Editor's note: This review contains spoilers If you listened to a comic book fan gush about the first trailer for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” after it was released in March, you might think they were crazy.
University of New Mexico track & field and cross country star Habtom Samuel announced Tuesday that he would be leaving the University after completing his junior year to begin his professional career via a statement on social media. Samuel, an Eritrean native who competed as a Lobo for his entire collegiate career, would have had a fourth year of eligibility remaining, and in remarks to the media last month said he would “definitely” return next season for UNM, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
Athletes from the University of New Mexico took top honors in the Mountain West yesterday, with the announcement of multiple awards including Male Athlete and Female Athlete of the Year for Habtom Samuel and Pamela Kosgei, respectively, and Scholar-Athlete of the Year for Akili Carris. Samuel and Kosgei’s wins mark the first time in Mountain West history that both Athletes of the Year came from the same school.
Last month, the first “Star Wars” film in almost seven years, subtitled “The Mandalorian and Grogu”, was released in theaters. It follows the titular Mandalorian peacekeeper Din Djarin and his very small companion on another adventure after three seasons of the show that introduced audiences to the characters in 2019. The first big question that arises after you adapt a show into a movie tends to be, “Is it worth it?” The big budget, the advertisements and global press tour? The answer isn’t quite as obvious as the question, but after reflecting on all of its parts, this film replies “no.”
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has asked Attorney General Raúl Torrez to investigate allegations by a former Drug Enforcement Agency agent that the DEA allowed tens of thousands of fentanyl pills to be trafficked into New Mexico in the name of tracing the drugs’ path to make more major arrests from 2023 to 2025, according to a statement the govorner released on Wednesday, June 24. “If the justification for letting these pills flood our communities was that it would somehow make New Mexico safer down the road through bigger eventual busts, the results say otherwise,” the governor’s statement reads.
For many at the University of New Mexico — and throughout the state — President Garnett Stokes’ name looms large. Stokes joined UNM as its 23rd president in 2018, the first woman to hold the position after previous stints at the University of Missouri, Florida State University and the University of Georgia. In September 2025, Stokes informed the Board of Regents that she would be retiring at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. Stokes was inspired to take her first real trip to the state after reading a novel by another big name in New Mexico, author Tony Hillerman, a UNM professor who taught journalism and served as an assistant to two University presidents.
Next year, Daily Lobo beat reporter Shin Thant Hlaing will be headed to one of the best law programs in the country after graduating from the University of New Mexico with a degree in political science. If you’d asked her a year ago about what her plans were after UNM, law school wouldn’t even have been in the conversation. “I wanted to either become a researcher or a policy advisor,” Hlaing said. “My mind was going in a lot of different places, but what drew me to law was when the earthquake happened in Myanmar.”
Marisa Page will be the new president of the University of New Mexico’s Graduate and Professional Student Association, defeating incumbent Travis Broadhurst in the election held from March 23-27, according to unofficial results posted after the ballots closed. Page, a GPSA council member and Native American Studies doctorate student, defeated Broadhurst 135 votes to 120, amounting to a 5% margin of victory.
Last week, researchers from the University of New Mexico’s sports medicine department and the United States Central Intelligence Agency announced they had designated Lobo men’s basketball guard Deyton Albury’s glasses an “extraterrestrial artifact” and “threat to humanity.” Albury, a senior who transferred last season from Utah State University, has been wearing the “glasses” since suffering an eye injury before the end of the regular season. UNM students and staff tell the Daily Lobo that Albury has been seen wearing the glasses constantly, including at La Posada Dining Hall, more than one dimly-lit party off-campus and even to bed, where sources say he has been heard murmuring in various languages while he sleeps.
The incumbent GPSA President Travis Broadhurst, having previously served as sustainability director and director of boards, commissions and elections, is running again for president (ballot #2). While president, Broadhurst reinstituted the Parking and Transportation Services Advisory Committee — with representatives from the graduate, undergraduate, faculty, staff and athletics communities among others — which provides feedback and input on parking and transportation matters around campus, he said. Broadhurst led an initiative, in collaboration with the UNM School of Medicine Dental Hygiene Clinic, to subsidize the cost of dental cleanings for graduate students who may no longer fall under their parents’ insurance.
Solutions by The State News
