New Mexico hospitals seek relief amid wave of patients – Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Two of New Mexico's largest hospitals on Thursday announced that they would be focusing on patients who need care the most, meaning non-medically necessary procedures will likely have to be delayed.
While most patients are not dealing with coronavirus infections, officials at Presbyterian Healthcare Services and University of New Mexico Health say the ability to grow the capacity that was built over the last year due to the pandemic is now limited by space and the availability of health care workers.
The two hospitals announced they were activating crisis standards of care, noting that it's not really a shift in policy but rather a continuation of how they have been managing the crush of patients since last winter.
“It's really important to recognize we are not deallocating care. That is not part of this. We are not triaging and denying care," said Dr. Jason Mitchell, Presbyterian's chief medical officer. “At this point we are trying to make sure that every patient has care in a bed across our state and even in surrounding states.”
He explained that the decision will not be to take a patient off a ventilator for example, but rather finding other hospitals within New Mexico or in neighboring states that can take patients or directing patients with less severe issues to urgent care clinics or other providers.
Even before the pandemic, New Mexico had ranked near the bottom when compared to other states for hospital capacity. That capacity has been expanded over the past year by finding new space for hospital beds and bringing in additional staff. At University of New Mexico Health, more than 500 additional nurses were brought in, allowing the provider to open up an additional 100 hospital beds.
“We're operating at about 140% of our normal operating capacity and we've had moments where we've approached 150%. This really is unsustainable,” said Dr. Michael Richards, senior vice president for clinical affairs for the UNM Health System.
New Mexico in October cleared the way for hospitals to ration care if necessary with a public health order. Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase said at the time that hospitals have been juggling patients with fewer resources since the pandemic began, and the order he signed sets up an “equitable procedure” for making tough decisions.
In northwestern New Mexico, hospitals have been rationing care amid a surge in coronavirus cases that has left only a handful of intensive care beds available. COVID-19 patients accounted for 90 out of 169 patients at San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington on Wednesday, with 15 patients sustained by breathing machines.
In Albuquerque, coronavirus patients make up about one-fifth of patients at Presbyterian and UNM Health.
Officials said Thursday that the more preexisting conditions a patient has, the more likely that person could be hospitalized due to a coronavirus infection. Still, they acknowledged that they have seen younger healthier people end up in the hospital and in some cases die.
Mitchell and Richards both stressed the importance of basic habits such as hand-washing, mask-wearing and social distancing as spread of COVID-19 remains high in New Mexico.
State data shows about 73% of adults are fully vaccinated, and officials are urging people to get their booster shots as immunity wanes. More than 28% of cases confirmed over the last four weeks and nearly one-quarter of hospitalizations were among those who were vaccinated.
The data also shows that unvaccinated people make up 95% of deaths recorded over the last month.
New Mexico governor to request $59M for verterans' home - Associated Press
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has vowed to request $59 million in capital funding during the upcoming legislative session to finance major improvements at the troubled New Mexico State Veterans’ Home.
She announced the plan in a ceremony Thursday at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial in Albuquerque, where she said veterans deserve respect and support, including in their later years.
Pending legislative approval, Lujan Grisham said work on what she called state-of-the-art improvements at the Veterans' Home could begin as soon as next summer.
A recent report by legislative analysts turned up numerous concerns about the facility in the city of Truth or Consequences. Among other things, it cited a lack of oversight as a likely factor in high COVID-19 infection and death rates among residents at the home.
Aside from cramped conditions and maintenance issues, the governor’s office also noted Thursday that the main building — originally constructed in 1936 — has inadequate ventilation and restrooms that do not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The new facilities will include six small, homelike settings that will provide safer and more comfortable living spaces for residents. State officials said the model has been shown to result in a better quality of life for residents, their families and staff.
After her stop in Albuquerque, Lujan Grisham traveled to the Veterans Home to commemorate Veterans Day with residents there.
