U.S. House passes Albuquerque Indian School Act - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
A measure to return three tracts of land from the former Albuquerque Indian School campus to a trust for New Mexico’s 19 Pueblos passed the U.S. House this week and advanced to its first U.S. Senate Committee.
The federal legislation, titled the Albuquerque Indian School Act, would transfer 10 acres of a former boarding school to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, which provides a museum, cultural programming and events serving the state’s 19 Pueblos. Monique Fragua (Jemez Pueblo), the president and CEO of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, said the land would be used for an entrepreneur complex, and would also include light industry and manufacturing spaces.
Lead sponsor U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who represents New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District, issued a statement noting that this week’s congressional actions brought the delegation “one step closer” to making the transfer “a reality.”
The bill received a hearing Wednesday in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, during which co-sponsor U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) expressed his support for the bill. The committee has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill.
Albuquerque Indian School was part of a network of federally run schools that removed more than 18,000 Native American children from their families between 1819 and 1969. Children faced forced labor, assimilation, abuse and death. Zuni, Navajo and Apache children were buried in unmarked graves in Albuquerque. The Albuquerque Indian School closed in the 1980s.
Members of New Mexico’s U.S. Congressional delegation said the return of land is more than just a land transfer.
“It is about putting a small but important piece of land back where it belongs — with New Mexico’s 19 Pueblos,” lead sponsor U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) said in a statement. “The development of these under-utilized parcels of land will create jobs, foster entrepreneurship, and expand business services for Pueblo communities and the broader public.”
In a statement, co-sponsor U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District, said the land transfer transforms “a painful history into a future built on cultural sovereignty, opportunity, and respect.”
Man charged with hate crime in window-smashing at synagogue, Jewish Community Center - Matthew Reisen, Albuquerque Journal
An Albuquerque man is charged with a hate crime and police are seeking to seize his guns after he allegedly smashed the windows at a synagogue and the Jewish Community Center within a half-hour span Tuesday.
Rex Crofton, 25, is also charged with desecration of a church and two counts of criminal damage to property over $1,000. He was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Wednesday. His family could not be reached and it was unclear if he has an attorney.
Prosecutors filed a motion to detain Crofton until trial.
"Defendant wanted to bring rage and violence to a place of peace and comfort, and was fortunate to only damage security doors," according to the motion. "We cannot know what kind of destruction or injury Defendant would have caused if he had been able to enter the building."
On Thursday, an Albuquerque police officer petitioned for an Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order to remove several firearms, including rifles and handguns, from Crofton's home, according to court records. The officer cited the vandalism and past domestic violence cases against Crofton along with his reported diagnosis of bipolar disorder and multiple personality disorder.
In an interview with an FBI agent, Crofton's family said he began to express "extreme antisemitic views" in the past year and had most of his social media accounts banned due to such posts.
Relatives told the agent that, an hour before the vandalism, Crofton was "in a state of mania" and said he was "going to kill Jews," according to court records. Relatives told the agent that a half-hour after the vandalism he texted them "I just hit two synagogues in 5 minutes," then added "send the cops my way I'd love to kill all of them."
About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, a 911 call came in reporting that a man smashed the bullet-resistant front doors of Congregation Albert synagogue on Louisiana NE, just south of Montgomery, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. The rabbi told officers that a man arrived in a silver car, smashed the windows and "flipped off" the synagogue before leaving.
Police said the facility's director estimated the glass doors would cost between $100,000 and $200,000 to replace but could not access surveillance footage. FBI agents arrived and told the officer their "presence was no longer required."
About 10 minutes after the first call, a second 911 call reported that a man with an ax had broken the front doors of the Jewish Community Center on Wyoming NE, just south of Academy. Witnesses told police a man in a silver car began attacking the front doors with a sledgehammer before fleeing from security.
A security guard told them they chased the man into the parking lot and used pepper spray on him before he drove off, according to the complaint. The security guard estimated the damage to the glass at around $40,000.
Police said surveillance video showed a man speed into the parking lot and begin striking the front doors with "an unknown object" that officers believed was a crowbar. Detectives ran the license plate of the car and it came back as registered to Crofton.
Surveillance video of the suspect matched the description of Crofton, according to the complaint, and the car was caught on a license plate reader several blocks away from Congregation Albert, minutes before the vandalism.
