ARIZONA

Grand Canyon mascot recovered

Missing an ear and his front legs detached, Brighty the Burro certainly has seen better days.

The 600-pound bronze statue used to greet visitors at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the national park’s North Rim. The nearly century-old building was reduce to rubble this summer when a wildfire swept through the area. Brighty was found charred, his head and body mostly intact.

As firefighters continued their work on Aug. 15 to corral the stubborn flames, Brighty hit the road — strapped into the back of a pickup truck for a roughly five-hour journey that would take him from his home on the North Rim to the South Rim.

The plan calls for temporarily housing him in the Grand Canyon National Park’s museum collection so he can be assessed. It will be up to park officials and conservation experts to determine if the burro can be carefully restored or if a new statue will have to be created.

An enduring symbol of life along the rugged canyon, the hefty statue represents a free-spirited burro who lived more than a century ago. Brighty was known to migrate up and down the canyon as the seasons changed. He’d help haul water to a summer camp on the North Rim in exchange for pancakes and would give children rides.

Brighty is a small but important part of what will be a yearslong effort for the National Park Service as it charts a path for restoration and reconstruction on the North Rim. More immediately, park spokesperson Joëlle Baird said a special team that focuses on stabilizing the soil, controlling erosion and reseeding would begin assessing the burned areas.

The Dragon Bravo Fire was sparked by lightning in early July. It burned for about a week before exploding into a fast-moving conflagration that forced evacuations and consumed the Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of cabins. The National Park Service has defended its handling of the fire, saying a sudden and extreme shift in the wind far exceeded forecasts.

Copper mine land transfer blocked

A U.S. appeals court has temporarily blocked the transfer of federal forest land in Arizona to a pair of international companies that plan to mine one of the largest copper deposits in North America.

The transfer was scheduled for Aug. 19, but a panel of judges with the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction late on Aug. 18 in response to last-minute appeals by a Native American tribe and environmentalists.

The land includes Oak Flat — an area used for centuries for religious ceremonies, prayer and gathering of medicinal plants by the San Carlos Apache people and other Native American tribes.

President Donald Trump in a social media post said delaying the transfer by months will affect those people who are depending on new jobs and the nation’s ability to access copper domestically. He blamed “radical left activists.”

The fight over Oak Flat has spanned two decades, with the latest legal wrangling centered on a required environmental review that was released by the U.S. Forest Service earlier this summer and an appraisal of the land to be mined by Resolution Copper about 60 miles east of Phoenix.

Resolution Copper — a subsidiary of international mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP — estimates the mine will generate $1 billion a year for Arizona’s economy and create thousands of jobs. 

The appeals court plans to hear arguments on the merits of the case later this year.

NEW MEXICO

Governor declares state of emergency

SANTA FE — The governor of New Mexico declared a state of emergency on Aug. 13 in response to violent crime and drug trafficking across a swath of northern New Mexico, including two Native American pueblo communities.

The emergency declaration by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham makes $750,000 available as local governments and tribal officials in Rio Arriba County call for reinforcements against violent crime as well as other crime and hardships associated with illicit drugs.

The vast county stretches from the city of Española, 25 miles north of Santa Fe, to the Colorado state line and has long been afflicted by opioid use and high drug-overdose death rates, with homeless encampments emerging in recent years in more populated areas.

In April, Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency in New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque, saying that a significant increase in crime warranted the help of the New Mexico National Guard.

There were no immediate calls for troop deployments in Rio Arriba County, though the new emergency declaration allows for authorities to call up the National Guard. Emergency funds will help local law enforcement agencies spend on overtime, equipment and coordinated police responses, said a Lujan Grisham spokesperson.

The tribal governor of Santa Clara Pueblo on the edge of Española urged the state to address a growing public safety crisis stemming from the use and abuse of fentanyl and alcohol in the community at large.

NEBRASKA

Immigration detention center announced

LINCOLN — Nebraska announced plans on Aug. 19 for an immigration detention center in the remote southwest corner of the state as President Donald Trump’s administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations.

The facility will be dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink,” a play on Nebraska’s nickname of the Cornhusker State and an old slang term for jail. The alliterative name follows in the vein of the previously announced “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” detention centers in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana.

Republican Gov. Jim Pillen said he and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had agreed to use an existing minimum security prison work camp in McCook — a remote city of about 7,000 people in the middle of the wide-open prairies between Denver and Omaha — to house people awaiting deportation and being held for other immigration proceedings.

The facility can accommodate 200 people with plans to expand to 300.

Noem’s agency posted a picture on social media showing ears of corn wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hats, standing in front of a prison fence.

Pillen also announced he would order the Nebraska National Guard to provide administrative and logistical support to Nebraska-based immigration agents. Pillen said the Nebraska State Patrol would allow six troopers to help federal immigration agents make arrests.