Two people embrace during an anti-Shia hate unity event following the killing of four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. August 12, 2022. REUTERS/Adria Malcolm/File Photo

Aug 17 (Reuters) – National Muslim groups have linked the killing of four Muslim men in New Mexico over the past year to bigotry, but Muslims who knew the victims and the alleged shooter say revenge and feuds personal are possible reasons.

Police last week arrested Afghan refugee Muhammad Syed, 51, as the prime suspect in the shooting of four Muslim men in New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque. Syed denied any involvement.

Detectives said an “interpersonal conflict” may have led to the shooting of men of Afghan or Pakistani origin.

A judge on Wednesday ordered Syed to remain in custody pending trial based on charges of murdering two of the men and his history of fleeing law enforcement. His lawyer had asked for bail, arguing that Syed complied with release requirements in 2018 and 2019 after he was arrested for assaulting family members.

The Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) was among Muslim advocacy groups that condemned the killings as possible “sectarian hatred”. Three of the victims were members of the minority Shia Muslim sect. Syed is a Sunni Muslim, the majority sect.

Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the killings were clearly anti-Shia. The Shia Racial Justice Coalition “condemned the heinous targeted killing of Shias”.

Shiite-Sunni tension is heightened in the Middle East and South Asia, including in Afghanistan where Shiites are frequently attacked by Sunni militants. Read more

However, local Muslim leaders in New Mexico said it was inaccurate to label the killings as sectarian and feared the label would hurt relations between Shiites and Sunnis who pray together at the Islamic Center of New Mexico, the main Albuquerque Mosque. The United States has not experienced significant Shia-Sunni tensions.

“The simplicity of saying this is a Sunni-Shia hate crime is so reckless,” said Samia Assed, a Palestinian-American human rights activist who organized an interfaith vigil for the victims. .

Mazin Kadhim was Syed’s caseworker for refugee resettlement when he arrived in Albuquerque about six years ago. When Syed’s daughter Lubna Syed married Iftikhar Amir, a Shia, against her will in 2018, Syed’s traditional male authority was challenged and he was humiliated, Kadhim said.

Syed has been charged with the July 26 murder of Amir’s friend Aftab Hussein, 41, a cafe manager and recent immigrant.

Kadhim said Syed harbors hatred towards Shia, but believes Hussein’s death was revenge for his daughter and son-in-law’s defiance.

“It wasn’t Sunni or Shia, it was extremism,” said Kadhim, a Shia who helped organize a Muslim unity march on Friday.

Lubna Syed declined to comment.

Afghan-American business owner Mula Akbar said Syed, a truck driver, treated women like ‘property’, rarely worked and tried to illegally exchange digital food stamps for cash in stores, including his own.

The food stamp program led to a dispute with supermarket owner Muhammad Ahmadi, 62, Akbar said. Ahmadi was shot on November 7, 2021, in a police killing linked to the other three deaths in July and August this year.

Syed’s son, Shaheen, 21, was arrested last week on firearms charges after he provided a false address when he bought a gun. At a Monday bail hearing for Shaheen, federal prosecutors linked young Syed to the Aug. 5 murder of Naeem Hussain, 25, a truck company owner. Shaheen Syed’s lawyer called the allegations “speculative”. Read more

Imtiaz Hussain, a relative of one victim, does not believe sectarian hatred played a role in the August 1 murder of his brother Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, a Sunni planning director. He rejects allegations that he was mistaken for a Shia. Syed was charged with the murder.

Imtiaz Hussain, a 41-year-old Pakistani lawyer, said he met Syed a few times at Albuquerque’s main mosque. Once, Imtiaz Hussain said he and his brother told Syed about Syed’s time as a refugee in Quetta, Pakistan after leaving Afghanistan.

“He must have observed us praying the same way as all other Sunnis,” said Imtiaz Hussain, who believes his brother was shot by more than one person.

Police are working with prosecutors on charges for the deaths of Naeem Hussain and Ahmadi.

Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson, Gerry Doyle, Josie Kao and Aurora Ellis

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The banks along parts of the Colorado River where water once flowed are now nothing but hardened mud and rock, as climate change makes the western United States hotter and drier.

More than two decades of drought have done little to deter the region from diverting more water than it flows through, depleting key reservoirs to levels that now compromise water supplies and hydropower generation .

Cities and farms in seven US states are bracing for cuts this week as officials set a deadline to deliver unprecedented cuts to their water use, setting up what is expected to be the biggest week for Colorado River politics for years.

LOOK: Climate change is worsening heat waves in the oceans. Here’s why it’s a problem

In June, the United States Bureau of Reclamation asked states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – to determine how to use at least 15% less water next year, or impose restrictions on them. The office is also expected to publish hydrological projections that will trigger additional reductions already agreed.

“The challenges we face today are unlike anything we have seen in our history,” Office Commissioner Camille Touton said during a US Senate hearing.

Tensions over the size of the cuts and how to distribute them fairly have flared, with states pointing fingers and stubbornly clinging to their water rights despite the looming crisis.

“It’s no fun sitting around a table figuring out who’s going to sacrifice and how much,” said Bill Hasencamp, Colorado River resource manager at the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies water to the major part of southern California.

Representatives from all seven states gathered in Denver last week for last-minute, closed-door negotiations. Officials who participated in the talks said the cuts’ most likely targets are farmers in Arizona and California. The agricultural districts of these states ask to be paid generously to bear this burden.

But the tentative agreements fall short of what the Bureau of Reclamation has demanded, and state officials say they hope for more time to negotiate details.

The Colorado River pours from the Rocky Mountains into the arid deserts of the southwest. It is the main water supply for 40 million people. About 70% of its water is for irrigation, supporting a $15 billion-a-year agricultural industry that supplies 90% of the United States‘ winter vegetables.

Water from the river is divided between Mexico and the seven US states under a series of agreements that date back a century to a time when more flowed.

But climate change has transformed the hydrology of the river, reducing snowmelt and causing warmer temperatures and greater evaporation. With the river producing less water, states agreed to cuts tied to the level of reservoirs that store its water.

Last year, federal officials declared a water shortage for the first time, triggering cuts to the river in Nevada, Arizona and Mexico to help prevent the two largest reservoirs – Lake Powell and Lake Mead – to fall low enough to threaten hydroelectric generation and stop water from flowing through their dams.

Proposals for additional cuts expected this week have inflamed disagreement between the upper basin states – Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – and the lower basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – over how to spread the pain.

The lower basin states use most of the water and have borne the most cuts so far. Upper basin states have historically not used all of their allocations, but want to retain water use rights to plan for population growth.

Gene Shawcroft, chairman of Utah’s Colorado River Authority, believes lower basin states should take most of the cuts because they use most of the water and their full allocations.

He said it was his job to protect Utah’s allocation for projected growth for decades to come: “The direction we’ve been given as water providers is to make sure we have water for the future.”

In a letter last month, state officials from the upper basin proposed a five-point conservation plan they said would save water, but argued that most cutting should come from the lower basin. The plan did not commit to any figures.

“The goal is to put the tools in place and work with water users to get as much as possible rather than projecting a water number,” said Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission. , to the Associated Press.

This position, however, is unsatisfactory for many states in the lower basin already facing cuts.

“It’s going to come to a head, particularly if the upper basin states maintain their negotiating position, saying, ‘We’re not making any cuts,'” said Bruce Babbitt, who served as Home Secretary from 2003 to 2011.

Lower basin states have yet to release their contribution plans, but officials said last week that the states’ draft proposal being discussed fell slightly short of the federal government’s request to cut from 2 to 4 million acre-feet.

One acre-foot of water is enough to serve 2-3 households per year.

Hasencamp, the Metropolitan Water District’s Colorado River resource manager, said all districts in California that draw from the river have agreed to contribute water or money to the plan, pending approval from their respective boards. The water districts, particularly the Imperial Irrigation District, have been adamant that any voluntary reductions must not restrict their high priority water rights.

Southern California cities will likely provide cash that could fund fallow farmland in places like Imperial County and water managers plan to leave the water they have stored in Lake Mead as part of their contribution.

LOOK: Senate Energy Committee Hearing to Consider Solutions to Extreme Drought in the West

Arizona will likely be hit hard by the cuts. In recent years, the state has taken on many of the cuts. With its growing population and robust agricultural industry, it has less leeway than its neighbors to take on more, said Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke. Some Native American tribes in Arizona have also helped support Lake Mead in the past and could play an outsized role in any new proposal.

