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Morning Word
Prosecutors to drop charges against Baldwin in Rust shooting
Alec Baldwin may not see his day in court in Santa Fe after all. Special prosecutors who took over the involuntary manslaughter charges against the actor after the 2021 on-set fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins said yesterday they plan to dismiss the case, but that the case might not be done for good. “Over the last few days and in preparation for the May 3, 2023, preliminary hearing, new facts were revealed that demand further investigation and forensic analysis in the case against Alexander ‘Alec’ Rae Baldwin, III. Consequently, we cannot proceed under the current time constraints and on the facts and evidence turned over by law enforcement in its existing form,” reads a statement from special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis. “We therefore will be dismissing the involuntary manslaughter charges against Mr. Baldwin to conduct further investigation. This decision does not absolve Mr. Baldwin of criminal culpability and charges may be refiled. Our follow-up investigation will remain active and on-going.” The state’s Administrative Office of the Courts late yesterday announced a status conference scheduled for 2:30 pm this afternoon and set to be live streamed to the New Mexico Courts YouTube channel, where more details are expected to emerge. Meanwhile, charges against set armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed remain unchanged, special prosecutors said. “We are pleased with the decision to dismiss the case against Alec Baldwin and we encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident,” Baldwin’s attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said in a statement released to the Associated Press.
Extra booster for older adults and at-risk
The New Mexico Department of Health yesterday urged those over age 65 and people with weakened immune systems to make appointments for an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had on Wednesday signed off on the new doses following authorization from the Food and Drug Administration earlier in the week. “We are all ready to move on from the pandemic and the best way to do that is to get vaccinated to help protect both the vaccinated person and those around them by limiting the spread of the virus,” Health Secretary Patrick Allen said in a statement. If you are at least 65 and received your first bivalent booster at least four months ago, you are eligible to get a second one, as well as if you are immunocompromised and received a bivalent booster at least two months ago, the department announced. (For those not in the two named groups, CDC only recommends a single Omicron COVID-19 booster dose for those ages 5 and older who have completed their primary series. If you received a booster after August 31, 2022, you are fully up to date.) Individuals can sign up for their vaccine appointment by calling 1-855-600-3453 (option 3; option 9 for Spanish), online at vaccineNM.org or through their personal medical provider or pharmacist.
Treasurer reacts to child-labor allegations
State Treasurer Laura Montoya won’t make further investments of state funds with PepsiCo, Amazon and Walmart until the companies respond to allegations that they profit from the use of suppliers that illegally employ underage migrant children. Montoya sent letters Wednesday to the companies and announced she had placed them on a caution list. The campaign follows a New York Times investigation last month. PepsiCo executives have met with Montoya, her office reports, “and committed to providing an update once they complete their internal investigation.” Walmart and Amazon have responded in writing. “Whether it’s the companies, or the entities they contract with, no one should take advantage of immigrant children or exploit their life circumstances and gain from the investment of taxpayer dollars,” Montoya said in a statement. “As the first elected Latina Treasurer in this country’s history, and representing a border state, I will always advocate for the protection of all children from exploitation, especially those working to support themselves.”
Cops strategize on stoned drivers
Though New Mexico has not adopted new laws about impaired driving in the wake of the legalization of cannabis for adult use, law enforcement officials from around the state met yesterday in a summit to discuss how respond to and curtail the behavior. “Impairment is impairment regardless of the substance that’s causing it,” Charles Files of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said, according the Albuquerque Journal. “You can get a DWI for cannabis just the same as you can for meth, for heroin, for over-the-counter drugs, prescriptions, whatever.” The state Department of Transportation said the event was intended to “explore evidence-based approaches for preventing impaired driving, and promote collaboration among stakeholders,” and its agenda included a presentation from Edica Esqueda, program manager of the Washington Traffic Safety Committee, who spoke about that state’s experience; and Jessica Bloom, a research scientist at UNM’s Center for Geospatial and Population Studies, who outlined the difficulty of tracking how many crashes involve cannabis-impaired drivers because, unlike with alcohol, the presence of cannabis in a driver’s system isn’t necessarily evidence the person was impaired at the time they were driving.
