ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Strong high pressure off the Baja California coast is keeping brisk northwest winds across New Mexico through at least Thursday.

Expect gusty winds each afternoon, with critical fire weather returning to the Roswell area on Wednesday afternoon. Warm, dry conditions will elevate fire danger.

On Wednesday, the northeast and east central plains may see slightly lighter winds due to a weak surface low. However, gusts could reach 50 mph from Clines Corners to Vaughn and possibly as far east as Fort Sumner.

Temperatures will soar well above normal, with highs running 9 to 23 degrees above average. Near-record highs are possible in central New Mexico, and multiple record highs are likely across eastern New Mexico.

Thursday brings a backdoor cold front to northern and eastern New Mexico, dropping temperatures by 5 to 12 degrees compared to Wednesday. Winds will remain breezy.

Watch the video above for more from Chief Meteorologist Eddie Garcia.

Operators of artificial intelligence chatbots would have to refer suicidal users to a crisis hotline, and clearly tell users that they are talking to software—not a human—under a bill that has been moving through Salem in recent weeks.

“One of the most important features of this bill is, it tries to take a moment of crisis and turn it into a moment of intervention, of hope,” says Dwight Holton, the CEO of Lines for Life, a major operator of crisis hotlines in Oregon.

The proposal is part of a broader AI regulatory bill that looks to establish safety guardrails on an emerging technology. It comes as experts sound louder alarms about the way sycophantic chatbots and other AI companions manipulate users. Experts say the systems are, in many cases, designed to hook users and extract their monetizable personal data.

Under the bill, AI companions would face additional regulations when they interact with minors in particular. Research presented to lawmakers suggests that most adolescents use AI regularly, and experts say the technology’s risks go well beyond the now-familiar addictive perils of social media.

“Over the past decade, we learned how social media captured human attention,” the researcher Dr. Mandy McLean told lawmakers. “AI systems do something more fundamental. They engage the human attachment system.”

With little action at the federal level, Oregon is joining a coterie of states mulling guardrails for AI companions, Jai Jaisimha of the Transparency Coalition tells WW.

The Oregon bill has passed the Senate and now awaits a vote in the House. No testimony has been formally filed thus far against the legislation.

The bill—Senate Bill 1546—would, at its core, establish a set of new regulations for operators of AI companions.

In addition to requiring AI companions to identify themselves as such, it would require the technology to include an evidence-based protocol for detecting inputs indicating thoughts of self harm or suicide—and to direct applicable users to the national 988 suicide hotline or a youth line.

And where AI companion systems detect they are dealing with youth, they would be forbidden from generating statements that would lead a reasonable person to believe they are interacting with another person.

The bill has carveouts, including for software intended for customer support. But the “artificial intelligence companion” platforms it would regulate range from chatbots to certain hardware with an AI software component.

”Imagine for a moment if your five-year-old’s favorite character or teddy bear talked to them, knew their name and told them what to do,” Dr. Mitch Prinstein, the senior science advisor for the American Psychological Association, told an Oregon senate committee early this month.

After this presentation, Sen. Lisa Reynolds (D-Portland), who is sponsoring the bill, said, “Well, I think we’re all pretty much horrified here.”

Reynolds, a pediatrician, has also said that she sees the potential of AI—in the health care space, for example, but is seeking to manage the risks. Holton, who helped bring the issue to her attention, sees risks and rewards too.

Early this month, he told lawmakers, for example, that Lines for Life runs has been using AI in quality assurance and training, He said AI listens to calls and gives real time feedback. The technology can also roleplay for training purposes.

“I’ve done it, the conversations can go on for 10 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour, and you wouldn’t know you’re not talking to a real person,” Holton told lawmakers.

In fact, he said, youth in many cases assume when they contact Lines for Life that they are interacting with AI—even when they’re not.

“Regularly, every day, our youth line volunteers have to convince a person in crisis who has reached out to them that they are not AI,” he told lawmakers. “The majority of our contacts are electronic; they’re by text. And so the first thing that the youth who’s reaching out to us in crisis will ask is ‘How do I know you’re not AI?’ That’s not an easy question to answer, as it turns out.”

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office.

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EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah (KUTV) — The Utah Department of Transportation has planned a major groundbreaking for what it calls the first east-west expressway corridor in Utah County.

The plan is to build a six-lane freeway to connect I-15 and Mountainview Corridor, with three lanes in each direction and making 2100 N a frontage road on both sides.

“You almost hate to see it grow, but when it does grow, you like to see reasonable solutions for people’s problems,” said Michael Crofts, resident of Lehi.

MORE | UDOT Projects

Drivers in northern Utah County are no strangers to the 2100 N congestion come rush hour.

“‘Cause one of the big things is that not a lot of jobs are out in Saratoga and Eagle Mountain,” Crofts said. “They’re out here in the East and this part of the valley or North and there does need to be a better way for people to get around.”

To ease traffic flow in the area, UDOT is planning to put the new expressway in the patch of grass between where 2100 N runs now.

“This is one of our biggest projects this year,” said John Gleason, public relations director for UDOT.

It’s about a three-mile segment and will cost roughly $621 million dollars. It will include two bridges—at 3600 W and 2300 W—and have freeway-to-freeway interchanges, so traffic won’t have to stop.

“Right now, there’s not a lot of great options East-West out there; and so by building this freeway, you’re going to improve not only the East-West connection, but you’re going to alleviate some of the traffic on the North-South roads there as well,” Gleason said.

2100 N will stay open during construction, according to UDOT.

“Any short-term issues that you have with construction, we’re hoping that that payoff is going to be great things for everybody that lives and works out in the area,” Gleason said.

“It’s kind of a bittersweet thing because it does feel almost overcrowded, but at the same time it’s one of those, well, but if we build better infrastructure, will it feel less crowded?” Crofts said. “But the bitter part is that they’re like, oh, our little tight-knit community is suddenly grown into a city.”

The groundbreaking is scheduled for March 18th, and UDOT estimates they’ll be building the expressway through late 2028.

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