Irrigators around Yuma, Arizona have proposed taking 925,000 acre-feet less water from the Colorado River in 2023 and leaving it in Lake Mead if paid $1.4 billion, or 1 $500 per acre-foot. The cost is well above the going rate, but irrigators defended their proposal as fair given the cost of growing the crops and bringing them to market.

Wade Noble, the coordinator of a coalition that represents Yuma water rights holders, said it was the only proposal presented publicly that included real cuts, rather than theoretical cuts to what users are allocated on paper.

Some of the conservation offset funds could come from $4 billion in drought funding included in the Cut Inflation Act being considered in Washington, the U.S. senator told the AP. Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema.

Sinema recognized that paying farmers to conserve is not a long-term solution: incentives for non-use will help us get through it,” she said.

Babbitt agreed that money in the legislation will “not miraculously solve the problem” and said water prices must be reasonable to avoid abuse because most water users will be affected.

“There’s no way these reductions can all be paid for at a high price for years and years,” he said.

Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Associated Press reporter Kathleen Ronayne contributed from Sacramento, Calif.

An unidentified young man bows during the afternoon Dhuhr prayer at the Islamic Center of New Mexico on August 7, 2022, following the death of the fourth Muslim in Albuquerque.

Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP

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Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP

An unidentified young man bows during the afternoon Dhuhr prayer at the Islamic Center of New Mexico on August 7, 2022, following the death of the fourth Muslim in Albuquerque.

Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — In the six years since being resettled to the United States from Afghanistan, the prime suspect in the murder of four Muslim men in Albuquerque has been repeatedly arrested for domestic violence and filmed stabbing his tires of a woman’s car, according to police and court records.

The long spate of violence – which began shortly after Muhammad Syed’s arrival in the United States – shocked members of the city’s small, tight-knit Muslim community, some of whom knew him from the local mosque and who had initially assumed that the killer was a foreigner with a bias against the Islamic religion. Now they accept the idea that they never really understood man.

“I think based on knowing his history now – and we didn’t know that before – he’s obviously a troubled individual. He obviously has a violent streak,” said Ahmad Assed, president of the Islamic Center for New -Mexico.

Police say Syed, 51, knew his victims and was likely motivated by “interpersonal conflicts”.

He was arrested on Monday evening and remains in custody. Prosecutors say he is a dangerous man and plan to ask a judge next week to keep him locked up pending trial on murder charges in connection with two of the shooting deaths. Syed is also the prime suspect in the other two homicides, but police said they would not rush to charge him in those cases as long as he remains in jail and does not pose a threat to the community. The married father of six has denied any involvement in the murders; his defense attorneys declined to comment.

Few details have emerged publicly about Syed’s life before he and his family came to America in 2016, but a US government document obtained by The Associated Press says he graduated from Rehman Baba High School in the west. from Kabul in 1990. Between 2010 and 2012, he worked as a cook for the Al Bashar Jala Construction Company.

In December 2012, Syed fled Afghanistan with his wife and children, the report said. The family traveled to Pakistan, where Syed sought work as a refrigeration technician. A native Pashto speaker who was also fluent in Dari, he was admitted to the United States in 2016 as a refugee.

The following year, according to court records, a boyfriend of Syed’s daughter alleged that Syed, his wife and one of Syed’s sons pulled him out of a car and punched him and on foot before leaving. The boyfriend, who was found with a bloody nose, scratches and bruises, told police he was attacked because Syed, a Sunni Muslim, did not want his daughter to be in a relationship with a Shia .

In 2018, Syed was taken into custody after an argument with his wife over his driving. Syed told police his wife slapped him in the car, but she said he pulled her by the hair, threw her to the ground and walked her for two hours to their destination.

Months later, Syed allegedly beat his wife and attacked one of his sons with a large split metal spoon that left his hair soaked in blood, according to court documents. Syed’s wife told the police that everything was fine. But the son, who called them, told officers that Syed regularly beat him and his mother.

Two of the cases were dismissed after the wife and boyfriend refused to press charges. The third was fired after Syed completed a pretrial intervention program. In 2020, Syed was arrested after allegedly refusing to stop for police after running a traffic light, but that case was also eventually dismissed.

“If you’re trying to figure out how violence evolves in a particular person, you just need to know that they didn’t wake up last year and become a serial killer,” Mary Ellen said. O’Toole, former FBI profiler. “He had experience with violence. And that’s the challenge for law enforcement… to identify what your experience with violence is and when did it start?”

Syed told detectives he served in the Afghan National Army’s Special Operations Command, a small elite group of Afghan soldiers who fought the Taliban. He said he liked the AK-47 type police weapon found in his home because he had used one in Afghanistan.

Yet the US government profile reviewed by the AP mentioned no military experience, and Syed turned 40 the year the elite force was formed in 2011 – likely too old to be selected to fight in the fighting. the most violent.

“That sounds a little sketchy,” said Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, who has served twice in Afghanistan and is a senior researcher and military expert at the Defense Priorities think tank. He said while Syed might be a soldier, “Special Forces guys are usually 22, 25, maybe 30, because it’s very physically demanding.”

The Syed family lives in a small duplex on the south side of town, a working-class area of ​​town where many older homes and apartments have security bars attached to their doors and windows. The area has become a magnet for Afghan refugees and other immigrants seeking to settle in New Mexico’s largest city.

The killings have struck fear into Albuquerque’s Muslim community of about 4,500

The murders of the four men – the first in November and the other three in quick succession over a period of less than two weeks in July and the first week of August – sparked waves of terror in the Muslim community of Albuquerque which counts about 4,500 people. Residents were afraid to leave their homes — so much so that city officials offered to deliver meals — and some considered leaving town.

That’s what Syed told investigators he was doing when he drove off in his Volkswagen Jetta on Sunday: leaving the state to find a safer place for his frightened family.

Police said he was actually leaving town after killing Naeem Hussain days before.

Syed is the prime suspect – but has not been charged – in the death of Hussain, a 25-year-old Pakistani man who was shot and killed on August 5 in the parking lot of a refugee resettlement agency in the southeast from Albuquerque; and the murder of Muhammad Zahir Ahmadi, a 62-year-old Afghan immigrant who was shot in the head last November behind the market he owned in the city.

Ahmadi is the brother-in-law of the woman whose tires Syed punctured in 2020, while Syed and Hussain had known each other since 2016, police said.

Syed was charged with the murder of Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain. Hussein, 41, was killed on the night of July 26 after parking his car in the usual spot near his home. Afzaal Hussain, a 27-year-old urban planner who had worked on the campaign of a New Mexico congresswoman, was shot dead on the night of August 1 while taking an evening stroll.

While Syed told police he recognized Hussein from the community parties, it was unclear how he knew Afzaal Hussain.

Despite the violence he allegedly inflicted on his wife and children, Syed’s family stands by him.

“My father is not someone who can kill someone” his daughter recently told CNN, who did not reveal his identity to protect his safety. “My dad always talked about peace. That’s why we’re here in the United States. We’re from Afghanistan, fighting, shooting.”

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ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE) – Eastdale’s all-star team began play in the Southwest region on Thursday. It was a tough day for Team New Mexico as the team lost their opener to Mississippi 7-1. They now move to the elimination bracket and will play Arkansas at 10 a.m. on Longhorn Network and ESPN+.

After the 2021 season which has seen a number of quarterbacks start for the Lobos, the big question for the cherry and the money is who will be under center for the upcoming season. CJ Montes got the majority of first-team reps in spring training, but coach Gonzales said the job is still up for grabs and hopes someone will part ways during fall camp.

“Between now and August 20, we’re going to split those reps up so we can assess these guys and find out who’s the best player to lead our team,” he said. “After August 20, we will start grooming this guy with leadership. If he shows his head sooner, we’ll announce it sooner. I have no desire to wait and hide anything from anyone because it doesn’t matter. The guys on our team need to know who our quarterback is.

Meanwhile, the Artesia Bulldogs are poised to add to their record number of state championships. This is the second year under head coach Maupin, and he believes a full offseason with the team will make a huge difference.