'Rust' tragedy, labor climate frame Hollywood contract vote - By Lynn Elber, Associated Press
In weighing his vote on a proposed union contract with Hollywood producers, veteran stagehand Matthew “Doc” Brashear looked closely at the agreement and beyond, to the now-closed New Mexico film set where a cinematographer died.
For crew member Brandy Tannahill, the fatal “Rust” shooting of Halyna Hutchins and the resurgence of labor actions, such as the strikes at John Deere and Kellogg, are bolstering her decision.
When voting starts Friday on a tentative three-year agreement reached by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and a trade group representing producers, Brashear and Tannahill say they will vote no.
With forces from the pandemic to the economy also framing union members' views, bread-and-butter issues of wages and pensions remain important. But long-entrenched concerns about danger on the job have taken on increased urgency.
“I think the elected (union) leaders gave their all,” Brashear said of the proposed deal that averted the union’s first-ever national strike. While it's generally “a win of a contract," it falls short on a majority of safety-related issues, he said.
“Most of what we are fighting for is to just be able to spend time with our family and, if we work a 16-hour day, to make it home safe to our families," said Brashear, a lighting programmer in Southern California.
While some point to the “Rust” shooting that injured director Joel Souza and killed cinematographer Hutchins as an outlier -- Alec Baldwin, the film’s star-producer who fired the gun, called it a “one-in-a-trillion event” — Tannahill said it’s emblematic of the industry's critical flaws.
“There has been an understandable emotional response to what occurred,” she said. “But the underlying issue that screams to me, as someone in this business, is that the production got to the point where it was because of the producers cutting corners.”
The burdens that union members point to include long workdays that may lack breaks or lunch, and the debilitating fatigue that causes both on and off the job. A 1987 tragedy remains vivid: Brent Hershman, 35, an assistant cameraman on the film “Pleasantville," died in a crash while driving home after a 19-hour workday.
“Those are the things that make the news,” said Tannahill, but she knows four people who dozed off at the wheel and either narrowly avoided or survived an accident. She's been working since 2011 as a grip, with duties including setting up lighting.
According to the union, core safety and economic issues are addressed in the proposed agreements covering workers on film and TV productions.
“This is a Hollywood ending,” IATSE International President Matthew Loeb said in announcing a deal last month. “We went toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful entertainment and tech companies in the world” to achieve a contract that "meets our members’ needs.”
The bargaining committees of all 36 local unions have unanimously recommended ratification. Electronic voting concludes Sunday and the result is expected Monday. The union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers didn't make officials available for interviews.
IATSE represents about 150,000 behind-the-scenes workers, including stagehands, cinematographers, costumers and others employed in all forms of entertainment, from movies and TV to theater, concerts, trade shows and broadcasting.
Two proposed contracts are at stake for 60,000 union members. One primarily covers film and TV production on the West Coast and applies to about two-thirds of those members; the other is for production hubs including New Mexico and Georgia.
The agreements include across-the board wage increases and increased compensation paid by streaming services, Loeb said in a statement, a reference to Amazon, Netflix and others originally dubbed “new media” and cut financial slack.
Loeb also said that “quality of life issues were at the top of our priority list,” with the proposed contracts establishing a defined weekend rest period and imposing “stiff” penalties if meals and breaks aren’t provided.
It's not enough, some workers contend.
“This is a version of the same deal that we're offered every three years,” said veteran stagehand Jason Fitzgerald. “If we do not take a stand now to try to change the culture of the industry, we will continue to be treated more like disposable parts of a machine and less like human beings.”
The 98% strike-vote approval is credited by the union with building urgency for studios to reach a deal. The union had threatened to strike on Oct. 18 if the sides failed to reach an agreement, which was reached Oct. 16.
That activist spirit stoked by the strike authorization campaign remains unabated for some, even as the union encourages a “yes” vote.
