'Oh hell no': New Mexico leaders react to Trump's 'New America' post - James Bennett, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico political leaders reacted with indignation Sunday after President Donald Trump posted an image suggesting the state be renamed “New America,” drawing opposition from both sides of the political aisle.
As the Albuquerque Journal reports, Trump posted a map of New Mexico on Truth Social showing a large red “X” over “Mexico” in the state's name, with the word “America” written underneath. He later suggested that it be renamed “New America.”
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the two major-party candidates seeking to succeed her as governor also rejected the idea.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Gregg Hull, the former mayor of Rio Rancho wrote that New Mexico does not need a new name and its identity is not up for negotiation.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland, who served as Interior secretary under President Joe Biden, said “New Mexico is not up for sale.”
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
Former New Mexico lawmaker pleads guilty to diverting public school funds - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A former high-ranking Democratic legislator in New Mexico accused of diverting millions of dollars meant for vocational education in the state's largest school district to businesses and charities in which she had an interest has pleaded guilty to state charges that include fraud and money laundering.
Sheryl Williams Stapleton changed her plea during a hearing Friday, just three weeks after a federal jury convicted her of dozens of similar charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a yearslong scheme.
State prosecutors filed money laundering, racketeering and other charges against Williams Stapleton in 2021. She was set to go to trial in October. Under the plea agreement, all but four of the charges were dropped, and the agreement calls for a 10 1/2-year prison sentence and more than $1.8 million in restitution.
"Today's guilty plea holds Sheryl Williams Stapleton accountable for defrauding New Mexico taxpayers and abusing the public trust," said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice.
Rodriguez added that state prosecutors are pleased that the federal sentencing range "will provide a significant period of incarceration beyond what the state system could impose on its own."
An attorney for Williams Stapleton did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday.
A former state House majority leader and an administrator with Albuquerque Public Schools, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and the school district fired her.
In the federal case, prosecutors said that the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of both the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.
As the school district's career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and federal co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said.
Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company's invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton.
During the federal trial, prosecutors also presented evidence that Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.
Jurors also convicted Johnson in the federal case. He and Williams Stapleton have yet to be sentenced, and their attorneys previously indicated they would appeal the federal verdicts.
New Mexico land commissioner announces uranium mining ban on state trust lands - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard on Friday signed an executive order that bans all new uranium mining projects on the more than 13 million acres of state trust lands she oversees.
Garcia Richard, a Democrat who has roughly four months left in her term and is running for lieutenant governor, said at a news conference Friday on the front steps of her office’s Santa Fe headquarters that the longlasting environmental and public health impacts of uranium contamination outweigh any potential revenues to state coffers uranium mining could provide.
She said the executive order is needed now, in particular, amid a recent uptick in uranium extraction proposals statewide, including in the Grants Mineral Belt, Canjilon and Pie Townareas. She attributed the renewed interest to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has sought to fast-track federal permits for uranium mining and identified two such proposals on Cibola National Forest land near Mount Taylor as “priority projects.”
“New Mexicans have been overlooked by the uranium industry and the federal government for far too long, and now the Trump administration is once again completely ignoring these communities and pushing for aggressive uranium development nationwide, despite the fact that there still remain thousands of sites that are abandoned and need to be remediated,” she said.
While there are no pending uranium proposals before the State Land Office, Garcia Richard noted that approximately 50 abandoned sites are on state trust lands, vestiges of the decades in the 20th century in which New Mexico produced most of the nation’s uranium ore. Those sites still risk contaminating nearby ground and surface water, she said.
Her executive order directs the State Land Office to prioritize cleaning up those legacy sites, in addition to “not making the problem worse through new project authorizations.”
The state Legislature this year approved the second round of $20 million in funding dedicated to remediating abandoned uranium mine sites, approximately 350 of which dot the New Mexico landscape. Previous funding has gone to clean up four abandoned mines on state trust land in McKinley County.
Garcia Richard acknowledged during the news conference that she is at the end of her second term as land commissioner and that her successor has discretion to overturn her executive order.
“We are putting this out there so that if a future land commissioner wants to mine uranium, they’re going to have to overturn this, and we will be asking them why they did not uphold this document,” she said.
Democrat Juan de Jesus Sanchez III is running against Republican Michael Jack Perry in the Nov. 3 general election to replace Garcia Richard as land commissioner.
Sanchez stood in the small crowd gathered for the news conference Friday. He told Source NM after the news conference that he intends to keep the executive order in place if he’s elected.
Perry did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Friday on whether he, too, would uphold the ban.
UNM researchers test animals for hantavirus in Taos – John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
A team of University of New Mexico researchers dressed like spacefarers from an episode of Science Fiction Theater recently fanned out across three Taos County properties to advance their understanding of hantavirus, one of the world’s deadliest pathogens.
Their primary quarry? The western deer mouse, the most common asymptomatic animal carrier of the Sin Nombre variant of the virus, which is endemic to more than a dozen small mammal species throughout the Four Corners.
In August 2020, Taos County resident Mark Fratrick became the first and only person in New Mexico to catch Sin Nombre while he was cleaning out a shed and an old vehicle on his property in Ranchos de Taos.
The disease hantavirus frequently causes in humans, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, nearly killed him over the weeks that followed.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
APS ends 12-year fight by releasing report on former superintendent - Albuquerque Journal & KOB-TV
On Friday, Albuquerque Public Schools released a report on former superintendent Winston Brooks, ending a 12-year effort by the school district to keep it confidential.
As theAlbuquerque Journal reports, the report sheds light on the reasons why – just days into the 2014 school year – Brooks suddenly resigned and received a $350,000 payout through a settlement agreement.
Prepared for the APS Board, the 2014 report examined allegations that the superintendent’s wife, Ann Brooks, had contacted employees and school board members using information obtained through her husband, and that some of those interactions were hostile, intimidating or abusive.
In 2015, the Albuquerque Journal and KOB-TV sued APS to get a copy of the report APS relied on to reach the settlement agreement.
The district court previously awarded the media outlets more than $600,000 for fees and damages, ruling that APS violated state law.
Last week, a judge ordered APS release the report no later than September 11 with the redaction of only a single paragraph from the conclusion in the 12-page report.
According to the Journal’s attorney, Gregory P. Williams, the report is anticlimactic, and “makes clear that APS should have immediately released it when they relied on it to pay Winston Brooks $350,000 and end his tenure as superintendent.”
