Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

If the resolution is approved by legislators, New Mexicans will have their chance to vote on it in the next election cycle.

Officials sitting on the Radioactive & Hazardous Materials interim committee received an update Thursday on how the state plans to clean-up the decommissioned San Juan Generating Station.

New Mexico has the highest rate of alcohol-related deaths in the nation and the situation has gotten even worse since the pandemic. Despite this, state lawmakers this session failed to pass any substantive measures to curb the crisis. Public health reporter Ted Alcorn has long covered the issue for New Mexico in Depth. He spoke with KUNM about a debate over whether and how to change the way the state taxes alcohol. Democrats filed competing bills this year, neither of which got to the governor.

In a statement Monday evening, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she was “dismayed” that a Senate committee didn’t pass a bill that would keep more New Mexicans accused of crimes behind bars before being given a fair trial. Similar proposals have been shot down several years in a row now over concerns that it’s not a lawful or effective way to reduce violent crime in the state.

New Mexico Chief Justice Shannon Bacon said in January the courts were advocating for the elimination of post-adjudication fees. She called it an unjust practice of paying for government functions on the backs of those who can least afford it.

Bills are heading to the legislature that would raise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Advocates say the higher prices, and the prevention campaigns they’ll fund, will help curb use in a state that struggles with alcoholism and teen nicotine use. But some lawmakers pushed back on that assumption in a hearing of the Revenue Stabilization & Tax Policy Committee Tuesday.

State prisons are required under the U.S. Constitution to provide “adequate medical care” to those they incarcerate. However, prisons in New Mexico and 16 other states do not provide inmates with medication for opioid addiction, and neither do most of its county jails. Advocates are calling on lawmakers to expand this treatment in New Mexico lockups in the upcoming legislative session.

New Mexico Senators asked a local news reporter to leave a committee meeting Thursday at the Roundhouse, citing a Senate rule that bars recording these…

A coalition of New Mexico lawmakers, advocates and residents say the U.S. Air Force has been too slow to respond to a decades-old jet fuel spill at…

People around the globe demonstrated and marched for workers rights on Monday in celebration of International Workers Day. In Albuquerque, hundreds…