New Mexico in Focus (A Production of NMPBS)

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez stops by the NMPBS studio to talk about her first year on the job and the work her agency is doing to increase connectivity across the country, including in New Mexico. Host: Lou DiVizio Guest: Anna Gomez, FCC Commissioner

Lou DiVizio introduces an interview between Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus and Executive Director of Pueblo Action Alliance Julia Bernal. The two talk about the many types of liberation Bernal's organization seeks for Indigenous people and everyone else. Host: Lou DiVizio Correspondent: Laura Paskus Guest: Julia Bernal, Executive Director, Pueblo Action Alliance 

Lou DiVizio opens up the podcast with headlines from around the state, many of which focus on the upcoming 60-day legislative session. Tonight, Nov. 18, Albuquerque City Council will meet to finalize its priorities heading into the session. You can watch that meeting live or after the fact here . Another topic on the agenda for lawmakers at the roundhouse next year will be regulating artificial in...

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver sits down with Executive Producer Jeff Proctor to talk about the state’s first presidential election with same-day registration. Host: Lou DiVizio Correspondent: Jeff Proctor Guest: Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico Secretary of State 

This week, a breakdown of this year’s general election results. Senior Producer Lou DiVizio goes over the state’s congressional contests with a special roundtable of politics experts. Then, Lou reviews the state’s many House and Senate races, before asking how New Mexico Democrats plan to provide statewide protections against a potential wave of conservative national policy. Later, Lou asks the ro...

The republican candidate for Congressional District 3 talks a bit about her background in state politics and shares her perspective on climate change, immigration and in vitro fertilization.   Host: Lou DiVizio Correspondent: Gwyneth Doland Guest: Sharon Clahchischilliage, (R) Candidate for U.S. Representative, NM District 3

U.S. Rep. Gabriel Vasquez shares his vision for New Mexico’s southern-most congressional district. District 2 is the state’s most competitive congressional race with Vasquez taking on republican Yvette Herrell in a rematch from 2022.   Host: Lou DiVizio Correspondent: Russell Contreras Guest: Gabriel Vasquez, (D) U.S. Representative, NM District 2

Lou DiVizio introduces NMiF's interviews with each candidate for New Mexico's 1st Congressional District. Democratic incumbent Melanie Stansbury speaks with Gwyneth Doland about her work representing New Mexico’s first congressional district and her plans for another term. Then, republican candidate for Congressional District 1 explains why he thinks his background as a certified public accountant...

Lou DiVizio introduces another 2024 Candidate Conversation, this week with U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez. Politics Correspondent Gwyneth Doland asks the congresswoman how her work in D.C. has addressed the unique economic needs of the communities she represents. Host: Lou DiVizio Correspondent: Gwyneth Doland Guest: Teresa Leger Fernandez, (D) U.S. Representative, NM District 3

This week on New Mexico in Focus, we begin our 2024 election interviews with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. Politics correspondent Gwyneth Doland asks about several top concerns for most New Mexico voters: crime in our state, immigration reform and security at our southern border. Gwyneth also asks Heinrich about his stance on abortion, his work to pass gun control reform measures, and his thou...

Senior Producer Lou DiVizio speaks with former New Mexico state senator Eric Griego and journalist Trip Jennings about money’s growing influence in our elections. Griego explains the impact the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United has had on funding limits and oversight and the competitive realities of fundraising while running for office at any level of government. In the sec...

Lou DiVizio starts the show with some headlines from around the state including a federal judge's ruling that the federal government violated environmental regulations by approving nuclear pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Then, Executive Producer Jeff Proctor sits down with a journalism professor and a criminal defense lawyer to consider what's next for the Albuquerque Journal, fo...

This week Lou DiVizio introduces two segments from Our Land's Laura Paskus. First, Laura sits down with a historian and a Santa Fe County Commissioner who oppose federal plans to build a new transmission line across the Caja del Rio to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Laura asks what harm this transmission line will cause to the area. Then, Laura talks with Mark Mitchell, former governor of the...