“People are being more critical of contract language, especially younger workers who are really engaged in social media and using the internet for fact-finding,” said Tannahill. Last weekend, a town hall she organized for union members to discuss the contract drew more than 500 in person or online, she estimated.
Producer Tom Nunan, whose credits include the Oscar-winning “Crash,” said there's more heightened debate this year than in the past. But he expects ratification, citing precedent and workers' eagerness for rules addressing safety.
“This is going to get approved by the membership. They've never balked in the face of leadership recommending (approval) and I don’t see that this will be the exception,” said Nunan, a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Theater, Film and Television. “The progress that the team made on behalf of IATSE is spectacular by any measure.”
NM delegates push US official on Chaco protections - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are putting more pressure on U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to take administrative action to prohibit oil and gas development outside the boundaries of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The lawmakers in a letter sent this week wrote that while there have been numerous short-term protections granted for the area over the years, an administrative withdrawal of federal mineral rights would provide long-term certainty pending legislation that calls for permanent protections.
Haaland is from Laguna Pueblo in central New Mexico and is the first Native American to be appointed to a cabinet position. Her office tells The Associated Press that a decision about the Chaco area has yet to be made.
In October, top officials with the largest Native American tribe in the United States renewed a request for congressional leaders to hold a field hearing before deciding on federal legislation that would limit oil and gas development around Chaco park.
Leaders of the Navajo Nation Council have said that individual Navajo allottees stand to lose an important source of income if a 10-mile (16-kilometer) buffer is created around the park as proposed. They’re calling for a smaller area of federal land holdings to be made off limits to development as a compromise to protect Navajo interests.
Other tribes, environmental groups and archaeologists have been pushing to stop drilling across an expansive area of northwestern New Mexico, saying sites beyond Chaco’s boundaries need protection and that the federal government’s leasing program needs an overhaul.
Haaland was among the sponsors of legislation calling for greater protections during her tenure in the U.S. House. She has referred to the area as a sacred place.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan and Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández called Chaco an important cultural and historical area.
“Chaco Canyon is home to ancient dwellings, artifacts and sacred sites," the New Mexico Democrats wrote. "However, drilling and extraction have threatened the sacred ancestral homelands within the greater Chaco region, putting this treasured landscape at risk of desecration.”
A World Heritage site, Chaco park is thought to be the center of what was once a hub of Indigenous civilization. Within the park, walls of stacked stone jut up from the bottom of the canyon, some aligned with the seasonal movements of the sun and moon.
New Mexico hospitals struggle amid push to vaccinate youths - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Hospitals in northwestern New Mexico were grappling Wednesday with a surge in coronavirus cases that has left only a handful of intensive care beds available and led to a rationing of care.
State health officials said New Mexico's health care system overall remains heavily burdened with high rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Hospitals across the state had just eight intensive care beds available Wednesday, making it more difficult to attend to health emergencies such as heart attacks, said David Scrase, the state's top health official.
But the situation is particularly concerning in the state's far northwest, where hospital administrators recently invoked crisis standards of care to focus resources on critical patients. Federal and state authorities have dispatched medical and support personnel to shore up services at San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington.
Coronavirus patients accounted for 90 out of 169 patients at the hospital Wednesday afternoon, with 15 patients sustained by breathing machines.
Wednesday evening, hospital staff and local government officials held an online town hall meeting, imploring unvaccinated residents to reconsider.
"Our crisis right now is a crisis of the unvaccinated," said emergency medical physician Brad Greenberg, noting that vaccinated patients in the area are 10 times less likely to die if infected.
San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari lamented that personal decisions about the vaccine have become politicized. The county is a conservative stronghold where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.
"As of right now, it's still a personal choice," he said of vaccination. "You need to have that conversation with your doctor, decide if that's the right avenue for you. If you choose not to do that, care for your neighbor. ... Wear your mask, wash your hands, don't get out."
State epidemiologist Christine Ross visited the hospital in Farmington last week and said she encountered dedicated health workers that have worked to exhaustion.
