. The state’s public education department defines English language learners, economically disadvantaged students, Native American students and students with a disability as Yazzie-Martinez students. The APS report also accounts for Black students and reflects end-of-year assessments.
The targets mark interim goals set as part of a broader series of goals established by the board in 2023, one of which was to increase math proficiency among Yazzie-Martinez eighth grade students from 11.1% in May 2023 to 21.1% by May 2028.
While the students surpassed their goals, the figure represents a slight decrease from the proficiency rate of 21.6% that the sixth grade monitored classes displayed for the 2023-24 school year, and from the 17% achieved by seventh graders that same year.
At the end of the 2024-25 year, the target proficiency for sixth grade Yazzie-Martinez students was 19.6%. They ultimately achieved a 20.4% math proficiency rate, according to the data presented, which shows they are almost an entire percentage point ahead of their target for the school year.
For seventh grade Yazzie-Martinez students, the goal for this school year was set at 16% proficiency, and students performed almost a percentage point higher at 16.6%. The district averages for math proficiency overall were 30% for sixth grade students and 25.2% for seventh grade students.
“We are on track for meeting our math goal, we’re on track for meeting the goals for these Martinez-Yazzie students, and that’s definitely worth celebrating,” Board President Danielle Gonzales said during the meeting. “I hear a lot of questions in the community about ‘Are you on track or off track?’ And so I think it’s really important to just say loud and clear we are on track.”
During the presentation, Board Member Janelle Astorga asked how federal funding cuts might impact the progress made. Antonio Gonzales, deputy superintendent of leadership and learning, acknowledged that some positions key to helping the district hit its targets could be impacted.
“The reality is that several of these positions currently into next year are funded through various forms of federal funding, via Title II, III, IV,” Gonzales said. “We know that these funds are in different stages of question in regard to the standing injunction and implications involved in the recent legislation passed at the federal level.”
APS has predicted that 60 positions could be impacted by a recent federal funding freeze, but has committed to retaining those jobs for the next school year, according to its spokesperson, Martin Salazar.
Grand Canyon blaze shows how managing a fire can go suddenly sideways - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
U.S. land managers are racing the clock as hotter, drier weather raises the risk of wildfires in the nation's overgrown forests with each passing year.
One tool is to use the flames from lightning-sparked wildfires when conditions allow or to plan prescribed fires for other times of the year to clear out dense vegetation as a way to limit future risks.
Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona for decades has been a leader at using fire to make the ecosystem more resilient. A lightning-sparked fire along the North Rim that started July 4 presented an opportunity for fire to play its natural role.
After a week conditions quickly deteriorated. Wind-whipped flames rushed toward the iconic Grand Canyon Lodge and the surrounding historic cabins. Many were reduced to rubble and ash.
It's not the first time firefighters have been on the losing end of trying to wrangle the forces of nature.
Still, experts say fire is a critical land management tool, pointing to countless examples where the work has paid off.
"We focus so much on the fires that go bad and almost nothing on the 99% plus that do great work," said Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science and forest policy at the University of California, Berkeley. "Unless we get the forests in a more resilient condition with low fire hazards, we will be chasing our tails forever."
Searching for new tools
On the North Rim, managers working the Dragon Bravo Fire say crews had constructed containment lines and were prepared for more defensive maneuvers before conditions rapidly changed.
Uncharacteristically strong winds pushed the flames past multiple containment lines, prompting mandatory evacuations for remaining North Rim residents.
Crews in New Mexico also were forced to change their strategy in battling a blaze burning in the Santa Fe National Forest after a spot fire was discovered beyond containment lines. Ranchers there shared pictures of dead cattle on charred grazing allotments, criticizing officials for not putting out the flames sooner.
Experts agree there's always room for improvement when it comes to managing wildfires and planning for prescribed fires, especially as technology improves to help fire managers predict what the flames might do.
University of Utah atmospheric scientist Derek Mallia is among those working on new forecasting tools. He's tracking fires in Utah and Arizona in preparation for a project next year that will focus on pyrocumulonimbus clouds, or those towering thunderstorms that sometimes form above wildfires.
Mallia said fire forecasting hasn't advanced as quickly as tools for other severe events like tornados and hurricanes. That's partly because fires happen on a finer scale, making the work more difficult. Managers also have to account for the legacy of built-up fuels in the forests and the compounding factor of climate change, he said.
For example, he said fires are burning hotter at night than they used to.
"That used to be a time of the day where there was a good opportunity to kind of jump on a fire, get it contained and make a lot of meaningful progress," he said. "That's a lot more difficult now."
Researchers also are trying to better understand how fires affect weather patterns. Mallia explained that fires are part of a more complex feedback loop that makes forecasting even more challenging.
Still, the biggest issue is the condition of the forests and their susceptibility to high severity wildfire, said Stephens, the California professor.
Andi Thode, a professor of fire ecology and management at Northern Arizona University and the lead at the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, agreed. She said using a lightning-sparked fire or taking years to plan a prescribe burn is a matter of deferred risk for fire managers.
