Gallup Sun

ALBUQUERQUE — Swinging a metal bar over and over in an attack on two people resulted in a three-year-10-month prison sentence for a Navajo man.

Matthew Ramone, 32, of Thoreau pleaded guilty Jan. 21, 2020 to assault resulting in serious bodily injury to John Doe and Jane Doe and was sentenced June 14.

The assaults occurred outside John Doe’s residence on the Navajo Nation in McKinley County. According to the plea agreement and other court records, Ramone, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, struck John Doe in the head with a three-foot metal bar on Oct. 16, 2019, causing him to fall to the ground. Ramone continued hitting the victim while he was on the ground. Ramone’s attack...

Staff Reports

CIBOLA COUNTY — New Mexico State Police are investigating a rollover crash on N.M. State Road 605 in Cibola County that killed one person and injured another near Mile Marker 4, north of Milan.

The initial investigation which took place around 7:37 am June 22, indicated a 2019 Mack CMV, driven by 26-year-old Garrett T. Buckner of Chanute, Kans., was headed south when it left the roadway and rolled.

The driver was pronounced dead at the scene by the office of the Medical Investigator.

A 45-year-old male passenger was transported to a hospital in Grants for unknown injuries.

Alcohol does not appear to be a factor in the crash. The driver had his seatbelt...

Follow up to the story “A century of federal indifference left generations of Navajo homes without running water”

[Andrew] Robertson has focused his career on water access. He first worked along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, where he sometimes dug the trenches himself for a new pipeline. When he moved to New Mexico in 2000, he quickly saw Navajo communities facing the greatest need for that work. Working on construction projects has taken him all over the Navajo Nation.

After that meeting at [a chapterhouse in] Torreon, a local leader started rallying other chapters around the idea of a regional system, even before Congress approved the settlement for the Navajo Gallup Water...

Week ending Friday, June 18, 2021

On Thinning Ice

The sea ice surrounding the North Pole is probably thinning up to twice as fast as previously thought, according to research by University College London. Writing in the journal “The Cryosphere,” scientists say earlier estimates on the depth of the ice cap were based on data collected by the Soviets between 1954 and 1991, which are now outdated. They say their new modeling of temperature, snowfall and ice floe movements provides a better understanding of how fast the Arctic sea ice is actually disappearing. “Sea ice thickness is a sensitive indicator of the health of the Arctic. And when the Arctic warms, the world warms,” lead...