"They are amazing and they are really, really tired," Ross said during an online news conference.
Hospital facilities are adequate but staff have been struggling to keep up with the demands of coronavirus patients, she said.
"The surge staffing that the state was able to send out there, along with the federal team, it's making a real difference," Ross said.
State health officials say the resurgence of the virus corresponds with waning immunity from early rounds of vaccinations, as residents approach or pass the time they need booster shots.
"New Mexico vaccinated faster than most states, so we're seeing breakthrough cases earlier than others," Scrase said.
Just over 60% of residents in New Mexico are fully vaccinated, including children. About 4% of eligible children aged 5-11 statewide made vaccine appointments during the first week of eligibility. Scrase said that response is similar to participation when a vaccine was first made available to children aged 12-16.
Local elected leaders, including Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett and San Juan County Commissioner John Beckstead, said there are no plans to extend vaccine mandates to more public employees in their region. New Mexico requires health care employees, teachers and other "high risk" workers to be immunized with few exceptions.
Sheriff Ferrari and Farmington's police chief said their agencies don't ticket people for violations of the statewide indoor mask mandate but encourage compliance by example.
Complicating matters in the hard-hit northwest is an ongoing labor dispute at a county hospital.
In Gallup, a city on the edge of the Navajo Nation, a union representing medical staff at a county-owned hospital has filed a complaint alleging unfair labor practices and retaliation against unionization efforts by doctors and nurses with the National Labor Relations Board, the agency confirmed on Wednesday.
Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital was overwhelmed with coronavirus patients in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, when Gallup was briefly closed to outside visitors and encircled by police barricades.
This year, medical staff voted to unionize as they expressed concern about the hospital's financial standing and whether it can sustain a high standard of care for patients amid recent layoffs. The hospital's labor and birthing unit reopened in late October after a week-long shutdown.
Hospital administrators had no immediate response to the complaint filed by the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, and have not filed an answer with federal regulators.
COVID-19 hot spots offer sign of what could be ahead for US – Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press
The contagious delta variant is driving up COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Mountain West and fueling disruptive outbreaks in the North, a worrisome sign of what could be ahead this winter in the U.S.
While trends are improving in Florida, Texas and other Southern states that bore the worst of the summer surge, it’s clear that delta isn’t done with the United States. COVID-19 is moving north and west for the winter as people head indoors, close their windows and breathe stagnant air.
“We’re going to see a lot of outbreaks in unvaccinated people that will result in serious illness, and it will be tragic,” said Dr. Donald Milton of the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
In recent days, a Vermont college suspended social gatherings after a spike in cases tied to Halloween parties. Boston officials shut down an elementary school to control an outbreak. Hospitals in New Mexico and Colorado are overwhelmed.
In Michigan, the three-county metro Detroit area is again becoming a hot spot for transmissions, with one hospital system reporting nearly 400 COVID-19 patients. Mask-wearing in Michigan has declined to about 25% of people, according to a combination of surveys tracked by an influential modeling group at the University of Washington.
“Concern over COVID in general is pretty much gone, which is unfortunate,” said Dr. Jennifer Morse, medical director at health departments in 20 central and northern Michigan counties. “I feel strange going into a store masked. I’m a minority. It’s very different. It’s just a really unusual atmosphere right now.”
New Mexico is running out of intensive care beds despite the state's above-average vaccination rate. Waning immunity may be playing a role. People who were vaccinated early and have not yet received booster shots may be driving up infection numbers, even if they still have some protection from the most dire consequences of the virus.
“Delta and waning immunity — the combination of these two have set us back,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington. “This virus is going to stick with us for a long, long time.”
The delta variant dominates infections across the U.S., accounting for more than 99% of the samples analyzed.
No state has achieved a high enough vaccination rate, even when combined with infection-induced immunity, to avoid the type of outbreaks happening now, Mokdad said.