"Do you want to take your risk now with a lightning ignition that seems to be functioning in the way that you want it to with weather predictions that are not too bad? Or do you want to push that risk back to later in the worst time of the year?" she said. "Fire managers are always juggling this now."
Lessons already learned
For Native Americans, fire has long been a part of life and crucial for forest health. Westward settlement all but eradicated those attitudes until ecologists ignited a shift in the way policymakers thought about fire.
The first wilderness fire management program was established in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks more than a half-century ago, as policies shifted from suppression to management. Other parks followed, with thousands of lightning-sparked fires being allowed to burn under carefully monitored conditions in dozens of parks across the U.S.
But there have been costly lessons, including at Bandelier National Monument in northern New Mexico, where a prescribed fire was set in the spring of 2000 to treat 2 square miles (5.18 square kilometers) of dense forest.
Strong winds, dry conditions and insufficient resources contributed to the destruction of homes as the fire ballooned to nearly 75 square miles (194.25 square kilometers). Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the nations' premier nuclear weapons labs and the birthplace of the atomic bomb, also closed.
The Cerro Grande Fire forever changed the landscape around Los Alamos, prompted congressional inquiries, led to a host of recommendations from nonpartisan government watchdogs and formed the basis of new training programs.
Changing conditions
It's not that the lessons faded from memory, but the circumstances are more dire with a drier landscape across much of the U.S. West.
That was the case in 2022, when the U.S. Forest Service forged ahead with a pair of prescribed burning operations in New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains as pressure mounted to address the wildfire threat.
Outdated models and miscalculations by managers resulted in what was the largest blaze in New Mexico's recorded history. Rural communities were uprooted and the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire wasn't contained for four months.
During the conflagration, the Forest Service put on hold its prescribed fire program and conducted a lengthy review that resulted in numerous reforms. Congress approved billions in recovery dollars, with FEMA paying out about $2.6 billion so far.
A 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office noted 43 prescribed fire projects between 2012 and 2021 out of 50,000 prescribed fire projects. That included blazes in national forests in more than a dozen states — from the California-Nevada border to Utah, New Mexico, Idaho, North Carolina and Arkansas.
The Forest Service alone ignites about 4,500 prescribed fires each year, with the agency saying most are successful. But support wavers each time a fire escapes, like in New Mexico and now with the lightning-sparked fire at the Grand Canyon.
Thode said fire managers weigh many variables when making decisions — from wind speed and topography to the dryness of the fuels and moisture deficits within the atmosphere.
"There's a lot of science that goes behind what the folks are doing on the ground to manage these ecosystems," she said.
Attorneys file 8 lawsuits alleging Catholic clergy abuse in Southern New Mexico – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
This week, New Mexico attorneys filed eight lawsuits against Catholic leadership in Las Cruces and El Paso, alleging priests in Southern New Mexico parishes committed sexual abuse against young children ranging in ages from 3 to 15 between 1956 to 1990.
The law firms of Davis Kelin Law Firm and Huffman Wallace & Monagle filed the civil lawsuits in the Third Judicial District courts against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces and the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, seeking damages for the “intentional, malicious, wilful, deliberate, wanton and/or reckless disregard for the harmful consequences.”
New Mexico has been described as an “epicenter of Catholic sexual abuse in the United States,” recording dozens of instances of abuse of children, and also hosted Servants of the Paraclete Center in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, which was said to offer for treatment for priests who sexually abused dozens of children in other parishes.
Attorney Levi Monagle, an attorney who represents the current plaintiffs, said even though public perception of clergy abuse has increased, the nature of harm for sexual assault often prevents people from coming forward for years, if not decades.
“There’s a perception this is a closed chapter in the church’s history, that this is all the past,” Monagle said. “It’s certainly true that the vast majority of the abuse that occurred, occurred in decades past, but that doesn’t mean that the day-to-day lives of these victims have changed.”
The complaints allege abuse in parishes in Las Cruces, Alamogordo, Anthony, Doña Ana, Mesilla park and Ruidoso. The lawsuits name the following priests for alleged acts of sexual abuse: Monsignor Albert Chavez, Father David Holley, Father Emilio Roure, Father Wilfrid Diamond, Monsignor Gonzalo Morales, Father Bernard Bissonnette, Father Joaquin Resma and one visiting priest who was not identified.
Both Holley and Bissonnette were sent to Servants of the Paraclete Center in Jemez Springs for their previous assaults of dozens of children, according to the lawsuits, and faced prior, credible accusations, but were placed in parishes with no supervision or warning.
Law firms engaged in the litigation have set up a webpage with more information, including nonprofit sexual assault services, counseling and other support services.
The El Paso Diocese is aware of the lawsuits but declined to comment on allegations in pending litigation, said Fernie Ceniceros, the director of communications.
The Diocese of El Paso “works very diligently to cooperate with all parties involved when cases like this are brought forward,” Ceniceros said in a written statement.“The diocese takes all matters of abuse as grave and serious situations and will work to ensure that justice is served.”
