The 2020 census starts in a couple months, and organizers are reaching out to populations in New Mexico that historically were undercounted. A bill to spend $8 million on outreach efforts passed its first legislative hurdle on Thursday, Jan. 23. 

A lot of eyes are on recreational mairjuana in New Mexico this legislative session. Last year, a bill that regulated Hemp—the non-psychoactive strain of the cannabis plant—was signed into law. Hemp can be used to make thousands of products, like clothes, paper, biofuel and CBD oil. Farmers and advocates spoke about the burgeoning industry at the Roundhouse Thursday, Jan. 23.

Lyla June Johnston is spending the first week of the legislative session in Santa Fe fasting to bring attention to climate crisis. The 30-year-old scholar, organizer and artist announced last month that she'll challenge New Mexico House Speaker Brain Egolf for his seat in the Democratic primary in June. KUNM caught up with Johnston outside the Roundhouse Thursday morning, where she's been praying and talking energy policy this week.

Towns in 18th Century New Mexico were built as enclosures.  Outside adobe walls were windowless and doorless, facing inward were homes and a place of worship, and at the center was a plaza.  New Mexico's last such remaining structure is the timeworn but largely intact Plaza Del Cerro in Chimayo.  In 2017, hoping to save this historic place, the Chimayo Cultural Preservation Association teamed up the Santa Fe non-profit Cornerstones Community Partnerships.  Cornerstones Director Jake Barrow spoke with KUNM about the significance of the plaza and what the partners have done to preserve it.

When her husband Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946, Georgia O'Keeffe left New Mexico to settle Stieglitz's complicated finances in New York.  She wound up having to stay in the city for three years.  One of her few paintings from that disruptive period is a memory of her New Mexico home.  Spring from 1948 remained in O'Keeffe's private collection until her death.  The painting is now in the collection of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and last fall the Museum received a grant for a much-needed restoration of Spring.  Head Conservator Dale Kronkright spoke with KUNM about the work he and his colleagues will be doing during that year-long process.

New Mexico has a gun death rate higher than the national average, and two-thirds of those deaths are suicides. The Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Act being heard this legislative session is controversial. Opponents say this bill is a form of gun control and violates the U.S. Constitution, but its supporters say it's a necessary step in mental health care.