TUES: Regents place New Mexico Highlands president on leave, + More
By KUNM News
May 5, 2026 at 5:49 AM MDT
Highlands president placed on leave by regents
—Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico Highlands University President Neil Woolf has been removed from his post by the school’s Board of Regents amid faculty dissatisfaction.
Woolf was placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately after a special regents meeting Friday, according to an email sent to NMHU faculty and staff.
In a Facebook post, Woolf said the board provided no explanation for their decision and that he hadn’t heard any indications that there were concerns.
“Since day one, my focus has been clear: strengthening Highlands for the students and communities we serve,” Woolf wrote. “Together, we have made measurable progress — improving the university’s financial position, achieving record fundraising, launching new academic programs aligned with regional workforce needs, increasing enrollment, and building meaningful partnerships across New Mexico.
“I remain committed to that work. I welcome the opportunity to address this situation directly and to continue moving Highlands forward.”
Woolf was appointed to the presidency in 2024 after a national search. He most recently served as the executive vice president at Southern Oregon University.
NMHU has just over 2,800 students. The public, state-run university’s flagship campus is in Las Vegas, with satellite locations in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Farmington and Santa Fe.
Kimberly Blea, who most recently served as vice president of student affairs at NMHU, has been appointed interim president, according to the email.
"I am deeply honored by the trust the Board of Regents has placed in me to lead New Mexico Highlands University during this period of transition,” Blea said in a statement. “My commitment to every member of this campus community is simple: I will lead with transparency, compassion, and an unwavering focus on our students and our mission.”
Blea will hold an open forum Wednesday to answer questions, the email said, and the Board of Regents will reconvene on June 2 to consider further action.
Doajo Hicks, NMHU’s general counsel, declined to comment on personnel matters when reached about Woolf’s dismissal.
Kathy Jenkins, professor of exercise science and president of the NMHU Faculty and Staff Association, said university employees had problems with Woolf for the past two years.
“We’ve had union issues. They’re not following our (collective bargaining agreements),” Jenkins said. “We wrote the Board of Regents two months ago expressing our concern, and they told us to basically stay in our lane and that they supported the president. And then all of a sudden this happened.”
Jenkins said discontent worsened after faculty and staff raised workplace safety issues at the university’s Ivan Hilton Science Building, which closed for several months starting Sept. 3, 2024, after reports of a chemical spill, the Las Vegas Optic reported.
Marty Lujan, a custodian at NMHU who worked in the building, died 11 days later. An autopsy report obtained by the Optic found Lujan died of complications from diabetes, though union officials said he showed signs of chemical exposure.
“We’ve been really upset,” Jenkins said. “That was awful, with the storage of chemicals being so bad.”
Jenkins said faculty had been “left in the dark” about whether anyone else from the administration had been let go as the university’s commencement ceremony approaches later this week, featuring U.S. senator and alumnus Ben Ray Luján as the keynote speaker.
“What’s really surprising is this is graduation week,” Jenkins said. “These are the people that do graduation.”
Senators, auditor dropped from WNMU former president's lawsuit
—Algernon d’Ammassa, Albuquerque Journal
Three lawmakers named in a lawsuit brought by Western New Mexico University’s former president have been dismissed as defendants by a state judge’s order last week.
Joseph Shepard sued the university along with state Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, state Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, and former state Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill of Silver City, alleging a conspiracy to “destroy his reputation” after Shepard questioned a $1 million appropriation for a charter school located on WNMU’s main campus in Silver City.
The lawsuit also named State Auditor Joseph Maestas, whose office oversaw a special audit addressing the handling of public money by Shepard and the former university regents. Current regent John Wertheim is a defendant as well.
But state District Judge Jarod Hofacket ruled that the actions attributed to the senators are covered by the state Constitution’s guarantee of immunity to lawmakers for legislative activity.
Shepard filed a motion Friday asking Hofacket to reconsider his order, as well as a separate order dismissing Maestas as a defendant.
Shepard served as WNMU’s president from 2011 through 2024, leaving the post amid controversy after multiple state probes into spending at the university as well as a $1.9 million severance payment and $200,000 faculty appointment at WNMU’s business school, approved by the former regents shortly before Shepard’s departure.
The golden parachute prompted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to request the resignations of WNMU’s entire board of regents at the start of 2025.
A newly appointed board subsequently voided Shepard’s faculty appointment, prompting Shepard to claim breach of contract in a separate pending lawsuit.
Shepard claimed that Muñoz, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, hatched a plan with Correa Hemphill, who sat on the committee, to appropriate $1 million to WNMU that would actually be spent on the Aldo Leopold Charter School without disclosing that Correa Hemphill — a psychologist — had worked for the school and had children enrolled there.
Shepard is seeking damages under New Mexico’s Whistleblower Act, claiming ethics investigations into his use of public funds and termination as a faculty member were in retaliation for his objections to the appropriation. Shepard also sought triple damages through New Mexico’s anti-racketeering statute.
Hofacket ruled that, even if Shepard’s claims about the senators were assumed to be true, “they occurred in the course of legislative budgeting, deliberation, committee inquiry, or oversight,” and are therefore covered by legislative immunity, regardless of whether their intent was proper or not.
Correa Hemphill filed to run for reelection in 2024 but later withdrew, citing the financial burden of serving in New Mexico’s unsalaried Legislature.
After Hofacket’s ruling, Correa Hemphill issued a statement saying the ruling “brings an enormous sense of relief and closure.”
She also denied any impropriety, writing, “As legislators, we often face difficult decisions and challenging appropriations processes, but I always carried out my duties with honesty, transparency, and deep respect for the people I served.”
“I am of course pleased by the recent ruling, but as the case is still ongoing, I don’t have further comments at this time,” Stewart told the Journal.
Muñoz was unavailable for comment Monday afternoon.
In a separate order, Hofacket granted a motion to dismiss Maestas as a defendant, ruling that Shepard had not made a factual claim implicating Maestas in criminal acts supporting a racketeering claim.
The rulings leave the university and Wertheim as defendants.
Shepard is himself a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the New Mexico State Ethics Commission, set for trial in 2027 unless a settlement is reached.
Mediation is ongoing in still another lawsuit brought in 2025 by state Attorney General Raúl Torrez against Shepard and the university. In that case, Shepard filed a counter suit against the university.
WNMU’s new president, Jose Coll, was selected in March with an official start date of July 1.
First day of early voting includes ‘hiccup’ for same-day registration
—Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The first day of early voting on Tuesday for New Mexico’s June 2 primary election included some problems in a handful of counties with the state’s same-day voter registration system.
Secretary of State Director of Communications, Legislative and Executive Affairs Lindsey Bachman confirmed to Source NM that at around 11:30 a.m., the state’s “website firewalls incorrectly determined that traffic between some county computers and the website was unsafe,” and blocked the traffic.
The same-day registration systems “were operational during the event,” she wrote, “but the communications interruptions did not allow them to work together as needed for normal availability in a few affected counties.”
She said the issue was resolved by 1 p.m.
“We are continuing to monitor the situation, but do not expect any recurrence,” Bachman said. She said she did not have confirmation of the specific counties impacted as of Tuesday afternoon.
Sandoval County was one of them, however. Deputy County Clerk Joey Dominguez described the problem as a “hiccup.”
Roosevelt County also had temporary issues with same-day voter registration, but Clerk Mandi Park told Source NM that was because she had a “user-error issue” and forgot her password for the same-day registration application. That problem also was short-lived.
Both county officials said only one person requested same-day registration while the systems were down, and both were able to cast provisional ballots.
Anecdotally, voting began quietly Tuesday morning in Bernalillo County, officials told Source NM. (Bachman said the Secretary of State’s Office will begin reporting voter turnout and same-day registration data on Friday.)
However, Bernalillo County Clerk Michelle Kavanaugh told Source NM she anticipates an uptick in participation in response to the state’s new semi-open primaries.
Under the new law created by Senate Bill 16, passed last year, independent voters can now cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primaries while remaining unaffiliated with either party.
