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Sheila Miller/The Taos NewsMiguel Rael, in orange, escorts a young man taking his turn carrying the gia during the Good Friday pilgrimage from Costilla to Questa.
Miles of contemplation
By 3:30 a.m. on Good Friday, pilgrims were already assembling in Questa to ride together to the Sagrada Corazón Catholic Chapel in Costilla. The stained glass … more
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Jett Loe/UNM Health Sciences CenterPediatric oncology resident artist Angus Macpherson, left, helps 2-year-old UNM Children's Hospital leukemia patient Maya Salviotti create some art while Maya's mother, Lauren Huston, looks on.
Merger of UNM and Presbyterian hospitals could help or hurt pediatric care
New Mexico has the right conditions for a unified children's hospital "if everyone can recognize that there will have to be some trade-offs"... more
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Morgan Timms/The Taos NewsShannon Romeling and Lucas Nykamp, of Taos, sing hymns as they remember those who lost their lives while homeless this year at El Pueblito United Methodist Church in El Prado Friday (Dec. 21). Taos' inaugural Homeless Memorial Service was organized in collaboration with the Taos Coalition to End Homelessness.
Homeless memorial honors oft unseen neighbors
New Mexico is near the top of the country for chronic homelessness, and the state saw an increase over 2017 of people experiencing homelessness more
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Heather LeDoux of Questa and her 8-year-old son Adam.
Funding cuts, health care shortage harms N.M.’s autistic children
When 8-year-old Adam goes to a new place, it can be exciting, almost overwhelming. A visit to a Mexican diner is more than enough to set him off. His head snaps left and right, attempting to take in … more
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Three of Judy Barnes’ grandsons at home. A doctor, who has since come under state scrutiny, wrote the boys dozens of prescriptions for antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, anticonvulsants and sedatives. None of the drugs proved safe or effective in children so young.
Prescription for disaster: New Mexico’s lax oversight puts kids in danger
In 2015, Jane Barnes, a research scientist in her early 60s — “a tired old woman,” in her words — was desperate to rescue her grandsons. more
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Shift Manager Brian Price enters the Taos Men's Shelter after a smoke break with a client Sunday (Nov. 18). The shelter provides homeless men of Taos County food, laundry, hygiene access, case management and a warm place to stay 365 days a year. Its winter hours 5 p.m. — 8 a.m.
Finding Home Part 1 – Out of the Storm
Night monitor Brian Price saw the line begin to grow outside Taos Men’s Shelter before the worst of the storm hit on Veteran’s Day. more
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hoto by Luis Sanchez Saturno/The New MexicanChad Walde speaks with his wife, Angela Walde, before dinner at their home in December 2016. He was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer in 2014 and died at the age of 44 in 2017.
Exposed: The Life and Death of Chad Walde
For 18 years, Chad Walde was a loyal worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in a job where proximity to radiation was a reality. But when he died of brain cancer at age 44, his grieving family struggled to find answers behind his illness--and reasons why the government denied his claim for medical benefits. more
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Brandon N. Sanchez/Gallup IndependentWilhelmina Yazzie and her son, Xavier, in front of Jefferson Elementary School in Gallup.
Years of frustration lie behind landmark school lawsuit
For Wilhelmina Yazzie, joining the groundbreaking lawsuit against New Mexico wasn't an easy thing to do. It was the only thing to do.The Navajo mother of three says she's no different from the dozens … more
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Don Usner/Searchlight New MexicoCHI St. Joseph's Children home visitor Amanda Lind helps 30-month-old Lucas pull colored water into a dropper as a fine-motor-skills activity during a home visit in July 2018.
Who should get home visits? New Mexico can't say
The state knows relatively little about the people served by its nearly three dozen contracted home visiting providers. more
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Emilia at her grandmother's house in Cañones.