In a deviation from national recommendations, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order Thursday that allows any resident 18 or older access to a COVID-19 booster shot, another step to prevent hospitals and health care workers from being overwhelmed by the state's surge in delta infections.
Progress on vaccination continues, yet nearly 60 million Americans age 12 and older remain unvaccinated. That's an improvement since July, when 100 million were unvaccinated, said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients.
First shots are averaging about 300,000 per day, and the effort to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11 is off to a strong start, Zients said at a briefing Wednesday.
Virginia Tech’s Linsey Marr, a leading researcher on the airborne spread of the coronavirus, predicted the northward spread of the virus in a Twitter post Sept. 15. The virus spreads in the air and can build up in enclosed rooms with poor ventilation. Colder weather means more people are indoors breathing the same air, Marr said.
Imagine that everyone you spend time with is a smoker and you want to breathe as little of their smoke as possible, she said.
“The closer you are to a smoker the more exposure you have to that smoke,” Marr said. “And if you’re in a poorly ventilated room, the smoke builds up over time.”
Marr said she and her vaccinated family will use rapid tests before gathering for Christmas to check for infection.
“It’s hard to know what’s coming next with this virus,” Marr said. “We thought we knew, but delta really surprised us. We thought the vaccine would help end this, but things are still dragging on. It’s hard to know what’s going to happen next.”
Program to kill Grand Conyon bison nets 4 animals, criticism - By Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press
Day three and the shooters were waiting under the cover of pine trees for the rain to let up. Thirty minutes later, a single branch snapped, revealing a small herd of bison in the distance.
Before a young cow was identified as the target, the massive animals disappeared into a thicket at the Grand Canyon's North Rim.
“No shots and no bison,” said Charles Gorecki, one of about a dozen volunteers selected to participate in a highly anticipated and highly criticized lethal removal program at the Grand Canyon.
Gorecki and the rest of his crew came up empty-handed after a week that required shooting proficiency tests, safety training and walking at least 30 miles (48 kilometers) in elevations that can leave flat-landers short-winded. Three other groups fared better, shooting and field dressing a total of four bison.
Up to 500 bison are roaming the far northern reaches of Grand Canyon National Park, trampling archaeological and other resources and spoiling the water, park officials say. Hunting pressure on the adjacent national forest has pushed most of the animals into the park.
Critics say rather than killing the bison, the animals should be relocated to other areas or given to Native American tribes under an existing effort.
Lethal removal was one of the tools outlined in a 2017 plan approved after an environmental review, but the guidelines weren't established until more recently with the pilot program this fall.
More than 45,000 people applied in a lottery for 12 spots to help cull the herd and make bison less comfortable at the park. One person backed out and another failed the shooting proficiency test, leaving 10 volunteers from around the U.S. working to kill up to 10 bison.
“We were following bison and trying to find bison and disturbing bison by the mere fact of trying to remove them,” said Grand Canyon wildlife biologist Greg Holm, who was among most of the crews. “So they had some activity this fall that I don't think they've ever experienced in the park.”
As big as they are, they skillfully evaded most of the shooters.
“It was still a learning experience for all of us involved,” said Gorecki, a military veteran who works at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. “We got an appreciation that they are very quiet and cunning. These animals, if they catch wind of us from hundreds of yards (away) in thick forest, you'll never ever see them. These are not big, fluffy forest cows."
Each volunteer selected up to three people who were on standby to help cut up the bison and pack the meat out. The groups that shot a bison divided the meat and donated parts of the animals to the Navajo and Zuni tribes in Arizona and New Mexico, Holm said.
A crew led by the National Park Service killed one bison in a trial run in August. The meat was given to the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Holm said.
Officials at the Grand Canyon haven't put a price tag yet on the program, but Holm said some of the cost is for overtime pay for park employees. They'll meet soon to determine whether to do it again, he said.
