Several New Mexico counties have passed data center moratoriums — what’s next?

With the clock running, local leaders ponder studies and guardrails

BY ALGERNON D’AMMASSA / ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

October 24, 2026

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES — Sierra County Commissioner Sandy Jones has called for action on studying data centers, noting that “we’ve burned up three or four months already” since the commissioners enacted an 18-month moratorium in July.

As communities across the country enact similar measures, the basis for pausing development has been gathering facts and considering appropriate regulations, in light of the industry’s skyrocketing growth and evolving design.

Santa Fe County enacted an 18-month moratorium this summer to develop regulations about noise pollution, power demand, emissions and water use.

In August, Socorro County appointed 15 members to a Blue Ribbon Committee tasked with studying data centers and related infrastructure and making nonbinding recommendations to the county commissioners.

The membership consisted mostly of county residents with a variety of professional backgrounds, including a former state legislator. The county’s one-year moratorium was enacted in June.

Doña Ana County is home to Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa, consisting of four data center structures, a planned natural gas powered fuel cell power plant and office space for Oracle Corp. and OpenAI. The county’s newly-formed community monitoring committee is expected to hold its first meeting soon.

The project and county-approved tax incentives supporting it have drawn sustained criticism in the community and among some state lawmakers, who plan to propose a statewide data center moratorium at the next legislative session.

Grant County commissioners enacted their own one-year moratorium on Thursday, spurred by a new proposal for a solar-powered data center near Hachita that has roused community opposition.

Sierra County’s commission took action in response to local concerns about a proposed data center on state trust land leased to Spaceport America outside Truth or Consequences, which gave rise to an organized opposition group named Project Consequences.

Jones — who recommended the moratorium in July — said it was time for the commission to move forward.

“Obviously, this is a big topic across the country, and people are all over the place,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of information out there — there’s good information, bad information. … It might be a good time to start our own investigation to meet the deadline of this 18-month moratorium.”

Jones recommended a panel comprising “a broad, diverse group of citizens and experts, developers (and) scientists” that would formulate a report based on independent, expert opinion and technical advice and report to the commission in a few months. Jones said he hoped the board of commissioners could approve a course of action in November.

The push to develop a range of technologies developers have branded Artificial Intelligence is driving development of newer, larger data centers, including several projects or proposals in southern New Mexico and west Texas.

Community opposition, cutting across party affiliations, has grown as well, typically citing complaints about uninterrupted noise, demand for local water and worries that the power demand may lead to higher electric bills or area pollution from on-site power generation.

Over a dozen states have considered moratoriums in one form or another, with varying degrees of follow-through on using the pause to gather reliable information and draft regulations.

Some data center proponents argue that moratoriums will make it harder to attract local development — and not just data centers.

“I don’t think a moratorium is a strategy,” Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance CEO Davin Lopez said in an interview. “Every project should be evaluated on its own merits.”

“Right now, we are looking at the largest industry sector investments ever,” Lopez continued, “and with that is the largest output of new manufacturing supply chain that I think we’ve seen in our lifetime. A lot of that is brewing out of Juárez and Chihuahua … wiring, chips, racks, chip integration, server components. We risk losing that with these moratoriums because we’re signaling to that industry that we’re just not interested.”

When it comes to researching data centers and their impacts, Lopez said, “Studies should consider the new technologies that allow a data center like Project Jupiter to be looking at New Mexico in the first place — closed-loop cooling systems and microgrids — instead of looking at data centers of the past. … I hope that builds some confidence, but we’ll see.”

Some opponents who offered input during Tuesday’s meeting also called for heeding scientific and objective analysis. There were also calls to include the perspectives of local residents familiar with Sierra County’s groundwater and climate.

Cheryl Ray called on the commissioners to prioritize communities over the desires of investors and industries based elsewhere, telling them, “If you treat this study like some little PR exercise, if you fail to familiarize yourself with what is really happening on the ground, you will betray us — your actual constituents — and you will not be doing your job.”

