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Kaveh Mowahed

Reporter, News Host

Kaveh Mowahed has filled several roles in KUNM’s news department over the years while working toward a PhD in the History of Medicine at UNM. He started as an intern in 2013 and has been a reporter, producer, host, and data analyst with us since then. Kaveh studied print journalism at Arizona State University, but soon after earning a bachelor’s degree he found his love for radio. Kaveh thinks hearing is the most valuable of the senses because of how it engages the imagination. When he’s not reporting or editing audio for the radio, he loves being home listening to records or romping around the mountains on a bicycle or snowboard.

  • Our warming atmosphere is giving us stronger storms, hotter summers and winters with an unpredictable snowpack that is shifting growing seasons and putting water supplies at risk. You may have noticed changes in your home garden, while farmers across the state are adapting to protect their livelihoods, generations-old lifeways, and our food supply.
  • It’s hard to get an appointment with a doctor right now and recent data helps explain why. From 2017 to 2021 the number of primary care physicians in the state dropped by 30%, and specialists are leaving too. Some providers are leaving for another profession or retiring, but others are leaving New Mexico for better pay or for more balanced lives in states with more robust healthcare systems.
  • People have called the Rio Grande a main artery, delivering life-giving water to and through our arid state. But year-after-year we see the river continuing to dry – and the ecosystems, communities, and industries that depend upon it are drying up too. On the next “Let’s Talk New Mexico” we’ll discuss the poor health of the Rio Grande and what’s at stake as it shrinks.
  • Let’s Talk New Mexico 2/9 8am: Albuquerque has continued to set new homicide records, while legislative reports also show other violent and property crimes around the state are well above the national average. On the next episode of “Let’s Talk New Mexico” we’ll discuss public safety and what law enforcement and city and state government can do right now to curtail crime.
  • Let’s Talk New Mexico 1/19 8am: Beyond the limits of the tight legislative calendar, lawmakers are faced with the challenge of understanding dozens of bills each session without having full-time staffers to help them. They often rely on industry insiders, lobbyists or activists for information on how proposed legislation will work. Furthermore, legislators do their work without a salary, earning only what they get for a per diem which is much too low to cover their stay in Santa Fe.
  • Recently the Legislative Finance Committee met to review the progress of spending New Mexico’s share of federal pandemic aid. There are a lot of projects either on-going or in the planning stages and lawmakers want to make sure those projects get funded before access to those federal dollars expires.
  • Enrollments are up at New Mexico’s higher education institutions, with an increase of more than 4% that’s second only to New Hampshire. And even though the higher education budget this year was more than $1 billion, the Higher Education Department Wednesday asked the Legislative Finance Committee for more.
  • There’s a concerted effort at Albuquerque City Hall to expand access to housing. The Office of Equity and Inclusion recently released a needs assessment, the department of Family and Community Services is working on strategies to protect and create housing, and a public meeting last week on converting hotels into permanent housing was so well-attended another one is scheduled for Tuesday evening – this time online.
  • Every five years Albuquerque has to report to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, on how the city is promoting fair housing for protected classes of people – based on things like race, religion, sex, or disability. The draft report assessing the city’s fair housing was published this week and it highlights Albuquerque’s housing inequities.
  • This week the Santa Fe City Council unanimously passed the Midtown Master Plan, a framework for how the 64-acre city-owned property in the center of Santa Fe could be redeveloped after being largely vacant for more than four years.