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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials improperly withheld information from The Daily Caller News Foundation confirming its reporting that the contractor responsible for the August 2015 Gold King Mine spill was awarded nearly $2.7 million not long after the disaster. The EPA internally acknowledged the award and crafted a response to TheDCNF’s finding, according to emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, but the response was never sent to the news organization. (RELATED: Feds Obstruct Media Probe By Blocking Interviews With Key Officials) “It just slipped through the cracks,” EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison told TheDCNF 32 minutes after deadline. “It...

A 10-year-old Albuquerque girl was brutally slain in her family’s Northwest Albuquerque apartment early Wednesday, hours before she was to celebrate her birthday at a party complete with manicures and cake. Late Wednesday night, Albuquerque police released horrific details of the crime allegedly perpetrated by the girl’s mother, her boyfriend and another woman. APD spokesman Tanner Tixier said the trio injected the 10-year-old with methamphetamine “to make her calm down so they could do whatever they want with her.” She was sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend and the other woman, and Tixier said the mom showed “no remorse.” They...

Charges have been brought against three people in connection with the horrific death of a 10-year-old girl at a westside apartment complex. Police found the slain girl inside a unit at the Arroyo Villas Apartment Complex on Irving Boulevard near Golf Course Road on Wednesday morning. Late Wednesday night, 31-year-old Fabian Gonzales and 35-year-old Michelle Martens were booked into custody. Police say they are dating. 31-year-old Jessica Kelley was hospitalized, an APD spokesperson said, and will be booked after she is released. She is Gonzalez's cousin. Police also confirmed Martens is the girl's mother. According to APD, the three tortured...

An elementary school principal in Albuquerque has “apologized profusely” for a mistake in her PowerPoint presentation to teachers and staff that said it would “no longer be acceptable to call our students boys and girls.” APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta said Monday that teachers at Carlos Rey Elementary are not barred from calling students “boys and girls,” and that the simple misunderstanding was blown out of proportion in at least one media report. A few weeks ago, the school’s principal, Judith Touloumis, delivered a PowerPoint presentation to inform staff about the new APS transgender procedural directive, which went into effect this...

UPDATE 7/1/16—Despite official denials from authorities Judicial Watch stands by its reporting, which was subsequently corroborated by National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers Chairman Zack Taylor. Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region's gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an "Islamic refugee" pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Joint...

A woman and her son living in New Mexico are fighting in the courts for what they call a “right” to have a sexual relationship. Thirty-six-year-old Monica Mares and her son, Caleb Peterson, 19, of Clovis, New Mexico, were separated after Peterson was born when she gave him up for adoption, but say they “fell in love” after they were reunited earlier this year and Peterson moved in with his mother. They claim they have an orientation called “Genetic Sexual Attraction” (GSA) and want to “raise awareness about it.” “This whole case is about whether I have the right to...

Republican Mayor Richard Berry was driving around Albuquerque last year when he saw a man on a street corner holding a sign that read: “Want a Job. Anything Helps.” Throughout his administration, as part of a push to connect the homeless population to services, Berry had taken to driving through the city to talk to panhandlers about their lives. His city’s poorest residents told him they didn’t want to be on the streets begging for money, but they didn’t know where else to go. Seeing that sign gave Berry an idea. Instead of asking them, many of whom feel dispirited,...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —For the past three months federal agents worked undercover with local cops and made more than 100 arrests for everything from drug trafficking to murder. “Statistics tell us that our state has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation,” New Mexico District U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez said. Special agent Tom Atteberry said Albuquerque is especially violent. Atteberry is from Phoenix, Arizona, and brought a team to New Mexico because crime has gotten so out of control. He said New Mexico's justice system allows repeat violent offenders to get released as quickly as police arrest them....

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sheriff’s deputies are answering all calls in Hatch so the small, now 7-person department can mourn the loss of 33-year-old officer Jose Chavez, who was gunned down in a traffic stop Friday. “We’ve lost one of our best, our finest,” Doña Ana County Sheriff Enrique ‘Kiki’ Vigil said at a mid-day press conference in Las Cruces. “We’re mourning with the rest of law enforcement here in the county.” Chavez died at the University Medical Center in El Paso, TX, Friday night after authorities say he was shot and killed by 38-year-old Jesse Hanes, who was wanted for...