COVID-19 by the numbers
Reported April 20: New cases: 229; 678,650 total cases. Deaths: 0. Statewide fatalities: 9,175; Santa Fe County has had 407 total deaths; Statewide hospitalizations: 83; patients on ventilators: 9. The state health department will stop reporting daily COVID-19 cases on May 11.
The Centers for Disease and Prevention most recent April 20 “community levels” map shows all counties remain green, low levels, in New Mexico for the second week in a row.
Resources: Receive four free at-home COVID-19 tests per household via COVIDTests.gov; Check availability for additional free COVID-19 tests through Project ACT; CDC interactive booster eligibility tool; NM DOH vaccine & booster registration; CDC isolation and exposure interactive tool; COVID-19 treatment info; NMDOH immunocompromised tool kit. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
What do life on Mars and life on the polar ice caps have in common? New Mexican Nina Lanza has a prominent place among scientists seeking that answer. Lanza, the team lead for space and planetary exploration in space remote sensing and data science at Los Alamos National Laboratory as well as the principal investigator of the ChemCam instrument onboard the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, also lived on the ice in Antarctica as part of a research project. Now she’s featured in Episode 4 of the new Lift the Ice documentary series on Curiosity Stream, which began streaming yesterday. “We are looking for places that are like Mars, right here on earth. Underneath this ice, scientists are building a gateway to the cosmos,” Lanza says in the trailer. For more in-depth (and free) explanation of her work in her own words about her “second favorite planet,” check our her lecture at last year’s Interplanetary Festival by Santa Fe Institute.
Say cheese(burger)
A new New York eatery with a focus on historic hamburgers plans to present its version of a green chile cheeseburger soon. The Word has previously kept tabs on restaurants in other locales that claim to present New Mexico’s cuisine, so it is with George Motz’s new restaurant called Hamburger America (also the name of his book) set to open this summer. Motz, says Eater, is a “burger scholar,” who plans to offer three burgers each week: the Oklahoma-style fried onion burger; a smashburger; and a “monthly regional style,” for starters, “Santa Fe’s green chile burger, which will kick off with Motz bringing in his favorite New Mexican purveyors of the regional style to cook signature burgers in-house.” If you’re into chile cheeseburgers, you probably already know about Edible New Mexico magazine’s annual fall smackdown, but here’s a reminder of the finalists, many of which are still on menus today. Food & Wine’s newest list of its favorite burger recipes leads with a take on the green chile standard, and of course, the New Mexico Tourism Department prioritized putting together an exhaustive interactive statewide map and Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail.
Every day is Earth Day
The United States first observed Earth Day in 1970, the same year the nation established its Environmental Protection Agency. While conservation values and environmental stewardship existed long before the declared day, advocates for policies that reflect those values and people who just plain want to celebrate clean air, water, animals and other natural wonders have been orchestrating events ever since. On Saturday morning, Santa Fe County’s Earth Day education gathering at the fairgrounds focuses on water harvesting, with presentations by RainCatcher Inc. and Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners. Breakfast starts at 9 am, with hands-on gardening activities through noon. In the afternoon, perhaps head over to the Solana Center, where Betterday Vintage is holding an event from noon to 4 pm with pop-ups and vendors, Broken Arrow Glass Recycling, multiple DJ sets and more. Evoke Contemporary hosts its Earth Day Poetry Jam at 4 pm with John Macker, John Knoll, John Nizalowski and Al Ortolani. Find other area Earth Day events here.
Breeze in
The National Weather Service forecasts a sunny day with a high near 58, breezy, with a north wind 10 to 15 mph becoming west 20 to 25 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph. For the weekend: Saturday’s high is predicted to reach 62, with a 30% chance of rain shows on Sunday afternoon.
Thanks for reading! The (substitute) Word felt starry-eyed at this NYT interactive on New Mexico’s “Star Partyers.”
