New Mexico
In search of Oppenheimer's New Mexico
On the highway between Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch is Bode’s General Store – a roadside waystation beloved for its tamales and green chili burgers. It is not so different than it was 80 years ago, when O’Keeffe and Oppenheimer were among its clientele. And during the filming of Oppenheimer, Ybbaro said, it was a standby for cast and crew, too.
Oppenheimer’s invisible legacy
Oppenheimer and colleagues took more than inspiration from these landscapes. Families with land downwind from White Sands or any of the hundreds of uranium mining sites in the region – a community known today as “downwinders” – know the Manhattan Project cost untold lives in New Mexico. In the forthcoming documentary First We Bombed New Mexico, filmmaker Lois Lipman shares dozens of accounts that together paint the picture of “massive cancers and deaths” that swept across the state in the decades after the Trinity test.
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People can still experience the landscapes central to this part of the story, too – if they dare. Places like Hoot Owl Canyon, once called “Hot Canyon” by the government because of its red-hot gamma radiation levels from the Trinity test’s nuclear fallout carried by the wind, are open to the public, Lipman said. There are no recent studies indicating whether the area is still radioactive. But radioactivity in nuclear fallout has a shelf life of 24,000 years – or as some downwinders put it, 7,000 generations.
Like the scenic Pajarito Plateau and Ghost Ranch, Hot Canyon, with its red-rock bridges and pinnacles, is forever linked with Oppenheimer – albeit controversially. Indeed, 18 months after the Manhattan Project started, Oppenheimer is said to have stared out over the desert he loved, and confessed, “I am responsible for ruining a beautiful place.”
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A man is facing murder charges after allegedly admitting to deputies that he fatally shot two people inside a New Mexico home after receiving “an encrypted message in a cockroach” that he “needed to kill,” authorities say.
Alexis Hernandez, 25, was arrested and charged with two open counts of murder in connection with a Friday incident inside a southwest Albuquerque home, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office.
Hernandez was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Saturday morning, and it is not immediately clear if he has retained a lawyer.
Authorities have not identified the men killed in the incident or the two young children who were also found inside the house at the time.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit filed at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court, deputies responded to reports of gunfire in southwest Albuquerque just before 10:30 p.m. When deputies arrived, they were met at the front door by Hernandez, who “had a firearm on his waistband and a Marine Corps Sabre on his hip,” the arrest warrant said.
Hernandez, who was immediately detained, told deputies he was in the Marines and “had to do what he had to do,” the warrant states. He then allegedly stated there were two dead bodies inside the residence.
Once inside the house, the warrant states, deputies found one dead man “with possible gunshot wounds” in the front of the house and a second man with apparent stab wounds in an attached apartment.
The two children who were found inside were safely removed from the residence, the arrest warrant states.
In an interview with deputies after he was taken into custody, Hernandez said that he knew the two slain men, one of whom was the owner of the property, according to the warrant. He then allegedly said he had believed the property owner was a friend who had been stalking him during the days leading up to the incident.
The warrant states Hernandez alleged the friend had placed cameras in the lights. Hernandez also told deputies that he was allegedly “hearing creepy voices coming from the vents” and “had been getting signs” that he had to end the property owner before he ended him.
Hernandez later allegedly told deputies that he also had received “an encrypted message in a cockroach” that he “needed to kill” the property owner, the warrant says. He added that the property owner allegedly did not like cockroaches.
The warrant states that Hernandez had previously purchased a Glock handgun, which he said he had for “protection.” Hernandez told deputies that on Friday the two men allegedly took him to the back room of the home and that he “was afraid for his life at this point.”
He said he shot the property owner in the head and the other in the kitchen, the warrant says. At one point, Hernandez allegedly told deputies, he had gone to his Honda Pilot to reload his gun before going back to each victim and shooting him again.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the details of the second man’s cause of death.
The warrant states Hernandez admitted that he did not know what to do after the attack, so he “stayed on scene and walked around.” He allegedly added that he knew about the two children at the house and that they saw him shoot the two men.
He added that “he was not going to take the kids or do anything to them,” the warrant says.
New Mexico
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NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Here is a look at scores and highlights from week 12 of Friday Night Football.
6A
- #10 Cibola – 10
- #7 Volcano Vista – 14
- #9 Piedra Vista – 24
- #8 Los Lunas – 28
Game of the Week
- #12 Eldorado – 7
- #5 La Cueva – 41
Las Cruces Joins the Show
5A
- #9 Mayfield – 22
- #8 Highland – 36
- #10 Valley – 23
- #7 Belen – 50
- #11 Capital – 0
- #6 Gadsden – 50
4A
- #11 Portales – 13
- #6 Moriarty – 49
- #12 Valencia – 0
- #5 Albuquerque Academy – 42
- #9 Manzano – 28
- #8 Bernalillo – 31
Bloomfield Joins the Show
St. Michael’s Joins the Show
- #9 Jal – 13
- #8 Navajo Prep – 22
Tawney Acosta Chaparro Law Defender of the Week
Unpacking Mamdani’s Viral Victory Speech
Second-half surge lifts Detroit Pistons to 6th straight win
Dog, man shot by San Francisco police after unprovoked dog attack, officials say
Tyler Seguin goal gives Stars second comeback win in two days with victory over Kraken
Surfrider Foundation leads effort to revive Miami’s dunes, fight erosion
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
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Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
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Small Earthquakes Strike San Francisco Bay Area
Final hurdles cleared to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia, Trump admin says
US government shutdown enters 40th day: How is it affecting Americans?
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