New Mexico
UNM and NMSU students create new rivalry trophy
University of New Mexico and New Mexico State students have come together to design a new trophy for their schools’ basketball rivalry.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Basketball fans from around the state gathered under one roof — The Pit — for the single-game of the men’s basketball Rio Grande Rivalry between New Mexico and New Mexico State on Saturday night.
“This is fantastic, considering we’ve had them, you know, canceled or postponed in the past,” said NMSU fan Jerry Gaussoin. “So, this is awesome.”
“Definitely love it because we’re ahead in the series,” said UNM fan Ray Chavez.
And this one is different for a few reasons.
“We’ve cut down the rivalry to one game,” said UNM student Carlos Tenorio II. “You know, fans have mixed emotions about it, but the fact that we still get to play each other, you know, once a year is still fantastic.”
The one game change came after the 2022 shooting on UNM’s campus involving students and an NMSU basketball player.
“It was hurtful to see, you know, something that matters so much to the state of New Mexico and so many New Mexicans get taken away,” Tenorio said.
Because of that incident — and the bad blood that followed — Tenorio reached out to NMSU’s student fan group to collaborate on a new project.
“Here we are with a trophy made, and that that’s exciting, because you hear about all these other trophies and like the Big 10 and the SEC that were that were made by the fan,” said NMSU student Joseph Settle. “Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder how it happened.”
Settle and Tenorio, along with Quinton Morrison, came up with this, a new Rio Grande Rivalry trophy.
“We have the Rio Grande running down, of course, for the Rio Grande Rivalry, and two stars representing both the city of Albuquerque and the city of Las Cruces in both schools’ color,” Tenorio said. “So, we got red and the crimson down there for Las Cruces with Rio Grande Rivalry in the old western font.”
The trophy was designed by local wood worker Andy Hageman and paid for by students.
Both Tenorio and Settle said they want to give the rivalry the hype it deserves.
“I think it’s definitely one of the more underrated rivalries in both college football and basketball,” Settle said.
The Aggies got to take the trophy back to Las Cruces after defeating the Lobos 89-83 in overtime.
New Mexico
Survey finds more than half of New Mexicans have experienced sexual violence • Source New Mexico
More than half of all New Mexicans have been sexually assaulted or raped at some point in their life, and 40% have been the victim of some kind of sexual violence while in New Mexico in the past year, according to a report published Wednesday.
Researchers from the Catherine Cutler Institute at the University of Southern Maine set out to understand how often people in New Mexico become victims of sexual violence, how often they report it and how often they seek help.
They surveyed 1,272 people between September 2023 and June 2024, and 54% of the people who responded said they had either been raped or sexually assaulted within their lifetime. “This rate translates to more than 1.1 million New Mexico residents,” the authors wrote.
The findings mark the first new New Mexico sexual violence crime victimization survey data in nearly two decades, the authors wrote. The last one was conducted between 2005 and 2006.
Researchers collected the data for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, a nonprofit that provides technical assistance to more than 60 sexual assault service providers, sexual assault nurse examiners, child advocacy centers and community mental health centers.
In an interview with Source, Alexandria Taylor, the coalition’s executive director, said she thinks a lack of funding is the primary explanation for why it’s been so long since the last survey.
Taylor said the findings validate and quantify what she has known anecdotally for years: sexual assault is present in many people’s lives.
“All of our service providers, whether it’s our substance use treatment centers, our schools, our places of employment — even our places of incarceration — they’re all serving survivors of sexual assault,” she said.
Rachel Cox, the coalition’s deputy director of programs, told Source she was surprised the report gave her some hope they can actually address the prevalence of sexual assault, because it shows neither victims nor perpetrators of sexual violence are exceptional.
“We’re really talking about something that vicariously impacts everyone in New Mexico,” she said.
While counts of sexual violence victims commonly derived from service organizations and police reports are informative, they are also “certainly undercounts,” the report states.
Researchers asked New Mexicans about their experiences with four kinds of sexual violence: stalking, rape, sexual assault and domestic violence. Forty percent said they had been the victim of at least one of these crimes within the last 12 months while they were in New Mexico.
The research was funded by the Crime Victims Reparation Commission, a state agency that helps crime victims recover losses resulting from being victimized, and provides federal grants to other organizations serving them.
In a news release attached to the report, the coalition outlined its priorities for the upcoming legislative session to boost support for survivors and evidence-based prevention education.
The group plans to ask the Legislature to set aside $3 million to the Department of Health for prevention initiatives, $2 million to the Health Care Authority for medical and counseling needs, and $2 million to the Crime Victims Reparation Commission for providers and the New Mexico Sexual Assault Helpline.
The report also noted that 68% of victims of sexual assault and 75% of victims of rape did not seek support.
State law prohibits reparations to people victimized in prison
As researchers conducted the survey, they also sought to find disparities between demographic groups.
For example, people who have been incarcerated have the highest overall rate of victimization: 69%. They were also more likely to have been the victim of stalking than any other group.
Formerly incarcerated New Mexicans were also less likely to seek victim services, and more likely to have experienced “significant problems” with their job or schoolwork as a result of being victimized, the researchers found.
The group with the next highest rate of victimization was homeless people, at 68%.
Taylor said people who are most systemically impacted either have experienced sexual violence or are at greater risk of experiencing it. Cox said incarcerated and unhoused people can be some of the most invisible in society.
The findings are notable, in part, because New Mexico law does not allow reparations to people who were victimized while they were incarcerated. Taylor said it can’t be ignored that people who do harm and end up incarcerated have also themselves experienced harm and need healing.
“That’s where we have to use what we know from the individual level to impact things at the policy level,” she said.
Transgender or nonbinary people were more likely than cisgender people to have been raped, and Black respondents were more likely than other races to have been raped.
Perpetrators of rape were most commonly identified as casual acquaintances of the victims, at 34%; followed by a former partner or spouse, 30%; a current partner or spouse, 23%, and finally a stranger, 22%.
New Mexico
Wintry Wednesday ahead for New Mexico
A winter weather advisory remains in effect until Friday morning for a large portion of southern New Mexico. See the latest conditions at KOB.com/Weather.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Wednesday started snowy for some but just downright chilly for everyone in New Mexico as a blast of winter weather continues.
A winter weather advisory is in effect until Friday at 5 a.m. for swathes of southern New Mexico. In the advisory area, three inches of snow and slick roads are expected.
Across the state, the balmiest temperature was 33° in Silver City but we are going to warm up soon.
Meteorologist Kira Miner shares all the details in her full forecast in the video above.
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