Ceniceros’ statement also notes that the diocese “has worked to implement and train clergy, employees, and volunteers on best practices of Safe Environment” and that anyone who works as a member of the clergy, employee or volunteer within the diocese “must have undergone and passed a certification of training annually” as part of those “safe environment” protocols.
“We encourage individuals with any knowledge of any misconduct and or of any crime committed by any member of the clergy, employee, or volunteer within the diocese to please come forward to law enforcement,” the statement concluded, adding that such people can also reach out to El Paso’s victims’ assistance and “safe environment” offices.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces did not respond to emailed requests for comment Thursday.
Monagle said that while Catholic leadership has set a policy of zero tolerance for the last 20 years, he said there was still more transparency needed for what the church knew about the decades of abuse.
“It’s an ‘action to speak louder than the words’ situation, frankly,” Monagle said. “Until people see a meaningful difference in the way that the church approaches the history of this issue, they’re going to have a hard time believing that the church’s policy for the future is any different.”
Some New Mexico attorneys stop taking public defense work due to ‘funding crisis’ – Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
Private attorneys representing people who otherwise can’t afford a legal defense in federal courts in New Mexico are working for free because the public program that pays them — and private federal defenders across the country — ran out of money at the start of July.
In interviews this week, private defense attorneys told Source NM the lack of pay is especially urgent in Southern New Mexico because of the massive volume of cases being prosecuted by the U.S. government as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, specifically the newly created military buffer zone along New Mexico’s border with Mexico.
The funding crisis has raised concerns in the federal judiciary about providing adequate and legally mandated representation to defendants who can’t afford an attorney — approximately 90% of all defendants in federal court, according to a United States Courts news release on Tuesday. Federal defender organizations handle approximately 60% of such cases, while private attorneys who agree and are qualified to serve on a state-level Criminal Justice Act panel take on the rest.
Funding for those panels, however, ran out July 3, after Congress in March froze all judicial branch funding at last year’s levels as part of its continuing budget resolution.
In New Mexico, some private defense attorneys have stopped taking cases until funding resumes, Ryan Villa, the CJA panel representative for the District of New Mexico, told Source NM.
If more lawyers start turning down CJA appointments, then it is unclear who will represent those people, Villa said.
This places at risk the “fundamental right” of a person facing criminal charges “to effective counsel regardless of the defendant’s economic status,” Judge Amy St. Eve, chair of the national Judicial Conference’s Budget Committee, said in a statement.
St. Eve’s statement also notes that the attorneys won’t be paid until Oct. 1 “for the work they have done and for the work that we continue to ask them to do, unless the Judiciary receives supplemental funding from Congress before then.”
Cori Harbour, an El Paso-based attorney who also works as a private federal defender on the New Mexico CJA panel’s Las Cruces division, told Source she had to stop taking on new cases in the Western District of Texas, and has pivoted to find other kinds of legal work in order to pay her staff. She said next week, she will have to decide whether to continue taking cases in the District of New Mexico.
There are 73 lawyers on the Albuquerque division of the CJA panel in New Mexico, and 29 private attorneys who are on the CJA panel’s Las Cruces division, according to court records. There are approximately 12,000 CJA attorneys across the country, Villa said.
In addition to their own billing, defense attorneys also have to pay out experts such as paralegals, investigators, language interpreters, social workers, mitigation specialists and forensic psychologists.
Such experts have asked attorneys to delay their cases because they can’t sustain working trials without being paid, Villa said. Harbour confirmed her investigator has had to turn down unpaid CJA jobs and instead look for other income sources.
Moreover, the Las Cruces court has seen a surge of defendants being charged under the federal government’s new criminal trespassing laws for entering the so-called National Defense Area on New Mexico’s border.
Those additional military trespass charges come on top of the unlawful entry charges brought against migrants before the buffer zone existed, Harbour said, creating more work for the defense.
“The case numbers have been astronomical because they are prosecuting everything,” Harbour said. “There’s just no way for us to handle the number of cases that are coming in, and then to expect us to do it now without compensation is just a lot.”
Harbour said she has 71 open CJA cases, her largest caseload ever in her 20-year career. Almost all of her cases require an interpreter, usually for Spanish, she said, which is yet another expense no longer covered.
Federal public defenders can’t step in because they are already understaffed and overworked, and have been under a hiring freeze for 17 of the past 24 months because of tight budgets from Congress, according to the judiciary’s news release.
Margaret Katze, federal public defender for the District of New Mexico, told Source NM it is “more than unfair” to expect attorneys to work for almost three months without getting paid for that work.
“It is a terribly difficult situation,” Katze said in an emailed statement. “The federal defense function, one that is critical to the justice system, must be appropriately funded. People do this work because they believe that it is important that people accused of crimes in federal court, who cannot afford to hire attorneys, deserve equally strong representation.”
This story has been corrected to accurately reflect Cori Harbour’s last name. Source regrets the error.