Albuquerque National Weather Service office on pace for rival most flood warnings in history - Kylee Howard, Albuquerque Journal
The Albuquerque National Weather Service office has issued more than 180 flash flood warnings — and counting — this year.
Todd Shoemake, a meteorologist for the Albuquerque office, said the office is “on pace” to rival the record number of warnings issued last year at 278.
Shoemake attributes the rise in warnings issued with a rise in observed flooding events. As of Aug. 15, the office has observed over 200 flooding events.
“Our office will issue the Flash Flood Warning 20-40 minutes before flooding is actually observed for any given location,” Shoemake said in an email. “Sometimes, a Flash Flood Warning may be issued and there are multiple instances of flooding observed within the area covered by that particular warning.”
Additionally, there has been a rise in burn scar- related flooding. In the Ruidoso area, the South Fork and Salt fires burned a combined 24,754 acres . There have been 166 preliminary observed flooding events and 27 alerts issued for the area this year.
Michael Martinez, deputy village manager for Ruidoso, said the village expects the burn scars to impact flooding for the next seven years to a decade. The village has released a new alert system for residents and visitors, and has partnered with businesses on higher ground to create safe zones should lower areas in the village be flooded. But Martinez said more permanent flood mitigation efforts are taking more time.
“A lot of residents right now are very aware of the impacts now of the water and what that water (means) to the community, specifically around the river,” Martinez said. “I think we as a village are actively looking for possible buyout programs the federal government is rolling out. Those haven’t been really made available yet from (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) or (the National Resources Conservation Service), or other federal agencies.”
The Albuquerque NWS office covers a majority of the state. The NWS offices in El Paso and Midland, Texas, are responsible for some areas in southern New Mexico.
Kansas lesser prairie chicken loses endangered species act protections after Texas court order - Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector via Source New Mexico
The lesser prairie chicken, a dancing grouse that has long teetered between threatened and endangered classifications, lost its federal protections in court in a victory for Great Plains petroleum and cattle industries.
In a Tuesday decision from a Texas federal court, the lesser prairie chicken was stripped of any endangered or threatened species protections, which were established through a Biden-era ruling.
The Trump administration challenged that ruling, arguing it contained mistakes, and the lesser prairie chicken would be adequately protected without endangered or threatened classifications.
U.S. District Judge David Counts, a Trump appointee, agreed, denying a slate of motions in a 15-page omnibus order that reversed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2022 classifications.
The lesser prairie chicken forages on what’s widely considered to be prime ranching and drilling land in the grasslands and brush of southwestern Kansas, southeastern Colorado, eastern New Mexico, western Oklahoma and the panhandle and south plains of Texas. The bird was first protected in 2014, a decision that was overturned a year later.
In the 2022 classifications, the bird’s populations were divided into a southern range in New Mexico and the southwest Texas Panhandle, where it was listed as endangered, and a northern range in Kansas, Oklahoma and the northeast Texas Panhandle, where it was listed as threatened.
More than 70% of the estimated lesser prairie chicken population resides in Kansas.
Fish and Wildlife Service admitted in the case that it erred in creating two distinct populations of lesser prairie chickens, and it failed to justify the classification of the two distinct population segments — northern and southern, Counts said.
He added that “the later endangered and threatened findings have no leg to stand on.”
“Fish and Wildlife is unable to correct this square one error without engaging in an entirely new analysis,” he said.
Counts reasoned that any “disruptive consequences” of removing protections “are short-lived and minimized by the sixteen existing voluntary conservation programs and efforts in place across the range of the lesser prairie-chicken.”
Many of those programs, which are administered by federal, state and private groups, existed before the 2022 listing decision and were designed to mitigate threats to the lesser prairie chicken and its habitat, Counts said.
“These efforts are not thought to be inadequate over the short term,” he said. “Rather, even the current listing decision couched their inadequacies in the long term — a span of 25 years.”
The decision is a win for Kansas agricultural and energy producers, said U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, who has publicly opposed listing the lesser prairie chicken since 2021. He added it is “a huge loss for radical climate activists and bureaucrats who have abused the Endangered Species Act for over a decade to hurt American agriculture and energy production.”
“Kansas farmers, ranchers and agricultural producers have always been and always will be the original conservationists of the land,” he said.
Mann was behind a bill this year that delisted the lesser prairie chicken and prevented any future efforts to relist it. However, the legislation did not progress.
Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association, said in an emailed statement that the 2022 ruling contained “significant flaws” that “disproportionately affected livestock operations.” He said the association, which was part of the lawsuit, is pleased the Trump administration is reexamining the listing.
“Over the coming months,” he said, “we hope the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will take into account the voluntary conservation efforts already taking place, most of which are being done by ranchers.”
Texas agencies initially sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in March 2023. Among them was the state’s railroad commission, which regulates oil and natural gas production in the state. Attorneys general in Kansas and Oklahoma and the petroleum and cattle industries later joined the suit.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond celebrated the decision.