As of Tuesday morning, Kavanaugh said only a handful of “decline to state voters” had voted. Of Bernalillo County’s approximate 447,000 registered voters, 44% are registered as Democrats, 27% as Republicans and another 27% as “decline to state” voters. Of the state’s approximately 1.4 million registered voters, 40% are Democrats, 31% are Republicans and 26% are independent voters. Remaining voters are registered to the state’s minor parties.
“We’ve had some time to prepare and we’re hoping to see a growth in the number of people voting in primaries,” Kavanaugh said outside the Clerk’s Annex on Lomas Road, an “I Voted” sticker on her lapel.
Democratic voter Sheila Mahoney, a retired nurse midwife with Indian Health Services, told Source NM she supported the inclusion of “decline to state voters” in New Mexico primaries.
“I think it’s great,” Mahoney, 71, told Source NM. “Why should they be left out of the primary, they vote, they’re citizens.”
Democratic voter Lance Chilton, 81, a retired pediatrician from Albuquerque said he had “mixed feelings” on the recent expansion.
“I prefer that everybody get a chance to vote, I just think they should have to determine which group they’re part of, which party, when they do,” he said.
Carmen López, a co-leader of the nonpartisan group Observe New Mexico Elections, said the group is training coordinators to observe the primary elections for the first time in all 33 counties.
“In 2024, we only attempted to observe in three or four counties,” López told Source NM.
The observers watch poll worker training, election machine checks and election result certifications and compile a report to assess election quality, to “heighten transparency and strengthen voter confidence” in the process López said. For the general election, the group plans to seek up to 300 observers across the state, she said.
Expanded early voting, with additional primary election sites, will begin May 16 and end on May 30 in advance of Election Day on June 2.
Today Indigenous people raise awareness about their missing and murdered
—Associated Press
Indigenous peoples across North America are gathering this month to raise awareness about the disproportionate violence in their communities while demanding sustained response from authorities.
While May 5 is recognized as the day of awareness in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement, events already are starting and planned throughout the month. In Canada, it's referred to as Red Dress Day after Métis artist Jaime Black used the garments as a symbol of what Black said is gendered and racialized violence.
Events include prayer walks, art exhibits, self-defense classes, film screenings, 5k runs, healing circles, and marches and speeches at U.S. state capitols to plead for better cooperation among law enforcement agencies.
U.S. Justice Department data shows Indigenous women are more than twice as likely to be homicide victims than the national average. Many people wear red and paint their faces with red handprints while vowing to speak for those who have been silenced.
USPS unveils Route 66 centennial stamps, born from a photographer’s 42 trips
—Associated Press
The U.S. Postal Service is releasing a new series of stamps to honor Route 66’s centennial. The offering includes eight stamps — one each for the states traversed by the Mother Road.
The special collection was curated from images captured by photographer David J. Schwartz. He has traveled the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route dozens of times over two decades. He hopes his work can help keep Route 66 alive by inspiring others to explore the highway and support local businesses along the journey.
New Mexico seeks child safety restrictions on Meta apps and algorithms in trial's 2nd phase - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
New Mexico state prosecutors are seeking fundamental changes to Meta's social media apps and algorithms to safeguard children in the second phase of a landmark trial on allegations that platforms such as Instagram have created a public safety hazard.
Opening statements began Monday in the three-week bench trial to decide whether the platforms of Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, pose a public nuisance.
In the first phase, jurors ordered $375 million in civil penalties against Meta, determining that it knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
Prosecutors are now asking a judge to impose fundamental changes aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.
Meta has vowed to appeal the jury verdict and warned that it could eliminate service in New Mexico entirely if forced to comply with impractical mandates and multibillion-dollar remedies.
"The fact that we're having a trial on nuisance is itself a remarkable outcome," said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. "That theory is not well accepted as applied to the internet, and that theory doesn't really fit the internet."
As the trial reconvened Monday, state District Court Judge Bryan Biedscheid addressed concerns that the court might overreach its authority.
"I'm probably not the easiest sell on an idea where I would become a one-person legislature, judge and executive branch enforcer," he said.
Trial could alter algorithms that define social media
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the jury verdict punctured the aura of invincibility protecting tech companies from liability for material on their platforms under Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act.
A Los Angeles jury separately found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children, validating long-standing concerns about dangers of social media.
New Mexico prosecutors are demanding that Meta help remedy a mental health crisis among children through a series of safeguards and changes, including a redesign of algorithms that make content recommendations so they no longer prioritize constant engagement.
New Mexico prosecution attorney David Ackerman outlined a $3.7 billion proposal for Meta to remedy harm to children that "recognizes the scope of the public nuisance that Meta has caused."
"Across New Mexico, across the country, children are begging for help," he said in opening statements. "It is thorough and it is necessary. There are items in this abatement plan for public education, to assist schools, to assist law enforcement, to assist mental health providers."
Prosecutors are also targeting other app features linked to compulsive use such as "infinite scroll," which continuously loads content; push notifications; and default settings that show tallies for "likes" and sharing. Their lawsuit also seeks improvements to age verification and other steps aimed at curbing child sexual exploitation.
And New Mexico wants child accounts on Meta platforms to have an associated parent or guardian, as well as a court-supervised child safety monitor to track safety improvements over time.
Meta asserts free speech protections
Executives have said the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive use and that many demands from prosecutors are redundant.
In opening statements, Meta attorney Alex Parkinson disputed the idea that there is a public right to social media under nuisance laws.
"Are bars a public nuisance because drinking alcohol is undeniably associated with car fatalities?" Parkinson said. "If individual (social media) users have been hurt, they have a remedy -- personal injury cases to cover the mental healthcare or any other care that they need. And that is what is happening in other lawsuits right now."
The company also argues that its platforms are being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use with less robust protections, while invoking concerns about restrictions on free speech.
"The state's proposed mandates infringe on parental rights and stifle free expression," Meta said last week in a statement.
Parkinson said prosecutors are making unworkable demands to change apps only for New Mexico users — an assertion disputed by the attorney general.
"To geo-fence New Mexico users into that version of the apps, new apps for New Mexico, that is not feasible, technologically," Parkinson told the judge.
Influence could be far-reaching
The case is the first to reach trial among lawsuits filed by more than 40 state attorneys general on allegations that Meta contributes to a youth mental health crisis. Most are pursuing remedies in U.S. federal court.
Torrez said he envisions a broad public education campaign to help parents and children navigate social media safely, with new public service warnings on Meta apps.
"All of those kids need help, they need counseling, they need therapy," Torrez said at a news conference Monday, accompanied by parent advocates for social media reforms.
Parkinson said the state's $3.7 billion plan goes too far and would reshape the way all mental and behavioral healthcare is delivered to New Mexico teens.
"The state is asking you to develop from scratch a completely new regulatory regime that far exceeds anything in Europe, in Australia, anywhere," Parkinson said in reference to a bevy of recent and planned restrictions on children's online activities beyond the U.S.
Goldman said prosecutors may be venturing into uncertain legal waters just in seeking age verification mandates.
"In practice a court order saying that Facebook had to impose age authentication would have no Supreme Court textual support," he said. "The Supreme Court might bless it. We don't know."
___
This story has been updated to correct the wording in the quote from Judge Bryan Biedscheid.
Early voting set to begin in New Mexico amid uncertainty over semi-open primary's impact - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Early and absentee voting are set to begin Tuesday for the June primary election that’s a bit different than any previous election in New Mexico history.
This year’s primary election will be the first in which independent voters, or those who decline to state a party affiliation, will be able to cast a ballot without having to select a major party affiliation.
Specifically, such voters will be able to request either a Republican or Democratic ballot but will not be bound by their decision in future elections.
The semi-open primary system, which was signed into law last year by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, could bolster turnout rates in a state in which only 25.2% of registered voters cast a ballot in New Mexico’s 2022 primary election. The turnout rate was even lower two years ago.
Bernalillo County Clerk Michelle Kavanaugh said Monday that letters were sent out to all 123,000 independent voters who live in the county, informing them about the new system.
