New Mexico In Depth

Capacity issues may limit New Mexico’s universal child care program

Starting Nov. 1, New Mexico will offer free child care to every family in the state. There will be no fees to pay and no ...
New Mexico In Depth

‘Every day is Indigenous Peoples’ Day’: A year of joyful stories in Native communities

Children wove colorful hoops through the air as they danced in the courtyard, telling stories with the shapes they created.
New Mexico In Depth

Sana Dadani

Sana Dadani is a data reporter with a master's degree in data journalism from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree in ...
New Mexico In Depth

Native students are expelled in New Mexico far more than any other group. This school district is ground zero for the disparity.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with New Mexico In Depth. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. And sign ...
New Mexico In Depth

Gila: An unpredictable river, even in the best of times

Tucked away in the southwestern corner of New Mexico, the headwaters of the Gila River pour out of mountains remote and wild. At least five other times in the past century, officials thought about ...
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

How We Investigated Death Rates for Extremely Preterm Babies in New Mexico’s Largest Maternity Hospitals

This article is copublished with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. New Mexico In Depth is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. A New Mexico In Depth ...
New Mexico In Depth

Politics trumps health in state’s response to alcohol crisis

In February 2021, as New Mexico lawmakers considered landmark legislation to loosen restrictions on alcohol sales, the state’s alcohol epidemiologist Annaliese Mayette set out to assess the bill.
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

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

Powerhouse lobbyists on tap for alcohol industry

A proposal to raise New Mexico’s alcohol tax to a flat 25-cents per drink in a bid to curb the state’s exceptionally high rate of alcohol-induced deaths has disappeared behind closed doors. Both House ...
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 ...