Various groups pushed the park service to call off what they argued is a hunt and suggested relocating the bison to southern Colorado instead. Hunting is prohibited within national parks, but the agency has authority to kill animals that harm resources using park staff or volunteers.
Olympic National Park in Washington state turned to volunteers to reduce the number of mountain goats, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota used volunteers for help with elk.
Bison were introduced to northern Arizona in the early 1900s as part of a crossbreeding experiment. The state manages the animals that can be hunted nearby in the Kaibab National Forest.
The main tool in reducing the population at the Grand Canyon has been to corral them near the North Rim entrance and ship them to Native American tribes through the Intertribal Buffalo Council. The park has relocated 124 over the past three years — enough to start seeing the reproductive rate slow, Holm said. The goal population is around 200.
“Ideally, the more females we can ship out, the better,” he said. “But we also do the dance around not wanting to shift away a bunch of females because they have the knowledge to teach the younger generation.”
The Modoc Nation in Oklahoma received 16 of the bison last year.
“It's great for us, it's great for our heritage, and they're beautiful animals," said Charlie Cheek, assistant to tribal Chief Bill Follis. “We enjoy working with them, and they're good for our tribe.”
The Santee Sioux Nation in Nebraska received 23 bison from the Grand Canyon this year. The Cherokee Nation got 13 that boosted the herd at a tribal ranch in Kenwood, Oklahoma, to more than 200, said Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. Bison have been an essential source of food, clothing, shelter and tools for tribes and used in ceremonies, he said.
“These newly acquired bison will help revive some ancient cultural traditions, as well as provide expanded economic opportunities for future generations of Cherokee,” he said Wednesday.
Crew member sues Alec Baldwin, others over 'Rust' shooting - By Andrew Dalton Ap Entertainment Writer
The head of lighting on the film "Rust" filed a lawsuit Wednesday over Alec Baldwin's fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the Western, alleging negligence that caused him "severe emotional distress" that will haunt him forever.
Serge Svetnoy said in the suit that the bullet that killed his close friend Hutchins, narrowly missed him, and he held her head as she died.
"They should never, ever, have had live rounds on this set," Svetnoy's attorney Gary A. Dordick said at a news conference Wednesday.
The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court names nearly two dozen defendants associated with the film including Baldwin, who was both star and a producer; David Halls, the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun; and Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was in charge of weapons on the set.
It is the first known lawsuit of what could be many stemming from the Oct. 21 shooting, which also injured "Rust" director Joel Souza.
It was the ninth film that Svetnoy and Hutchins had worked on together, and he had taken the job at low pay because she asked him to.
"She was my friend," Svetnoy said at the news conference.
He said he had seen guns sitting unattended in the dirt a few days earlier in the shoot, and had warned the people responsible about them.
On the day of the shooting, he was setting up lighting within 6 or 7 feet (2 meters) of Baldwin, the suit says.
"What happened next will haunt Plaintiff forever," the suit says. "He felt a strange and terrifying whoosh of what felt like pressurized air from his right. He felt what he believed was gunpowder and other residual materials directly strike the right side of his face."
Then, with his glasses scratched and his hearing muffled, he knelt to help Hutchins, the suit said.
The lawsuit seeks both compensatory and punitive damages to be determined later. It was filed in Los Angeles County because the plaintiff and most of the defendants are based there.
Attorneys and representatives for the defendants did not immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment on the suit.
Gutierrez Reed's lawyer Jason Bowles said in a statement Wednesday that "we are convinced this was sabotage and Hannah is being framed. We believe that the scene was tampered with as well before the police arrived."
Bowles said his client has provided authorities with a full interview and continues to assist them. The statement did not address the lawsuit.
"We are asking for a full and complete investigation of all of the facts, including the live rounds themselves, how they ended up in the 'dummies' box, and who put them in there," the statement said.
Gutierrez Reed said last week that she had inspected the gun Baldwin shot but doesn't know how a live bullet ended up inside.
