Former NM judge, wife arrested in Las Cruces

New Mexico judge resigns after Tren de Aragua gang member arrested at hi...

Joe Biden Wraps Up Speech, Immediately Asks For Directions To Get Off Stage

New Mexico child abuse suspects accused of training children for shootings

August 8, 2018 / 6:17 AM / Updated 2 hours ago


Andrew Hay

TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - Two men charged in the abuse of 11 youths found malnourished at a ramshackle compound in New Mexico were training the children with firearms to commit school shootings, prosecutors said in court documents filed in the case on Wednesday. 

Conditions at a compound in rural New Mexico where 11 children were taken into protective custody for their own health and safety after a raid by authorities, are shown in this photo near Amalia, New Mexico, U.S., provided August 6, 2018. Taos County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS 

One of the suspects, identified as Huraj Wahhaj, is the father of a young boy whose disappearance from his home near Atlanta months ago prompted the investigation that led authorities to raid the compound, located north of Taos, New Mexico, last week.

Remains believed to be that of the boy, who was 3 years old when his mother reported him missing, were found at the property on Monday but have not yet been positively identified, authorities said.

Wahhaj, a second man accused of harboring him as a fugitive, Lucas Morton, and three women presumed to be the mothers of the 11 children, who were taken into protective custody from the compound, were each charged with 11 counts of felony child abuse.

The five defendants made their initial court appearance before a local magistrate on Wednesday. They were due to be arraigned later in the day.

Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe told reporters on Tuesday that investigators found a shooting range built at one end of the squalid compound, located on the outskirts of the community of Amalia in northern New Mexico, near the Colorado border.

Wahhaj, 39, whose first name is alternately presented in some court documents as Siraj and is the person described as being “in control” of the compound, was heavily armed when taken into custody, the sheriff said.

A foster parent of one of the 11 children told authorities that Wahhaj “had trained the child in the use of an assault rifle in preparation for future school shootings,” prosecutors alleged in an expedited motion for pretrial detention.

The document further stated that Wahhaj was “under investigation for the death” of a 12th child at the compound, as well as for “training of children with weapons in furtherance of a conspiracy to commit school shootings.”

The court filing also states he “transported children across state lines for the purpose of children receiving advanced weapons training to commit future acts of violence.”

Similar allegations were leveled in a motion prosecutors filed seeking expedited pretrial detention of Morton.

The court documents said that most of the defendants appeared to be from Georgia, New York or elsewhere from the U.S. East Coast.

No mention was made of ideology or motive in initial court filings. The sheriff in comments over the weekend referred to the suspects as “extremists of Muslim belief,” but he declined to elaborate on that characterization when asked about it by reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.

According to CNN, Wahhaj is himself the son of a prominent Muslim cleric in New York.


The FBI is also taking part in the investigation, the sheriff said. So far, no federal charges are known to have been brought in the case.


Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, N.M.; additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, editing by Larry King and Jonathan Oatis

Source

Churches urge high court to act on gay marriage

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

09/06/2014 11:15 PM

09/06/2014 11:15 PM




FILE - This photo taken on Monday, May 12, 2014, shows the certificate of marriage presented to Kathy Chambery, and her partner, Marilyn Haring of 23 years, after they were married at Magistrate Court in Santa Fe, N.M. More than half of marriage licenses issued from Santa Fe County in the last year have gone to same-sex couples. Data from the Santa Fe County Clerk's Office shows that the number of licenses given out doubled and 55 percent went to same-sex couples. New Mexico became the 17th state to legalize same-sex marriage on Dec. 19, through a unanimous ruling by the state Supreme Court.THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN, JANE PHILLIPS/AP PHOTO


SALT LAKE CITY

The Mormon church and four religious organizations are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and settle once and for all the question of whether states can outlaw gay marriage.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a statement Friday, said it joined a friend-of-the-court brief asking the high court to hear Utah's marriage case.

Also taking part in the filing were The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Ethics & Religious Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Each teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman.



FILE In this photo taken on Monday, May 12, 2014, Kathy Chambery, left, and her partner, Marilyn Haring of 23 years, show off their rings after they were married at Magistrate Court in Santa Fe, N.M. More than half of marriage licenses issued from Santa Fe County in the last year have gone to same-sex couples. Data from the Santa Fe County Clerk's Office shows that the number of licenses given out doubled and 55 percent went to same-sex couples. New Mexico became the 17th state to legalize same-sex marriage on Dec. 19, through a unanimous ruling by the state Supreme Court | The Santa Fe New Mexican, Jane Phillips/AP Photo


"The time has come to end the divisive national debate as to whether the Constitution mandates same-sex marriage," the brief states.

Multiple organizations and governmental entities on both sides of the debate have filed similar briefs asking the court to take up the issue.