Early voting for the June 2 primary election will be administered in two phases. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect:
“We’ve tried really hard for the last year to prepare voters for this change,” Kavanaugh told the Journal.
But she acknowledged uncertainty about how many independent voters will ultimately participate in the primary election, saying, “This is uncharted territory for us.”
Early voting for the June 2 primary election will be administered in two phases. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect:
May 5 - May 15: Early in-person voting at county clerks’ offices.
Voters in Bernalillo County can vote at the Clerk’s Annex in Albuquerque during normal business hours (Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.).
May 16 - May 30: Expanded early voting at designated voting centers.
There will be 21 early vote centers in Bernalillo County, with most locations open from 10 a.m. through 7 p.m., on Monday through Saturday.
The number of independent voters has steadily increased in New Mexico since 1990, with their ranks growing at an even faster rate since the state implemented automatic voter registration last summer.
As of the end of April, there were more than 378,000 independent voters registered across New Mexico — or roughly 26% of the state’s total voting population, according to Secretary of State’s Office data.
All statewide offices are up for election this year and several seats have drawn contested primary races. That includes the open contest to pick New Mexico’s next governor, as Lujan Grisham is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. She will step down at year’s end.
Meanwhile, several policy changes have been made in recent years to make it easier to vote in New Mexico, including a same-day voting registration system that allows eligible state residents to register in person and cast a ballot up through Election Day.
But that system also caused delays in the 2024 general election, as large amounts of voters at some polling places caused technical issues with processing same-day voter registration applications.
Secretary of State’s Office spokeswoman Lindsey Bachman said Monday that state election officials have worked since that election to improve the secure application system used to register voters at polling locations.
She also said there have been 53,696 absentee ballot applications that have been accepted for this year’s primary election. Such absentee ballots can be counted in New Mexico as long as they’re received before polls close on Election Day.
Indigenous people honor and raise awareness for relatives who are missing or have been killed - By Savannah Peters and Nancy Marie Spears, Associated Press/The Imprint
Across the country, Indigenous people are gathering this week to honor loved ones who are missing or have been killed and to call for better data collection, law enforcement response and reforms to make their communities safer.
From U.S. state capitols and tribal community spaces to the streets of major cities, hundreds of marches, rallies, talking circles, self-defense classes and candlelight vigils are planned for the week of May 5, which is observed as a national day of awareness for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement.
The day reflects both the collective grief and the resilience of Indigenous communities, where the federal government has a legal responsibility to ensure public safety. All too often, resources to prevent and respond to violence are in short supply.
Many events call for participants to wear red, a color that has become synonymous with honoring Indigenous victims of violence in the U.S. and Canada.
A hidden crisis
Native Americans face disproportionate rates of violence in the U.S., a crisis that advocates say is rooted in the systematic removal of Native people from their land and the federal government's efforts to rid them of their cultures.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Native Americans and Alaska Natives are more than twice as likely than the general population to be victims of a violent crime, and Native women are twice as likely to be victims of homicide. At the end of 2025, the FBI's National Crime Information Center recorded just under 1,500 active federal cases involving missing Native Americans.
Experts say that's likely an undercount because of jurisdictional confusion, racial misclassification and inconsistent data collection.
Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, said that there's been progress in accounting for the true scope of the crisis but that law enforcement resources have been slow to follow.
"Don't look at the numbers and feel sorry for us," Echo-Hawk said, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. "Look at the numbers and say, 'How do we ensure that this doesn't continue?'"
Federal action
In 2020, President Donald Trump signed Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act into law, both aimed at solving and preventing cases of violent crime in Indian Country with improved data collection and law enforcement reforms.
But implementation of those laws has been slow and erratic. Under the Biden administration in 2022, a federal commission to study the crisis convened two years behind schedule. Its extensive recommendations — ranging from expanding authority for tribal law enforcement to improving communication with the victims' families — were made public in 2023.
The recommendations were removed from government websites last year amid the Trump administration's purge of initiatives it associates with diversity, equity and inclusion.
Federally recognized tribes are sovereign nations within the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump's Department of Justice has continued its Operation Not Forgotten initiative, surging dozens of FBI agents, analysts and other personnel to field offices near tribal lands on a rotating, temporary basis. According to the FBI, those assignments have yielded more than 200 arrests and convictions in homicide, domestic abuse and sexual assault cases since 2023.
Michael Henderson, director of public safety for the Navajo Nation, said there are "pros and cons" to a bigger FBI footprint in Indian Country. Federal officers can bring fresh eyes and high-tech forensic tools to cold cases. But Henderson said many of these agents arrive with little experience working in Indigenous communities or investigating violent crime.
"More manpower from the FBI on reservations, that's not a good solution in my mind," Henderson said, adding that federal funds could be better spent staffing and funding tribal police departments.
Families advocate for their relatives
At a Sunday prayer walk in Colorado Springs, Colorado, marchers chanted, "No more stolen lives on stolen land" and carried signs with the photos and stories of dozens of Indigenous people who have been killed or have disappeared.
Among the marchers was Denise Porambo. Her daughter, Destiny Jeriann Whiteman, was killed last August where she lived on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in southwest Colorado. She was 24 and had an infant son.
"It hurts every day," Porambo said after the march, her voice breaking.
In the absence of a nationwide strategy for handling these cases, advocates in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement say that burden often falls to family members.
Grace Bulltail's 18-year-old niece, Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, was found dead several days after she disappeared from her home on the Crow Reservation in Montana in August 2019. Her family remembers her as a kindhearted person and a tenacious high school athlete. They organize marches, vigils and courthouse demonstrations to raise awareness about the case and tirelessly pester law enforcement for action and answers.
No arrests have been made, and the cause of death was ruled inconclusive. Stops Pretty Places' grandmother is organizing a demonstration Tuesday at a courthouse bordering the Crow Reservation.
"We have had to advocate for ourselves and for Kaysera every step of the way," Bulltail said. ___ Spears reported from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
___
This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.
USPS unveils Route 66 centennial stamps, born from a photographer's 42 trips - By John O'Connor, Associated Press
You're standing in the middle of an empty highway, staring off into the fading, golden light of Arizona's high desert. The soundtrack playing in your mind? Depeche Mode.
Industrial-leaning synth-pop strains might seem incongruous with such a vista, but it was the alternative rock band's homage to Route 66 that seduced David J. Schwartz. With camera in hand he has made 42 trips over two decades along the celebrated highway, qualifying himself for the job of creating postage stamps commemorating the Mother Road's centennial.
The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday is releasing eight stamps marking significant parts of the road in each of the states it traverses, passing by vintage diners, gas stations and motels — many since preserved or restored — along with breathtaking vistas and wide horizons of the open road.
Route 66 is paved with history, from its early days as an escape from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, through serving as a vital supply route during World War II, to its mid-century role as an antidote for wanderlust. A symbol of freedom and mobility, it has evolved into a time capsule of Americana, steeped in nostalgia and neon.
'Road trips, big cars, neon signs'
As teenagers in 1988, Schwartz and his best friend had planned a road trip after girlfriends introduced them to Depeche Mode, where they discovered a cover of Bobby Troup's 1946 pop standard, "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66." Schwartz's mother nixed his participation, delaying his first taste of the open road until 2004.
To Schwartz, the road — stretching 2,448 miles (3,940 kilometers) — represents a significant piece of a newly mobile 20th century America, from its debut in 1926 to its decommissioning in 1985: "Road trips, big cars, neon signs." Though retired from the federal highway system, vast stretches of the route are still in use and a favorite of road warriors and tourists to this day.
"So much to explore. You start here in Illinois on 66 and you're cruising through prairie land," Schwartz said during a recent interview in Springfield. "By the time you get out west, you're in the desert or you're in mountains through hairpin turns. It's just an incredible journey and you just get such a beautiful slice of America going through it."
Tired of retail management, Schwartz went back to school to study photography and had the idea of Route 66 stamps as early as a decade ago. He was tapped for the project in 2023. He recalls thinking, "Here is my moment to bring Route 66 to the masses."