AI Hacks Are Coming Thick and Fast and Overwhelming the Internet

Criminals are turning to next-generation, AI-powered hacking tools as a serious internet flaw gives birth to ‘Black October’

By Robert McMillan for the Wall Street Journal

October 23, 3036

The AI-powered hackers began stealing from Colin Parsons at 11 p.m. on a recent Friday night.

The next morning, the startup founder woke up to about 50 email messages, each one saying he had been charged a few more dollars for Anthropic and OpenAI’s services. The bills ran to $449.

Parsons is just one of the latest victims in a wave of artificial-intelligence-powered attacks that has flooded the internet in recent weeks, as hackers increasingly turn to agents and AI hacking tools that make intrusions faster and harder to track than ever before.

“We’ve been seeing an explosion of these agentic adversaries,” said Adam Meyers, a senior vice president with the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike CRWD 8.25%increase; up pointing triangle. “We’ve found advanced adversaries using this; we’ve found very unsophisticated adversaries using this.”

The sharp increase in hacks is part of a dizzying AI-driven acceleration of cybersecurity threats that is rippling around the world. At the same time as new tools speed up hackers, cyber defenders are also racing to fix the fast-growing volume of security bugs discovered by AI, before hackers can exploit the new flaws.

On Wednesday, organizations scrambled to patch newly uncovered bugs that could allow takeover of as many as 70% of the world’s websites. Hackers are now actively trying to break into websites by leveraging these flaws, Amazon.com says.

The National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation have told companies that couldn’t immediately patch the web bugs to simply pull the plug on their websites. Government-run sites in countries such as Canada, Belgium, France, the Netherlands did just that. The image-posting message board 4chan suspended comments on its site ahead of the patches.

The pace and volume of the AI-powered attacks are starting to overwhelm the incident-response firms that respond to cyber breaches. Pundits are referring to the month as “Black October,” and many in the field are predicting more to come.

“We expect that there’s going to be a massive number of compromise disclosures in the coming weeks and months,” said Steven Adair, president of the cybersecurity firm Volexity.

Incident responders such as Adair say that AI tools are now being used by nation-state hackers from China and Russia as well as criminals looking to steal data and install ransomware.

One of the tools they are using is a Chinese open-source hacking tool called Artex, which uses artificial intelligence to automate the process of breaking into a computer network.

This week Microsoft said that “threat actors across multiple geographic regions” were using Artex to speed up attacks on hundreds of companies. Earlier this month, a cyberattack used Artex to steal data on about 68,000 people from South Korean banks.

Hackers are using AI for reconnaissance, to analyze vast swaths of data they steal and even to rapidly build exploit code that can be used to break into networks, said Sherri Davidoff, founder of the security consulting firm LMG Security.

Every three months, Davidoff works with a data-breach services company called NetDiligence to poll a group of her peers about the techniques they are seeing in real-world cyberattacks. A year ago, virtually none of them saw any signs of AI use. During the past quarter, it has become routine, she said.

Earlier this year, researchers at the cybersecurity firm Sophos gained access to systems used by a Russian-speaking ransomware group calling itself Aurora and they were able to observe things as the group evolved and became increasingly dependent on AI.

At first the hackers used AI to build tooling and infrastructure to host their ransomware attacks. By the year’s end they were using it to sniff around corporate networks they had hacked into, looking for ways to break into other accounts.

The Russian ransomware group also shifted over the course of the year from proprietary models like Anthropic’s to new open-source ones like the Kimi models from Moonshot AI, said Colin Cowie, manager of threat intelligence with Sophos.

“The pace that they operate at is faster than the average human,” Cowie added.

The hackers accessed the AI models using a $200-per-month license from AI-coding service Cursor, Cowie said.

It isn’t clear what specific tools Colin Parsons’s hackers used, but they were looking for online credentials that could be used to obtain AI services.