“I mean it started in the off-season that we had after. We changed our culture in the weight room, we changed our culture in training,” Maupin said. “You know last year I came in really late and we haven’t had the whole year and so this year we’re excited to know where we are.”

Elsewhere, New Mexico United suffered a 2-1 loss on Wednesday night. The two surrendered goals came within five minutes of spamming each other and surprised the players into failing defence.

“It’s easy to say it was a lack of focus, but I don’t know,” said Josh Suggs. “We need to see it back on film and see exactly what happened and where we went wrong, because right now I have no idea.”

Sacramento Republic FC was the toast of the USL Championship last week and rightfully so.

The club brought positive national attention to the league, knocking out three consecutive MLS opponents en route to a US Open Cup final date. Sacramento will face Orlando City SC on September 7, becoming the first lower division club to advance to the final since 2008.

The Republic edged out Sporting Kansas City in a penalty shootout last Wednesday to secure their place in the title game.

Credit is due, said New Mexico United coach Zach Prince, whose club hosts Republic FC on Wednesday.

“Congratulations to Sacramento for reaching the Open Cup final,” Prince said. “It’s something all clubs in the USL Championship hope to achieve, and the format of the tournament makes it possible. Sacramento did a great job taking advantage of this and performed incredibly well.

That said, Prince and his team would like nothing better than to steal some of the Sacramento thunder in the USLC Western Conference battle on Wednesday. United (10-3-8) are fourth while Republic FC (9-5-6) are tied for fifth. The teams tied 0-0 in their first meeting this season, so Wednesday’s result could loom large in the race for playoff positioning.

“It’s a big game and we have a tough opponent to face,” Prince said. “We are pleased.”

Both teams picked up victories in the Eastern Time Zone over the weekend, with Sacramento winning 4-2 at Charleston on Saturday and United earning a 2-1 win over New York Red Bulls II on Sunday. Both teams are also playing again on Saturday, which means depth could be a big factor on Wednesday night.

Only two players, playmakers Justin Portillo and Daniel Bruce, have appeared in every United game this season. Portillo leads NMU with 46 chances created, while Bruce ranks second with 24.

Prince made it a point to rotate players in an effort to keep legs cool on the pitch. Midfielder Chris Wehan, for example, did not play against New York.

But Prince also has plenty of options available these days. Recent signing Romario Williams made his United debut on Sunday, and Amando Moreno returned after recovering from ACL surgery.

“Romario and Amando have earned their place on the pitch,” Prince said.

Jerome Kiesewetter has also become a key part of New Mexico’s offense in recent weeks, collecting two goals and two assists in the last six games after playing infrequently at the start of the season.

Prince admits his team’s depth makes it difficult to pick rosters, but it also allows him to second-guess opponents like Sacramento.

“It’s not easy to pick any position in the team right now,” Prince said. “Guys really challenge each other in training for spots, both starting and on the (active roster). It makes some decisions difficult, but sometimes it works to your advantage to have that kind of depth, especially during busy weeks like this.

POWER BALANCE: United ended July unbeaten, going 3-0-4 and seventh in the USLC’s weekly power rankings. Sacramento was 1-2-2 in the league in July but went 4-0-0 in June and sits eighth in this week’s power rankings.

NMU (38 points) could move into third place in the Western Conference with a win on Wednesday as Colorado Springs (40 points) is inactive. Sacramento (33 points) could tighten the race for fourth place if they win. Republic FC played one game less than New Mexico.

MATCH DAY: SACRAMENTO REPUBLIC FC at NEW MEXICO UNITED

Wednesday, 7 p.m., Isotopes Park, espn+, 101.7 FM, Estrella TV

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Sacramento (9-5-6): Republic FC shares the wealth on the attacking side as striker Maalique Foster leads the club with four goals. Midfielder Rodrigo Lopez is the leading playmaker with 38 chances created, 23 shots, three goals and three assists. Lopez would no doubt like to forget Sacramento’s first battle with NMU this season as he missed a late penalty in what would end in a 0-0 draw. Goalkeeper Daniel Vitiello had a solid outing against United and has 35 saves and 16 goals against in 14 appearances for Republic FC. Midfielder Emil Cuello and forward Luther Archimede scored in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Charleston and were named to the USLC Team of the Week.

New Mexico (10-3-8): Will Seymore waited a long time to remove the zero from his “goals scored” stat line. The 30-year-old midfielder scored the decisive tally in United’s 2-1 win at New York Red Bulls II on Sunday, its first in 107 USL Championship appearances. Fittingly, it came on a header as most of Seymore’s 13 shots this season have come from set pieces or crosses in front of goal. Other stats speak more to Seymore’s contributions. He leads United in assists (1,091), steals (36), aerial duels (71), clearances (68 – tied with Kalen Ryden) and ranks second in starts (19) and minutes played ( 1,738). Justin Portillo leads the club with 20 starts and 1,785 minutes played.

OUTSTANDING: Sacramento leads the head-to-head series with United 2-1-1 with a pair of wins that left New Mexico fans with a bitter taste. Republic FC handed NMU a 3-0 defeat at home in 2019, their most one-sided defeat at Isotopes Park to date, and then ended United’s debut season with a 2-1 playoff decision at Sacramento. … NMU goaltender Alex Tambakis missed the May 4 game in Sacramento due to injury. Ford Parker posted a clean sheet in the 0-0 draw.

(Click on here for updated United Soccer League Championship division standings.)

A recent article in this journal relates the research of the University of Alabama concerning vacations. I hope you have read this interesting book.

It started like this: “Endless summer surfers, Elvis in the movies, the Go-Gos, Jack Johnson and Jimmy Buffett would probably agree with this premise: beach people live the sunniest lives.

“But it turns out that it’s the road ahead that brings the most joy, according to a study by two researchers from the University of Alabama. Yes, beaches were named most often as destinations desired, in the study of 1,040 travelers from across the United States, but it is the journey itself, the escape from routine, that creates the joy.

This my family and I agree with. Travel, get away from it all – as my dad often said, “Go somewhere you haven’t been and learn something new.”

Over the years we’ve seen much of the eastern United States, on trips from the white-sand beaches of Pensacola Beach and Daytona Beach to our nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine, all in Florida; at Virginia Beach Campground and Waters, Virginia; at the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, DC; at Acadia National Park and Cadillac Mountain in Maine; to New York and many other destinations.

Traveling on roads off the high-speed highways is what we found the most fun and often the most economical. And growing up, taking our tents – later, an RV – to campgrounds full of vacationers was a great way to meet people from all over the United States.

“The traveler may be climbing mountains, sailing on cruise ships, or hiking through parks,” wrote Jay Waters, a UA instructor in advertising and public relations who created the study with Jameson Hayes. , associate professor and director of AU’s Public Opinion Lab.

Yes! Waters and Hayes did a remarkable study. Many Etowah County residents are totally on board with the results of their work. Their exploits are clearly displayed on Facebook and other websites.

Question: Are you familiar with the Tear Drop Memorial in Bayonne, New Jersey? Those to whom I asked the question said “no”. Granted, it’s not as well-known as the rebuilt Twin Towers of lower Manhattan in New York City. Our clan elder, on a trip to the Jersey Shore, suggested we visit; I’m so glad she did. It was a great visit to this historic place.

The Memorial to the Fight Against Global Terrorism, also known as the Tear Memorial, stands at the end of the former Bayonne Military Maritime Terminal. It’s the first thing you see when approaching New York by boat from the Atlantic, long before the Statue of Liberty comes into view. It’s exactly across the Hudson River from the Twin Towers

According to Wikipedia, the sculpture features a 100-foot bronze-clad tower divided with a jagged opening in the middle, in which hangs a 40-foot-tall nickel-clad teardrop.

As noted, the UA researchers found that “it is the journey itself, the escape from routine, that creates the joy.” When you travel the highways and back roads of this country, you’ll agree that many other people feel the same way.

Crawling through the basements of Mammoth Cave is an incredible experience, much like seeing and touching the giant California redwoods, the tallest tree in the world, reaching over 379 feet, with a base of 23 feet and living up to at 2,200 years old. (Note: you can buy a seedling for $9.)

Branson, Missouri, home to dozens of star-studded musical performances and the Bigfoot Museum; Santa Fe, New Mexico’s Loretto Chapel and its mysterious staircase; the Grand Canyon; boating on Lake Mead behind the Hoover Dam – these are other great places for our travels over the past six decades. We hope many more places will be visited.