Drug probe uncovers child sexual abuse material on lawyer's laptop, feds say - Colleen Heild, Albuquerque Journal
To prove he didn't knowingly smuggle an opioid into a New Mexico prison in March, an Albuquerque criminal defense lawyer agreed to open up his cellphone and computer files to FBI scrutiny.
As a result, longtime attorney Brian Pori now faces a more serious charge: possession of child pornography. Late Friday, the New Mexico Supreme Court suspended his license to practice law, at least temporarily.
The latest developments came after federal investigators searching for evidence of Pori's alleged drug trafficking involvement made a startling discovery on Pori's Dell laptop computer: dozens of video images of prepubescent children in sexual acts with adult males and multiple sexual images of naked or partially clothed men with children, according to a criminal complaint filed May 21 in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.
Pori is set for a detention hearing in Las Cruces on Tuesday after an initial appearance last week before U.S. Magistrate Judge Damian Martínez on the federal child pornography charge. Attempts to reach his attorneys weren't successful Friday.
It's another twist of fate for Pori, who first came under law enforcement scrutiny March 11 while making a routine visit to see criminal defendant clients at the Cibola County Correctional Facility near Milan, west of Albuquerque.
At the time, Pori said in court records, he was winding down his 38-year career as a defense attorney and former assistant federal public defender representing indigent defendants. He is a graduate of Yale Law School.
Before he arrived at the prison, Pori contended a client's relative had asked him to deliver a pair of eyeglasses the client needed for reading.
But corrections officers searching Pori's belongings discovered a stash of Suboxone, a medicine used to treat opioid addiction, sewn into the lining of the glasses case.
Pori was subsequently arrested and jailed overnight in a segregated room of the facility before being released on a state charge of smuggling contraband into the prison.
He claimed he was an unwitting dupe in the trafficking conspiracy. The smuggling charge was later dismissed by the 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office. But state prosecutors referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI, which has been investigating drug trafficking inside the prison.
Pori signed a consent to search his cellphone and computer, as requested by the FBI, court records show. The investigators included an FBI task force officer investigating drug distribution and the introduction of contraband into the correctional facility.
On March 31, the New Mexico Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory provided forensic images of what was found showing images of "suspected child sexual abuse material."
Most of the children in the images appeared to be between 6 and 10 years old, the complaint stated.
The preliminary review showed the images came from Telegram, a messaging app that transmits communications and attached media files over the internet. The app had been downloaded onto Pori's cellphone and laptop, stated the criminal complaint.
An assistant U.S. attorney at Pori's initial appearance on the pornography charge June 2 told the court "there are no identified victims," according to court records.
The smuggling charge carried a maximum three-year prison sentence upon conviction, compared to a maximum sentence of up to 20 years for federal child pornography possession, depending on the age of the children.
The New Mexico Supreme Court on May 14 agreed not to summarily suspend Pori's license to practice law, as requested by the counsel for the state Disciplinary Board. Instead, the court required Pori to be supervised by another attorney.
But on Monday, after Pori's federal arrest, the state Disciplinary Board filed a new petition seeking a summary suspension of his law license. The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the suspension pending further proceedings before the disciplinary board.
Since his arrest on the federal charge in Fort Worth, Texas, Pori has been held in federal custody.
These candidates for governor worked for Joe Biden. Some don't really talk about it though - By Steve Peoples and Matt Brown, Associated Press
Joe Biden is not on the ballot this fall.
But at least three prominent members of his administration will be, representing the Democratic Party in a trio of governor's races that may test the resilience of the Biden brand two years after he left the White House under a cloud of disapproval.
Two Biden Cabinet members — former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of New Mexico and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra of California — advanced to the general election ballot for governor in their states this week. They joined Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former senior adviser, who secured the Democratic nomination in Georgia's governor's race last month.
Their rise comes as a bitter feud erupts among Biden's allies, including some who worked in the White House, about the Biden family's reemergence in the public spotlight just five months before the high-stakes midterm elections. Hunter Biden is mixing it up with admirers and critics on social media, while Jill Biden is rehashing the tortured saga of the last presidential race in a new memoir. Biden himself has his own book coming out later this year.
As candidates shift toward the general election phase of the midterms, it's unclear whether the Biden connections will help or hurt the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls come November.