Santa Fe-area District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said investigators have encountered no proof of sabotage. Her comments, first made on "Good Morning America," were confirmed Wednesday by agency spokeswoman Sascha Guinn Anderson.
Carmack-Altwies says that investigators know who loaded the gun, though it remains unclear how the deadly round of ammunition got on the movie set. The district attorney said she is concerned that there were so many levels of safety failures.
Dordick said at the news conference that it was "far-fetched" to suggest there was sabotage, but that Gutierrez Reed still had the same responsibility to know what was in the gun and who had handled it.
Authorities have said that Halls, the assistant director, handed the weapon to Baldwin and announced "cold gun," indicating that the weapon was safe to use.
Halls said last week that he hoped the tragedy prompted the film industry to "reevaluate its values and practices" to ensure no one is harmed again, but did not provide details.
Baldwin said on video on Oct. 30 that the shooting was a "one-in-a-trillion event" saying, "We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened."
The director Souza told detectives that Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which he drew a revolver from his holster and pointed it toward the camera, which Hutchins and Souza were behind, according to court records in New Mexico.
Souza said the scene did not call for the use of live rounds, and Gutierrez Reed said real ammo should never have been present, according to the court records.
The Los Angeles lawsuit alleges that the scene did not call for Baldwin to fire the gun at all, only to point it.
Hollywood professionals have been baffled by the circumstances of the movie-set shooting. It already has led to other production crews stepping up safety measures.
Over 60 migrants found in box truck in West Texas bust - Associated Press
More than 60 migrants were found in a box truck stopped on a highway in the remote Big Bend region of West Texas, federal officials said Wednesday.
Driver Javier Duarte, 22, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, was arrested on counts of transporting migrants illegally and helping convicted felons re-enter the country illegally, according to a statement issued by the West Texas U.S. attorney.
Border Patrol agents discovered 67 migrants in the box truck during an inspection at a Texas 118 checkpoint 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Alpine, or about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of El Paso, on Tuesday. Four migrants were children aged 8 to 13, and three others had aggravated felony convictions for rape, drug possession and crimes involving moral turpitude, the U.S. attorney's office said.
It was unclear Wednesday if Duarte had an attorney. If convicted on both counts, he could be sentenced to up to 10 years in federal prison.
Navajo Nation reports 126 more COVID-19 cases plus 8 deaths -Associated Press
The Navajo Nation on Wednesday reported 126 more COVID-19 cases and eight additional deaths.
The tribe had gone without reporting a coronavirus-related death 25 times in the previous 40 days before reporting one on Tuesday.
The latest numbers pushed the tribe's totals to 37,737 confirmed COVID-19 cases from the virus since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
The known death toll now is 1,507.
Based on cases from Oct. 22-Nov. 4, the Navajo Department of Health on Monday issued an advisory for 56 communities due to an uncontrolled spread of COVID-19.
"We are hopeful that more families are receiving the vaccines together and we also encourage everyone who was previously fully vaccinated to get a booster shot prior to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday," tribal President Jonathan Nez said in a statement Wednesday.
All Navajo Nation executive branch employees had to be fully vaccinated against the virus by the end of September or submit to regular testing.
The tribe's reservation is the country's largest at 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) and covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
New Mexico officials tout strategy as economic springboard - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
New Mexico's top economic development officials said Wednesday they are ready to put into action a 20-year strategy for diversifying the economy, saying the state has no time to waste if it wants to make up lost ground from the Great Recession and the coronavirus pandemic.
They announced that the federal government has awarded the state a $1 million grant for the effort. That follows an initial $1.5 million in federal recovery funding that New Mexico used to develop the strategy and to begin hiring economic relief coordinators to help rural communities and small businesses.
The latest grant will be used to implement the strategy, which state Economic Development Secretary Alicia J. Keyes outlined for a group of business leaders with the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce.