My editor loves trips to Savannah, Georgia; others also enjoyed visits to Charleston, South Carolina; and a few friends have just returned from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to watch the herds of wild horses.

But let me suggest Alabama as a great getaway. Telling this story will take pages to describe adequately. This work is ongoing.

Where have you been, my reader, and where do you plan to go for your next vacation?

Before I go, I must tell you that one of our best vacations was spending days at Camp Sumatanga, a 1,700-acre facility owned by the United Methodist Church, open to the public, which stretches along the valley of St. Clair County, nestled against Chandler Mountain near Gallant. The hiking and fishing, and the long climb to Creel Chapel, were unforgettable adventures.

Now, where is my roadmap?

Harry D. Butler, a former broadcaster, is a motivational speaker and author of “Alabama’s First Radio Stations, 1920-1960”.

Courtesy/FBI

FBI News:

The FBI, in an effort to address the missing and murdered Native people crisis, releases a list of more than 170 Native Americans it has verified missing throughout New Mexico and the Navajo Nation.

This effort is being made public to help locate these individuals, increase transparency, and encourage relatives of missing Indigenous people who are not on this list to contact local law enforcement and file a report.

A link to the list can be found at FBI.GOV/MMIP.

“Every missing person is important. For a long time, the issue of missing Native Americans has been in the news and a lot of people are wondering if anyone is paying attention to it,” said Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda of the FBI’s division of Albuquerque: “I am here to assure you that the FBI has been attentive and, together with our partners, we are taking an important step towards justice for these victims, their families and their communities.”

The release of the list is the result of nearly six months of work combining and validating different databases of missing Indigenous people in New Mexico.

“We will address the case of every missing and murdered Native person with urgency, transparency and coordination,” said Alexander MM Uballez, United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico. “Everyone deserves to feel safe in their community, and the development and implementation of this list marks a promising step forward in investigating and resolving these cases.”

“It is important that we work together to find a solution for the missing persons and their families,” said Marcelino ToersBijns, unit chief of the missing and murderers unit at the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Bureau of Health Services. justice. “This single-source dataset is a significant information-sharing enhancement that shows how the BIA and federal, tribal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation are working together to deal with this horrible crisis.”

The FBI has validated the status of missing Native persons as listed in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a computerized criminal justice information system available to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement. , and other criminal justice agencies.

Many missing Indigenous person files were incomplete or out of date because the file was not updated once additional details became available or once the person was located.

The FBI reviewed hundreds of records and arrived at over 170 cases of Native Americans in New Mexico who were verified missing. The list includes all missing Indigenous people in New Mexico, but it also includes the Navajo Nation, which crosses New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The FBI plans to update the names monthly.

Partners involved in the project include the United States Attorney’s Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Justice Services, Missing and Murdered Native Women and Relatives Task Force (MMIWR) , New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, New Mexico Department of Public Safety, New Mexico. Department of Indian Affairs, Bernalillo County Attorney’s Office, and City of Albuquerque Office of Equity and Inclusion.

As part of this effort, the FBI received information and support from the Navajo Nation, Native American Pueblos, and local law enforcement.

“The FBI’s resources and manpower devoted to producing this validated list of missing Native persons across New Mexico are critical to defining the true reach of the MMIWR in the state,” said the Secretary of State. New Mexico Department of Indian Affairs, Lynn Trujillo, MMIWR Task Force Chair. “The data shared today will guide the state’s response to this unfolding crisis. The task force will continue to strengthen partnerships at all levels of government, including local organizations that are on the ground and provide direct support to families and communities.

“This is just one important step in many, and this multi-agency effort is critical to bringing justice and victim services to communities that have historically been underserved,” said the Attorney General of New -Mexico, Hector Balderas.

“The New Mexico Department of Public Safety is the first agency in the United States to modify its National Crime Information Center (NCIC) missing person form to allow news agencies to identify people indigenous peoples and their respective tribes, pueblos or nations,” said New Jason R. Bowie, secretary of Mexico’s Ministry of Public Security. “We intend to find answers and bring justice to these women and families in our community. For generations, a disproportionate number of missing or murdered Indigenous women and loved ones have gone unreported. We resolve to address and prevent further tragedies in our state; everyone deserves to feel safe in their neighborhood.

“We appreciate the FBI’s work in verifying and refining the list of missing Indigenous people. Our MMIWR unit, created in December 2021, will use the advanced investigative techniques that have already helped solve two cases to follow up on leads generated from this list,” said Bernalillo County Prosecutor Raúl Torrez. “We encourage relatives of missing Indigenous people who are not on this list to contact local law enforcement. Our office is ready to work with you.

If someone’s relative is included in the names, the FBI actively checks numerous law enforcement databases and other sources nationwide to identify leads that will be quickly forwarded to the agency. appropriate.

If a missing Indigenous family member is not on this list, next of kin are asked to contact their local or tribal law enforcement agency and ask them to submit a missing person report to the INCC . For further assistance with their claim, family members or local law enforcement may contact the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office or the FBI.

This project adds to the FBI’s ongoing efforts to bring attention to the unsolved Indigenous homicides and missing persons cases it investigates.

In the lobby of El Paso International Airport, a desperate journey and painful separation culminated in a reunion full of hugs and licks.

A family seeking political asylum in the United States on Wednesday found the dog they had brought on their four-month trip from Venezuela, largely on foot. The family and the dog were separated from each other in El Paso.

Simba, a small black and brown mongrel with big ears and a face vaguely reminiscent of a dachshund, has been part of the family since he was born in February.

In a moving scene, little Simba, his tail wagging, ran to meet his humans, who hugged him with smiles and tears.

“(We feel) joy,” said Yurimar, 35. “He is part of the family, he is my youngest child. It is he, with our children, who has given us the strength to come this far.

El Paso Matters only identifies migrants by first name as many are fleeing violence and fearing for their safety.

A member of the family”

Yurimar and her husband, Johnny, 38, left Venezuela on March 10 with Simba and their three children to seek political asylum in the United States. As former government employees, they faced political persecution, including being barred from purchasing food at subsidized prices through government-monopolized local supply and production committees. The committee has been criticized for corruption and for its use as a tool of political control.

With little money for travel and food, the family walked most of the 2,300 miles from Venezuela to southern Mexico. Simba, still a young pup when they left, rolled around in a backpack as they slowly traveled through Colombia and Central America.

In Tapachula, a Mexican town near the border with Guatemala, Johnny was earning money working at a migrant shelter. With his salary and the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Tapachula, they were able to complete the final leg of their four-month journey to the United States border.

“We had enough money to buy (bus) tickets,” Yurimar said. “We went the whole way without eating. We adults didn’t eat so there would be food for the kids and Simba.

When the family crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso on July 12, they surrendered to the first Border Patrol agent they saw. Initially, they were met with threats against Simba, Yurimar said.

“We thought we would never see (Simba) again because the (Border Patrol) treated us badly when they saw the dog,” Yurimar said. “The (officer) said he was going to throw the dog in the river. He told us to get rid of him otherwise we couldn’t get into the vehicle. Then another vehicle arrived, and that’s when they told my son to get in his truck with the dog, and the rest of us drove off with the first one.

Once at the processing plant, the family again faced the threat of losing Simba. Neither the processing facility nor the family’s temporary shelter would be sent to authorized animals. Fortunately, one of the duty officers “was moved” by the children’s emotions and decided to help, Yurimar said.

A “strange request”

Ruby Montana is a lecturer at the University of Texas at El Paso and an animal lover. With her brother, she founded Bridge Pup Rescuea group dedicated almost exclusively to finding homes for street dogs who often travel alone from Juárez to international bridges and across the border into El Paso.

On July 12, Montana received a message from a Border Patrol agent that began, “We have a strange request…we had a family group of 5 who turned themselves into Border Patrol custody this afternoon. midday. The dog is a 5 month old male. The officer asked Montana to help find a foster family to care for the dog while the family was allowed entry into the United States.

Although dogs as pets are allowed to enter the United States with families, they must be rabies-vaccinated and in good health, per US Customs and Border Protection guidelines.

Border Patrol officials, in an emailed statement to El Paso Matters, said “it is rare to encounter migrants attempting to enter the United States while traveling with a pet.” In the El Paso area, pets are generally in the care of the United States Department of Agriculture or local authorities in El Paso County or New Mexico.