"I will put my experience to work for the people of our state," Haaland told cheering supporters this week as she accepted her party's nomination.
She did not, however, mention Biden's name as she ticked through her experience as a single mother, her time in Congress and her leadership of the Interior Department.
Biden who?
One former Biden White House aide, Rodericka Applewhaite, suggested that some Democrats on the ballot this fall were intentionally avoiding asking the former president to help with their campaigns.
Applewhaite is among the Democratic operatives publicly criticizing the Biden's public reemergence in recent days — especially Jill Biden's book tour.
"The Bidens are burning a lot of good will that they built up over a very long time in what seems to be days," she said, offering the former president and his family a pointed suggestion. "Step aside and let us have the battles that we need to have today."
On the ground in California, Georgia and New Mexico, Biden alumni are navigating their Biden connection in different ways.
Haaland and Becerra are eager to focus on President Donald Trump in their campaign materials, but neither referenced Biden in their primary night speeches to supporters. Nor does either cite Biden's name in the biographies listed on their official campaign websites.
Biden did not issue a public endorsement in the New Mexico or California contests ahead of Tuesday's contests either. Democrats have focused on hammering Republicans over Trump's time in office.
"It's laughable that Republicans have become so desperate to avoid talking about Donald Trump that they are now trying to go after our candidates for advocating for their states and getting results when they served in the executive branch," said Kevin Donohue, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association. Democrats, he said, "are focused on affordability" while "Republicans are all in on Trump's cost-raising agenda."
That hasn't stopped Republicans from highlighting both candidates' old boss.
In fact, Republicans are actively planning to highlight Democrats' ties to the Biden administration as a weakness in the weeks ahead, according to Kollin Crompton of the Republican Governors Association.
"Deb Haaland turned her back on New Mexico to push Biden's failed policies and the Green New Scam. New Mexico deserves a leader, not a career politician who forgot where she came from," Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who chairs the campaign organization, said in a statement.
Georgia is another story.
Lance Bottoms points to her work with Biden on her campaign website. She asked for, and received, Biden's formal endorsement just ahead of Georgia's primary, which she shared widely on her campaign's social media platforms. She also said she'd invite the former president to campaign with her this fall. "As I am moving around this state, people are missing Joe Biden more and more each day," she told CNN.
Bottoms was the first of two candidates Biden endorsed since leaving office, and he called her with congratulations after her primary victory on May 19.
But even Bottoms has not highlighted her time in the administration on the campaign trail. Her stump speech regularly mentions her time serving as Atlanta's mayor and career as a prosecutor but quickly pivots to issues like affordability and the Trump administration's agenda.
"I spoke with him this morning, so he called to congratulate me," Bottoms said of Biden after her primary win. But then she immediately pivoted. "At the end of the day, we all want the same things. We want to live in great neighborhoods, we want great schools, we want access to health care."
Biden's bad numbers
Americans had a dimmer view of Biden's presidency when he left office than they did at the end of Trump's first term or Barack Obama's second, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Around one-quarter of U.S. adults at the time said Biden was a "good" or "great" president, with less than 1 in 10 saying he was "great."
It was a stark illustration of how tarnished Biden's legacy has become, with many members of his own party seeing his Democratic presidency as merely mediocre.
Americans were similarly likely to describe both Biden and Trump as "poor" or "terrible" — about half said this characterized each president's time in office — but about 3 in 10 said Biden was "average," while less than 2 in 10 said this about Trump.
The Biden family has faced fresh scrutiny in recent weeks, sometimes even from former aides.
The former president's son, Hunter Biden, drew criticism for recently appearing on the podcast of far-right conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. He has garnered attention by posting online about his experience with addiction and criticisms of the media.
Former first lady Jill Biden has shocked some Democrats for comments she made as part of a book tour for her memoir, "View from the East Wing," which was released Tuesday. The former first lady said in an interview with CBS News that she was "frightened" by her husband's performance during the infamous debate against Trump. The fallout eventually prompted Biden to drop out.
In the memoir, she writes that Biden's senior aides "insisted he needed to run" for reelection. Her memoir includes a retelling of her husband's decision to end his candidacy and the family's reaction to the former president's cancer diagnosis last year.
Throughout her book tour, she has faced tough questions about the former president's health and cognitive abilities while in office, as well as her role in pushing him to seek reelection despite widespread public concerns.
