New Mexico In Depth

Tribal libraries fill critical gaps in communities, despite limited staff

Growing up in Zuni Pueblo in northwest New Mexico, Valarie Bellson remembers walking to the tribe’s public library when she ...
New Mexico In DepthOpinion

Voting could get harder in New Mexico if Congress passes the SAVE Act

This is Trip Jennings’ bi-weekly column that is published here and in newspapers across the state. Jennings is the Executive ...
New Mexico In Depth

Work related to missing, murdered Indigenous people crisis funded during session, lawmaker says

When Aaron Mark Bradley, a 68-year-old citizen of the Navajo Nation, went missing one day last summer in northern Arizona, there were alarming signs at his home about what might have happened to him.
New Mexico In Depth

Albuquerque’s vision for non-police first responders comes down to earth

Printed in white block letters, the question stretched across billboards around Albuquerque last summer. And it still haunts the mother of two, Elaine Maestas, who helped pay to put them up. “What if ...
New Mexico In Depth

Amid a withering drought, New Mexico leaders struggle to plan for life with less water

Though the Rio Grande runs through the heart of New Mexico’s biggest city, you can easily miss it. Even from places where you’d expect to see water — designated parking areas near the river or paths ...
New Mexico In Depth

Feds’ sting ensnared many ABQ blacks, not ‘worst of the worst’

For three days Yusef Casanova hunted for methamphetamine and a gun. On June 4, 2016, a friend met a man in the heart of a hardscrabble area of Albuquerque pocked with pawn shops but dotted with ...
New Mexico In Depth

Poverty fell more than a third in New Mexico due to tax changes, but there’s more to do

The first cars arrived before dawn. By 9 a.m., vehicles snaked through the food distribution event at the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque. It was a week before Christmas, and thousands of families ...
New Mexico In Depth

Growing number of NM schools pursue restorative justice to keep kids in schools

On a brisk February morning with snow on the ground, children arrived at Tsé Bit A’í Middle School in Shiprock, on the Navajo Nation in northwestern New Mexico. Word in the hallway was something was ...
New Mexico In Depth

Diverting the Rio Grande into a grown-over, decades-old canal could cut New Mexico’s water debt

Decades ago, Norm Gaume, a water advocate, paddler, and former director of the Interstate Stream Commission, hauled a canoe to central New Mexico, thinking he’d float down the Rio Grande through the ...
New Mexico In Depth

The founder of New Mexico’s new militia was a neo-Nazi skinhead

Facebook took down hundreds of pages yesterday in a crackdown on “movements and organizations tied to violence.” Among them was a right-wing militia that rapidly rose to prominence this summer: the ...
New Mexico In Depth

How the rise of copper reveals clean energy’s dark side

This story is co-published by New Mexico In Depth and the Guardian US, as part of the series “America’s dirty divide.” Corky Stewart, a retired geologist, and his wife live in a rural subdivision in ...