Category Archives: New Mexico

Freezing US winter storms threaten to break low-temperature records

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From New Mexico to Portland, Maine, temperatures dropped and snow fell, closing campaigns, football games and roads

Icy winter weather blanketed the US on Saturday as a wave of Arctic storms threatened to break low-temperature records in the heartland, spread cold and snow from coast to coast and cast a chill over everything from football playoffs to presidential campaigns.

As the three-day Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday weekend began, the weather forecast was a quilt of color-coded advisories, from an ice storm warning in Oregon to a blizzard warning in the northern plains to high wind warnings in New Mexico.

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Wayward wolf gets help in finding mate after odyssey across two US states

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A female Mexican gray wolf that was part of reintroduction efforts for the endangered species has been recaptured by officials

A match made in the wilds of New Mexico?

An endangered Mexican wolf captured last weekend after wandering hundreds of miles from Arizona to New Mexico is now being readied for a dating game of sorts as part of federal reintroduction efforts.

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Meta platforms are marketplaces for child predators claims lawsuit

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Facebook and Instagram ‘enabled adults to find, message and groom minors’ for sexual exploitation, alleges state of New Mexico legal filing

Meta has allowed its social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, to become marketplaces for child predators, the state of New Mexico alleges in a lawsuit filed against the company and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

The lawsuit claims that Meta “proactively served and directed [children] to egregious, sexually explicit images through recommended users and posts – even where the child has expressed no interest in this content”. It claims Meta “enabled adults to find, message and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos”. The company is also accused of fostering unmoderated user groups devoted to facilitating and selling child sexual exploitation content.

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Wells Fargo workers at two US branches of bank launch efforts to unionize

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Employees in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Bethel, Alaska, make rare move to organize staff in financial industry

Workers at two Wells Fargo bank branches are planning to launch unionization efforts on Monday in a rare move to organize staff at a financial services company.

Employees in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Bethel, Alaska, said they would notify the National Labor Relations Board that they plan to hold elections to decide whether to unionize, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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Father found guilty of terrorism in US case linked to 2018 toddler kidnapping

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Jury found Siraj ibn Wahhaj and three others guilty of a range of charges including kidnapping resulting in death

Jurors on Tuesday delivered split verdicts in a case that stemmed from the search for a three-year-old boy who went missing from Georgia and was found dead hundreds of miles away at a squalid compound in northern New Mexico.

Four members of the family were on trial. Three were found guilty on federal kidnapping charges. Two were convicted on related terrorism charges. The boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was one of the two people found guilty of terrorism-related charges.

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Alec Baldwin to be recharged with involuntary manslaughter in Rust shooting

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Actor’s case in connection with fatal film shooting in 2021 will reportedly be brought before grand jury in mid-November

New Mexico prosecutors intend to recharge actor Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the fatal 2021 Rust shooting, NBC News reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Baldwin’s case will be brought before a grand jury in mid-November, the report added.

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‘A gorgeous sight’: delight and wonder as US viewers watch annular solar eclipse

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Amid varying levels of cloud cover, Americans gathered and donned special glasses for rare celestial show

It was a moment that won’t happen again for 16 years – and Mother Nature obscured it in some places.

“It was supposed to be sunny in Corpus Christi today and now is clouds everywhere. Trying to see where we have to drive to,” one frustrated eclipse viewer in Texas posted on the Total Solar Eclipse 2024 Facebook page. (The title references next April’s total eclipse, which will be visible in some areas of the US.)

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New Mexico footprints are oldest sign of humans in Americas, research shows

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Fossil footprints date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, upending previous theory that humans reached continent later

New research confirms that fossil human footprints in New Mexico are probably the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that upends what many archaeologists thought they knew.

The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lakebed in White Sands national park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published on Thursday in the journal Science.

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New Mexico judge blocks suspension of right to carry guns in public

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Setback for Governor Lujan Grisham as judge sides with advocates for gun rights even after recent shootings took lives of children

A federal judge has blocked part of a public health order that suspended the right to carry guns in public across Albuquerque, New Mexico, the state’s largest metro area, as criticism mounted over the actions taken by the governor and political divides widened.

The ruling Wednesday by US district judge David Urias marks a setback for Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Democratic governor, as she responds to several recent shootings that took the lives of children, including an 11-year-old boy as he left a minor league baseball game in Albuquerque.

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Gun rights group sues New Mexico governor over emergency firearm ban

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Michelle Lujan Grisham announced open and concealed carry restrictions on Friday after the deaths of three children

A pro-gun group is suing the New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, in an effort to block a 30-day emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public in Albuquerque’s Bernalillo county issued last week after a spate of shootings.

The governor announced open and concealed carry restrictions on Friday in a public health order relating to gun violence after the fatal shootings of an 11-year-old boy on his way home from a minor league baseball game last week, as well as the fatal shooting of a four-year-old girl in her bed in a motor home and a 13-year-old girl in Taos county in August.

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New Mexico officials call for governor’s impeachment after firearms restriction

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Democratic governor’s emergency order restricts carrying firearms for at least 30 days amid spate of gun violence

New Mexico state representatives Stefani Lord and John Block are calling for the impeachment of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham after Grisham issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque, the state’s largest city.

The governor on Friday issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days amid a spate of gun violence.

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Santa Fe monument to controversial frontiersman Kit Carson vandalized

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Mayor denounces ‘cowardly act’ targeting US soldier involved in death of hundreds of Native Americans in 19th century

Police in New Mexico’s capital city are investigating the partial destruction of a public monument to a 19th-century frontiersman and US soldier who had a leading role in the death of hundreds of Native Americans during Anglo-American settlement of the American West.

The monument to Christopher “Kit” Carson has been encircled by a plywood barrier for its own protection since 2020, when Santa Fe was swept by the movement to remove depictions of historical figures who mistreated Native Americans amid a national reckoning over racial injustice.

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Virgin Galactic successfully flies tourists to space for first time

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Six individuals were aboard VSS Unity space plane, including first mother-daughter duo to venture to space together

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company’s first crew of tourists to space, successfully launched and landed on Thursday.

The mission, known as Galactic 02, took off shortly after 11am ET from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

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Residents of US south-west swelter under record-breaking heatwave

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Relentless temperatures upwards of 100F leave millions under extreme heat warnings and outdoor events cancelled

Record-breaking heat is baking the US south-west this week, putting millions under extreme heat warnings as temperatures upwards of 100F (38C) hit Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and southern California for days on end.

Even desert residents accustomed to scorching summers are feeling the relentless grip of the heat. Phoenix, which hit a 12th consecutive day of 110F on Tuesday, could see its longest ever heatwave.

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Rust film set weapons supervisor was likely hungover, prosecutors say

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Prosecutors say Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, charged with involuntary manslaughter, has a history of reckless conduct at work

Prosecutors in a case arising from the 2021 fatal shooting on the set of the movie Rust claim that the weapons supervisor on the production was drinking and smoking marijuana in the evenings during filming – and she was likely hungover when she loaded a live bullet into the revolver that actor Alec Baldwin used.

The accusation was made in a response to a request by attorneys for the gun handler Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to have involuntary manslaughter charges against her dismissed, as her defense condemned what they said were “character assassination” tactics in a mishandled case.

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Three people killed and five injured in shooting at New Mexico biker rally

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Mayor of Red River says the shooting was gang-related, and that the shooters have all been taken into custody

Three people were killed and five injured in a shooting at a biker rally in Red River, New Mexico, on Saturday.

Neither the victims nor the shooters were local residents and were among bikers who were visiting for the rally over the long weekend holiday leading into Memorial Day, Red River mayor Linda Calhoun told the Guardian on Sunday.

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Historic Colorado River deal not enough to stave off long-term crisis, experts say

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Agreement between California, Arizona and Nevada will cut water consumption by 13% but experts warn river is still in serious peril

A hard-fought agreement between California, Arizona and Nevada to slash the states’ use of the shrinking Colorado River is only a temporary salve to a long-term water crisis that continues to threaten the foundations of life in the American west, experts have warned.

The deal, announced on Monday, between the three states that make up the lower portion of the sprawling Colorado basin will pare back 13% of water consumption from the beleaguered river over the next three years if adopted, averting the prospect of more stringent cuts imposed by the federal government. Backed by $1.2bn in federal funds, the bulk of the reductions are structured to encourage voluntary cuts taken by rights holders, in exchange for grant money.

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Family of teen shooter who killed three says he struggled with mental illness

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New Mexico 18-year-old killed three women and injured six others in mass shooting on Monday in Farmington

The family of an 18-year-old high school student who took three of more than a dozen guns to which he had access and killed three elderly women without provocation in New Mexico on Monday has claimed he was struggling with his mental health before the attack.

The shooter, who was armed with at least three guns and wore body armor before police killed him, “was fighting a battle of mental illness that he lost”, his family asserted on Friday in a statement, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

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New Mexico shooting: at least three dead and multiple wounded

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Two police officers were among the wounded in the shooting in Farmington, in the north-west of the state

At least three people have been killed and multiple people injured after a shooting in Farmington, New Mexico, where the suspected gunman was killed, police said on Monday.

Farmington is in the north-west of the state, adjacent to the Navajo Nation. Federal agents were responding to the mass shooting, the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) office in Phoenix, Arizona, said on Twitter, as were state and local police.

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New Mexico police kill homeowner after showing up at wrong address

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Farmington officers on paid administrative leave after shooting Robert Dotson while responding to call from across the street

Officers with the Farmington police department of north-western New Mexico shot and killed a homeowner when they showed up at the wrong address in response to a domestic violence call this week, according to state authorities.

The shooting happened about 11.30pm Wednesday. New Mexico state police released more details late on Thursday, and Farmington police confirmed on Friday that the three officers involved were on paid administrative leave pending a review of the case.

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