Arizona, New Mexico | featured news

The planned ruling would eliminate protection for the top predators, but scientists and conservationists say the proposal is flawed. Federal authorities intend to remove endangered species protections for all gray wolves in the Lower 48 states, carving out an a exception for a small pocket of about 75 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, according to a draft document obtained by The Times.

Two cousins who admitted to accidentally starting the largest wildfire in Arizona history by leaving a still-smoldering campfire unattended were each sentenced to 48 hours in jail on Wednesday and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. Caleb Malboeuf, 27, and David Malboeuf, 25, were also placed on five years' probation by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Aspey in Flagstaff, Arizona, for the raging wildfire that torched 840 square miles in eastern Arizona and New Mexico last summer, according to assistant U.S. attorney Patrick Schneider.

The Wallow Fire has now burned more than 469,000 acres in eastern Arizona and New Mexico, 10,000 more than a 2002 fire that had been the largest in Arizona history.

Two men who escaped from a private Arizona prison and a woman thought to have helped them have been linked to the investigation of a couple's killing in New Mexico, authorities said Saturday.