Parsons’s unauthorized purchases were made using credentials Parson had stored with an AI-coding site called OpenCode. Starting on Oct. 16, OpenCode was locked in a “non stop” AI-fueled cyberattack, the company’s co-founder, Dax Raas said on X. Later he added, “damn we basically need agents going 24/7 because that’s what they have.”

OpenCode representatives didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.

When Parsons fired up his Discord messaging app and went to OpenCode’s customer support channel, it was flooded not with support queries but nonsensical messages saying things like, “Yo,” or “Delete telegram.” A new one would pop up every two seconds. When Parsons posted a note about the fraudulent charges, it was quickly buried by the nonsense.

He tagged OpenCode in a post on X, asking, “have you guys been hacked?”

Soon other OpenCode users said they had been hit too.

“Yep – same thing – $1700,” wrote one.

“same here,” wrote another.

“I’m very pissed off, my keys were leaked,” a third said, adding that his OpenAI account was suspended.

Cancer Vaccine Cuts the Risk of Melanoma Recurrence, Drug Makers Report

Merck and Moderna released detailed results on an experimental vaccine to treat the skin cancer.

By Nina Agrawal for The New York Times

October 22, 2026

A first-of-its-kind vaccine against cancer may be on the horizon.

The drug makers Merck and Moderna announced on Thursday the full results of a closely watched trial of an experimental vaccine given to patients with melanoma. The study found that the patients who received the vaccine after surgery to remove their tumors were 42 percent less likely to have a recurrence of the cancer or to die within two years as those who did not receive the vaccine.

“Everyone is very hopeful that this will be a new way to treat patients with melanoma,” said Dr. Robert Vonderheide, president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research. He added that the results that were seen in the study are on par with “our biggest breakthroughs.”

The findings of the research were released earlier than planned. They were to have been presented for the first time on Saturday at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Madrid. But the companies lifted an embargo after some of the data were leaked.

The trial involved 1,137 melanoma patients who had their tumors surgically removed and were given an immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab (Keytruda), which takes the brakes off certain immune cells to attack cancer cells. About two-thirds of the patients were randomly assigned to receive the experimental mRNA vaccine, delivered in nine doses, and the other third were assigned to receive a placebo. The vaccines were personalized to include up to 34, specific “neoantigens,” or new proteins expressed by the patient’s tumor, to stimulate an immune response to those proteins.

Two years after entering the trial, the patients who received the vaccine were far less likely to have had the cancer come back or, worse, have spread far in the body.

“You’ve effectively immunized the body to recognize the cancer and kill it,” said Dr. Marjorie Green, head of oncology clinical development at Merck. “It’s been a dream to do this for a long, long time.”

Dr. Green said the company planned to move forward with applying for regulatory approval as quickly as possible.

Neither the current melanoma trial nor an earlier, Phase 2 trial of the same vaccine has yet demonstrated whether the group that received the vaccine ultimately lived longer. This measure, called overall survival, is the gold standard for determining whether a cancer intervention actually works and can sometimes be a requirement for regulatory approval.

Scientists are studying similar vaccines for a number of other cancers, like pancreatic and brain cancers. But some are skeptical that their success in melanoma, a cancer known to respond well to immunotherapy approaches, will extend to other types of cancer that don’t respond as well to such therapies.

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Fired General Warned Of Missile Shortages Before Iran War. What Do YOU Think?

Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff since ousted by Defense Secretary Hegseth, warned of critically low stockpiles of U.S. interceptor missiles two months before the Iran War started, estimating the shortage would last until 2030. What do you think?

[From The Onion]

Travis Bleck, Clothesline Stringer

“Rookie mistake. You’re supposed to save the life-or-death stuff for the tell-all memoir.”

Matthias Satchwill, Foosball Statistician

“I’m supposed to believe someone who can’t even hold down a job?”

Gabrielle Masinde, Weather Balloonist

“That’s why you should never have more than two forever wars going at a time.”

