Health
Inside the evacuation zone, people protect animals, homes and each other
MORA COUNTY, N.M. — It was like running from a ball of fire when Dennis Garcia finally got into his car and drove away from his property surrounded by flames on Friday. He returned the next day, he said, pleading with police to allow him past their road closure so he could check on his […]
U.S. Interior secretary to promote big spending jump for tribal, climate programs
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will ask a U.S. House spending panel to increase funding for the department’s tribal programs and climate resilience efforts, according to written testimony released ahead of a hearing scheduled for Thursday. The administration’s budget request for fiscal 2023 would significantly increase spending for the Interior Department. Its agencies oversee onshore oil […]
Poor pay and benefits deplete U.S. firefighting workforce
When wildfire season roared into New Mexico in mid-April — even earlier than usual in our warming world — firefighters answered the calls for help. They showed up across the state to race the dry winds driving flames into the mountains, along the Rio Grande, and into neighborhoods and across ranches. Some of the men […]
6 wildfire terms to understand, from red flag warning to 100% containment
A wildfire fueled by dry, windy conditions forced hundreds of people to evacuate homes in Arizona in mid-April, following fires that destroyed more than 200 homes in New Mexico and threatened communities in several other states over the previous weeks. It was another reminder to be prepared for what U.S. forecasters warned would be a risky spring for wildfires. I’m a fire ecologist and director of the Southern […]
White House pushes COVID antiviral amid funding stalemate with Congress
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration hopes that a new push to get a COVID-19 antiviral into more pharmacies, along with getting the message through to doctors that it’s no longer in short supply, will help reduce hospitalizations. The plan to ship out more of the antiviral comes as Congress returns from a recess this week […]
Lujan Grisham calls on local governments to ban fireworks sales around New Mexico
As at least 20 wildfires consumed thousands of acres this weekend, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that she would ask local governments to temporarily ban the sale of fireworks around the state. State government can ban the use of fireworks — and it has — but under the law, banning sales is something that has […]
With 20 active fires in a single April day, N.M. braces for longer, more dangerous season
Caught between three wildfires, Adam Torres and his mother, Josephine, sped east on an empty northern New Mexico highway on Saturday afternoon, allowing themselves a breather only when towering pillars of smoke were finally in their rearview mirrors. They stopped their caravan of trucks and a trailer carrying four horses, 20 chickens and a cat, […]
Biden to ask Congress for more Ukraine aid after earlier U.S. funding runs dry
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is preparing to ask Congress for billions more in aid to Ukraine as the war shifts to the Eastern regions of the country, following Russia’s failure to take the capital city of Kyiv. “I’m asking the Defense Department to put together what they think we need,” Biden said this week. […]
Your lungs: where the global pandemic and the climate crisis meet
New Mexico’s wildfire season is here early, and we know from the past two years that wildfires only add to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. There were 20 active wildfires in New Mexico on Saturday, state officials told reporters. Smoke from wildfires in New Mexico may have spread as far away as South Dakota […]
With implicit bias hurting patients, some states train doctors
In a groundbreaking study, Dr. Lisa Cooper, a leading researcher on racial health disparities at Johns Hopkins University, found that nearly all 40 participating Baltimore-area primary care doctors said they regarded their White and their Black patients the same. But that’s not what her testing on their unconscious attitudes revealed. Those tests, conducted a decade […]
Final decision on asphalt plant on Santa Fe’s South Side expected this summer
A final decision on whether an asphalt company can expand its operations on Santa Fe’s South Side is expected this summer, after community groups appealed the project’s approval by state environmental regulators and hundreds of local residents petitioned Monday for the decision to be overturned. Associated Asphalt and Materials, LLC in 2019 applied for a […]
Biden administration will appeal ruling on travel mask mandate — if CDC says it’s needed
The Biden administration will appeal a federal judge’s order striking down a mask mandate for air travel and public transit, subject to a decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Justice Department said in a Tuesday night statement. The CDC has yet to conclude that the mandate — which applied in […]