New Mexico

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Democratic challenger Gabe Vasquez has won election to Congress in New Mexico’s 2nd District, defeating incumbent Rep. Yvette Herrell in a majority-Hispanic district along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Vasquez highlighted his Latino heritage and an upbringing along the border in a working-class, immigrant family. He advocated for solutions to climate change and conservation of public lands in a district traditionally dominated by the oil and natural gas industry.

ESTANCIA, N.M. (AP) — Republican county commissioners in this swath of ranching country in New Mexico’s high desert have tried everything they can think of to persuade voters their elections are secure.

They approved hand-counting of ballots from the primary election in their rural county, encouraged the public to observe security testing of ballot machines and tasked their county manager with overseeing those efforts to make sure they ran smoothly. None of that seems enough.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that the federal government has to do more to help with recovery in the wake of a devastating wildfire that charred several hundred homes and destroyed the livelihoods of many rural New Mexico residents.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — In the six years since he resettled in the United States from Afghanistan, the primary suspect in the slayings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque has been arrested several times for domestic violence and captured on camera slashing the tires of a woman’s car, according to police and court records.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — After he was detained by New Mexico police, the suspect in the killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque denied any connection to the crimes that shook the city and its small Muslim community — and told authorities he was so unnerved by the violence that he was driving to Houston in search of a new home for his family, court documents said.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities investigating the killings of four Muslim men said they are looking for help finding a vehicle believed to be connected to the deaths in New Mexico’s largest city.

A Muslim man was killed Friday night in Albuquerque, and ambush shootings killed three other Muslim men over the past nine months. Police are trying to determine if the slayings are linked.

The common elements in all the deaths were the victims’ race and religion, Deputy Police Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock said.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore cited extreme fire danger and unfavorable weather conditions Friday in announcing a suspension of all planned fire burning operations to clear brush and small trees on all national forest lands while his agency conducts a review of protocols and practices ahead of planned operations this fall.

LOS ALAMOS N.M. (AP) — Public schools were closed and evacuation bags packed this week as a stubborn wildfire crept within a few miles of the city of Los Alamos and its companion U.S. national security lab — where assessing apocalyptic threats is a specialty and wildland fire is a beguiling equation.

Lighter winds on Friday allowed for the most intense aerial attack this week on those flames west of Santa Fe as well as the biggest U.S. wildfire burning farther east, south of Taos.

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Dangerous, gusty winds were expected to continue Monday across northeast New Mexico, complicating the fight against wildfires that threaten thousands of homes in mountainous rural communities.

The region’s largest city — Las Vegas, New Mexico, home to 13,000 people — was largely safe from danger after firefighters mostly stopped a blaze there from moving east. But the northern and southern flanks of the wildfire proved trickier to contain as wind gusts topped 50 mph (80 kph).

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — With the worst of the thick wildfire smoke having blown out of town, residents of this small northern New Mexico city tried to recapture a sense of normalcy Saturday as their rural neighbors hunkered down amid predictions of extreme fire conditions.

Shops and restaurants reopened, the historic center was no longer just populated by firefighters, but there was a widely felt sense of anxiety, loss, and wariness of what lay ahead.