Navajo Nation issues new emergency drought declaration
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) — Dry conditions and the prospect of limited precipitation later this year have forced officials on the nation's largest American Indian reservation to approve an emergency drought declaration.
The Navajo Nation's Commission on Emergency Management issued the new declaration Monday. The reservation spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah and includes a region that been dealing with severe to extreme drought for weeks now.
Tribal officials are anticipating large-scale drought conditions to persist this summer. They say that will create a shortage of water and feed for livestock.
The tribe also is grappling with feral horses, heavy populations in remote locations and winter range areas like the Carrizo Mountains. Officials say the Navajo ecosystem can't support the number of feral horses that currently exist.
NEW MEXICO-ENDANGERED SPECIES
New Mexico biologists scheduled to review endangered species
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Game and Fish Department is preparing to begin a lengthy review of dozens of species of animals and plants that are classified as threatened or endangered by the state.
It will be up to the state Game Commission when it meets Thursday in Las Cruces to approve the start of the biennial review.
Based on the best available information, department biologists determine for each listed species whether its status should be "uplisted" from threatened to endangered, "downlisted" from endangered to threatened, or remain unchanged from the previous review period.
Public comments will be taken before and after the department issues its draft review.
There's a separate process for determining whether species should be added to or removed from the list.
SENATOR EMBEZZLED-SENTENCING
Man who embezzled from state senator gets prison sentence
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico authorities say a man convicted of stealing money and jewelry from state Sen. Mary Kay Papen has been sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison.
Dona Ana County District prosecutors sought the maximum sentence of 13 1/2 years for Steve Siddall, but a judge suspended six years of the term.
They say the 46-year-old Siddall once served as Papen's campaign treasurer and was given access to her bank accounts.
Last December, a Las Cruces jury convicted Siddall on one count of forgery over $2,500, five counts of forgery and two counts of larceny over $500.
He was found guilty of forging checks and stealing thousands of dollars from Papen plus two pieces of valuable jewelry from her.
Prosecutors still are seeking more than $10,000 in restitution.
NAVAJO WATER DISPUTE
Water districts challenge judge in Navajo settlement
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Water districts in northern New Mexico are seeking to disqualify a judge and overturn a major water settlement award to the Navajo Nation.
A motion filed Monday with the New Mexico state Court of Appeals seeks to disqualify James Wechsler as the presiding judge in the San Juan Basin water rights adjudication for failing to disclose prior legal work on behalf of the Navajo Nation.
The court challenge from more than 20 community water districts highlights Wechsler's work in the 1970s for DNA Legal Services and describes DNA as an extension of the Navajo Nation. DNA Legal Services is an independent, nonprofit law firm that at times has been at odds with tribal government.
The motion filed by attorney Victor Marshall seeks to invalidate San Juan River water rights.
NAVAJO NATION-WILD HORSE HUNT
Navajo Nation cancels plans for wild horse hunt in Arizona
(Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.daily-times.com)
FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) — Navajo Nation canceled a planned wild horse hunt aimed at thinning a herd in an Arizona area after a protest against the hunt was planned.
The Farmington Daily Times reports a notice on the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife's website says the Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources rescinded on Monday a proclamation declaring the 2018 feral horse management hunt, which was designed to remove 60 horses from the Carrizo Mountains near Teec Nos Pos in northeast Arizona.
Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye says the hunt will be postponed.
Horse advocates, including members of the Facebook group Indigenous Horse Nation Protector Alliance, organized a rally for Friday in Window Rock, Arizona, to protest the hunt.
A 2016 study conducted by the Navajo Fish and Wildlife Department says there are more than 38,000 feral horses on Navajo Nation land.
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KERNER COMMISSION-50 YEARS
Report: Inequality remains 50 years after Kerner Report
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Barriers to equality are posing threats to democracy in the U.S. as the country remains segregated along racial lines and child poverty worsens, says a study examining the nation 50 years after the release of the landmark 1968 Kerner Report.
The new report released Tuesday blames U.S. policymakers and elected officials, saying they're not doing enough to heed the warning on deepening poverty and inequality as highlighted by the Kerner Commission a half-century ago, and it lists a number of areas where the country has seen "a lack of or reversal of progress."