Grant County enacts NM’s latest data center moratorium

Site Layer 1 criticized over transparency, community outreach

BY ALGERNON D’AMMASSA / ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

October 23, 2026

Grant County became the latest local government in New Mexico to enact a temporary pause on data center development during a meeting in Silver City on Thursday.

The one-year moratorium prohibits “the establishment, construction, development, expansion, enlargement, operation, or commencement of any Data Center or Direct Supporting Infrastructure” as the county considers whether to adopt regulations about the developments.

It was approved as an ordinance on a 4-1 vote.

Representatives of Granite Renewables, the developer behind a proposed solar farm and data center near Hachita, argued that the moratorium language was ambiguous and could even prevent some of the evaluations the ordinance calls for that might be legally construed as “development.”

Lawrence Hurt, the cattle rancher on whose land the project would sit, argued a moratorium would violate his property rights and foreclose an opportunity for tax revenue far greater than what the land would produce from ranching.

Yet Commissioner Nancy Stephens, who originally proposed the moratorium, likened it to tapping the brakes as the data center industry moves quickly to develop largescale developments requiring high loads of electrical power and water for operations.

“We should not be hasty,” Stephens said. “I think good things are worth waiting for. I am not against all data centers. … There might be a way where it could be done right, and we have nothing to fear.”

The moratorium was supported by a majority of the speakers during the meeting who demanded answers about the consequences for groundwater, air emissions and noise and light pollution. The ordinance had the backing of the Gila Resources Information Project and the Continental Divide Trail Coalition.

Granite Renewables argued that regulations could be crafted without a moratorium in place and called for “open dialogue.” This drew a rebuke from Commission Chairman Chris Ponce, who said the commissioners first heard of the proposal from a local classified ad announcing the developer’s intent to seek an air quality permit.

Commissioner Thomas Shelley, who voted no on the ordinance, said the language could set up legal hurdles for relevant environmental studies and insert the county into regulatory matters outside its expertise and already covered by state agencies.

The Journal reached out to Granite Renewables following Thursday’s hearing and did not immediately reach a representative.

Bernalillo County passed an ordinance in February regulating data centers that seek tax breaks or other incentives. Moratoriums on data centers are currently in effect in Santa Fe, Socorro and Sierra counties. A group of Democratic lawmakers have disclosed plans to pursue a statewide moratorium during the 2027 legislative session.

[Editorial from the managing editor of the Albuquerque Journal] 25B penalty sends a message to Meta

Consumer and child protection strengthen New Mexico’s future

By James Bennett

October 23, 2026

Remember when Facebook was fun? You could reconnect with an old high school classmate, find a childhood friend you hadn’t seen in 30 years or share photographs of your grandchildren with relatives living thousands of miles away.

Just send a friend request. It was a remarkable idea, and for a while, it worked beautifully.

But, somewhere along the way, Facebook and the social media empire built by its parent company, Meta, lost their way.

The tool for reconnecting friends has evolved into a powerful machine designed to keep people scrolling, clicking and coming back for more.

Children become attached to their screens. Families sit around dinner tables, physically together but separated by their phones. Teenagers face relentless pressure over appearance, popularity and acceptance.

And social media has given bullies an enormous new playground.

Behind anonymous accounts and fake identities, people can torment others without confronting them face to face. Particularly vulnerable are teenagers, whose self-esteem and sense of belonging are still developing.

Meta isn’t responsible for every problem associated with social media. But it cannot celebrate the extraordinary reach of its platforms while minimizing concerns about the harm they cause.

Which brings us to New Mexico. A Santa Fe judge determined Wednesday that Meta’s years of deceptive practices warranted a staggering $219.5 billion penalty under state law.

Then he reduced it to $25 billion.

Why? Personally, I believe District Judge Francis Mathew should have imposed the full penalty. At the very least, he should have awarded the $35 billion to $40 billion requested by New Mexico’s attorneys.

Consider what a Santa Fe jury concluded in September.