Lou DiVizio opens the podcast with headlines from around the state. Then, Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus interviews author Dan Flores. Flores is the author of more than a dozen books including Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History and most recently, Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America. Flores was in Albuquerque recently for the Leopold Writing Progra...

This week, Lou DiVizio explores the history of Labor Day and the state of labor in New Mexico in 2024. Lou sits down with University of New Mexico professor Dr. Jason Scott Smith as he explains the roots of the holiday and considers how Americans should measure economic success in our country. Then, Albuquerque-based labor lawyer Stephen Curtice talks to Lou about his work and provides a snapshot...

In an extra podcast episode from New Mexico in Focus, we're looking ahead to this Friday’s 100th Zozobra in Santa Fe. Every year tens of thousands of New Mexicans gather in Fort Marcy Park to burn away their gloom – in the form of a 50-foot monster names Old Man Gloom. The event is put on each year by the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe led by event chair Ray Sandoval. Lou DiVizio speaks with Ray Tue...

Lou DiVizio kicks off the podcast with headlines from around the state, including news New Mexico is failing to leverage Medicaid dollars for home visiting programs. Then, Whitney Holland, president of New Mexico's chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, is one of 45 delegates who attended this month's Democratic National Convention in Chicago. KUNM's Nash Jones catches up with...

This week on the podcast, Lou DiVizio updates you on some statewide headlines including news Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will be speaking at the DNC in Chicago Tuesday night. Then, two advocates examine a recording that captures APD officers using racial slurs and violent language, taken moments after police shot and killed a 30-year-old man. Daniel Williams of the ACLU of New Mexico tells Executi...

Lou DiVizio returns to the podcast with headlines from around the state, including news that 1-in-3 New Mexico counties is considered a "maternity care desert." Then, Lou speaks with three experts about the City of Albuquerque’s approach when dealing with a growing number of homeless people. Attorney Peter Cubra, Rachel Biggs from Health Care for the Homeless and District 6 City Councilo...

For seven years on NMPBS, “Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present, and Future” has covered so many aspects of climate change: from the oil and gas industry’s greenhouse gas emissions to how human-caused warming affects our rivers, forests, and public health.  In an all-new special, “Loving Our Changing Homelands,” Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus  explores the role that love must...

Across the Navajo Nation, contaminated uranium mines have been polluting the air and water and making people sick for generations. As part of a plan to finally clean up more than a million cubic yards of contaminated uranium and radium waste at just one of those sites, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed relocating the waste to private land within the town of Thoreau. Relocating...

Lou DiVizio opens the podcast this week with headlines from around the state including how a Supreme Court decision on homeless encampments might impact New Mexico. Then, we look ahead to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's special session in July. You’ll hear from the Governor’s public safety advisor as we ask about the specific problems the administration is hoping to solve with her proposals. And...

Lou opens the podcast with an update on the South Fork and Salt Wildfires burning in the Ruidoso area. For More Information: NM Fire Info National Interagency Fire Center Cooler temps and rain over weekend mean ‘minimal fire activity’ for teams battling NM fires - Source NM U.S. Supreme Court rejects NM and Texas deal on Rio Grande - Source NM Our Land Weekly - Sign Up! Albuquerque celebrates dive...

Lou DiVizio opens the podcast this week with headlines from across the state, including news Santa Ana Pueblo is taking back 60,000 acres of ancestral lands. Then, Lou sits down with a group of leaders in New Mexico's Black community to ask about the importance of celebrating Juneteenth. In the first of three conversations, Senior Producer Lou DiVizio asks Joe and Rita Powdrell about the roots...

This week on the podcast, Lou DiVizio updates the status of the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act which came to an end late last week. Then, Source New Mexico reporter Danielle Prokop asks U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., about his efforts to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to cover New Mexico.   For context on the efforts to extend and expand RECA, we included a 2021 inte...