Because Simba’s vaccination records had been stolen and Border Patrol facilities do not allow animals, officers turned Simba over to the city’s El Paso Animal Services. Montana was able to connect with Kathy Patterson, an experienced dog rescuer and foster family in Chaparral, New Mexico, through social media that night.

The next day, Patterson picked up Simba from Animal Services.

“It was originally going to be two or three days, but I was perfectly happy to keep it a little longer,” Patterson said. “He’s such a sweet little dog.”

Montana stayed in touch with Yurimar, sending photos and updates from Simba.

“It was obvious that it was a huge relief for her to know that Simba was okay,” Montana said. “And she sent some voice messages to Simba and seeing his reaction to hearing his voice was really, really special.”

On Tuesday, Montana found out the family was ready to be released. But the nonprofit that paid for their plane ticket to New York didn’t pay the extra pet fees for Simba. She also discovered that Yurimar, Johnny and their three children “had absolutely nothing but the clothes they wore”.

Montana again asked its social media followers for help, and donations poured in to buy basic clothing and supplies, and to buy a ticket for Simba to travel with his family.

reunited

On Wednesday evening, Montana and Patterson parked at the airport and unloaded four backpacks, three suitcases and a small dog.

As they entered the airport lobby, the three children and Yurimar spotted Simba from across the hall from the ticket office. They ran towards him with outstretched arms, Johnny following close behind. Simba jumped out of Patterson’s hold and ran to meet them.

They collided in a joyful confusion of caresses, licks, hugs and tears.

“To see that moment, just to see the emotion, to see Simba’s tail wag so fast, to see them cry – hands down, it was one of the most fulfilling moments of my entire life,” Montana said. “These kind of moments, they don’t come every day.”

Simba’s 12-year-old human sister said she can’t wait to play with him and cuddle him back to sleep after the arduous journey from Venezuela.

“Now I want to be in a stable place with my family,” she said.

With Simba tucked away safely in a pet carrier, the family marched under a large American flag and into the start of something new.

“He’s my youngest baby,” Yurimar said. “Thank you all, thank you for bringing my family together. We needed him.

Tesla was able to convince Mexico’s Nuevo Leon state to create a special lane that makes it easier for its suppliers in the country to cross to and from the United States. The state of Nuevo Leon borders Texas where Tesla moved its headquarters and now relies on several Mexican suppliers to operate.

Ivan Rivas, Nuevo Leon’s economy minister, said Tesla is currently working with six state suppliers, including APG Mexico, EnFlex Corp., Faurecia and even Germany’s ZF. And now that the automaker has established its base in Texas, it’s only natural that the number of businesses it relies on across the border will grow over time.

Wait times to cross the border from Texas to Nuevo Leon can reach 25 minutes during peak hours and with the use of the new dedicated lane, Tesla suppliers get through in less than 10 minutes. The lane is marked with the Tesla script just above, and it’s really unusual to see something like that at a border crossing.

The two states only share a 9-mile border with a single crossing point. It is Nuevo Leon’s only direct border with the United States.

Bloomberg quotes Ivan Rivas saying

It was a simple incitement. What we want is a much faster and more efficient passage. And maybe there will be a path for other companies in the future, like for Tesla.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has raised the possibility of opening a factory somewhere in Mexico. As noted in the Electrek report that made this public, the location had yet to be decided and there was a chance it could also be built in Canada. However, if Tesla were to choose Mexico, Nuevo Leon, which the government is already in contact with, might be a desirable location.

• The Intercollegiate Rocket Competition has drawn international rocket teams to New Mexico since 2017.
• New Mexico State University wins local Chile Cup award for first time.
• The University of Sydney won three awards, including overall champion.

LAS CRUCES ‒ After a three-week delay due to technical problems last month, the winners of the Spaceport America Cup rocket contest were announced last weekend during a live awards ceremony.

New Mexico’s Spaceport America, which has hosted the annual competition since 2017, said more than 1,300 entrants participated, mostly college students and their mentors, from 95 institutions in 16 countries. The competition begins and ends with presentations at the Las Cruces Convention Center, while launches take place over a few days at the Spaceport Vertical Launch Facility in Sierra County.

When competitors gathered for the closing ceremonies in Las Cruces on June 25, they learned that most of the winners would not be announced that evening, due to problems collecting flight data from all launches. rockets. The judges, volunteers who reside across the United States, ultimately took three weeks to process the data and score the teams accurately.

A total of 14 prizes were awarded in addition to three cash prizes from Space Dynamics Laboratory research payloads piloted by teams from the University of Queensland, the University of West Virginia and the University of Sidney.

Once the winners were announced, it was clear that 2022 – the first Spaceport America Cup competition to take place in person since 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic – was a big year for Australian teams.

The competition’s overall prize, the Cup itself, went to the University of Sydney, whose team launched a rocket named Bluewren to 30,000 feet with a research payload designed to help collect space debris.

Sydney also won first place in SDL’s payload competition and achieved the highest score for 30,000ft flights by “off-the-shelf” commercial rockets, while three other Australian teams also took home prizes. : The University of Queensland took third place in the payload competition, while the Charles Hoult Prize for Modeling and Simulation was won by the University of Melbourne, with the Monash University team as runners-up .

After:Spaceport America Cup rocket competition withstands rain and mud

The Chilean Cup, a prize for teams based in New Mexico or Texas, was first won by New Mexico State University’s Atomic Aggies, who prevailed over teams from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech and University of Texas at El Paso.

Winners of the Spaceport America Cup 2022

Sportsmanship

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Brigham Young University (finalist)

Nancy Squires Team Spirit Award

• Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (finalist)

Charles Hoult Award for Modeling and Simulation

• University of Melbourne, Australia
• Monash University, Australia (finalist)

Dr. Gil Moore Award for Innovation

• University of Michigan-Dearborn
• Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (finalist)
• Cornell University (finalist)
• University of Leeds, UK (finalist)

Jim Furfaro Award for Technical Excellence

• University of Akron
• University of Waterloo, Canada (finalist)

James Barrowman Award for Flight Dynamics

• Boston University
• Brigham Young University (finalist)

10,000 foot COTS (commercial standard)

• Case Western Reserve University
• The Citadel, South Carolina (finalist)

10,000 foot SRAD (student researched and designed), solid fuel

• Kent State University
• Iowa State University of Science and Technology (finalist)

10,000ft SRAD Hybrid/Liquid Fuel

• Polytechnique Montreal, Canada
• Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland (finalist)

30,000 foot COTS

• University of Sydney, Australia
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (finalist)

30,000ft Solid Fuel SRAD

• West Virginia University
• Oregon State University (finalist)

30,000 ft SRAD Hybrid/Liquid Fuel

• University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• ETH Zurich, Switzerland (finalist)

Spaceport America Chile Cup

• New Mexico State University
• University of New Mexico (finalist)

Spaceport America Cup (overall winner)

• University of Sydney, Australia
• Case Western Reserve University (finalist)

The competition was founded in 2006 by the non-profit organization Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), which continues to run the event in partnership with the spaceport. Sponsors include aerospace companies that meet and recruit talent at the competition, including title sponsor Sierra Space, anchor spaceport tenant Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, among others.

In a statement, Spaceport Director Scott McLaughlin said, “We’ve seen many thrusters return to Spaceport America once they graduate and join the aerospace workforce.”

The competition was canceled in 2020 due to pandemic conditions and was held as a virtual event last summer.

Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, [email protected] Where @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.

Others read:

As the sun set in downtown Albuquerque, a light breeze cooled the streets, causing some people to put their hands around the candles they had just lit for Brett Rosenau on Friday.

Friends, family, community members and justice advocates shared a sentiment: Brett should be alive and enjoying another summer night breeze in Albuquerque.

Rosenau, 15, died in a July 7 house fire during a SWAT incident involving the Albuquerque Police Department, which fired three types of projectiles into the home in the city’s International District. Police were trying to arrest Qiaunt Kelley, who at the time was wanted for a parole violation.

During the SWAT raid, police fired tear gas canisters, pepper spray and flash bangs which are currently being investigated for starting the fire, filling the house with smoke and killing Roseneau. The Office of the Medical Investigator says preliminary reports show he died from smoke inhalation.

