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New Mexico Tag

Against the wishes of the Taos County sheriff, undersheriff, prosecutors and the FBI, Judge Sarah Backus ordered all five suspects arrested in the raid of the New Mexico compound, released. Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Lucas Morton, 40, Jany Leveille, 35, Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, and Subhannah Wahhaj, 35 were arrested on child abuse charges. The eleven children in the compound were taken into state custody. All were substantially malnourished, kept in rags, and had no access to clean water.

Friday, authorities raided a New Mexico compound on the Colorado border where they Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was reportedly training children to commit school shootings. That claim was made by a foster parent to one of the children. Wahhaj and four other adults were arrested and face charges of child abuse. According to CBS News, Wahhaj, "Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam who was a possible co-conspirator in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 -- but was never charged."

The last time we checked the regulatory runoff from the Animas River spill, a 132-page report by the Interior Department and Bureau of Reclamation laid the blame for the contamination at the doorstep of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, the legal runoff is about to hit.
New Mexico is seeking more than $136 million from the Environmental Protection Agency and the owners of Colorado’s Gold King Mine, noting that dangers from contaminants spewed into the Animas River by the Aug. 5 mine spill are still lurking in New Mexico waters. In a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court, Attorney General Hector Balderas and the New Mexico Environment Department cite economic setbacks and environmental damage suffered by the state after more than 3 million gallons of toxic waste was dumped into the river. It demands reimbursement of $889,327 for short-term emergency-response costs paid by the state, more than $6 million to pay for long-term monitoring of the Animas and San Juan rivers and $130 million for lost income, taxes, fees and revenues suffered by the state because of the spill.

New Mexico governor Susana Martinez—once hailed as a possible VP pick for Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and/or Jeb Bush—is at the center of a bit of controversy concerning a noise complaint at a hotel room at which she was attending a holiday staff party. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports:
Santa Fe police were dispatched to Gov. Susana Martinez’s hotel room at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa about 1:30 a.m. Sunday after a caller complained of loud noises emanating from the room and someone throwing bottles off the balcony.