Greg Breeding, a USPS art director for stamp design, was working on a graphic showing a map of the road when he discovered Schwartz's photos. They were beautifully photographed, not commercial and slick.
"They're as if you were there," he said, "which makes them especially useful for stamps."
The USPS plate contains 16 stamps, two of each one representing Route 66 host states. A ninth photo serves as selvage, or the image surrounding the block. It's the scene of that empty Arizona highway, shot in 2023 near Seligman, Arizona, when Schwartz and his high school friend finally took that trip 35 years in the making.
'Feel the land as you're traveling'
But a road is a road, isn't it? Why can't a traveler get the same view standing on one of the interstate highways that ultimately bypassed Route 66?
"You'd probably get run over," Schwartz said dryly.
"Interstates are designed to move traffic quickly. They cut through the sides of mountains, they do not follow the contour of the land ...," he added. "On Route 66, you're actually part of the landscape as you move through it. You feel the land as you're traveling."
Breeding and Schwartz steered clear of the fabled highway's most popular spots, not only because those are tougher to get permission to use, but also because they wanted to give people a "fresh look," Breeding said. The stamps are devoid of people, he said, in part to create a sense of allure rather tourist trap vibes.
To that end, the blocks capture both the continuing commerce and the roadside relics that hint at their former vibrancy. Take for example the Conoco Tower Station and U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas, a neon-adorned Art Deco beauty whose luminous lights come alive at dusk.
In Yucca, Arizona, Schwartz photographed the dilapidated "Motel" sign in the relentless noonday sun, revealing desert desolation but also "the enduring pulse of the open road."
Among his favorites is the Illinois entry, a friend's 1929 Model A Ford rumbling down the only remaining section of Route 66 composed of hand-laid brick in Auburn, just south of Springfield. The goal? Create an image that would make viewers feel as if they were there for the birth of Route 66.
"We wanted to show it to be colorful. We wanted to show the quirkiness. We wanted to show the age," Breeding said. "It's like a sort of show, the idea that Route 66 is a living history of the United States, from the past to the present."
Schwartz said he's amazed that the stamps boasting his work will "travel all over the United States and end up in people's mailboxes."
He added: "I hope they really inspire people to get out there and travel the road and support the Mom and Pop businesses and keep Route 66 alive for another 100 years."
NM state representative leads national coalition against U.S. Department of Labor proposal - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico New Mexico state Rep. Eleanor Chávez (D-Albuquerque) late last week announced that she led more than 100 state lawmakers from nearly two dozen states in co-signing a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor to oppose a proposal that critics say would reclassify hundreds of thousands of Americans as contractors rather than employees.
The Labor Department in February announced a proposal to modify the rule that governs whether workers are classified as employees or contractors. In the announcement, it said it would implement an “economic reality test” to determine whether someone is self-employed and, therefore, a contractor, or whether they’re dependent on an employer for work and, therefore, an employee.
In a letter to the Labor Department last week, Chávez and lawmakers nationwide argued that the proposed changes could reclassify 250,000 American workers as independent contractors, which could jeopardize their benefits and shift the burden of unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and Medicaid to the states they live in.
“We are 114 state legislators from 23 states, collectively home to over 176 million people,” they wrote. “The Department has failed to consider the substantial fiscal impact this rule would have on our states. Adopting the proposed rule would impose significant fiscal costs on state governments, and change critical frameworks without sufficient attention to state-level impacts on workers, businesses and budgets.”
The coalition of lawmakers cited a 2009 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that found that if just 1% of employees across the nation were reclassified as contractors, unemployment insurance revenue would plummet $200 million. They also cited a more recent report from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, which found that employee misclassification in fiscal year 2019 cost the state’s general fund $6.4 million to $124.5 million in revenue.
The lawmakers asked the Labor Department to either rescind its proposal or conduct a comprehensive analysis of how it would impact state government budgets before proceeding.
“This is the latest example of the Trump administration turning its back on working people, and leaving states responsible for cleaning up their messes,” Chávez said in a statement. “Rather than protecting the hardworking people at the heart of our economy, the Department of Labor is trying to upend vital workforce systems, without even doing its homework on how much damage it will cause.”
What to know about hantavirus, the illness suspected in a cruise ship outbreak - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A rodent-borne illness is suspected of causing an outbreak aboard a cruise ship that has killed three people and sickened others.
The germ, called hantavirus, has been confirmed in one of the cases. The World Health Organization said detailed investigations of the cruise ship outbreak are ongoing, including further laboratory testing.
Disease outbreaks involving gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses happen periodically on cruise ships, which are full of people in close quarters for long stretches of time. They are usually caused by germs that are highly contagious — most notably, norovirus.
There were 23 gastrointestinal outbreaks on cruise ships that called at U.S. ports last year, with 18 caused by norovirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But hantavirus is not typically associated with cruise ships, and it is not easily spread between people.
Studies indicate hantaviruses have been around for centuries, with outbreaks documented in Asia and Europe. It wasn't until the early 1990s that a previously unknown group of hantaviruses emerged in the southwestern United States as the cause of an acute respiratory disease now known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
The disease gained attention last year after late actor Gene Hackman 's wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico.
The virus is spread by rodents and, more rarely, people
Hantavirus is mainly spread by contact with rodents or their urine, saliva or droppings, particularly when the material is disturbed and becomes airborne, posing a risk of inhalation. People are typically exposed to hantavirus around their homes, cabins or sheds, especially when cleaning out enclosed spaces with little ventilation or exploring areas where there are mouse droppings.
The WHO says that while it rarely happens, hantaviruses can also spread directly between people.
There's one strain endemic to Argentina and Chile that does have the ability to transmit person-to-person, said Steven Bradfute, an associate professor and associate director of the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, which specializes in hantavirus research.
If it is what is known as Andes virus, he said it's typically fairly contained because it would spread only through close contact, such as sharing a bed or sharing food.
"We haven't had huge person-to-person spreads of hantavirus infection ever before and there's no reason to suspect a huge outbreak from this case at this point," Bradfute said.
The U.S. CDC began tracking the virus after a 1993 outbreak in the Four Corners region — the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.
It was an astute physician with the Indian Health Service who first noticed a pattern of deaths among young patients, said Michelle Harkins, a pulmonologist with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center who for years has been studying the disease and helping patients.
Most U.S. cases are in Western states. New Mexico and Arizona are hot spots, likely because the odds are greater for mouse-human encounters in rural areas.
The illness starts with flu-like symptoms
An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms that include a fever, chills, muscle aches and maybe a headache — much like the flu would feel.
Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one and eight weeks after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest, as the lungs fill with fluid.
The other syndrome caused by hantavirus — known as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause bleeding, high fever, and kidney failure — usually develops within a week or two after exposure.
Death rates vary by which hantavirus causes the illness. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is fatal in about 35% of people infected, while the death rate for hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome varies from 1% to 15% of patients, according to the CDC.
A lot of unknowns about the illness and treatment
There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.
Despite years of research, many questions have yet to be answered, including why it can be mild for some people and severe for others and how antibodies are developed. Some researchers have been following patients over long periods of time in hopes of finding a treatment.
"In the Americas, hantavirus infection is very serious, but it's also quite rare," Bradfute said. "And so for a time that probably led to less research into it because of funding priorities, but I know there's been a lot of interest in funding hantavirus work of late."
While there are "a lot of mysteries," Harkins noted that what researchers do know is that rodent exposure is key.
The best way to avoid the germ is to minimize contact with rodents and their droppings. Use protective gloves and a bleach solution for cleaning up rodent droppings. Public health experts caution against sweeping or vacuuming, which can cause virus particles to get into the air.
Different versions of hantavirus documented in different countries
The word hantavirus refers to a broad family of viruses, with different versions in different countries. Almost none of them have been found to spread from person to person, with the possible exception of a version found in South America — and it makes sense that virus is under suspicion, since the cruise originated in Argentina, said Angela Luis, a hantavirus researcher at the University of Montana.
A thorough investigation will be crucial in determining exactly what happened, and may help settle the question of whether it does spread among people, Luis said.
"My guess is we're going to learn a lot from this," Luis said.