Facebook and its leadership made 26 misleading statements concerning data privacy, misinformation, hate speech and other matters. Those statements reached millions of New Mexicans, producing nearly 44 million violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act.

Mathew described the wrongdoing as systematic and extending over years, striking at the heart of Facebook’s business practices.

That’s an extraordinary condemnation of one of the world’s most powerful corporations.

The case originated with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a British political consulting firm obtained personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party application.

That information was used for political profiling and targeting during the 2016 presidential election.

Millions of Americans learned that their personal information was considerably less private than they had believed.

And this wasn’t Meta’s first encounter with serious legal consequences.

In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission imposed a $5 billion penalty over Facebook’s privacy practices.

Earlier this year, New Mexico secured judgments totaling $942 million in separate proceedings involving the sexual exploitation of young people and misleading representations about platform safety.

Think about that. One case involved protecting personal information. Another involved protecting children.

Different allegations. Different proceedings. The same corporation facing substantial findings of wrongdoing.

Meta is valued at nearly $2 trillion. At some point, we must ask whether financial penalties change corporate behavior or simply become another expense on its balance sheet.

Protecting children is good for business

Some may worry that a penalty of this magnitude could discourage other businesses from locating in New Mexico.

Meta’s own chief legal officer claims the ruling makes doing business here nearly impossible.

I see it differently. Businesses considering New Mexico aren’t simply looking at tax rates, regulations and financial incentives. They’re looking at quality of life as their No. 1 criteria.

They want safe neighborhoods, strong communities and outstanding educational opportunities for their employees’ children.

What better message could New Mexico send than that it takes protecting children and consumers seriously?

Holding Meta accountable doesn’t make New Mexico antibusiness. It demonstrates that companies operating here are expected to play by the rules.

Imagine what $25 billion could accomplish

Now imagine what New Mexico could do with $25 billion, if upheld on appeal.

Imagine replacing deteriorating school buildings, modernizing classrooms and transforming educational opportunities in rural and underserved communities.

Imagine expanding mental health services, strengthening efforts to combat online child exploitation and giving vulnerable teenagers the support they deserve.

Any recovery would have to be spent according to state law, and some of those investments would require separate funding or legislative authorization.

But there would be something particularly fitting about using money recovered from Meta to improve the lives of New Mexico’s children.

That’s not a deterrent to economic development.

That’s an investment in New Mexico’s future.

Where is the remorse?

Of course, a judgment isn’t a payment. Meta intends to appeal, and years could pass before New Mexico receives anything.

But consider how Meta has responded.

Not with an apology or an acknowledgment of the jury’s findings.

Instead, the company disputes the verdict and argues that the ruling infringes on free speech.

Meta has every right to appeal. But free speech doesn’t provide unlimited protection against deceptive business practices.

Where is the remorse? Where is the accountability to parents worried about what their children encounter online?

Attorney General Raúl Torrez deserves credit for standing up to one of the world’s largest corporations.

New Mexico has demonstrated that even a relatively small state can challenge a technology giant.

The judge should have reinforced that message with the full penalty.

Facebook started out by bringing people together. Somewhere along the way, Meta became far more concerned with keeping people connected to its platforms.

It’s time the company learned that connecting people also means being accountable to them. New Mexico’s children deserve nothing less.

I hope it all sends a message to Meta, even without a friend request.

U.S. to livestream execution of Ukraine

White House promises largest pay-per-view military event in history

By Bad Lawyer for the Duffel Blog

October 19, 2026

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announce plans for what officials described as the largest pay-per-view military event in American history. The administration said proceeds would support additional opportunities to abandon U.S. allies.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said it would livestream the execution of Ukraine, replacing a planned broadcast of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s death with what officials are calling the largest pay-per-view event in American military history.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the decision came after President Donald Trump canceled plans to televise Hasan’s execution following widespread criticism that broadcasting a man’s death would be barbaric.