“The listing of the species as threatened or endangered would have crippled oil and wind energy production and would have limited where and when Kansas ranchers could graze cattle on their own property,” Kobach said in a Friday news release.
Drummond said in a Wednesday news release that he had called the Biden administration’s ruling “outrageous and illegal federal overreach.”
“This court decision affirms we were right,” Drummond said. “Oklahoma’s cattle grazing, energy production and rural economy are no longer under siege by this unlawful regulation.”
In Kobach’s initial argument in federal court, he worried Kansas would lose revenues from cattle ranching, farming, oil and gas production, wind energy production and tourism if the lesser prairie chicken’s threatened status stood. He worried the status would lead to job losses in the state, which would “further adversely impact state tax revenues, in addition to causing social instability among Kansans who lose their jobs.”
Under the Endangered Species Act, the habitat and species protections that accompany a threatened or endangered status determination curtail certain land uses such as cattle ranching, oil drilling and energy production in protected habitats.
Jason Rylander, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, which was an intervenor in the case, said the Trump administration’s rationale for removing the lesser prairie chicken’s protections was in bad faith.
“This ruling has nothing to do with science or the law and everything to do with kowtowing to the oil and gas industry,” he said. “We won’t be silent witnesses while the Trump administration and fossil fuel companies try to carve up what’s left of these dancing birds’ habitat and doom them to extinction.”
But the fight for the lesser prairie chicken is not over, Rylander said.
The institute is considering its legal options, including a possible appeal of Counts’ decision and a new petition with the USFWS to relist the lesser prairie chicken.
Department of Justice extends New Mexico US attorney’s term amid judicial, Senate criticism - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico “Interim” U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Ryan Ellison is now “acting” US attorney, following a Justice Department move that extends the state’s chief federal prosecutor’s term until next year without Senate or federal court approval.
Ellison’s office announced the extension Friday, coinciding with the legal end of his 120-day interim status that began when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him in April. The extension means he can continue as before leading an office of about 200 employees, including lawyers and contractors.
“I look forward to working with public servants of all political stripes to combat crime in New Mexico,” Ellison said in a news release Friday. “In the interim, I will continue to lead the United States Attorney’s Office in the same way that I have over the last four months—without fear, without favor, and with public safety as my top priority.”
The announced extension of 210 days comes the day after a panel of New Mexico federal judges, in a brief statement posted to the court’s website, declined to approve his appointment. But the panel also declined to name an alternative to the post, which it is empowered to do while an official confirmation plays out in the Senate.
Typically, panels like this one approve the interim appointment, if a Senate confirmation is pending. The Senate makes those appointments permanent through confirmation.
New Mexico federal court spokesperson Heather Small declined to comment on why the federal judge panel declined to approve him but also didn’t name someone to take his place.
Ellison, in the statement, said “I applaud New Mexico’s federal district judges for declining to appoint someone other than the Trump Administration’s choice.”
The court’s neutral decision on Ellison’s approval comes a month after a federal judge chastised him for his implementation and prosecution of immigrants arrested within a newly militarized zone along New Mexico’s shared border with Mexico.
Ellison is just the latest chief prosecutor across the country whose term has been extended by the attorney general through what’s known as the Federal Vacancy Act. Before Ellison, four others received special appointments from the executive branch, according to Bloomberg, instead of the typical judicial approval of interim US attorneys whom the Senate hasn’t yet confirmed.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, both New Mexico Democrats, denounced the extension and said it amounts to “a deliberate attempt to circumvent” oversight from the Senate or District Court.
“While we are committed to reviewing [Ellison’s] application and credentials, we are extremely concerned by this administration’s continuing willingness to trample the role of the Judiciary and Congress,” the pair wrote in a Friday news release.
According to Heinrich’s office, Ellison only last week submitted the final version of an application form to Heinrich’s office that is required for his Senate confirmation process “after substantial prodding by the Senator’s staff,” said spokesperson Luis Soriano in an email to Source New Mexico.
“Now that the application has been received, the Senators and their staff will review Ellison’s answers and the materials that he has provided, while also conducting an independent vetting process, consistent with how the Senators have approached all prior vacancies,” Soriano said.
Tessa Duberry, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on his application to be considered for Senate approval.
President Donald Trump has not officially nominated him for the post, which is also required before he can be confirmed in the Senate.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment from Source New Mexico on Friday.
While Heinrich’s office declined to comment on whether he will ultimately vote for Ellison, his office has previously been critical of Ellison’s efforts to crack down on border crossings in New Mexico.
In April, shortly after being appointed, Ellison stood alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to tout a newly created military border zone along New Mexico’s shared border with Mexico. Ellison announced the new zone enabled him to bring new misdemeanor charges against people who, with the Army’s help, were arrested within the border zone.