Keyes told the group that the pandemic has had an effect on everyone, resulting in lost lives, connections and opportunities. She said her family had its own challenges during the state's lockdown. She talked about planning grocery runs and hoarding water and other supplies and about the low-wage workers who were essential for keeping businesses open.
"The whole picture of the economy has been a very real reminder that as a society we're intertwined socially and economically, and we heard this over and over again as we were doing this strategic plan," Keyes said. "The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The gap is growing."
State officials noted New Mexico's wages and job growth have not been keeping pace with neighboring states, that investment funds are lacking and that higher education offerings are not aligned with what's needed in the job market. They said the problems grew after the Great Recession and that the pandemic made things worse.
Keyes said the new strategy looks at where New Mexico can build the most momentum. She highlighted several industries, including aerospace, cybersecurity, biosciences, film and television, global trade and green energy.
Part of the work will include improving access to capital and recovery resources for businesses and communities. The plan also calls for assessing the availability of incubator and start-up resources and creating an online dashboard to track their impact.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also recently signed an executive order to streamline regulations to boost New Mexico's competitiveness, a request made by the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce after it conducted a study last year that looked at barriers to business.
"We don't want this plan to sit on a shelf. We need to take action now and we feel like we're doing that," Keyes said, before making a plea to business owners. "Please join us. This is an all-together thing. We're not going to be able to do it alone."
She said the equation will have to include higher wages, more schedule flexibility for workers and more options for attracting employees.
The state Economic Development Department also plans to ask lawmakers during the next legislative session for more funding to market the state, for job training and for local economic development projects.
Rob Black, president and CEO of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce, said collecting data will help to hold the state accountable as it implements the strategy. He pointed to a number of metrics included in the plan, from tracking unemployment and poverty in rural New Mexico to the percentage of college graduates employed in the state six months after graduation.
MAC says no to expansion after MTSU decides to stay in C-USA - By Ralph D. Russo Ap College Football Writer
The Mid-American Conference announced Wednesday it will stand pat with its membership after examining expansion, just hours after Middle Tennessee State made known it was sticking with Conference USA.
"Following analysis and evaluation by the membership, it has been determined our best interests are served in the conference remaining at 12 full member institutions," Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said in a statement. "While a number of institutions have expressed interest, we never requested any institution to apply for membership nor did we have a formal or informal vote concerning any institutions."
The decisions by the MAC and MTSU appear to bring an end to a wave conference realignment at the FBS level of Division I that was triggered this summer by the Southeastern Conference inviting Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 and join the league.
The trickle down led the Big 12 to swipe three schools from the American Athletic Conference, which then turned to Conference USA for six new members. The Sun Belt also added four new schools, three from C-USA.
Middle Tennessee and fellow C-USA member Western Kentucky had explored the possibility of leaving the conference.
MTSU and WKU would have extended the Midwest-based MAC farther south.
But after C-USA announced last week the addition of four new members starting in 2023, Middle Tennessee State decided it was best to stay put in a conference that will now have nine schools, stretching from Virginia to New Mexico.
President Sidney McPhee said in a statement posted on the school website Wednesday that they've watched the Division I landscape for athletics change in the past several weeks. McPhee said MTSU appreciated the interest that other conferences showed in its program.
"Working with our four remaining members, as well as our new partners, Conference USA is poised to rebrand itself as a premier conference in the Group of 5," McPhee wrote.
Commissioner Judy MacLeod said C-USA remains a great fit for Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky with the incoming members.
"We are very pleased that they have decided to reaffirm their commitment to C-USA as we continue to move forward as a conference," she said in a statement. "While several institutions have indicated interest in joining our league, we will use this time to be deliberate and strategic in exploring any potential additional expansion."
Mid-American Conference presidents met Nov. 5 with possible expansion on the agenda and C-USA members Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee State as potential options, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league's discussions are private.
That same day, C-USA announced Liberty, Jacksonville State, New Mexico State and Sam Houston State as new members starting in 2023. McPhee said that gives the league a strong footprint in the South and Southwest.