“We heard the concerns of the American people,” Hegseth said. “Some people were uncomfortable watching a defenseless man get shot. So we’re going to show them 40 million defenseless people getting shot instead.”

The broadcast, tentatively titled UKRAINE: THE FINAL BETRAYAL, will feature live satellite feeds, commentary from administration officials, and a halftime performance by Kid Rock.

“Nobody does executions like us,” Trump told reporters. “Nobody. We’re talking about an entire country. Beautiful country. Very big. And we’re going to do it live. The ratings will be unbelievable.”

Trump said the event would begin with a ceremonial lifting of sanctions on Russia, followed by a military demonstration in which Elon Musk personally toggles Ukraine’s Starlink service on and off while Russian drones approach their targets.

“Elon has a button. Very powerful button,” Trump said. “He can turn the internet off for an entire army. And the best part is, we don’t even have to fire a shot.”

Musk confirmed he would participate, saying Ukraine should be grateful he allowed it to have internet in the first place.

Trump announces sales of Patriot missles to Russia

White House says deal will help Moscow defend itself from Ukrainian aggression

By Paul Sharpe for the Duffle Blog

October 23, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced this week that he had secured a “blockbuster deal” to sell Patriot missile systems to Russia, calling the agreement a historic victory for American manufacturing and international peace.

“This is a great day for America and for Russia,” Trump said. “We’re selling them beautiful American missiles. The best missiles. And they’re going to use them to defend themselves against Ukraine, which, frankly, has been attacking Russia for a very long time.”

The deal comes amid ongoing negotiations to sell stealth fighter jets to China and follows a separate agreement to provide North Korea with artillery targeting information on South Korean positions.

RTX officials praised the agreement, noting that selling missile-defense systems to both sides of an armed conflict could establish a sustainable long-term business model.

“Historically, we’ve had to depend on one side running out of weapons,” one company executive said. “Now we can sell one country missiles, sell the other country interceptors, and repeat indefinitely.”

A White House fact sheet explained that existing restrictions would be waived to permit billions of dollars in American-made air-defense weapons to be sold to Moscow.

Deliveries will be expedited ahead of previously scheduled shipments to NATO allies, including Poland, whose military has complained about delays in receiving Patriot interceptors.

“Poland already has Patriots,” Trump said. “Very greedy people. Russia doesn’t have any American Patriots. Very unfair.”

Pentagon officials confirmed that Ukrainian requests for additional Patriot interceptors would be reviewed after Russia’s deliveries were completed. Officials also said Ukraine would be charged an additional 35% tariff on any American weapons used to destroy American weapons recently sold to Russia.

“These are defensive weapons,” one official explained. “If Ukraine stops attacking Russia, Russia won’t need as many of them. It’s a pretty straightforward path to peace.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed confusion over the arrangement, asking why American weapons intended to defend Ukraine were instead being sold to the country invading it.

Trump dismissed the complaint.

“Zelenskyy is always asking for missiles. Never says thank you. Very bad for Ukraine,” Trump said. “Putin is actually buying them. You tell me who’s the better customer.”

At a joint press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Trump for recognizing Russia’s legitimate security concerns.

“These systems will help protect Russian territory from continued Ukrainian aggression,” Putin said.

Asked whether that included Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russian forces, Putin said the missiles would defend “all Russian territory, including territory that is not Russian yet.”

White House officials also confirmed that American military advisers would provide training to Russian crews as part of the deal.

“We want to make sure these systems work,” Trump said. “Otherwise, Russia might have to use Russian missiles. Nobody wants that.”

Some defense officials worry that Ukrainian forces with American-made defense technology may soon find themselves fighting Russian forces operating identical systems.

One Joint Staff officer said the Pentagon was developing procedures to distinguish between friendly and hostile Patriot batteries.

“Normally, the answer is pretty simple,” he said. “Unfortunately, all the missiles are now coming from us.”