But the creation of the border zone created confusion among recreators and residents who live near the border, and a federal magistrate judge dismissed more than 100 early cases because Ellison’s office failed to demonstrate the people arrested knowingly trespassed. Prosecutors then self-dismissed three cases due to confusion about the border zone’s boundaries.
In mid-July, a federal judge in Las Cruces dismissed one case “with prejudice,” meaning prosecutors can’t bring it again, issuing a scathing ruling that said Ellison’s office failed to ensure defendants constitutional rights in hundreds of the cases.
“The Government’s inattention to statutory and constitutional rights has been a consistent throughline through these hundreds of cases,” District Court Judge Margaret Strickland wrote. “Time and time again the Government has initiated a prosecution… only to turn around within days and deport the defendant while the charges are pending and thereby necessarily imperil the defendant’s Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, and Speedy Trial Act rights.”
At least two of the prosecutions resulted in convictions, and Ellison’s statement Friday touted his office’s crackdown on illegal immigration and crime. According to his statement, illegal border crossings are down 92% and immigration-related prosecutions are up 180%.
“Our partnership with the U.S. military and the U.S. Border Patrol has made our southern border more secure than at any point in our nation’s history,” he said.
The last dance? Organizers of North America's largest powwow say 2026 will be the event's final year - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
For decades, tens of thousands of people have descended upon Albuquerque for what is billed as North America's largest powwow, a celebration showcasing Indigenous dancers, musicians and artisans from around the world.
Organizers announced Saturday that 2026 will be the last time the cultural event is held, saying via email and social media that it will end after 43 years without providing details on the decision.
"There comes a time," Gathering of Nations Ltd. said in a statement.
The official poster for the 2026 event features the words "The Last Dance."
Organizers did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.
The New Mexico fairgrounds have hosted the powwow since 2017, but it's unclear whether the venue would be available for future events given that the state is considering redeveloping the site.
There also has been criticism over the years by some Native Americans who said Gathering of Nations organizers were capitalizing on Indigenous culture. Organizers dismissed those claims, saying the money raised goes toward the expenses of putting on the event.
While offering spectators a glimpse into Indigenous cultures, large powwows like the one in Albuquerque have become more commercialized events with prize money for dancing and drumming competitions.
For some Native American leaders, it can be a struggle to keep traditional cultural practices and commercial powwows from being lumped into the same category. There have been efforts to focus on promoting smaller powwows that are held in tribal communities.
At the Gathering of Nations, the signature event is the grand entry, in which a colorful procession of dancers spirals into the center of an arena. Participants wear elaborate regalia — some with jingling bells and others with feathers — and dance to rhythmic drumming.
The event also features the crowning of Miss Indian World, as well as horse parades in which riders are judged on the craftsmanship of their intricately beaded adornments or feathered headdresses and how well they work with their steeds.
New Mexico State settles with former basketball coach Greg Heiar in wrongful termination lawsuit - By John Marshall, AP Basketball Writer
New Mexico State reached a settlement on Friday with former men's basketball coach Greg Heiar in a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Terms of the settlement were not released.
Heiar was fired and the school canceled the remainder of the 2022-23 basketball after allegations of hazing within the program surfaced. Heiar later said in arbitration documents that he was made the scapegoat for hazing and other problems that administrators chose to ignore, causing him mental anguish and emotional distress since being fired by the university.
"On behalf of our client, Greg Heiar, we are pleased to announce that a settlement has been reached in the arbitration of Coach Heiar and New Mexico State University," attorneys Ryan P. and Brett J. Danoff of Danoff Law Firm, P.C., said in a statement. "Coach Heiar is pleased that this matter is now fully and finally resolved to our satisfaction, and excited to continue his coaching career. Coach Heiar wishes NMSU, the men's basketball program, and the Aggie fans all the best going forward."
ESPN first reported the settlement.
University Chancellor Dan Arvizu fired Heiar and shut down the program in 2023 after two Aggies players filed a lawsuit claiming they were sexually assaulted by teammates. New Mexico State agreed to pay $8 million to the players and one of their fathers in a settlement in June 2023.
Their attorney, Joleen Youngers, released a statement calling "the decision to settle Coach Heiar's claims ... a gut punch."
She said another lawsuit, involving former player Kyle Feit, along with another player and a team manager who did not want to be named, is set for trial in February.
"I am deeply disturbed to see the settlement," Feit said. "As a victim of sexual and physical abuse, I live as a demoralized individual. I don't know how NMSU saw it fit to reward an individual involved in this."
The hazing allegations came a few months after several New Mexico State players were involved in a brawl with rival students from the University of New Mexico at a football game. Mike Peake, one of the players seen throwing punches during the melee, broke curfew a few weeks later when the Aggies were playing at New Mexico to meet a girl and was ambushed.
Peake shot and killed one of the alleged assailants in self defense and was not charged with a crime.
Heiar spent last season coaching at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas, winning a national junior college championship and coach of the year honors.
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AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed.