New Mexico

Starting on July 1, people riding bicycles in New Mexico will be able to ride through stop signs without coming to a full stop, and stop at red traffic lights and continue even if the light hasn’t turned green — as long as it’s safe to do so.

That’s according to a new state law Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed on Friday.

Senate Bill 73 changes New Mexico’s traffic law to allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, and to treat red traffic lights as stop signs and proceed if there are no other cars, cyclists or pedestrians.

SOCORRO, N.M. (KRQE) – Fire crews are working to put out a wildfire in the bosque area east of Socorro.

Seventy crew members from the surrounding areas and the state were called in to help fight the Otero Fire. Response crews were able to put in containment lines on the fire’s north side. There is still fire activity on the south side, and crews are working to strengthen containment lines.

• Start Date/Time: Sunday, April 27, 2025, at 5 p.m.
• Cause: Under investigation
• Size: Estimated 364 acres
• Location: East of Socorro
• Resources: Forestry Division, Rio Rancho, Lanford, Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, Forest Service. Total personnel: 70.
• Types of vegetation in the area (aka fuels): Grass, brush, bosque fuels
• Containment: 0%
• Road Closures: NA
• Evacuations: None at this time.

While the town isn’t threatened by the fire right now the state is warning people to not flying drones in the area. as that has affected some aerial water drops.

“Please don’t have those in place anywhere near the fire because you see the helicopter going back and forth dropping water onto the fire site any time the drone is spotted we have to ground the helicopter,” said Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico Howie Morales.

GRANTS, N.M. – A wildfire in Grants destroyed six homes and left two firefighters injured Sunday night.

The chief of the Grants Fire Department says it started as a brush fire in a field, then spread to houses behind that field.

KOB 4 asked the GFD about a potential cause, and they did not rule out arson.

“The lack of lightning, is a very suspicious fire, arson is hard to prove, it could have been accidental, but it was human caused,” said Grants Fire and Rescue Chief Mike Maes.

Police reportedly got a tip about a man who could be involved in the start of that fire. They are still looking for that man and the fire is still under investigation.

The two firefighters are expected to be OK.

SOCORRO COUNTY

That wasn’t the only fire that burned Sunday. Fire crews also responded to a 200 acre fire in Socorro County.

Viewers sent KOB 4 video and photos of the fire in the bosque north of Socorro.

Socorro County’s Fire Chief, Fred Berger, says it started on the west side of the river, and jumped to the east. High wind and dry conditions helped spread the flames.

Multiple agencies including Valencia county, Rio Rancho, and State Forestry helped fight the fire.

Archive link because the journal is unreadable

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill Tuesday, April 8 to increase funding for eligible graduate students, allowing them to now receive 100% of tuition and fees.

The now-law will widen the scope of eligibility and the amount awarded to graduate students via the Graduate Scholarship Act.

The Graduate Scholarship was created by the New Mexico State Legislature with the New Mexico Higher Education Department to increase graduate enrollment of underrepresented groups at public post-secondary institutions, according to University of New Mexico Graduate Studies.

Previously, the GSA awarded $7,200 per year for tuition and fees to eligible graduate students, leaving some paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket to make up the difference, according to UNM Dean of Graduate Studies Maria Lane, based on an average cost of $4,000 per semester. The language is now updated to read “one hundred percent of tuition and fees.”

Furthermore, a past requirement for eligibility was enrollment in an assistantship program — think research and teaching assistants — which typically included coverage of tuition. But now, that requirement can be subverted by maintaining a 3.0 GPA if an assistantship or work study isn’t manageable.

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. – U.S. military personnel were deployed along the border in New Mexico.

Several days ago, KOB 4 showed you a U.S. Army Stryker Brigade arriving at Fort Bliss.

On Friday, we saw an Army Stryker vehicle in Sunland Park overlooking the border. Ground troops were also spotted surveying the desert near Ciudad Juárez.

The Army, under the direction of the U.S. Northern Command, says this Joint Task Force-Southern Border aims at sealing the border and repelling illegal activity.

Las Cruces police arrested a third suspect in connection to a Friday night mass shooting at Young Park that left three teens dead and injured 15 other people.

The third arrest is a 17-year-old boy, according to the City of Las Cruces. He joins another 17-year-old boy and 20-year-old Tomas Rivas, who police arrested on Saturday. All three are accused of three open counts of murder. Additional charges against all three are pending.

Rivas was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center early Sunday morning. He is initially being held without bond. The 17-year-old suspects are incarcerated in the juvenile section of the detention facility. Police are not naming them because they are minors.

Three people were killed and 15 others were injured at "an unsanctioned car show" in a park in Las Cruces, New Mexico Friday night mass shooting, according to police.

The Las Cruces Police Department said the shooting happened at around 10 p.m. at Young Park, over 200 miles south of Albuquerque. A preliminary investigation revealed an altercation between two groups at the car show escalated into gunfire, injuring many, including bystanders, according to Police Chief Jeremy Story.

Two victims were killed as the scene and a third was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to Las Cruces Fire Chief Mark Daniels. The three victims are a 16-year-old boy and two 19-year-old men.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27037934

Excerpt:

Civil rights attorneys are sounding the alarm after 48 New Mexico residents “disappeared” after their arrests by federal immigration enforcement agents this month.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement “has not indicated where any of them are being detained, whether they have access to counsel, in what conditions they are being held, or even which agency is holding them,” according to a federal complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.