The religious groups urged the Supreme Court on the basis of tradition and religious freedom to uphold a state's right to disallow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

"Legal uncertainty is especially burdensome for religious organizations and religious believers increasingly confronted with thorny questions," the brief says. "Is their right to refrain from participating in, recognizing or facilitating marriages between persons of the same sex, contrary to their religious convictions, adequately shielded by the First Amendment and other legal protections? Or is further legislation needed to guard religious liberties in these and other sensitive areas?"

Last month, attorneys for three Utah gay and lesbian couples formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take Utah's appeal of a favorable gay marriage ruling.

The plaintiffs said they asked for the review even though they won at the federal appellate court level because they want the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether state same-sex marriage bans violate the Constitution.

The high court is under no obligation to take Utah's case or the others.


Source
.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/living/religion/article1754874.html#storylink=cpy

Hospital: 2 students critical after Roswell school shooting

Updated: 01/14/2014 10:39 AM | Created: 01/14/2014 8:27 AM
By: Elizabeth Reed, KOB.com

ROSWELL, N.M. -- A 14-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl have been airlifted to a Texas hospital in critical condition after a school shooting in Roswell, according to a University Medical Center spokesperson.

A Roswell hospital confirmed at least two students were hospitalized from Berrendo Middle School after the shooting. It is not clear if those two students were the victims airlifted to Lubbock.

The school remains on lockdown after the shooting on Tuesday morning.

New Mexico State Police officials said local authorities were dispatched to the school just after 8 a.m. According to the Roswell Police Department Facebook page, the shooter has been apprehended.

Watch: Buses take students away from Berrendo Middle School after shooting


   



Parents have been instructed to pick up their students at the Roswell Mall. Officials at the mall said the school is still conducting a head count. Once buses arrive, police will take parents in groups of five inside to find their children.

"It was scary, it was freaky," Kathy Sigala told KOB Eyewitness News 4's reporter at the scene. "I didn't understand. I got a call from where I work and I was at home. I just got in my car and my daughter came with the other kids... And I just came here and we heard from police… But we're just grateful for Roswell, RPD, for their fast reaction in getting there and taking care of what they have to take of… We just can't believe that it would happen here."

State police are expected to release more information about the shooting at a press conference at 1 p.m.

KOB has a crew at the scene and in the sky. Stick with KOB.com for updates.


Source
.

NM Court Says Christian Photogs Guilty of Discrimination for Refusing LGBT Weddings

Todd Starnes | Aug 22, 2013










The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Christian photographer who declined to photograph a same-sex union violated the state’s Human Rights Act and one justice warned the photographers were “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

In 2006 Vanessa Willock asked Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, owners of Elane Photography, to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” in the town of Taos.

Huguenin and her husband declined the job because their Christian beliefs were in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony.

Willock found another photographer at a cheaper price but nevertheless filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission accusing Elane Photography of discrimination based on sexual orientation. She was later found guilty and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines.

“The Huguenins today can no more turn away customers on the basis of their sexual orientation – photographing a same-sex marriage ceremony – than they could refuse to photograph African-Americans or Muslims,” Justice Richard Bosson wrote in the court’s unanimous decision.

Bosson said the Christian photographers are now “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

“Though the rule of law requires it, the result is sobering,” he wrote. “It will no doubt leave a tangible mark on the Huguenins and others of similar views.”

A recent Rasmussen survey found that 85 percent of Americans support the right of a photographer to refuse participating in a same-sex wedding.

Bosson said the case provokes reflection on what the nation is about.

“At its heart, this case teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others,” he wrote.

He said the Constitution protects the rights of the Christian photographers to pray to the God of their choice and following religious teachings, but offered a sobering warning.

“But there is a price, one that we all have to pay somewhere in our civic life,” the justice wrote. “The Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people.”

Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal firm specializing in religious liberty cases, representing the photographers. Attorney Jordan Lorence said the ruling in effect means gay rights now trump religious rights.

“Government-coerced expression is a feature of dictatorships that has no place in a free country,” Lorence said. “This decision is a blow to our client and every American’s right to live free.”

Lorence said the New Mexico Supreme Court undermined the constitutionally protected freedoms of expression and conscience.

“If Elane Photographer does not have her rights of conscience protected, then basically nobody does,” he told Fox News. “What you have here is the government punishing someone who says, ‘I, in good conscience, cannot communicate the messages of this wedding.’”

Amber Royster, the executive director of Equality New Mexico, called the court decision a big victory.

“What it came down to is this was a case about discrimination,” she told Fox News. “While we certainly believe we are all entitled to our religious beliefs, religious beliefs don’t necessarily make it okay to break the law by discriminating against others.”

Royster said forcing a business that offers services to the public to abide by discrimination laws does not violate the First Amendment – and does not pit gay rights against religious rights.

“It’s about discrimination,” she said. “It’s not religious rights versus gay rights. We have a law on the books that makes it illegal to discriminate against LGBT persons. It makes it illegal for business to do that and this business broke the law by discriminating against this couple.”

Ken Klukowsi, of the Family Research Council, called the ruling profoundly disturbing.

