ARIZONA

Female Mexican gray wolf released into wild

PHOENIX – A female Mexican gray wolf that a group of schoolchildren nicknamed Asha has been returned to the wilds of Arizona after she was found wandering in northern New Mexico outside of a zone set up for the recovery of her subspecies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday.

The wolf was headed north into the southern Rocky Mountains of New Mexico in January when the wildlife service captured her outside the recovery area. The Fish and Wildlife Service says it does not anthropomorphize wild animals by using human or pet names favored by the public and nongovernmental groups and calls her Female Wolf 2745.

Cyndi Tuell, Arizona and New Mexico director of the nongovernmental Western Watersheds, and other environmentalists say the zone is arbitrary and that the animals should be able to roam freely, potentially introducing them to other wolves for breeding and increase their genetic diversity, conservationists insist.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said the wolf born in 2021 had wandered into territory where there are no other wolves to breed with.

She was fitted with a radio collar in the fall of 2022, and the agency will continue to monitor her movements following her release.

The Mexican gray wolf is an endangered subspecies of the gray wolf whose numbers in the Southwest dwindled dangerously close to extinction before efforts to bring it back under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The last known wild Mexican gray wolves were captured in the late 1970s, and the gradual recovery began with seven of the animals being successfully bred in captivity.

NEW MEXICO

State rolls out $690M in taxpayer rebates after budget surplus

SANTA FE – New Mexico expects to start distributing $690 million in rebates to eligible taxpayers as early as next week, state officials announced on Jun 12 as applications for a separate tax relief program opened.

Any state resident who filed a 2021 state tax return and was not declared as a dependent on someone else’s return will receive their rebates automatically, the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department said at a news conference.

Single filers will get $500, while married couples filing jointly will get $1,000.

Stephanie Schardin Clarke, the department’s Cabinet secretary, said rebates will be deposited around June 21 into the bank accounts of taxpayers who received a refund by direct deposit on their 2021 return. Everyone else will get a check in the mail, which will be printed and sent out between June 20 and June 29, she said.

New Mexico residents have until May 31, 2024, to file a 2021 return and still qualify for the rebates.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the tax rebates in April, as a result of a multibillion-dollar surplus in oil income.

At the time, Lujan Grisham noted that prices remain high in a state with elevated poverty rates and low workforce participation, but said New Mexico “is in a fantastic financial position.”

Feds break up multi-state Guatemalan smuggling ring

ALBUQUERQUE – Federal authorities have arrested six people for their alleged roles in a human smuggling ring that brought migrants from Guatemala to the United States, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico said.

Alexander M.M. Uballez, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and Francisco B. Burrola, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso, Texas, said the arrests followed the unsealing of a federal grand jury indictment on May 24.

Authorities said the six were members of the Lopez Crime Family, which allegedly has smuggling operations in Guatemala, Mexico and the U.S. that use a series of coordinated transports, stash houses and directed electronic money transfers. Authorities said all are Guatemalans and members of the family or associated with it.

The arrests were made in Arizona and California through an operation that included law enforcement agencies in three states.

Homeland Security Investigations in New Mexico led the investigation, officials said.

If convicted, each faces up to ten years in prison.

WYOMING

Group that pushes alternatives opens site near Casper abortion clinic

A nonprofit that aims to persuade pregnant woman to seek alternatives to abortion opened a site earlier this month down the street from the new Casper abortion clinic.

The True Care Women’s Resource Center, a nonprofit organization with a main location in asper, opened its second location June 1, Jessica Baxter, the center’s CEO, said.

The new clinic is about two blocks away from the Wellspring Health Access clinic, which opened in April nearly a year after an arson destroyed most of the building’s interior.

True Care has also partnered with Sidewalk Advocates for Life, a “Christ-centered” national organization that aims to end abortion. Volunteers with the local chapter of the organization have stationed themselves near the abortion clinic to intercept patients and refer them to the True Care center on Second Street.

In addition to abortion services, Wellspring Health Access, which is led by founder and president Julie Burkhart, offers family planning services as well as gynecological and gender affirming care.

The Wyoming Legislature passed the Life is a Human Right Act, a sweeping abortion ban, as well as the nation’s first medication abortion ban earlier this year.

Both became law in March, though abortion until viability is still legal in Wyoming after a Teton County judge blocked enforcement of the Life is a Human Right Act as the measure undergoes a challenge in court. Plaintiffs in the court challenge have also requested a block on the medication abortion ban, which is set to take effect next month.

UTAH

Rural abortion clinic closes amid staff shortages

SALT LAKE CITY – There is now one fewer place to access abortion in Utah after Planned Parenthood closed its only clinic outside the Salt Lake City metropolitan area.

The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said on June 15 that the Logan clinic has long been staffed with one provider, who left to take another position in March. The northern Utah city of 52,000 is home to Utah State University and about 20 miles from Idaho, where abortions have been banned except for in cases of rape or incest since last year.

Planned Parenthood said in a statement that it was training new staff and planned to reopen its clinic in August, in addition to a new facility in Ogden. In the meantime, it has attempted to help Logan patients schedule appointments at nearby health centers. In addition to abortion, the organization’s facilities provide sexual and reproductive health services including birth control and STI and pregnancy screenings.

Three abortion clinics remain open in Utah’s Salt Lake City metro, including two operated by Planned Parenthood and a third, the independent Wasatch Women’s Clinic.

Abortion clinics are reckoning with a new state law that will ban them by gradually phasing out their licenses. A judge put the ban on hold until Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit challenging it can be resolved.

Lawmakers have said licenses for abortion clinics are no longer needed in post-Roe v. Wade Utah. Abortion is legal up to 18 weeks of pregnancy while challenges to a state trigger law that would ban most abortions with exceptions for rape, incest or maternal health progresses through the court system.

Anti-abortion lawmakers who expect to prevail in court have said that the type of procedures allowed under the western conservative state’s laws are best suited for hospitals.