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Associated Press medical writer Mike Stobbe contributed from New York.
—Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico Highlands University President Neil Woolf has been removed from his post by the school’s Board of Regents amid faculty dissatisfaction.
Woolf was placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately after a special regents meeting Friday, according to an email sent to NMHU faculty and staff.
In a Facebook post, Woolf said the board provided no explanation for their decision and that he hadn’t heard any indications that there were concerns.
“Since day one, my focus has been clear: strengthening Highlands for the students and communities we serve,” Woolf wrote. “Together, we have made measurable progress — improving the university’s financial position, achieving record fundraising, launching new academic programs aligned with regional workforce needs, increasing enrollment, and building meaningful partnerships across New Mexico.
“I remain committed to that work. I welcome the opportunity to address this situation directly and to continue moving Highlands forward.”
Woolf was appointed to the presidency in 2024 after a national search. He most recently served as the executive vice president at Southern Oregon University.
NMHU has just over 2,800 students. The public, state-run university’s flagship campus is in Las Vegas, with satellite locations in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Farmington and Santa Fe.
Kimberly Blea, who most recently served as vice president of student affairs at NMHU, has been appointed interim president, according to the email.
"I am deeply honored by the trust the Board of Regents has placed in me to lead New Mexico Highlands University during this period of transition,” Blea said in a statement. “My commitment to every member of this campus community is simple: I will lead with transparency, compassion, and an unwavering focus on our students and our mission.”
Blea will hold an open forum Wednesday to answer questions, the email said, and the Board of Regents will reconvene on June 2 to consider further action.
Doajo Hicks, NMHU’s general counsel, declined to comment on personnel matters when reached about Woolf’s dismissal.
Kathy Jenkins, professor of exercise science and president of the NMHU Faculty and Staff Association, said university employees had problems with Woolf for the past two years.
“We’ve had union issues. They’re not following our (collective bargaining agreements),” Jenkins said. “We wrote the Board of Regents two months ago expressing our concern, and they told us to basically stay in our lane and that they supported the president. And then all of a sudden this happened.”
Jenkins said discontent worsened after faculty and staff raised workplace safety issues at the university’s Ivan Hilton Science Building, which closed for several months starting Sept. 3, 2024, after reports of a chemical spill, the Las Vegas Optic reported.
Marty Lujan, a custodian at NMHU who worked in the building, died 11 days later. An autopsy report obtained by the Optic found Lujan died of complications from diabetes, though union officials said he showed signs of chemical exposure.
“We’ve been really upset,” Jenkins said. “That was awful, with the storage of chemicals being so bad.”
Jenkins said faculty had been “left in the dark” about whether anyone else from the administration had been let go as the university’s commencement ceremony approaches later this week, featuring U.S. senator and alumnus Ben Ray Luján as the keynote speaker.
“What’s really surprising is this is graduation week,” Jenkins said. “These are the people that do graduation.”
Senators, auditor dropped from WNMU former president's lawsuit
—Algernon d’Ammassa, Albuquerque Journal
Three lawmakers named in a lawsuit brought by Western New Mexico University’s former president have been dismissed as defendants by a state judge’s order last week.
Joseph Shepard sued the university along with state Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, state Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, and former state Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill of Silver City, alleging a conspiracy to “destroy his reputation” after Shepard questioned a $1 million appropriation for a charter school located on WNMU’s main campus in Silver City.
The lawsuit also named State Auditor Joseph Maestas, whose office oversaw a special audit addressing the handling of public money by Shepard and the former university regents. Current regent John Wertheim is a defendant as well.
But state District Judge Jarod Hofacket ruled that the actions attributed to the senators are covered by the state Constitution’s guarantee of immunity to lawmakers for legislative activity.
Shepard filed a motion Friday asking Hofacket to reconsider his order, as well as a separate order dismissing Maestas as a defendant.
Shepard served as WNMU’s president from 2011 through 2024, leaving the post amid controversy after multiple state probes into spending at the university as well as a $1.9 million severance payment and $200,000 faculty appointment at WNMU’s business school, approved by the former regents shortly before Shepard’s departure.
The golden parachute prompted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to request the resignations of WNMU’s entire board of regents at the start of 2025.
A newly appointed board subsequently voided Shepard’s faculty appointment, prompting Shepard to claim breach of contract in a separate pending lawsuit.
Shepard claimed that Muñoz, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, hatched a plan with Correa Hemphill, who sat on the committee, to appropriate $1 million to WNMU that would actually be spent on the Aldo Leopold Charter School without disclosing that Correa Hemphill — a psychologist — had worked for the school and had children enrolled there.
Shepard is seeking damages under New Mexico’s Whistleblower Act, claiming ethics investigations into his use of public funds and termination as a faculty member were in retaliation for his objections to the appropriation. Shepard also sought triple damages through New Mexico’s anti-racketeering statute.
Hofacket ruled that, even if Shepard’s claims about the senators were assumed to be true, “they occurred in the course of legislative budgeting, deliberation, committee inquiry, or oversight,” and are therefore covered by legislative immunity, regardless of whether their intent was proper or not.
Correa Hemphill filed to run for reelection in 2024 but later withdrew, citing the financial burden of serving in New Mexico’s unsalaried Legislature.
After Hofacket’s ruling, Correa Hemphill issued a statement saying the ruling “brings an enormous sense of relief and closure.”
She also denied any impropriety, writing, “As legislators, we often face difficult decisions and challenging appropriations processes, but I always carried out my duties with honesty, transparency, and deep respect for the people I served.”
“I am of course pleased by the recent ruling, but as the case is still ongoing, I don’t have further comments at this time,” Stewart told the Journal.
Muñoz was unavailable for comment Monday afternoon.
In a separate order, Hofacket granted a motion to dismiss Maestas as a defendant, ruling that Shepard had not made a factual claim implicating Maestas in criminal acts supporting a racketeering claim.
The rulings leave the university and Wertheim as defendants.
Shepard is himself a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the New Mexico State Ethics Commission, set for trial in 2027 unless a settlement is reached.
Mediation is ongoing in still another lawsuit brought in 2025 by state Attorney General Raúl Torrez against Shepard and the university. In that case, Shepard filed a counter suit against the university.
WNMU’s new president, Jose Coll, was selected in March with an official start date of July 1.
First day of early voting includes ‘hiccup’ for same-day registration
—Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The first day of early voting on Tuesday for New Mexico’s June 2 primary election included some problems in a handful of counties with the state’s same-day voter registration system.
Secretary of State Director of Communications, Legislative and Executive Affairs Lindsey Bachman confirmed to Source NM that at around 11:30 a.m., the state’s “website firewalls incorrectly determined that traffic between some county computers and the website was unsafe,” and blocked the traffic.
The same-day registration systems “were operational during the event,” she wrote, “but the communications interruptions did not allow them to work together as needed for normal availability in a few affected counties.”
She said the issue was resolved by 1 p.m.
“We are continuing to monitor the situation, but do not expect any recurrence,” Bachman said. She said she did not have confirmation of the specific counties impacted as of Tuesday afternoon.
Sandoval County was one of them, however. Deputy County Clerk Joey Dominguez described the problem as a “hiccup.”
Roosevelt County also had temporary issues with same-day voter registration, but Clerk Mandi Park told Source NM that was because she had a “user-error issue” and forgot her password for the same-day registration application. That problem also was short-lived.
Both county officials said only one person requested same-day registration while the systems were down, and both were able to cast provisional ballots.
Anecdotally, voting began quietly Tuesday morning in Bernalillo County, officials told Source NM. (Bachman said the Secretary of State’s Office will begin reporting voter turnout and same-day registration data on Friday.)
However, Bernalillo County Clerk Michelle Kavanaugh told Source NM she anticipates an uptick in participation in response to the state’s new semi-open primaries.
Under the new law created by Senate Bill 16, passed last year, independent voters can now cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primaries while remaining unaffiliated with either party.
