The defending champion Frost will begin their second PWHA season at home with a 5 p.m. puck drop against the New York Sirens at Xcel Energy Center on Dec. 1, the first of an expanded 30-game schedule.
Minnesota, officially named the Frost on Sept. 9, won the league’s inaugural Walter Cup on May 29 after a 25-game schedule.
“The bar has been set high for our returning core and new skaters as we get ready to defend the Walter Cup,” general manager Melissa Caruso said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to seeing the State of Hockey turn up at the Xcel Energy Center this season and all the great fans throughout the league as we continue to grow the PWHL.”
Broadcast and streaming information will be announced at a future date.
The Frost are scheduled to play 13 home games at the X, four of them on a long homestand Dec. 29-Jan. 8. The PWHA will take a nearly month long break for the IIHF World Championships April 9-20 in Ceske Budejovice, Czechia.
“Every team in the league got better in the off-season,” Frost head coach Ken Klee said in a statement. “That makes defending our title that much harder. It’s great to see the path we’re going to take, and I can’t wait to get back to Xcel Energy Center in front of our fans.”
By ANITA SNOW, CHRISTOPHER L. KELLER and MORGAN LEE
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Ten times as many migrants died in New Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border in each of the last two years compared with just five years ago as smuggling gangs steer them — exhausted, dehydrated and malnourished — mostly into the hot desert, canyons or mountains west of El Paso, Texas.
During the first eight months of 2024, the bodies of 108 presumed migrants mostly from Mexico and Central America were found near the border in New Mexico and often less than 10 miles (6 kilometers) from El Paso, according to the most recent data. The remains of 113 presumed migrants were found in New Mexico in 2023, compared with nine in 2020 and 10 in 2019.
It’s not clear exactly why more migrants are being found dead in that area, but many experts say smugglers are treating migrants more harshly and bringing them on paths that could be more dangerous in extreme summer temperatures.
The influx has taxed the University of New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator, which identifies the dead and conducts autopsies that almost always show the cause as heat-related.
“Our reaction was sadness, horror and surprise because it had been very consistently low for as long as anyone can remember,” said Heather Edgar, a forensic anthropologist with the office.
Serving the entire state, the office over two years has added deputy medical investigators to handle the extra deaths on top of the usual 2,500 forensic cases.
“We’d always had three deputies down in that area, and I think we have nine or 10 now,” Edgar said of New Mexico’s eastern migration corridor.
Immigration and border security are among voters’ top concerns heading into the Nov. 5 presidential contest, but the candidates have focused on keeping migrants out of the U.S. and deporting those already here.
The increase in deaths is a humanitarian concern for advocates as smugglers guide migrants into New Mexico through fencing gaps at the border city of Sunland Park and over low-lying barriers west of the nearby Santa Teresa Port of Entry.
“People are dying close to urban areas, in some cases just 1,000 feet from roads,” noted Adam Isacson, an analyst for the nongovernmental Washington Office on Latin America. He said water stations, improved telecommunications and more rescue efforts could help.
New Mexico officials are targeting human-smuggling networks, recently arresting 16 people and rescuing 91 trafficking victims. U.S. Customs and Border Protection added a surveillance blimp to monitor the migration corridor near its office in Santa Teresa, in New Mexico’s Doña Ana County. Movable 33-foot (10-meter) towers use radar to scan the area.
U.S. officials in recent years have added 30 more push-button beacons that summon emergency medical workers along remote stretches of the border at New Mexico and western Texas. They have also set up more than 500 placards with location coordinates and instructions to call 911 for help.
Forensic anthropologist Heather Edgar with the Office of the Medical Investigator poses for a portrait outside her office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Forensic anthropologist Heather Edgar with the Office of the Medical Investigator poses for a portrait outside her office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Forensic anthropologist Heather Edgar with the Office of the Medical Investigator poses for a portrait outside her office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
This Oct. 3, 2024 image shows the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where experts work to identify scores of presumed migrants whose remains have been found along the border in southern New Mexico. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
A surveillance helicopter traces a line in the sky above the Southwest border with Mexico at Sunland Park, N.M., Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee, File)
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Forensic anthropologist Heather Edgar with the Office of the Medical Investigator poses for a portrait outside her office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
This summer, the Border Patrol expanded search and rescue efforts, dispatching more patrols with medical specialists and surveillance equipment. The agency moved some beacons closer to the border, where more migrants have been found dead or in distress.