At press time, RTX announced record earnings after Russia used its new Patriot missiles to shoot down a shipment of American weapons bound for Ukraine, prompting the Pentagon to place emergency replacement orders with RTX.

Albuquerque singer advances on ‘The Voice’

New Mexico native Lillie Kolich earned a four-chair turn and survived the Battle Round as a member of Queen Latifah’s team on the NBC show

BY ELIZABETH SECOR / ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

October 22, 2026

Lillie Kolich is representing her home state on “The Voice.”

An Albuquerque native, Kolich grew up on stages all around the city. She is a former member of Cardboard Playhouse Theatre Company and a Volcano Vista High School alumna.

“They actually asked me when I went on the show if I wanted to represent Nashville, because I live here currently, or New Mexico,” Kolich said, “and I was like, definitely rep New Mexico for sure.”

The singer currently resides in Nashville, where she works on her songwriting, she said. On the weekends she bartends, but the majority of her week is dedicated to music.

“Living in Nashville is definitely a change of pace,” she said. “I miss the community in New Mexico and the New Mexico pride. I miss that things moved a little bit slower.”

Kolich said the support and guidance she received growing up in New Mexico helped prepare her for a music career.

“My directors at Cardboard Playhouse and all the people that I grew up with that trained me for so many years instilled so much confidence in me,” Kolich said, “and always encouraged me to just remember to love what you’re doing.”

Those around her help her remember to have fun and enjoy her time on the show — even if she is nervous.

She brought that philosophy to the blind auditions of “The Voice” on Oct. 6, performing “Back to Friends” by Sombr, and all four judges turned for her.

During the blind auditions, singers take the stage with a song of their choosing. If a judge wants them on their team, they spin their chair to face the singer.

Riley Green, Queen Latifah, Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine are the judges this season.

If more than one judge spins around, the singer chooses whose team they want to join for the season.

Kolich chose Team Queen. “I trust her,” Kolich said, “and I feel like she will bring the best out of me, and she will also tell me when things aren’t working.”

Kolich said Queen Latifah has good energy and is an icon “in a multitude of ways,” making her a versatile coach.

Her journey to “The Voice” was mixed with uncertainty.

When she first submitted a tape for the blind auditions, she said she wasn’t sure she would hear back, put it aside and almost forgot about it.

Then she got the call — but she wasn’t sure she could make it to auditions. Kolich had been attacked by a dog and had to undergo facial surgery and was unsure the stitches would be gone before she took the stage. However, the stitches were removed and healed in time.

Finally, she took to the stage but said she was scared she wouldn’t get a single chair turn.

“Then I got all four, and I was like, ‘What is happening right now?’ I was just like, ‘This is insane,’” she said.

During her blind audition, Kolich said she tried to focus only on the music so she wouldn’t “freak out” when the judges turned. The singer chose “Back to Friends” to bring something that “wasn’t conventional” to the stage.

“I feel like it’s always interesting when like the opposite gender sings the opposite gender for a song,” Kolich said. “Then I was like, I love that song, and I feel like this could be reimagined in a way that feels authentic to me.”

On Oct. 12, Kolich showed another way to reimagine a song during the “Battle Round,” where she went head to head with fellow Team Queen contestant Kayleigh Mathews.

The duo sang “Girl Crush” by Little Big Town. Coaches remarked on Kolich’s unique take on the song, and ultimately Queen Latifah chose to keep her on her team.

Throughout her time on the show, Kolich said she has learned a lot about keeping her voice healthy, and she’s felt validated in choosing a path in music while working with “these amazing coaches who have had very successful careers in music.”

“I think ultimately it’s just very encouraging, and it’s a good little reminder to keep going,” Kolich said.

Back in her home state, she said she is noticing how proud her friends and family are of her. She said so many people she grew up with and from old jobs have reached out to her as she advances.

“It’s very sweet and makes me very happy,” Kolich said.

“New Mexicans truly are so proud to be from New Mexico, and so am I,” Kolich said.