If Hillary Clinton ever makes a campaign stop in Santa Fe, she’ll have a place to crash. As of 2012, the Democratic presidential nominee has an open invitation from Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson to visit them in the City Different, where the couple lives in what the New York Times describes as a “sprawling adobe house on a ridge overlooking the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.” Clinton maintained close ties with the Wilsons while she served as secretary of state, long after the couple had fled Washington for the private sector, according to emails declassified by the State Department...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is set to appear on ballots in at least 39 states, swing state Ohio is among the places where his supporters are still working to get the former New Mexico governor’s name out to voters this fall. Whether he’s successful could make a difference to Republicans, particularly the fortunes of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is in a close race in the state with Democrat Hillary Clinton. Johnson on the ballot could complicate the Ohio race for Trump if conservatives who want a smaller government want a choice other than...

The BLM released its draft environmental impact statement Thursday. It is proposing amending up to 11 resource management plans in the two states. In 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined the Gunnison sage-grouse requires listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. ... about 5,000 breeding Gunnison sage-grouse live in the two states. Some 4,000 live in the Gunnison Basin, and the others in six satellite populations in Colorado and a seventh in Utah. ... Fish and Wildlife pointed to the low numbers of birds in the other populations and their range of habitat threats as...

Much divides the country when it comes to the issue of gun violence. That’s why it is so important to find common ground so that, together, all Americans can work to reduce the damage that guns cause in our society. A new initiative starting this week in New Mexico has the potential to bring people together toward a common goal — making people safer without fighting over whether assault weapons should be banned or the meaning of the Second Amendment. Called Guns to Gardens, the movement organized by New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence simply helps people dispose of unwanted...

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (KRQE) – There are some upset people in one New Mexico city after a fundraiser for the United Way was shut down because the well-known charity wanted to raffle off guns. “As Americans of freedom and liberty we have to remember we only have the rights that we stand up for,” said Kerry Maupin, local business owner. The United Way of Otero County received a letter from United Way World telling them to cease and desist with their fundraiser that would raffle off 108 firearms.

Saudi Arabia knew that North American shale production could potentially torpedo their hold on the energy market via oil. So, they decided to trounce the natural gas market by opening the floodgates with petroleum. It didn’t work. The Telegraph now reports that shale production has cut prices so low that they can produce at prices that are lower that what’s required to keep Saudi Arabia’s socioeconomic fabric healthy: Opec's worst fears are coming true. Twenty months after Saudi Arabia took the fateful decision to flood world markets with oil, it has still failed to break the back of the US shale...

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson provided little detail in a town hall Wednesday night on how he plans to defeat terrorism. CNN host Anderson Cooper asked the former New Mexico governor in light of a knife attack against six people in London Wednesday, how Johnson would prevent attacks in the U.S. "Maybe we're the kind of candidates that are gonna say, 'look, this stuff is gonna happen,'" Johnson said. "Yes, a president of the United States — we need to be vigilant to potentially prevent these things from happening, but these things are gonna happen."

DENVER (Reuters) - Federal investigators said on Monday they have opened a criminal probe into the 2015 spill of some 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of toxic wastewater from a defunct Colorado gold mine that was triggered by a contractor with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At the urging of congressional leaders, the EPA's Office of Inspector General is investigating the rupture from the Gold King Mine above Silverton, Colorado, that fouled waterways in three states and Native American lands, the agency said in a statement. "Based on requests from several members of the House and Senate, the OIG...

Have you lost that loving feeling? If so, the United States federal government might just be able to help. Before you swipe right on Tinder or update that eHarmony account, consider instead taking a quick trip out of the country. Because on your way back home into the Land of the Free, US Customs and Border Protection will have agents standing by ready with heaps of government stimulus. It happened to a Jane Doe (the name has been withheld to protect what little remains of her dignity), a 54-year old US citizen who had recently been on a trip to...

The owner of an Italian restaurant in New Mexico says he’s seen a surge in business after posting a billboard that featured a food-centric pun playing off the Black Lives Matter slogan. Rick Camuglia, owner of Paisano’s in Albuquerque, posted what he thought would be a well-received joke on the marquee sign in front of his restaurant last week. It read: "BLACK OLIVES MATTER — TRY OUR TAPENADE."

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico and West Texas oil producers are gearing up for a national effort to draw all major U.S. oil basins into a grassroots movement to restrict crude imports from overseas. Leaders of the Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative, which launched in April in the Permian Basin, are seeking public meetings and rallies in other oil-producing zones to convert what’s now a regional initiative into a national movement, said Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, who is working with local producers.