Border Patrol says it rescued nearly 1,000 migrants near the U.S. border in New Mexico and western Texas over the past 12 months — up from about 600 the previous 12 months.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the faith-based Hope Border Institute in El Paso, said 10-member church teams recently started dropping water bottles for migrants in the deadly New Mexico corridor alongside fluttering blue flags.
New Mexico’s rising deaths come as human-caused climate change increases the likelihood of heat waves. This year, the El Paso area had its hottest June ever, with an average temperature of 89.4 degrees Fahrenheit (31.8 Celsius). June 12 and 13 saw daily record highs of 109 F (42.7 C).
Those high temperatures can be deadly for people who have been on strenuous journeys. Some smugglers lead migrants on longer routes into gullies or by the towering Mount Cristo Rey statue of Jesus Christ that casts a shadow over neighboring Mexico.
Deputy Chief Border Patrol Agent Juan Bernal of the El Paso Sector said migrants are weak when they arrive at the border after weeks or months without adequate food and water in houses smugglers keep in Mexico.
“They’re expected to walk, sometimes for hours or days, to get to their destination where they’re going to be picked up,” he said.
New Mexico’s migrant death numbers now rival those in Arizona’s even hotter Sonoran desert, where the remains of 114 presumed border crossers were discovered during the first eight months of 2024, according to a mapping project by the nonprofit Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office in Tucson.
Nearly half of those who died in New Mexico this year were women. Women ages 20 to 29 made up the largest segment of these deaths.
“We are awaiting for you at home,” a family in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas implored in early June in a missing person post for a 25-year-old female relative who was found dead days later. “Please come back.”
After a 24-year-old Guatemalan woman’s remains were discovered that same month, a mortuary in her hometown posted a death notice with a photo of her smiling in a blue dress and holding a floral bouquet.
“It should not be a death sentence to come to the United States,” Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Maj. Jon Day told a recent community gathering. “And when we push them into the desert areas here, they’re coming across and they’re dying.”
Snow reported from Phoenix. Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
JD Vance visited Minnesota, the home state of his VP rival Monday for a fundraiser where he criticized Gov. Tim Walz for his response to the violence that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Vance stood outside the shell of a Minneapolis police station that was torched during the rioting, joined by several retired police officers and GOP candidate Joe Teirab, a former federal prosecutor who’s trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in the state’s most competitive congressional race.
“We have to remember that what this represents is the complete abandonment of basic public safety by the leadership of the state, including Gov. Tim Walz,” Vance said.
As president, Donald Trump praised Walz’s handling of the crisis in a conference call shortly after calm returned to the city, but Vance suggested that Trump was just being “polite.”
No GOP presidential candidate has carried Minnesota since President Richard Nixon in 1972, and no Minnesota Republican has won a statewide race since 2006.
While Vance said he wasn’t sure if Trump would return before Election Day, he said he thinks they “actually have a chance in Minnesota” but also acknowledged that they’re “obviously rowing uphill.”
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams at a panel talk on the City of Yes for Housing plan. The Council will hold the first of two hearings next Monday on the mayor’s housing plan.
Welcome to City Limits’ NYC Housing Calendar, a weekly feature where we round up the latest housing and land use-related events and hearings, as well as upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
Know of an event we should include in next week’s calendar? Email us.
Upcoming Housing and Land Use-Related Events:
Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s committees on immigration and youth will hold an oversight hearing on resources for unaccompanied immigrant youth. More here.
Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 1 p.m.: The City Planning Commission will hold a review session regarding several land use applications, including for the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, which would rezone a stretch of Central Brooklyn. More here.
Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 6 p.m.: Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas will discuss her debut book, “On the Housing Crisis,” with Annemarie Gray, executive director of Open New York. More here.
Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 6 p.m.: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s office will hold a workshop on deed theft prevention at Medgar Evers College. More here.
Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings will meet to discuss bills that would require periodic inspections of steam radiators and gas piping systems. More here.
Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet regarding a rezoning application for 962-972 Franklin Avenue, for a new 14-story mixed-use development. More here.
Thursday, Oct. 17 at 10 a.m.: The New York State Assembly’s Committee on Aging will hold a public hearing on the effectiveness of the Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program (EISEP), which aims to help older New Yorkers stay in their current homes and communities as they age. More here.
Friday, Oct. 18 at 8 a.m.: The Center for NYC Neighborhood’s will host its 2024 Affordable Homeownership Summit. More here.
NYC Affordable Housing Lotteries Ending Soon: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) are closing lotteries on the following subsidized buildings over the next week.