Kelley faces no charges related to Rosenau’s death and it remains unclear why the teenager was home on July 7. Last week, Kelley was charged with the murder of a local photographer in June.

If the police started the fire that killed Brett, a tragic family history ensues. His father, whose teenager is named, was killed by a BCSO MP in 2006.

While all of those details were on the minds and in the conversations of people crammed into Tijeras and Fourth Street, the candlelight vigil for Brett Rosenau was a place to share collective grief. A person holding a sign with the words “Jail Killer Cops” in bold black ink was honked in support from passing cars, only lowered the sign to wipe away tears. “We shouldn’t have to be here,” she said.

But the people were there – Brett’s friend, relatives he hadn’t seen in weeks, and people he had never met.

Crystal Carmichael grew up with Brett’s mother and had known the teenager since he was a baby.

“I used to take care of him when he was little. His nickname is Bouba. We called him Bubba all the time,” she said.

Carmichael shone when talking about Brett’s humorous approach to life and mentioned his nickname because he came up when he was young, and later became the guy who gives everyone a nickname.

“He was always a very small child and when he was really small he was very stocky. And so it was just that it was just one of those names that’s stuck since he was a baby,” she said. “It was Bubba.”

His charismatic personality was fueled by his energy, which was often unleashed by any sport he might participate in, Carmichael said.

“Non-stop sportsman, every weekend, he plays football. My kids, he and his brother were running together. So we would see him every weekend at cross country or at his football practice and it was always sports related,” she said.

His small size did not hinder his position on the field or in a race. “He was very powerful. He was very fearless. He was very strong and brave. He was afraid of nothing. He was very outgoing and fun to be around,” Carmichael said.

She said the COVID pandemic halted many of her athletic activities and even how often she would see Brett. He invested some of his energy in repairing bicycles, collecting used parts to make bicycles for himself and his friends.

When the moon peaked over the Sandia Mountains, many took their grief home, leaving their candles in honor of Brett a block from the Albuquerque police station.

People leaving a mariachi event inside Civic Plaza stopped by to learn more about Brett and leave their condolences.

The impression Brett makes on the town would match his personality.

“He spent his whole life trying to be bigger than him and proving his strength and who he was,” Carmichael said. “He had to make sure everyone knew who he was. And so he made sure to make a scene.

There are few corners of the globe where the echoes of mariachi music have yet to reach, filling street corners with the sounds of the trumpets and guitars that form the backbone of the traditional Mexican genre.

Now all that party fever is wrapped up in a tiny US postage stamp.

The U.S. Postal Service celebrated the release of a new set of stamps honoring the mariachi on Friday. The day one ceremony took place in New Mexico’s largest city as musicians and fans from around the world gathered for a weekend of concerts hosted by Albuquerque’s 30th Mariachi Spectacular.

The five graphic stamps were created by artist Rafael López, who lives and works in both Mexico and San Diego. Each features an individual performer dressed in traditional clothing with their instrument. While the outfits are ornate, the backgrounds are simple and bright, inspired by the palette of another Mexican craft – papel picado, the elaborate paper cutout banners that are often put up for parties and other events. .

While mystery surrounds the origins of mariachi, López said there’s no doubt the beats and rhythms that evolved over centuries in tiny Mexican villages are now known around the world. There’s something special about the celebratory nature of mariachi, and Latinos are proud to be able to share that with other cultures, López said.

And having it recognized on stamps now is a bonus, said Robert Palacios, executive director of the Las Cruces International Mariachi Conference, which is held each November in the border town.

Palacios, 32, plays the guitarrón and credits music with keeping him out of trouble when he was in middle school.

“It just changed things for me,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to do and now, 20 years later, I’m the director of the mariachi conference and I’m just working to keep it alive. So it’s come full circle for me, being a student and now able to share this passion.

The mariachi high can be magical, Lopez said, leaving people in a festive mood and turning strangers into quick friends. But he can’t explain if it’s the beat, the outfits, the vocals, or all of it combined.

“It’s a universal thing that the mariachi has and it’s hard to explain,” he said during an interview from his studio in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

“We all need a little time to relax and feel happy once in a while and this music does that,” he added. “So I think it’s something that makes us Latinos very proud to see something that started in this area of ​​Mexico and all of a sudden becomes part of the culture of the southwest, it’s also part of the U.S. In no time, it’s universal, it’s international.

López grew up in Mexico City surrounded by mariachi music. He plays guitar, violin and six-string guitarrón which provides the bassline for a mariachi ensemble.

He knows where each band member needs to place their hands to create that special tone. And this is reflected in the images on the postage stamps.

The images were also inspired by movie posters from the golden age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s and by travel posters issued by the US government in the late 1930s and early 1940s. .

“I wanted to have that quality of nostalgia,” said López, who also created the Latin Music Legend Series Merengue stamp and illustrated a children’s book by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “I didn’t want it to look modern, but rather something we would remember as kids.”

For the next generation, Palacios said he hopes this new wave of attention will spark more inspiration.

“It’s a big step for our culture, a beautiful step,” he said.

By
John Houser

July 14, 2022

Jacob Sherwood has been a barista at Starbucks on Rio Grande and on Interstate 40 since October, and he says it’s constantly busy.

Most of the time, he says, the cafe is understaffed and employees feel overworked.

Sherwood and five of his co-workers began the process to make his store the first Starbucks in New Mexico to unionize — an effort to provide employees with better pay and stronger health care benefits.

The organizing group filed a petition on Monday with the help of the Western United States Regional Joint Labor Commission.

Workers United deputy director Evelyn Zepeda confirmed the petition had been filed, although the case has not yet been scheduled for the National Labor Relations Board.

“I think it’s just about trying to help our store and help our partners achieve the life or outcome they want from their work,” said Sherwood, 21.

A Starbucks spokesperson said the company will follow the NLRB process.

“We are listening and learning from these store partners as we always do across the country,” a Starbucks spokesperson told the Journal. “From the beginning, we have been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners, with no union between us, and that belief has not changed.”

The local Starbucks joins more than 300 Starbucks stores across the country that have unionized or are in the process of unionizing, according to Starbucks Workers United.

A union spokesperson said more than 4,000 Starbucks employees in 35 states have now joined Starbucks Workers United and more than 4,700 workers are organizing their store.

Unionization at Starbucks locations began last December when a store in Buffalo, New York, successfully voted to unionize.

At the heart of a potential unionization for the local Starbucks, Sherwood said, is a desire for expanded benefits and job security. However, a detailed list of requests has not yet been established.

Sherwood said the local Starbucks, which is open from 4:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week, is one of the busiest in the state with customers lining up nearly every hour of the day. He said it is common practice for two employees to leave their shifts to be replaced by one, which creates pressure on workers there.

“I can tell you that we all feel like we’re understaffed,” he said. “It’s really tough and difficult to manage that kind of volume of people.”

Sherwood said colleagues have noticed staffing levels at the Rio Grande location are similar to other Starbucks, despite having higher traffic than most other locations in the city.

The local organizing group recently sent a letter to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz saying workers are facing cutbacks, lack of job security, understaffed shifts and unlivable wages at the same time as “annual profits reach billions of dollars”.

Starting pay is $12 an hour at Starbucks near Old Town, and workers have access to health and dental benefits, paid time off and free drinks, Sherwood said.

Starbucks said in May it planned to move all US employees to $15 an hour starting Aug. 1, but Sherwood said the increase was not enough given the rising cost of living. over the past few months.

“We just want to be able to at least make a decent living and get by without worrying about ‘Can I buy food this week? It’s rent week, will I be able to afford gas and all these other things? things I need?” he said.

Workers will vote on whether to unionize in a few months, Sherwood said. Unionization occurs if at least 70% of the store’s 31 employees vote in favor, he added.

As workers wait to vote on unionization, Sherwood said other workers at union sites told him to expect visits from senior Starbucks officials.

“It’s going to be a propaganda war between the Starbucks corporation and us trying to… let our co-workers know what the union can do for us,” he said.

With six points from two games, the USA have already clinched their ticket to Australia and New Zealand and are guaranteed to be no worse than second in Group A. The Americans are guaranteed to top Group A with a win or draw against Mexico. Haiti and Jamaica are both on three points and will face off on Monday to determine which of the two Caribbean nations will automatically grab the World Cup berth. Due to a superior goal differential, a win or draw against Jamaica would send Haiti to their first-ever Women’s World Cup, while Jamaica need a win to secure a top-two spot. of the group.