“This decision may bring to Americans’ attention the serious threat to religious liberty posed by overbearing government agencies when it comes to redefining marriage,” he said. “Rather than live and let live, this is forcing religious Americans to violate the basic teachings of their faith or lose their jobs.”

Lorence said they are considering appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is very coercive, very authoritarian to crush those who do not agree and make public examples of them – and in a free society, that simply should not be,” he said.


Source
.

William Fagal Texico Campmeeting Message, part 2

ronjohnston7 


Published on Jul 18, 2012

William Fagal gives a presentation at the Texico campmeeting of Seventh-day Adventists in Albuquerque, NM, June 2012 on "How God has used Ellen White to Guide our Church"

.

Scientists have been using quantum internet for years

By Matt Vella, senior editor 

May 7, 2013: 1:20 PM ET



A team of scientists at Los Alamos National Labs has admitted to using a so-called quantum internet two years.

Where the future is being made.

FORTUNE -- Scientists at Los Alamos National Labs say they have been quietly operating a quantum internet for the past two years.

What is a quantum internet? It is a network that employs the laws of quantum mechanics to make perfectly secure online communication possible. Because the act of measuring a quantum object necessarily changes it, any attempt to snoop on a quantum message leaves indications of tampering a would-be receiver can detect. A quantum internet would potentially allow users to send messages over a network which could then be used for absolutely secure communication. (Making SnapChat look like child's play by comparison.)

The concept has fascinated security experts, but there are thorny technical problems. For example, messages can only be sent between locations, not routed as regular Internet traffic. Deciding where a communication is headed changes its state, effectively marking it.

Now, a team from Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico has revealed that it has managed to work around some of these limitations. As the MIT Technology Review puts it:

Richard Hughes and pals at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico reveal an alternative quantum internet, which they say they've been running for two and a half years. Their approach is to create a quantum network based around a hub and spoke-type network. All messages get routed from any point in the network to another via this central hub. This is not the first time this kind of approach has been tried. The idea is that messages to the hub rely on the usual level of quantum security. However, once at the hub, they are converted to conventional classical bits and then reconverted into quantum bits to be sent on the second leg of their journey.

When this innovation will be in wide use is anybody's guess. It likely won't be anytime soon. For more, check out this blog post revealing the announcement.

Fortune
.

Military fighter plane crashes in NM after pilot ejects safely; crash starts brush fire

By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, July 6, 7:44 PM

ROSWELL, N.M. — A military fighter plane crashed Wednesday in southern New Mexico after the pilot ejected safely, Air Force officials said.

The QF-4 Phantom from Holloman Air Force Base crashed in grasslands southwest of Roswell near the community of Hope. The crash sparked a fire that burned 28 acres before it was contained.

The pilot was in good condition, according to a statement from Col. David Krumm, commander of the 49th Wing.

Base officials confirmed there was no live ammunition aboard the plane. However, Krumm said in his statement that the base was “asking the public to cooperate with military and civilian authorities at the scene to ensure the safety of everyone involved.”

The aircraft was assigned to and operated by Detachment 1, 82nd Aerial Target Squadron.

The QF-4 is used as a target for weapons testing. It can be flown by remote control or with a pilot.

Base officials said a safety board would be convened to investigate the crash.


Source
.

Wildfire reaches Los Alamos nuclear facility

Several thousand people have evacuated the town of Los Alamos, but officials said that all radioactive materials stored at the lab were safe from flames

Dominic Rushe
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 June 2011 03.10 BST


A wildfire rages just outside of a Los Alamos nuclear facility in Los Almos, New Mexico, on Monday June 27, 2011. Photograph: Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP

A raging forest fire threatened the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico on Monday and led to the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.

The fire started in Sante Fe national forest on Sunday and has so far burnt 50,000 acres, or 78 square miles. The Las Conchas blaze started a one acre "spot fire" on the sprawling property where scientists worked on the first atomic bomb 50 years ago. So far several thousand people have evacuated the town of Los Alamos, which has a population of about 12,000.

According to local authorities firefighters were able to douse the the fire at the nuclear facility. Los Alamos National Laboratory officials said that all radioactive materials stored at the sprawling lab were safe from flames. The lab has been closed while firefighters monitor the blaze.

The wildfire is being driven by 60mph winds. The fire is believed to be several miles from the laboratory's essential structures. The 25,600-acre property's plutonium facility is on the northeast side of the complex, while the fire seems to be moving south and east, lab spokesman Kevin Roark told Reuters. The fire has so far destroyed properties outside of Los Alamos but has not entered the city itself.

The laboratory, which ensures the safety and reliability of the US nuclear stockpile, was set up in 1943 as part of the Manhattan project to create the first atomic bomb and still maintains the nation's largest nuclear weapons arsenal.

In a 2009 report, the US department of energy said Los Alamos county firefighters weren't sufficiently trained to handle the unique fires they could face with hazardous or radioactive materials at the site.

Source