As of Tuesday morning, Kavanaugh said only a handful of “decline to state voters” had voted. Of Bernalillo County’s approximate 447,000 registered voters, 44% are registered as Democrats, 27% as Republicans and another 27% as “decline to state” voters. Of the state’s approximately 1.4 million registered voters, 40% are Democrats, 31% are Republicans and 26% are independent voters. Remaining voters are registered to the state’s minor parties.
“We’ve had some time to prepare and we’re hoping to see a growth in the number of people voting in primaries,” Kavanaugh said outside the Clerk’s Annex on Lomas Road, an “I Voted” sticker on her lapel.
Democratic voter Sheila Mahoney, a retired nurse midwife with Indian Health Services, told Source NM she supported the inclusion of “decline to state voters” in New Mexico primaries.
“I think it’s great,” Mahoney, 71, told Source NM. “Why should they be left out of the primary, they vote, they’re citizens.”
Democratic voter Lance Chilton, 81, a retired pediatrician from Albuquerque said he had “mixed feelings” on the recent expansion.
“I prefer that everybody get a chance to vote, I just think they should have to determine which group they’re part of, which party, when they do,” he said.
Carmen López, a co-leader of the nonpartisan group Observe New Mexico Elections, said the group is training coordinators to observe the primary elections for the first time in all 33 counties.
“In 2024, we only attempted to observe in three or four counties,” López told Source NM.
The observers watch poll worker training, election machine checks and election result certifications and compile a report to assess election quality, to “heighten transparency and strengthen voter confidence” in the process López said. For the general election, the group plans to seek up to 300 observers across the state, she said.
Expanded early voting, with additional primary election sites, will begin May 16 and end on May 30 in advance of Election Day on June 2.
Today Indigenous people raise awareness about their missing and murdered
—Associated Press
Indigenous peoples across North America are gathering this month to raise awareness about the disproportionate violence in their communities while demanding sustained response from authorities.
While May 5 is recognized as the day of awareness in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement, events already are starting and planned throughout the month. In Canada, it's referred to as Red Dress Day after Métis artist Jaime Black used the garments as a symbol of what Black said is gendered and racialized violence.
Events include prayer walks, art exhibits, self-defense classes, film screenings, 5k runs, healing circles, and marches and speeches at U.S. state capitols to plead for better cooperation among law enforcement agencies.
U.S. Justice Department data shows Indigenous women are more than twice as likely to be homicide victims than the national average. Many people wear red and paint their faces with red handprints while vowing to speak for those who have been silenced.
USPS unveils Route 66 centennial stamps, born from a photographer’s 42 trips
—Associated Press
The U.S. Postal Service is releasing a new series of stamps to honor Route 66’s centennial. The offering includes eight stamps — one each for the states traversed by the Mother Road.
The special collection was curated from images captured by photographer David J. Schwartz. He has traveled the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route dozens of times over two decades. He hopes his work can help keep Route 66 alive by inspiring others to explore the highway and support local businesses along the journey.
New Mexico seeks child safety restrictions on Meta apps and algorithms in trial's 2nd phase - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
New Mexico state prosecutors are seeking fundamental changes to Meta's social media apps and algorithms to safeguard children in the second phase of a landmark trial on allegations that platforms such as Instagram have created a public safety hazard.
Opening statements began Monday in the three-week bench trial to decide whether the platforms of Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, pose a public nuisance.
In the first phase, jurors ordered $375 million in civil penalties against Meta, determining that it knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
Prosecutors are now asking a judge to impose fundamental changes aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.
Meta has vowed to appeal the jury verdict and warned that it could eliminate service in New Mexico entirely if forced to comply with impractical mandates and multibillion-dollar remedies.
"The fact that we're having a trial on nuisance is itself a remarkable outcome," said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. "That theory is not well accepted as applied to the internet, and that theory doesn't really fit the internet."
As the trial reconvened Monday, state District Court Judge Bryan Biedscheid addressed concerns that the court might overreach its authority.
"I'm probably not the easiest sell on an idea where I would become a one-person legislature, judge and executive branch enforcer," he said.
Trial could alter algorithms that define social media
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the jury verdict punctured the aura of invincibility protecting tech companies from liability for material on their platforms under Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act.
A Los Angeles jury separately found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children, validating long-standing concerns about dangers of social media.
New Mexico prosecutors are demanding that Meta help remedy a mental health crisis among children through a series of safeguards and changes, including a redesign of algorithms that make content recommendations so they no longer prioritize constant engagement.
New Mexico prosecution attorney David Ackerman outlined a $3.7 billion proposal for Meta to remedy harm to children that "recognizes the scope of the public nuisance that Meta has caused."
"Across New Mexico, across the country, children are begging for help," he said in opening statements. "It is thorough and it is necessary. There are items in this abatement plan for public education, to assist schools, to assist law enforcement, to assist mental health providers."
Prosecutors are also targeting other app features linked to compulsive use such as "infinite scroll," which continuously loads content; push notifications; and default settings that show tallies for "likes" and sharing. Their lawsuit also seeks improvements to age verification and other steps aimed at curbing child sexual exploitation.
And New Mexico wants child accounts on Meta platforms to have an associated parent or guardian, as well as a court-supervised child safety monitor to track safety improvements over time.
Meta asserts free speech protections
Executives have said the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive use and that many demands from prosecutors are redundant.
In opening statements, Meta attorney Alex Parkinson disputed the idea that there is a public right to social media under nuisance laws.
"Are bars a public nuisance because drinking alcohol is undeniably associated with car fatalities?" Parkinson said. "If individual (social media) users have been hurt, they have a remedy -- personal injury cases to cover the mental healthcare or any other care that they need. And that is what is happening in other lawsuits right now."
The company also argues that its platforms are being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use with less robust protections, while invoking concerns about restrictions on free speech.
"The state's proposed mandates infringe on parental rights and stifle free expression," Meta said last week in a statement.
Parkinson said prosecutors are making unworkable demands to change apps only for New Mexico users — an assertion disputed by the attorney general.
"To geo-fence New Mexico users into that version of the apps, new apps for New Mexico, that is not feasible, technologically," Parkinson told the judge.
Influence could be far-reaching
The case is the first to reach trial among lawsuits filed by more than 40 state attorneys general on allegations that Meta contributes to a youth mental health crisis. Most are pursuing remedies in U.S. federal court.
Torrez said he envisions a broad public education campaign to help parents and children navigate social media safely, with new public service warnings on Meta apps.
"All of those kids need help, they need counseling, they need therapy," Torrez said at a news conference Monday, accompanied by parent advocates for social media reforms.
Parkinson said the state's $3.7 billion plan goes too far and would reshape the way all mental and behavioral healthcare is delivered to New Mexico teens.
"The state is asking you to develop from scratch a completely new regulatory regime that far exceeds anything in Europe, in Australia, anywhere," Parkinson said in reference to a bevy of recent and planned restrictions on children's online activities beyond the U.S.
Goldman said prosecutors may be venturing into uncertain legal waters just in seeking age verification mandates.
"In practice a court order saying that Facebook had to impose age authentication would have no Supreme Court textual support," he said. "The Supreme Court might bless it. We don't know."
___
This story has been updated to correct the wording in the quote from Judge Bryan Biedscheid.
Early voting set to begin in New Mexico amid uncertainty over semi-open primary's impact - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Early and absentee voting are set to begin Tuesday for the June primary election that’s a bit different than any previous election in New Mexico history.
This year’s primary election will be the first in which independent voters, or those who decline to state a party affiliation, will be able to cast a ballot without having to select a major party affiliation.
Specifically, such voters will be able to request either a Republican or Democratic ballot but will not be bound by their decision in future elections.
The semi-open primary system, which was signed into law last year by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, could bolster turnout rates in a state in which only 25.2% of registered voters cast a ballot in New Mexico’s 2022 primary election. The turnout rate was even lower two years ago.
Bernalillo County Clerk Michelle Kavanaugh said Monday that letters were sent out to all 123,000 independent voters who live in the county, informing them about the new system.
Early voting for the June 2 primary election will be administered in two phases. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect:
“We’ve tried really hard for the last year to prepare voters for this change,” Kavanaugh told the Journal.