The former first lady described it as "heartbreaking" that the Democratic Party abandoned her husband during an interview on ABC's "The View."
"That's why Joe had to decide to get out, because he had lost the support of the Democratic Party," she said.
Such comments have sparked a fight among allies, especially after former Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates questioned to the New York Post "why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly re-opened now."
Jill Biden shot back, "I want to say to Andrew, call me up and say it to my face."
New Mexico state aging agency requests public input on five-year dementia care plan - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s Aging and Long-Term Services Department will host several input sessions throughout June on its draft five-year plan concerning the state’s response to dementia care and caregivers.
The draft plan, New Mexico Roadmap to Address Dementia and Brain Health 2026-2031, identifies five priority areas: expanding public education and promoting early detection; increasing caregiving supports; advancing related state policies; strengthening direct services throughout the state; and bolstering dementia-capable workforce. According to the draft, the plan will be in effect from July 2026 through December 2031.
The draft notes that as of 2020, 46,000 New Mexicans aged 65 and older were living with Alzheimer’s disease, which was the eighth leading cause of death in the state in 2023.
“New Mexico’s population is aging rapidly, and more families across our state are navigating the realities of dementia,” ALTSD Deputy Secretary Angelina Flores-Montoya said in a statement. “This roadmap is about building a stronger New Mexico where people can access resources earlier and communities across every region of the state are better supported.”
The document states that this latest plan is intended to “strengthen and expand” the aging department’s work and highlighted the implementation of the state’s Silver Alert as one major accomplishment of the previous dementia care plan.
Several of the action items listed in the current draft include developing a standardized resource toolkit for health care providers and organizations following a dementia diagnosis; working with partner organizations to increase referrals for dementia screening, care navigation and caregiver support by June 2028; expanding access to relief services for caregivers by December 2027; incorporating Parkinson’s disease into dementia-related policies and guidance; increasing the number of providers equipped to treat complex dementia-related conditions by December 2031; and collaborating with the Department of Workforce Solutions and other partners to incentivize dementia-specific training and certification by December 2031.
The aging department will host several virtual input sessions and a final in-person session at the Multigenerational Center in Albuquerque on June 22 for New Mexicans to provide feedback. People can also submit feedback online through June 23.
NM U.S. Rep. Vasquez introduces bill to prevent ‘last-minute, backdoor deals’ to sell public lands - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) introduced a bipartisan bill Friday that would prevent members of Congress from including public land selloffs in unrelated budget bills, a tactic that congressional Republicans unsuccessfully used last year to try to dispose of thousands of acres of federal land in Utah and Nevada.
The Public Lands Integrity Act would require that any effort to permanently sell or transfer public land receives “full congressional consideration,” according to a statement from Vasquez’s office, including requiring 60 votes in the U.S. Senate instead of just a simple majority of 51.
“Treating public lands as another item on a balance sheet goes against the will of the people, and Americans have made it clear that our public lands are not for sale,” Vasquez said in a statement Friday.
An early provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a sweeping budget reconciliation bill that Congress enacted last year, would have allowed the privatization of roughly 500,000 acres of public land, including swathes earlier designated by Congress for conservation.
That provision — which U.S. Reps. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) and Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) sponsored — was ultimately stripped from the final bill before it made it to the House floor. Vasquez, a co-founder of a bipartisan Public Lands Caucus in the House, hailed the provision’s removal as “a huge victory.”
But Vasquez’s bill aims to prevent Republicans from trying again to use a budget reconciliation bill — which often runs thousands of pages long and requires only a majority vote — for renewed efforts at public land selloffs.
The bill would “ensure these lands are held in trust for future generations and won’t be used in the reconciliation process in last-minute, backdoor deals to sell them off,” he said.
U.S. Reps Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Dina Titus (D-Nevada) are cosponsoring the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is sponsoring it in the U.S. Senate. Two dozen environmental groups, including local groups like New Mexico Wild and Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project, endorsed the bill.
“Our shared public lands are too important and too beloved by citizens of all political stripes to be sold off,” New Mexico Wild Conservation Director Bjorn Fredrickson said in a statement. “And I suspect that any politician seeking to do so will think twice if they must be transparent, for fear of the wrath of their voters at the ballot box.”