"Racial and ethnic inequality is growing worse. We're resegregating our housing and schools again," former U.S. Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma, a co-editor of the new report and last surviving member of the original Kerner Commission created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. "There are few more people who are poor now than was true 50 years ago. Inequality of income is worse."
The new study titled "Healing Out Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years After the Kerner Report" says the percentage of people living in deep poverty — less than half of the federal poverty level — has increased since 1975. About 46 percent of people living in poverty in 2016 were classified as living in deep poverty — 16 percentage points higher than in 1975.
And although there has been progress for Hispanic homeownership since the Kerner Commission, the homeownership gap has widened for African-Americans, the report found. Three decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 passed, black homeownership rose by almost 6 percentage points. But those gains were wiped out from 2000 to 2015 when black homeownership fell 6 percentage points, the report says.
The report blames the black homeownership declines on the disproportionate effect the subprime crisis had on African-American families.
In addition, gains to end school segregation were reversed because of a lack of court oversight and housing discrimination. The court oversight allowed school districts to move away from desegregation plans and housing discrimination forced black and Latino families to move into largely minority neighborhoods.
In 1988, for example, about 44 percent of black students went to majority-white schools nationally. Only 20 percent of black students do so today, the report says.
The result of these gaps means that people of color and those struggling with poverty are confined to poor areas with inadequate housing, underfunded schools and law enforcement that views those residents with suspicion, the report said.
Those facts are bad for the whole country, and communities have a moral responsibility to address them now, said Harris, who now lives in Corrales, New Mexico.
The new report calls on the federal government and states to push for more spending on early childhood education and a $15 minimum wage by 2024. It also demands more regulatory oversight over mortgage leaders to prevent predatory lending, community policing that works with nonprofits in minority neighborhoods and more job training programs in an era of automation and emerging technologies.
"We have to have a massive outcry against the state of our public policies," said the Rev. William J. Barber II, a Goldsboro, North Carolina pastor who is leading a multi-ethnic "Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival" next month in multiple states. "Systemic racism is something we don't talk about. We need to now."
The late President Johnson formed the original 11-member Kerner Commission as Detroit was engulfed in a raging riot in 1967. Five days of violence over racial tensions and police violence would leave 33 blacks and 10 whites dead, and more than 1,400 buildings burned. More than 7,000 people were arrested.
That summer, more than 150 cases of civil unrest erupted across the United States. Harris and other commission members toured riot-torn cities and interviewed black and Latino residents and white police officers.
The commission recommended that the federal government spend billions to attack structural racism in housing, education and employment. But Johnson, angry that the commission members didn't praise his anti-poverty programs, shelved the report and refused to meet with members.
Alan Curtis, president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation and co-editor of the new report, said this study's attention to systemic racism should be less startling to the nation given the extensive research that now calls the country's discriminatory housing and criminal justice systems into question.
Unlike the 1968 findings, the new report includes input from African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and women who are scholars and offer their own recommendations.
"The average American thinks we progressed a lot," said Kevin Washburn, a law professor at the University of New Mexico, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and one of the people who shared his observations for the report. "But there are still some places where Native people live primitive lives. They don't have access to things such as good water, electricity and plumbing."
Like the 1968 report, the new study also calls out media organizations for their coverage of communities of color, saying they need to diversify and hire more black and Latino journalists.
News companies could become desensitized to inequality if they lack diverse newsrooms, and they might not view the issue as urgent or newsworthy, said journalist Gary Younge, who also gave input to the report.
"It turns out that sometimes 'dog bites man' really is the story," Younge said. "And we keep missing it."
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Associated Press writer Russell Contreras is a member of the AP's race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras.
ANTI-SEMITISM REPORT-NEW MEXICO
Report: New Mexico sees increase in anti-Semitic incidents
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A civil rights group says harassment, vandalism and assaults against Jewish people and institutions have increased for a third straight year in New Mexico.
The Anti-Defamation League released figures Tuesday showing there were 15 reported anti-Semitic incidents in the state in 2017, up 37 percent from 2016. In 2017, New Mexico had six instances of vandalism, and nine cases of harassment and threats.
The count included two bomb threats received at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Albuquerque, swastika graffiti found in a Los Alamos National Laboratory bathroom, and a report that a wedding vendor sent anti-Semitic messages to a potential client.
Nationwide, the group found a 57 percent increase in reported anti-Semitic incidents — the biggest jump in more than two decades. There were 1,986 total reported incidents in 2017.