Mexico’s World Cup hopes are now on hold in the Intercontinental Qualifiers, where 10 teams will battle for the final three spots in the expanded 32-team field for Australia/New Zealand 2023. However, reaching the Intercontinental Qualifiers will not be a small matter because Mexico must beat the United States – which they have only done once in 41 all-time encounters between the regional rivals – and must also overtake Jamaica or Haiti on goal differential to move up to third in the group standings.

INSIDE THE LIST

Mexico’s roster for the 2022 Concacaf W Championship is made up of 15 players who play their club football domestically in Liga MX Femenil, including six four-time overall champions UANL Tigers and four of the reigning champions of Apertura Chivas. Forward Alicia Cervantes, who plays for Chivas, has led the league in scoring each of the past two seasons, but only had one shot in 68 minutes of action at the 2022 Concacaf W Championship.

Two players – goalkeeper Emily Alvarado, who plays for her soccer club in France for Stade de Reims, and midfielder Stephany Mayor, who plays for Tigres, have played every minute for Mexico so far in this tournament.

Of the eight players playing at their club soccer outside of Mexico, five compete in the United States with two college players (UCLA’s Maricarmen Reyes and Arizona State’s Alexia Delgado) and three NWSL players. Maria Sanchez, who is from Idaho and played collegiately for Idaho and Santa Clara, plays for the Houston Dash. Defender Jimena Lopez played collegiately at Texas A&M and is a club teammate at OL Reign with Americans Alana Cook, Sofia Huerta, Rose Lavelle and Megan Rapinoe. Forward Diana Ordonez, who played on the United States Women’s Youth National Teams, played college football at the University of Virginia and is a teammate with United States goaltender Casey Murphy with the North Carolina Courage.

MEXICO WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM ROSTER BY POSITION

Guardians (3): 1-Emily Alvarado (Stade de Reims, FRA), 12-Itzel Gonzalez (Club America), 21-Melany Villeda (Pumas UNAM)

Defenders (5): 2-Kenti Robles (Real Madrid CF, ESP), 3-Greta Espinoza (Tigres UANL), 4-Rebeca Bernal (CF Monterrey), 5-Jimena Lopez (OL Reign, USA), 13-Bianca Sierra (Tigres UANL)

Midfielders (10): 6-Alexia Delgado (Arizona State, USA), 8-Carolina Jaramillo (Chivas), 10-Stephany Mayor (Tigres UANL), 14-Casandra Montero (Chivas), 15-Cristina Ferral (Tigres UANL), 16-Nancy Antonio ( Tigres UANL), 17-Jaqueline Ovalle (Tigres UANL), 18-Joseline Montoya (Chivas), 20-Diana Garcia (CF Monterrey), 23-Maricarmen Reyes (UCLA, USA)

Forwards (5): 7-Myra Delgadillo (SC Braga, POR), 9-Katty Martinez (Club America), 11-Maria Sanchez (Houston Dash, USA), 19-Alicia Cervantes (Chivas), 22-Diana Ordonez (North Carolina Courage, United States)

SERIES HISTORY: USA vs. MEXICO

Monday’s game in Monterrey will be 42^n/a all-time meeting between the United States and Mexico, which will tie Mexico with Sweden for the fourth most frequent opponent in United States history, behind only Canada (62 games), PR China (58) and Norway (50). The United States leads the series with Mexico, 39-1-1, and has won the last 15 meetings between the teams by an overall margin of 64-4.

The United States and Mexico most recently faced off in the Send-Off Series in July 2021, ahead of the USWNT’s departure for the Tokyo Olympics. The teams played twice in East Hartford, Connecticut, resulting in a pair of 4-0 wins for the United States on July 1 and 5.

This will be the first meeting between the United States and Mexico in a competitive game since their clash on February 7, 2020 in the semi-finals of the Concacaf Olympic qualifiers. USA won 4-0 behind goals from Rose Lavelle, Samantha Mewis (x2) and Christen Press to clinch their place at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mexico are the most frequent opponents USA have faced in World Cup and Olympic qualifying, with the teams having met 13 times in Concacaf qualifying. The United States have won 12 of those 13 encounters with Mexico’s only victory in qualifying – and the only victory ever against the United States – in the last match between the Mexico teams, a 2-1 victory for the United States. local team in the semi-finals of the World Cup. Qualifying in Cancun. Mexico’s only other result against the United States came in an October 2007 friendly in Albuquerque, New Mexico, drawing 1-1.

GROW THE GAME

Despite disappointing results in its first two games in the Concacaf Women’s Championship, women’s football has made significant progress in Mexico in recent years. The Federación Mexicana de Fútbol officially launched the Liga MX Femenil in 2017 and the league has seen phenomenal growth and success both on the pitch and in the stands, drawing impressive crowds.

When originally created, the Liga MX Femenil was limited to only allowing players born in Mexico, although in 2018 a rule change allowed teams to register up to six Mexican-American players and , at present, teams are now allowed to register up to four foreigners. born players. Several Americans play in the league, including former US Youth International and UCLA star Mia Fishel (UNAL Tigers) and former Cal-State Fullerton player and Orlando Pride forward Christina Burkenroad ( CF Monterrey), who is Mexican-American.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Two local men were convicted on July 2 for their roles in a sex trafficking ring, following an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Albuquerque Police Department, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, and Deliver Fund, a non-governmental anti-trafficking organization human beings, participated in the survey.

Adonis Baker, 37, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and Inkosi Grandberry, 40, received a 10-year sentence, followed by five years of supervised release.

“HSI is focused on working with our law enforcement partners to identify, arrest and prosecute those who traffic and victimize young women,” said Frank B. Burrola, Special Agent in Charge of HSI El Paso. “HSI Special Agents will continue to ensure that transnational criminal organizations that profit from victims bound in sexual servitude are brought to justice.”

Baker pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and admitted to using narcotics and physical force to induce victims into prostitution. Baker and his co-conspirators advertised the victims online and used cellphones to arrange clients for the women. Victims were not allowed to keep money paid to them for sex and had to work when told. The conspirators used motel rooms to house the victims.

Grandberry pleaded guilty to transportation for prostitution by coercion and incitement. In his plea, Grandberry admitted that on June 3, 2015, he aided and abetted Baker in persuading a victim, identified in court records as Jane Doe 1, to travel from Phoenix to Albuquerque for prostitution.

A third defendant, Leotha Williams, 61, of Memphis, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to transportation for prostitution by coercion and incitement. In his plea, Williams admitted that he and Baker approached a victim, identified as Jane Doe 2, at a bus stop in Albuquerque between June 2016 and September 2016. Williams and Baker asked the victim to get into a vehicle with them. They then traveled to Colorado Springs where Williams claimed the victim was in prostitution. On July 16, 2020, Williams was sentenced to five years in prison, after which he will be subject to five years of supervised release.

HSI is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, particularly criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which commerce, travel and international finance. HSI’s workforce of more than 10,400 employees includes more than 7,100 special agents assigned to 220 cities across the United States and 80 overseas locations in 53 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative police presence overseas and one of the largest international law enforcement footprints in the United States.

The shelter

A new house

After grabbing a microphone to thank fans for their support and watching a video presentation of best wishes from current and former teammates, Cardone posed photo after photo, until teammates Jordan Farr and Jasser Khmiri snuck in and l douse coolers with icy water.

In the final game before the 29-year-old Cardone left professional football to enroll in law school at SMU, San Antonio FC provided him with one last clean sheet to add to his record total, replacing him at the 76th minute of a 2-0 win over Charleston Battery on Saturday at Toyota Field.

“It makes me feel so special,” Cardone said. “I will never forget that night and all the love the guys, the fans and everyone in this organization and in the city showed me.”

About 45 minutes after the game ended, Cardone was still signing autographs and posing for photos with fans, who often identified with the San Antonio native and the only remnant of the club’s inaugural season in 2016.

After the crowd dispersed, about an hour and a half into the match, Cardone walked onto the field one last time with a handful of team personnel, posing for one last photo. The group around him wore all new SAFC “Fear the beard” warm-up t-shirts, with a silhouette of Cardone’s signature hair on the front and “Thank you, Matt!” scrawled on the back.