But she acknowledged uncertainty about how many independent voters will ultimately participate in the primary election, saying, “This is uncharted territory for us.”
Early voting for the June 2 primary election will be administered in two phases. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect:
May 5 - May 15: Early in-person voting at county clerks’ offices.
Voters in Bernalillo County can vote at the Clerk’s Annex in Albuquerque during normal business hours (Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.).
May 16 - May 30: Expanded early voting at designated voting centers.
There will be 21 early vote centers in Bernalillo County, with most locations open from 10 a.m. through 7 p.m., on Monday through Saturday.
The number of independent voters has steadily increased in New Mexico since 1990, with their ranks growing at an even faster rate since the state implemented automatic voter registration last summer.
As of the end of April, there were more than 378,000 independent voters registered across New Mexico — or roughly 26% of the state’s total voting population, according to Secretary of State’s Office data.
All statewide offices are up for election this year and several seats have drawn contested primary races. That includes the open contest to pick New Mexico’s next governor, as Lujan Grisham is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. She will step down at year’s end.
Meanwhile, several policy changes have been made in recent years to make it easier to vote in New Mexico, including a same-day voting registration system that allows eligible state residents to register in person and cast a ballot up through Election Day.
But that system also caused delays in the 2024 general election, as large amounts of voters at some polling places caused technical issues with processing same-day voter registration applications.
Secretary of State’s Office spokeswoman Lindsey Bachman said Monday that state election officials have worked since that election to improve the secure application system used to register voters at polling locations.
She also said there have been 53,696 absentee ballot applications that have been accepted for this year’s primary election. Such absentee ballots can be counted in New Mexico as long as they’re received before polls close on Election Day.
Indigenous people honor and raise awareness for relatives who are missing or have been killed - By Savannah Peters and Nancy Marie Spears, Associated Press/The Imprint
Across the country, Indigenous people are gathering this week to honor loved ones who are missing or have been killed and to call for better data collection, law enforcement response and reforms to make their communities safer.
From U.S. state capitols and tribal community spaces to the streets of major cities, hundreds of marches, rallies, talking circles, self-defense classes and candlelight vigils are planned for the week of May 5, which is observed as a national day of awareness for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement.
The day reflects both the collective grief and the resilience of Indigenous communities, where the federal government has a legal responsibility to ensure public safety. All too often, resources to prevent and respond to violence are in short supply.
Many events call for participants to wear red, a color that has become synonymous with honoring Indigenous victims of violence in the U.S. and Canada.
A hidden crisis
Native Americans face disproportionate rates of violence in the U.S., a crisis that advocates say is rooted in the systematic removal of Native people from their land and the federal government's efforts to rid them of their cultures.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Native Americans and Alaska Natives are more than twice as likely than the general population to be victims of a violent crime, and Native women are twice as likely to be victims of homicide. At the end of 2025, the FBI's National Crime Information Center recorded just under 1,500 active federal cases involving missing Native Americans.
Experts say that's likely an undercount because of jurisdictional confusion, racial misclassification and inconsistent data collection.
Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, said that there's been progress in accounting for the true scope of the crisis but that law enforcement resources have been slow to follow.
"Don't look at the numbers and feel sorry for us," Echo-Hawk said, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. "Look at the numbers and say, 'How do we ensure that this doesn't continue?'"
Federal action
In 2020, President Donald Trump signed Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act into law, both aimed at solving and preventing cases of violent crime in Indian Country with improved data collection and law enforcement reforms.
But implementation of those laws has been slow and erratic. Under the Biden administration in 2022, a federal commission to study the crisis convened two years behind schedule. Its extensive recommendations — ranging from expanding authority for tribal law enforcement to improving communication with the victims' families — were made public in 2023.
The recommendations were removed from government websites last year amid the Trump administration's purge of initiatives it associates with diversity, equity and inclusion.
Federally recognized tribes are sovereign nations within the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump's Department of Justice has continued its Operation Not Forgotten initiative, surging dozens of FBI agents, analysts and other personnel to field offices near tribal lands on a rotating, temporary basis. According to the FBI, those assignments have yielded more than 200 arrests and convictions in homicide, domestic abuse and sexual assault cases since 2023.
Michael Henderson, director of public safety for the Navajo Nation, said there are "pros and cons" to a bigger FBI footprint in Indian Country. Federal officers can bring fresh eyes and high-tech forensic tools to cold cases. But Henderson said many of these agents arrive with little experience working in Indigenous communities or investigating violent crime.
"More manpower from the FBI on reservations, that's not a good solution in my mind," Henderson said, adding that federal funds could be better spent staffing and funding tribal police departments.
Families advocate for their relatives
At a Sunday prayer walk in Colorado Springs, Colorado, marchers chanted, "No more stolen lives on stolen land" and carried signs with the photos and stories of dozens of Indigenous people who have been killed or have disappeared.
Among the marchers was Denise Porambo. Her daughter, Destiny Jeriann Whiteman, was killed last August where she lived on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in southwest Colorado. She was 24 and had an infant son.
"It hurts every day," Porambo said after the march, her voice breaking.
In the absence of a nationwide strategy for handling these cases, advocates in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement say that burden often falls to family members.
Grace Bulltail's 18-year-old niece, Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, was found dead several days after she disappeared from her home on the Crow Reservation in Montana in August 2019. Her family remembers her as a kindhearted person and a tenacious high school athlete. They organize marches, vigils and courthouse demonstrations to raise awareness about the case and tirelessly pester law enforcement for action and answers.
No arrests have been made, and the cause of death was ruled inconclusive. Stops Pretty Places' grandmother is organizing a demonstration Tuesday at a courthouse bordering the Crow Reservation.
"We have had to advocate for ourselves and for Kaysera every step of the way," Bulltail said. ___ Spears reported from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
___
This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.
USPS unveils Route 66 centennial stamps, born from a photographer's 42 trips - By John O'Connor, Associated Press
You're standing in the middle of an empty highway, staring off into the fading, golden light of Arizona's high desert. The soundtrack playing in your mind? Depeche Mode.
Industrial-leaning synth-pop strains might seem incongruous with such a vista, but it was the alternative rock band's homage to Route 66 that seduced David J. Schwartz. With camera in hand he has made 42 trips over two decades along the celebrated highway, qualifying himself for the job of creating postage stamps commemorating the Mother Road's centennial.
The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday is releasing eight stamps marking significant parts of the road in each of the states it traverses, passing by vintage diners, gas stations and motels — many since preserved or restored — along with breathtaking vistas and wide horizons of the open road.
Route 66 is paved with history, from its early days as an escape from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, through serving as a vital supply route during World War II, to its mid-century role as an antidote for wanderlust. A symbol of freedom and mobility, it has evolved into a time capsule of Americana, steeped in nostalgia and neon.
'Road trips, big cars, neon signs'
As teenagers in 1988, Schwartz and his best friend had planned a road trip after girlfriends introduced them to Depeche Mode, where they discovered a cover of Bobby Troup's 1946 pop standard, "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66." Schwartz's mother nixed his participation, delaying his first taste of the open road until 2004.
To Schwartz, the road — stretching 2,448 miles (3,940 kilometers) — represents a significant piece of a newly mobile 20th century America, from its debut in 1926 to its decommissioning in 1985: "Road trips, big cars, neon signs." Though retired from the federal highway system, vast stretches of the route are still in use and a favorite of road warriors and tourists to this day.
"So much to explore. You start here in Illinois on 66 and you're cruising through prairie land," Schwartz said during a recent interview in Springfield. "By the time you get out west, you're in the desert or you're in mountains through hairpin turns. It's just an incredible journey and you just get such a beautiful slice of America going through it."
Tired of retail management, Schwartz went back to school to study photography and had the idea of Route 66 stamps as early as a decade ago. He was tapped for the project in 2023. He recalls thinking, "Here is my moment to bring Route 66 to the masses."
Greg Breeding, a USPS art director for stamp design, was working on a graphic showing a map of the road when he discovered Schwartz's photos. They were beautifully photographed, not commercial and slick.
