TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Discarded cigarette butts and unattended campfires equal a long, fire season
Officials are predicting a longer and stronger fire season, according to the AP, which in New Mexico began early in the year with large grass fires in Hobbs. The article notes this is a trend that we can't solely blame on climate change or global warming. People moving at increasing rates into forested areas are also an issue, and the culprits are often cigarette butts, campfires not adequately put out, or fires meant to burn yard debris get away.
The Las Cruces Sun-News says people are lining up to get a new passport card that goes into production next month. It's a cheaper alternative to a passport and meant for people crossing by land and water into the United States from Mexico, Canada, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. It doesn't replace passports for air travel. Starting next year, anyone coming into the U.S. from Mexico will be required to have a passport, or this new card, which is small enough to carry in a wallet.
The Navajo Nation Council is staffing a Human Rights Commission that will be charged with protecting the Navajo people from discrimination, according to the Farmington Daly Times. It'll conduct public hearings in border towns to "assess the state of affairs" between Navajos and their non-native neighbors. Shonto Council Delegate Jonathan Nez tells the paper that "I believe this commission will be the avenue and that will give the Navajo people a way to address racism. It will also address the racism that occurs inside the reservation boundaries."
A fake bomb scare shut Bandelier National Monument down on the Fourth of July, according to the Los Alamos Monitor, causing the park to evacuate 100 people and then turn away a steady stream of disappointed families.
The Santa Fe New Mexican has a couple of great features: One on the struggle for water by colonia residents just east of El Paso, who don't think things are much different from Juarez on this side of the border; and another on graffiti in Santa Fe that examines the types of graffiti found in the city, from art to tagging, the reasons for it, and how the city deals with it.
Ever wonder what "drug court" is really all about? The Valencia County News-Bulletin has a pretty good description of the new court being started there. District Judge William Sanchez described the impetus for the court: "These are people who need help, who have addictions that's impacting their families and impacting them individually. This is an opportunity for us to give back to the community, to give back to those individuals and those families and look toward resolving the problem rather than incarcerating (them) and filling up our prisons."
Albuquerque's Weekly Alibi has a great feature this week on Native Americans and voting. It looks at the history of voting rights for Native people in the state and interviews Laurie Weahkee of the Native American Voting Alliance on the importance of voting and the particular challenges involved with trying to empower urban Native Americans to vote.
Be the first to comment