“Getting the send off that he did was so, so special,” forward Justin Dhillon said. “I’m so grateful to have been able to share this area with him.”

Cardone called his last stint in goal “one of the easiest 15-minute streaks I’ve played in my career” as San Antonio (13-3-1, 40 points) edged Charleston throughout Saturday’s game, holding the Battery (2-12-3, 9 points) without a shot on target.

Santiago Patino scored the opening goal in the 29th minute, collecting a rebound on the second rebound and sending it into the top of the net from around 10 yards out.

Ignacio Bailone added an insurance goal in the 66th minute, scoring a close-range header just six minutes after entering the game as a substitute.

The second goal put fans on alert for Cardone to come on for his first minutes of the season, although Marcina said Cardone would submarine on Saturday ‘regardless of the score’.

A cheer came from the crowd as the video board showed Cardone jogging from the warm-up area towards the SAFC bench. When the substitution came in the 76th minute, Marcina gave Cardone a hug as the fans gave him a standing ovation.

“A special moment – one of the moments that I will cherish for the rest of my life, just because of the human being he is,” Marcina said. “You can’t ask for a better person to represent this club and represent this city, so I was just thanking him in those few moments I had with him before I walked in.”

PC met Cardone in midfield to hand him the captain’s armband.

Earlier this week, Cardone highlighted a game against New Mexico United on July 21 as one of the highlights of his career, recalling how PC stopped to give Cardone the captain’s armband before walking off the pitch in due to injury.

A silent player for most of his career, Cardone said he considers being trusted to lead as one of the biggest signs of his personal growth, and to have it happening again on Saturday was another “really special”.

“It will always be a big part of me. I will never forget it and I will always look back with fondness on my time here, whether it was a difficult time or a successful one,” Cardone said. “It really shaped who I am as a person, and it’s going to help me succeed in the next chapter.”

As he prepares for the move to law school, Cardone said he will finally trim the massive beard he considers part of his identity with SAFC.

He ends his career as the club’s all-time leader in appearances (109), minutes (9,556), clean sheets (26) and saves (327).

Cardone played with MacArthur High, Trinity University and the San Antonio Scorpions of the North American Soccer League before joining SAFC for its inaugural season in 2016.

He remained with the club for all seven seasons. No other player has adapted in more than four.

“It was an amazing adventure,” Cardone said. “I’m so happy that it worked out for me to stay in my hometown, move up the ranks and be with this club for so long. It’s been special.

[email protected]

Twitter: @GregLuca

Lucila Lozoya is an educator and mother of three children. When there was a COVID surge at her workplace, her boss didn’t have the best response, she said, which caused more positive cases.

“During this time, our employer never granted us federally paid sick leave, which makes it even more difficult to make decisions about our health and what my family should eat,” she said. . “Eventually I decided not to return to work because of the multiple cases there.”

She needed time to get surgery to treat her cancer.

“Never in my life have I been through such difficult and extreme financial situations,” Lozoya said. “We lost almost everything.

The experience taught Lozoya that paid sick leave is a human right.

“I am very proud to be among the essential workers who have been at the forefront of this pandemic and that we continue to organize to improve our working conditions,” Lozoya said.

She is also a community leader with The center of Igualdad and Derechos.

She said Burqueño families have been fighting for paid sick leave since 2015. The pandemic has affected many low-income working families like hers, Lozoya said, especially when it comes to health and stability. financial.

Lozoya was speaking at a virtual press conference celebrating New Mexico’s statewide sick leave law that applies to all private employers, called the Healthy Workplaces Actwhich came into effect on Friday.

She was joined by other workers, organizers and state lawmakers, including Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos) who took the bill to the Legislature in 2021 before Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham don’t sign it.

The new law requires all employers to provide workers with up to 64 hours of paid sick leave per year, accrued based on the number of hours worked.

The movement that brought paid sick leave to New Mexico was worker-led, said Lan Sena, policy director at the Center for Civic Policy and former Albuquerque city councilman.

“We are happy that this has finally come to fruition and that everyone – all workers in New Mexico, regardless of the industry they work in – will be covered,” Lozoya said.

People looking for work don’t always have protections like paid sick leave, “especially since COVID is still roaming,” Sena said. Almost all residents of the United States were in areas of high or substantial transmission of covid this week, according to CDC data.

Is New Mexico ready to enforce the law?

It remains to be seen how many bosses will follow the law and how many of those who don’t will be the subject of lawsuits filed either with the state’s Department of Workforce Solutions or in civil courts across the country. ‘State.

As of June 22, the department’s Labor Relations Division had nine full-time labor law investigators, including seven based in Albuquerque and two in Las Cruces, a DWS spokesperson said.

It also has three administrative assistants, a paid and hourly supervising investigator, a business operations specialist and an ombudsman who deal with allegations of labor law violations.

That’s two fewer full-time investigators than in October 2021, when the department said it had 11 investigators.

The department asked lawmakers for $893,444 to pay for five new investigator positions, but only received $735,000, department spokeswoman Stacy Johnston said. The money will help pay for more than five employment law investigators, a staff attorney, a paralegal, an administrative assistant, a technical support analyst and a systems analyst.

NM Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) said the department is “very organized.”

“I think they’re ready – and even if they’re not, we’re moving forward,” Stewart said. Most New Mexico state agencies are struggling during the pandemic, she added.

She pointed to the product department attach which tells workers what their rights are and which employers must now display in the workplace.

“We definitely increased their budget specifically for that,” Stewart said. “We will continue to review this and adjust the budget upwards for this department, if more is needed. They don’t hesitate to tell us when they need more workers.

As of Thursday, the department had not filled or advertised the new positions funded by the Legislative Assembly. The positions will be advertised from Friday, the start of the new fiscal year, the spokesperson said.

Essential workers are more likely to catch and die from COVID

The pandemic’s racist effects won’t all be resolved with paid sick leave, Sena said, but it’s a step in the right direction.

To research shows that paid sick leave reduces the number of workers who come to work sick.

Low-income black and brown Americans lost more work than others during COVID surges, according to a new analysis of census data between August 2020 and June 2022 by Julia Raifman, assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health , and Aaron Sojourner , labor economist at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Analysis, published Tuesday, found that families earning less than $50,000 in 2019 were 12 times more likely to report missing seven days of work due to COVID-19 than those earning at least $200,000.

Hispanics and blacks were more than twice as likely to report missing work due to COVID symptoms as white or Asian Americans, the analysis found. This is consistent with other data showing that Blacks, Hispanics and Indigenous people are more likely contract coronavirus and die from COVID, the analysts wrote.

They also found that low-income people had a higher risk of being exposed to the coronavirus even when taking vaccination status into account.

The disproportionate loss of work was consistent with high exposure to the virus through work, household and community crowding.

Other studies have shown that when COVID disrupts a worker’s income and schedule, they not only suffer from short- and long term effects of the disease on health, but also did not enough food eat, especially when there is no paid sick leave available to them.

A lack of food and shelter can affect people’s entire lives and make it even more difficult for low-income communities to lift themselves out of poverty, according to the analysis, and this inequality ripples through the rest of the economy.

“Low-income workers are a lot less likely to have paid sick leave, which would offer material support to their families in times of loss of income, even if they are the ones who need it most,” the analysts wrote, which increases the risk of bad health and poverty.

The researchers recommended the direct and systematic delivery of vaccines to low-income neighborhoods and workplaces as a way to achieve more equitable vaccination and boost rates. They conclude that we need to expand our definition of who is “at high risk” for serious illness from coronavirus infection to include black, Hispanic, Native Americans and low-income Americans.

Rep. Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces) agreed that policymakers should consider the idea.

“As far as policy goes, I know it’s a lot harder to have that conversation in terms of broadening definitions, but I certainly think it’s worth considering those options in the future, not necessarily only for COVID, but for other public health issues,” Rubio said.

Stewart said the state House of Representatives also attempted to pass paid family and medical leave statewide, which would have provided paid leave for workers to care for children, the elderly or other family members. The sick leave law allows workers to help a family member get treatment for an illness, but not just to care for them.

They failed to get the bill passed and instead passed a Memorial create a working group to determine how the policy could be carried out, she said.

“Hopefully by January we’ll have a good idea of ​​how this might work,” Stewart said.

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