They have been “effectively forcibly disappeared from our communities,” attorneys wrote.

At least 48 people ICE described as “illegal aliens” were arrested in a week-long series of operations in Albuquerque, Roswell, and Santa Fe earlier this month, according to the agency. But only 21 people had final orders of removal from the country.

“This is not just a procedural issue — it’s a serious human rights violation,” according to Rebecca Sheff, senior staff attorney at ACLU of New Mexico.

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All cases were in Lea county, near the county in Texas where more than 100 cases and one death have been recorded

SANTA FE – The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) reports two adult Lea County residents tested positive for measles Thursday– as confirmed by the NMDOH Scientific Laboratory Division - totaling to three cases this week.

New Mexico meets the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s outbreak criteria with three unrelated cases in Lea County. The cases border Texas’s Gaines County, where cases have jumped from 2 to 48 cases in two weeks. While a connection to the Texas outbreak is suspected, it remains unconfirmed.

It's the Full Wolf Moon! Meetup Superheroes at the Santa Fe, NM Railyard Water Tower, 7pm, to celebrate all the evil we've vanquished this past month. Light up your bikes, and Let's RIDE! Roll out 7:20pm Arrroooooooo!!!

cross-posted from: https://ponder.cat/post/513776

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday responded to the Texas National Guard installing razor wire along the Rio Grande facing New Mexico.

KRQE’s sister station, KTSM, captured video showing troops putting up concertina wire and fencing on the riverbank in the El Paso, Texas, area Tuesday afternoon. The expansion came three days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X that the state would triple its razor wire border barriers to “deny illegal entry into our state and our country.”

Gov. Lujan Grisham released the following statement about Texas’ actions:

Gov. Abbott seems to be pushing to make Texas its own country without regard for his neighbors or the fact that Texas is already part of a great nation—the United States. If he doesn’t think that New Mexico is important to the overall well-being of Texas, then he must be forgetting about the Permian Basin and the oil industry that straddles our two states. I don’t see him laying concertina wire there. Gov. Abbott’s latest political stunt at the border will have no meaningful impact on our nation’s broken immigration system. Only Congress can fix our federal immigration laws, and I implore Republicans in Congress to stop holding up the carefully negotiated, bipartisan agreement they are deliberately stalling in Washington at the expense of our entire nation

This is not the first time Texas has acted on concern that illegal smuggling activity going on in New Mexico would spill into Texas. Earlier this year, the state extended its barrier at a spot where the river stops running parallel to Mexico and turns north into New Mexico.

The New Mexico-facing concertina barrier extends from West Paisano Drive to the Texas side of the Anapra, N.M., bridge between El Paso and Sunland Park.

According to Border Report, The Santa Teresa Border Patrol Station in southern New Mexico is one of the busiest in the nation in terms of migrant smuggling activity; many of the 171 encounters with deceased migrants this fiscal year have occurred in the desert near Sunland Park.

CARLSBAD, N.M. (KRQE) – A bag of Cheetos that was dropped on the ground at Carlsbad Caverns National Park had a large impact on the cave’s ecosystem, according to National Park Service staff.

“At the scale of human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial, but to the life of the cave it can be world changing,” an NPS official wrote on Facebook on Sept. 6. Staff said the bag was found off-trail in the Big Room. The processed corn in Cheetos was softened by the humidity of the cave and “formed the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi.”

This in turn attracted cave crickets, mites, spiders, and flies, which then spread the mold to nearby surfaces. “Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die and stink. And the cycle continues. Rangers spent twenty minutes carefully removing the foreign detritus and molds from the cave surfaces,” according to the post.

The park’s rules say that the only food that can be consumed in the caves is unflavored water. Food and any other drinks are prohibited. Park staff encouraged visitors to be mindful of their activities to prevent things like this from happening.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28424855

Construction is getting underway on a state-funded reproductive health and abortion clinic in southern New Mexico that will cater to local residents and people who travel from neighboring states such as Texas and Oklahoma with major restrictions on abortion, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Thursday.

Construction of the clinic will draw upon $10 million in state funding that was set aside by the governor under a 2022 executive order. New Mexico has one of the country’s most liberal abortion-access laws.

Lujan Grisham, a second-term Democrat who can’t run again in 2026, reiterated her commitment to shoring up abortion access in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and revoked universal access to abortion.

New Mexico Living is unveiling the winners for the first Best of the Land of Enchantment Awards. Starting August 19 and running until August 30, New Mexico Living hosts will announce the winners in each category. The awards aim to recognize local favorites.

The red chile being served up at the Buckhorn Tavern is as New Mexico true as the blood that run through the veins of tavern owner, Ernie Sichler. “Red chile, my family has been growing red chile for over 100 years in the valley,” said Sichler.

The Buckhorn Tavern recently clinched the top spot for ‘best red chile’ for the Best of the Land of Enchantment awards. An award they say they thought they could win.

John Brown Breakfast Club Barbecue and Bake Sale! We are collecting donations to serve breakfast every Saturday morning at 9 under the Coal bridge for our unhoused neighbors! We just made thirty vegan cookies from our top secret recipe book 🍪 Looking forward to seeing you there - Solidarity not Charity ✊ Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈 well see you tomorrow 🌯 and Sunday!