"They're as if you were there," he said, "which makes them especially useful for stamps."
The USPS plate contains 16 stamps, two of each one representing Route 66 host states. A ninth photo serves as selvage, or the image surrounding the block. It's the scene of that empty Arizona highway, shot in 2023 near Seligman, Arizona, when Schwartz and his high school friend finally took that trip 35 years in the making.
'Feel the land as you're traveling'
But a road is a road, isn't it? Why can't a traveler get the same view standing on one of the interstate highways that ultimately bypassed Route 66?
"You'd probably get run over," Schwartz said dryly.
"Interstates are designed to move traffic quickly. They cut through the sides of mountains, they do not follow the contour of the land ...," he added. "On Route 66, you're actually part of the landscape as you move through it. You feel the land as you're traveling."
Breeding and Schwartz steered clear of the fabled highway's most popular spots, not only because those are tougher to get permission to use, but also because they wanted to give people a "fresh look," Breeding said. The stamps are devoid of people, he said, in part to create a sense of allure rather tourist trap vibes.
To that end, the blocks capture both the continuing commerce and the roadside relics that hint at their former vibrancy. Take for example the Conoco Tower Station and U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas, a neon-adorned Art Deco beauty whose luminous lights come alive at dusk.
In Yucca, Arizona, Schwartz photographed the dilapidated "Motel" sign in the relentless noonday sun, revealing desert desolation but also "the enduring pulse of the open road."
Among his favorites is the Illinois entry, a friend's 1929 Model A Ford rumbling down the only remaining section of Route 66 composed of hand-laid brick in Auburn, just south of Springfield. The goal? Create an image that would make viewers feel as if they were there for the birth of Route 66.
"We wanted to show it to be colorful. We wanted to show the quirkiness. We wanted to show the age," Breeding said. "It's like a sort of show, the idea that Route 66 is a living history of the United States, from the past to the present."
Schwartz said he's amazed that the stamps boasting his work will "travel all over the United States and end up in people's mailboxes."
He added: "I hope they really inspire people to get out there and travel the road and support the Mom and Pop businesses and keep Route 66 alive for another 100 years."
NM state representative leads national coalition against U.S. Department of Labor proposal - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico New Mexico state Rep. Eleanor Chávez (D-Albuquerque) late last week announced that she led more than 100 state lawmakers from nearly two dozen states in co-signing a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor to oppose a proposal that critics say would reclassify hundreds of thousands of Americans as contractors rather than employees.
The Labor Department in February announced a proposal to modify the rule that governs whether workers are classified as employees or contractors. In the announcement, it said it would implement an “economic reality test” to determine whether someone is self-employed and, therefore, a contractor, or whether they’re dependent on an employer for work and, therefore, an employee.
In a letter to the Labor Department last week, Chávez and lawmakers nationwide argued that the proposed changes could reclassify 250,000 American workers as independent contractors, which could jeopardize their benefits and shift the burden of unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and Medicaid to the states they live in.
“We are 114 state legislators from 23 states, collectively home to over 176 million people,” they wrote. “The Department has failed to consider the substantial fiscal impact this rule would have on our states. Adopting the proposed rule would impose significant fiscal costs on state governments, and change critical frameworks without sufficient attention to state-level impacts on workers, businesses and budgets.”
The coalition of lawmakers cited a 2009 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that found that if just 1% of employees across the nation were reclassified as contractors, unemployment insurance revenue would plummet $200 million. They also cited a more recent report from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, which found that employee misclassification in fiscal year 2019 cost the state’s general fund $6.4 million to $124.5 million in revenue.
The lawmakers asked the Labor Department to either rescind its proposal or conduct a comprehensive analysis of how it would impact state government budgets before proceeding.
“This is the latest example of the Trump administration turning its back on working people, and leaving states responsible for cleaning up their messes,” Chávez said in a statement. “Rather than protecting the hardworking people at the heart of our economy, the Department of Labor is trying to upend vital workforce systems, without even doing its homework on how much damage it will cause.”
What to know about hantavirus, the illness suspected in a cruise ship outbreak - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
A rodent-borne illness is suspected of causing an outbreak aboard a cruise ship that has killed three people and sickened others.
The germ, called hantavirus, has been confirmed in one of the cases. The World Health Organization said detailed investigations of the cruise ship outbreak are ongoing, including further laboratory testing.
Disease outbreaks involving gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses happen periodically on cruise ships, which are full of people in close quarters for long stretches of time. They are usually caused by germs that are highly contagious — most notably, norovirus.
There were 23 gastrointestinal outbreaks on cruise ships that called at U.S. ports last year, with 18 caused by norovirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But hantavirus is not typically associated with cruise ships, and it is not easily spread between people.
Studies indicate hantaviruses have been around for centuries, with outbreaks documented in Asia and Europe. It wasn't until the early 1990s that a previously unknown group of hantaviruses emerged in the southwestern United States as the cause of an acute respiratory disease now known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
The disease gained attention last year after late actor Gene Hackman 's wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico.
The virus is spread by rodents and, more rarely, people
Hantavirus is mainly spread by contact with rodents or their urine, saliva or droppings, particularly when the material is disturbed and becomes airborne, posing a risk of inhalation. People are typically exposed to hantavirus around their homes, cabins or sheds, especially when cleaning out enclosed spaces with little ventilation or exploring areas where there are mouse droppings.
The WHO says that while it rarely happens, hantaviruses can also spread directly between people.
There's one strain endemic to Argentina and Chile that does have the ability to transmit person-to-person, said Steven Bradfute, an associate professor and associate director of the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, which specializes in hantavirus research.
If it is what is known as Andes virus, he said it's typically fairly contained because it would spread only through close contact, such as sharing a bed or sharing food.
"We haven't had huge person-to-person spreads of hantavirus infection ever before and there's no reason to suspect a huge outbreak from this case at this point," Bradfute said.
The U.S. CDC began tracking the virus after a 1993 outbreak in the Four Corners region — the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.
It was an astute physician with the Indian Health Service who first noticed a pattern of deaths among young patients, said Michelle Harkins, a pulmonologist with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center who for years has been studying the disease and helping patients.
Most U.S. cases are in Western states. New Mexico and Arizona are hot spots, likely because the odds are greater for mouse-human encounters in rural areas.
The illness starts with flu-like symptoms
An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms that include a fever, chills, muscle aches and maybe a headache — much like the flu would feel.
Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one and eight weeks after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest, as the lungs fill with fluid.
The other syndrome caused by hantavirus — known as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause bleeding, high fever, and kidney failure — usually develops within a week or two after exposure.
Death rates vary by which hantavirus causes the illness. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is fatal in about 35% of people infected, while the death rate for hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome varies from 1% to 15% of patients, according to the CDC.
A lot of unknowns about the illness and treatment
There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.
Despite years of research, many questions have yet to be answered, including why it can be mild for some people and severe for others and how antibodies are developed. Some researchers have been following patients over long periods of time in hopes of finding a treatment.
"In the Americas, hantavirus infection is very serious, but it's also quite rare," Bradfute said. "And so for a time that probably led to less research into it because of funding priorities, but I know there's been a lot of interest in funding hantavirus work of late."
While there are "a lot of mysteries," Harkins noted that what researchers do know is that rodent exposure is key.
The best way to avoid the germ is to minimize contact with rodents and their droppings. Use protective gloves and a bleach solution for cleaning up rodent droppings. Public health experts caution against sweeping or vacuuming, which can cause virus particles to get into the air.
Different versions of hantavirus documented in different countries
The word hantavirus refers to a broad family of viruses, with different versions in different countries. Almost none of them have been found to spread from person to person, with the possible exception of a version found in South America — and it makes sense that virus is under suspicion, since the cruise originated in Argentina, said Angela Luis, a hantavirus researcher at the University of Montana.
A thorough investigation will be crucial in determining exactly what happened, and may help settle the question of whether it does spread among people, Luis said.
"My guess is we're going to learn a lot from this," Luis said.
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Associated Press medical writer Mike Stobbe contributed from New York.