Only about 160 Republicans attended in person or via proxy on Saturday to vote to elect a new state party chair, far short of the quorum needed to select a leader ahead of the November general election.

The seat is currently vacant due to a court order that ousted former Republican Party of New Mexico Chair Amy Barela. She is running to reclaim her old seat against Valencia County Republican Party Chair John Brenna and local conservative radio host Brandon Vogt.

New Mexico Chief Public Defender Bennett Baur told a panel of state lawmakers Monday that his understaffed office could hit a point at which public defenders cannot take on new criminal cases.

Across the state, the Law Offices of the Public Defender has 190 staff attorneys and a vacancy rate of more than 21%. Speaking before the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee in downtown Albuquerque, Baur referred back to a landmark 2022 report which found that the state needed more than 600 additional public defenders to ensure his office meets its minimum constitutional requirements.

A New Mexico legislative subcommittee tasked with investigating the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s time in the state on Thursday announced it would issue nine more subpoenas to federal and state government agencies, less than a week after it publicly published its first batch of subpoenas.

The state House investigatory subcommittee, known as the Truth Commission, late last week posted the first six subpoenas it issued as part of its investigation into Epstein and the New Mexico property he formerly owned, Zorro Ranch, on its website, NMTruthCommission.com.

Following last week’s discovery of New Mexico’s first New World screwworm case, members of the state’s congressional delegation on Thursday announced legislation intended to curtail the spread of the parasitic fly.

Contrary to popular belief, there has never been a documented case of a Mexican wolf attacking or killing a human

For years, ranchers have butted heads with conservationists and the federal government – claiming that the endangered Mexican gray wolf is a serious threat to their local economies and public safety.

Federal data obtained by KUNM, however, tells a different story.

The Mexican wolf debate is not a new one. After almost going extinct from trapping and hunting, the lobo was reintroduced into New Mexico and Arizona over 28 years ago, sparking significant conflict and even fear among residents.

The New Mexico State Ethics Commission voted Monday to seek more information, through a lawsuit if necessary, from New Chapter New Mexico, a political action committee that spent more than $400,000 during the June 2 Democratic primary election to help elect an array of candidates and did not disclose its donors.

Elected leaders in southern New Mexico had previously agreed to host a community town hall next week in order for residents to ask questions and provide feedback on Project Jupiter, the controversial OpenAI and Oracle data center under construction in Doña Ana County.

So residents were surprised, in recent weeks, when they started seeing a flyer for the event circulating online. Instead of a public Q&A run by the county, it advertised a job fair run by the project’s developers.

Attorney and former state lawmaker Jacob Candelaria filed the suit in April on behalf of three Republicans. They include Duke Rodriguez, who ran for governor in the June 2 primary; and Zac Anaya, who ran for the state House of Representatives. Current state Sen. Steve Lanier (R-Aztec) also is a plaintiff in the case. All alleged that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration had run afoul of an old New Mexico Supreme Court decision in which Rodriguez, who at the time led Gov. Gary Johnson’s state Human Services Department, was accused of implementing a state program “without seeking legislative approval.”

Lujan Grisham first announced the universal childcare program last September and said it would save families about $12,000 per child annually. The program opened up to all New Mexico families on Nov. 1, 2025, and a new law — Senate Bill 241, which established criteria for when certain families are subject to co-payments — went into effect in May.

New Mexico’s first human plague case of the year has resulted in the death of a Santa Fe County woman in her 50s, health officials said Thursday.

The New Mexico Department of Health confirmed it is determining that no close contacts of the woman are exhibiting symptoms.

3,100-mile trail runs directly through an active mining claim site in Carson National Forest

Socorro County vote follows months of forceful opposition from local ranchers, environmentalists

The Santa Fe River as an intermittent stream is one of 95% of New Mexico rivers that no longer qualify for federal pollution protections after a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. (Julia Goldberg/Source NM)

New Mexico this week started the process of creating new rules for pollution limits for rivers, streams and other surface waters across the state, which advocates say need to be as strong as possible to replace lost federal protections.

New Mexico Department of Transportation officials are beginning to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars on statewide road projects after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in February signed a bill that authorized $1.5 billion in bonds.

Sierra Club database shows widespread frustration with NPS effort to ‘whitewash’ history

“No lava,” complained one visitor to the Capulin Volcano National Monument in northern New Mexico, regarding monument “services that need improvement.” The volcano last erupted 37,000 years ago.

Six other comments at Capulin and other New Mexico parks grumbled about the lack of Bigfoot.

“I saw a sign asking for reports of negative information — honestly, only that sign is negative,” one Bandelier visitor wrote in mid-June. “The rest is just history, you walnuts. Stop being a bunch of snowflakes and accept that not all American history is good. But it’s all important.”

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission’s staff on Monday determined that the state’s largest electric provider and the private equity firm seeking to acquire it violated state law in 2025 by conducting a $400 million stock sale tied to the takeover without first obtaining PRC approval.

Hearing examiners late Monday morning issued a recommended decision, which requires PRC approval, to reverse the stock sale and mandate PNM and Blackstone Infrastructure produce a written report explaining how they reversed the deal and how they will make sure ratepayers are not adversely affected. They also recommended maximum penalties against both companies.

The transaction has been the subject of several complaints as PNM and Blackstone work toward an $11.5 billion acquisition.

State law requires major party candidates who don’t earn enough pre-primary delegates to automatically make the ballot to gather signatures equal to 2% of the number of their party’s voters who participated in the state’s last gubernatorial election. For Democrats, that’s just more than 2,500 voters and for Republicans, it’s nearly 2,400.

Independent, minor party and write-in candidates, however, must gather signatures equal to 2% of all voters who participated in the most recent gubernatorial election — more than 14,000 — to make the Nov. 3 general election ballot. And they only have until June 25 to do so.

New Mexico agriculture officials on Monday confirmed the state’s first case of New World screwworm, detected in a Lea County dog, just days after the first incursion of the devastating parasitic fly in a south Texas calf.

The infested dog, who resides in Eunice, was originally mistaken for a Texas case after being diagnosed over the state line by an Andrews County veterinarian this weekend, New Mexico Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte said in a virtual news conference Monday. The case is the fourth detected in the U.S. so far.

A measure to return three tracts of land from the former Albuquerque Indian School campus to a trust for New Mexico’s 19 Pueblos passed the U.S. House this week and advanced to its first U.S. Senate Committee.

The federal legislation, titled the Albuquerque Indian School Act, would transfer 10 acres of a former boarding school to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, which provides a museum, cultural programming and events serving the state’s 19 Pueblos. Monique Fragua (Jemez Pueblo), the president and CEO of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, said the land would be used for an entrepreneur complex, and would also include light industry and manufacturing spaces.