Emilia's story: Family, tradition, addiction
Photographers and writers have for the past 20 years journeyed to Northern New Mexico to chronicle the opioid epidemic. Long before the opioid abuse became a national scourge, these images and stories served to define Río Arriba County as the heroin capital of the country - a place that is my querencia, my home of the heart. more
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Ernesto Cantu, executive director of IDEA Public Schools in El Paso, observes Aug. 20 as kindergarten students walk to their classroom at IDEA Edgemere in its second week of operation.
Texas nonprofit shares school 'idea'
The kindergarteners of IDEA Edgemere walked quietly single-file down the hall, their uniforms embroidered with the school logo, left hands behind their backs, right fingers over their lips. … more
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Don Usner/Searchlight New MexicoLiz Friary, a participant in the First Born program, and her infant, Rachel, in Santa Fe.
A Florida city nurtures babies with 'Brain Bags' for parents. Can New Mexico do the same?
Editor's note: Communities nationwide are trying to crack the same nut: how to narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor kids. Pensacola, Fla., became one of … more
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New Mexico ranks last in national survey of child well-being
Prospects for children in New Mexico are the worst in the nation, according to newly released data that rank states across 16 measures of child well-being. more
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Photo provided by Jesse WoodFilmmaker Jesse Wood on a photo shoot at a racetrack, where his specialty is capturing high-speed cars. He's among the young people who earned college degrees in New Mexico and then left to find better jobs elsewhere.
Down New Mexico's (brain) drain
Leaving New Mexico wasn't a maybe - it was a have-to for Jesse Wood, a Farmington kid who graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2014. Like thousands of other … more
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Courtesy Connie FloresWhen Connie Flores received her high school equivalency diploma last year at the age of 39, she was honored by the New Mexico Coalition for Literacy as student of the year.
Educating adults has generational payoff in New Mexico
Connie Flores never wanted to drop out of school, let alone leave in eighth grade. But like thousands of other teenagers who never graduate from high school in New … more
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Stuck at the bottom: Why New Mexico fails to thrive
For almost 30 years, New Mexico has maintained an iron grip on the bottom rung of key rankings.   more
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Early childhood education may be key to solving economic woes
Over the last two decades, New Mexico has turned its pockets inside out to keep old businesses from leaving and attract new ones to open their doors. more
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Abe Gordon, a recovering heroin user, is Inside Out Recovery's anchor. He has spent time working with addicts in jails. Today, he volunteers the majority of his time visiting the more rural parts of Taos County offering peer support and Narcan training to opioid users.
A shot in the dark
It had been months since he had pulled the trigger, but Abe Gordon still couldn't find the words. He would play back the shooting in his head. The argument on the roadway in El Llano. The … more
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Nico Zamora, a recovering heroin user who works for Inside Out Recovery in Taos, shows the track marks that cover both of his arms. Many of the clients he works with at the Taos County Adult Detention Center also struggle with heroin addiction.
Incarcerated by addiction
Addiction, in one form or another, has been a problem here in Northern New Mexico for generations. But as opioids have entered the lives of thousands of norteño families over the past two … more
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Connected charges or not, many detainees that wind up in the Taos County Adult Detention Center are dealing with some form of addiction. In June, three detainees shared their stories and talked about what it means to deal with addiction in Taos.
Taos detainees talk addiction
Stephen Bunker, 36 “I grew up on the streets pretty much,” said Stephen Bunker inside the jail's B pod. Bunker spent his first years along the southern coast of Florida. His parents … more
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New Mexico recorded the second highest drug overdose death rate in the United States in 2014. While it's position has fallen in the two years since, an increasing number of New Mexico residents continue to die of overdoses. As shown in the map above, the problem elsewhere – particularly in the eastern states – is worsening, as well, far outpacing the availability of treatment.
Treating an epidemic
At the end of June, Abe Gordon walked out of the summer heat and into the Taos County Adult Detention Center, where his clients were starting to emerge from their cells. The women's pod was his … more
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