Santa Fe New Mexican
A golden exception?
Apainted phrase decorates the wall inside the front entrance of Miners’ Colfax Medical Center’s long-term care facility. “We went in together, and we came out together,” it says. It’s one of several handpainted murals — most of them depicting local...
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Why nursing homes fall short
Gene Timmons’ brief stint in an Albuquerque nursing home was supposed to make him stronger. His family hoped he would live there for a few weeks, getting the physical therapy he needed to return home stronger and avoid repeat falls, said his son,...
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Tyranny is toast
For more than two decades, Helene Luna has challenged the 50-foot symbol of evil before her, stuffed with the woes, grief and grudges of the tens of thousands who gather each year to watch Zozobra be devoured by flame. For a few minutes each year, she...
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Trump policy adds to ranching issues
As he watched the lingering drought that has unfolded this year hit his pastures in La Cieneguilla, Jose Varela Lopez opted to cut the size of his cattle herd by more than half — a hard decision wrought by hard times. He would like to regrow his herd....
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Thus always to tyrants
For some, this year has been particularly gloomy. That’s even more reason to gather and watch Zozobra be set alight, said event chair Ray Sandoval. “I hope that people leave feeling a little bit lighter than when they came,” Sandoval said. The 102nd...
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Dry Rio Grande may linger
The waters of the struggling Rio Grande returned to Albuquerque in mid-September last year, the lapping tide of the river finally drifting over a riverbed that had been parched for months. Such scenes came as a major relief for the river ecosystem and...
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BEAR STAKES OUT FORT MARCY PARK
A black bear remained perched in a tree late Monday afternoon at Fort Marcy park after city police and state wildlife officials had left the area. Officers from the Santa Fe Police Department and the New Mexico Department of Wildlife had monitored the...
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Districts get final say as feds cut back sex abuse oversight
Nearly one in 10 high school students reported experiencing rape or sexual assault in the most recent survey from the New Mexico Department of Health — a number that advocates say is likely an undercount. The U.S. Department of Education oversees...
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A student reported rape; her school punished her
Larissa paused as she reached for the door of the discipline room April 27. As the first-period bell buzzed over the intercom, the seventh grader took a breath and pulled the door handle. She stepped inside to join some 10 students who had been...
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Inaugural residents
Ahousing complex that will anchor Santa Fe’s fast-growing midtown district will open its doors to its first residents Tuesday. Developer Phillip Gesue said Art House apartments, 1001 Midtown Calle Central, off St. Michael’s Drive, received its...
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Windows to the past
Anew exhibit is bringing photos from the College of Santa Fe’s collection to public view for the first time in close to a decade. Out of the Vault: The College of Santa Fe Collection of Photographs at the Santa Fe Community Gallery displays more than...
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‘Turning math on its head’
As New Mexico takes steps to do for math education what it has done for reading, Santa Fe Public Schools is taking a leap. The district is an early adopter of the state’s push to remake math instruction — an effort short of the reforms the state has...
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Quintessential uniter
Dolly Parton, a rhinestone-studded, rags-toriches daughter of Appalachia who for six decades ruled country music — and much of pop culture — with an outsize personality and down-home wit that enshrined her as one of America’s most cherished originals,...
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Keeping pools afloat
As Santa Fe experiences another hot summer, residents have tried to beat the heat in a variety of ways. But in a city where few people have personal swimming pools, access to public facilities has once again been limited as Santa Fe continues to...
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Sizing up a tech boon
The city of Farmington and San Juan County have shifted their economic focus in recent years from fossil fuels to tourism and outdoor recreation. Officials are also eyeing the possibility of data center developments. San Juan County’s economy has been...
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Soccer preview: Santa Fe Prep eyes 2nd title
Coach Rick Canby didn’t beat around the bush when it came to setting the tone for the Santa Fe Prep Blue Griffins. “You haven’t earned anything yet this year,” Canby recalled telling his players in the offseason. That’s a heck of a message to send the...
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‘War with nature’
ATRUCHAS udrey Newman said she knew it was setting up to be a long and hard year when she was called out to a Nebraska grassland megafire in March. Not so far from where Newman — a frontline wildfire paramedic from Montana — stood Friday, the...
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‘We can’t allow this’
Immigration agents have arrested at least a dozen people in Santa Fe since Sunday, advocates say, stoking fear for some and bringing protests and a commitment Thursday from elected officials to strengthen policies protecting immigrants. Federal agents...
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‘A quiet community … changed overnight’
Adescendant of two of the original families of this far-flung mountain village, Teresa Johnson Blackwell recalls trailing her grandfather’s cattle herd on nearby land and plucking apples from the orchard as a girl. It terrifies her to think the...
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Building up the north
Standing on a ridge overlooking the Las Estrellas neighborhood, Housing Trust CEO Roman “Tiger” Abeyta gestured to the piñon- and juniper-covered land below. “Basically, everything you see with nothing on it — we own,” he said. Abeyta’s comment came...
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Rising in the east
The Frijoles Fire burning in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near several Northern New Mexico villages grew 2,000 acres overnight, heightening anxiety for residents in the area after crews finally had begun making progress containing the blaze. Fire...
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Risks rising by degrees
Dora Morsch can’t beat the heat. When her family first toured The Mica, an apartment complex in northeastern Santa Fe, Morsch remembered asking about the air conditioning. “That was a big concern of mine, knowing that it was going to be a hot summer,”...
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A fee for affordability
Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia wants to triple the fee levied on developers who don’t include affordably priced units in apartment complexes. Proponents argue the change would encourage builders to create more options for lower-income residents and...
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New life for amphitheater
Marks of decay, tree branches and shallow rain puddles dot the weathered concrete shell where decades of Santa Fe Indian School students crossed the graduation stage — and where so many New Mexicans took in outdoor concerts at what was once among the...
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Indigenous Panama art lands in S.F.
Long-lost art pieces from an Indigenous South American culture found a home in Santa Fe this year. The Angels, Mermaids and Umbrellas exhibit will open 4 p.m. Friday at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe and will run until Aug. 30. Museum manager Gerardo...
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Plaza closing to cars
The Plaza underwent the latest change of its hundreds of years of history Wednesday night, as the City Council voted to close the surrounding streets to vehicle traffic from Memorial Day through Día de los Muertos, Nov. 1. The 6-2 vote comes after...
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New boons — old busts
The Consuelo’s Place homeless shelter is having a big July. Earlier this month, the shelter on Santa Fe’s midtown campus marked becoming an independent nonprofit. Also this month, the organization is set to receive $225,000 from the city of Santa Fe’s...
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‘Looking pretty good’
Get your roasters ready. Despite drought, disease and unique labor challenges, this year’s crop of New Mexico chile is “looking pretty good,” said Stephanie Walker, with New Mexico State University’s Extension Plant Sciences Department. “We should...
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Christus is making the rounds
Christus Health’s footprint in New Mexico is growing. The Texas-based Catholic hospital firm — which has operated Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe for nearly two decades and took over full ownership in 2023 — has broken ground...
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Rural reconciliation
Negotiating the labyrinth of unmarked U.S. Forest Service roads in a 1986 Ford pickup, Pat Aguilar scanned with keen eyes the land where his ancestors had toiled generations ago. Deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of southern Taos County, more...
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Overdoses in jail up
Christopher Garcia had been homeless for about a decade and had been addicted to fentanyl, alcohol and “whatever he could get his hands on,” his mother told a Santa Fe County deputy. When he was booked into the Santa Fe County jail in March, the...
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Knowledge is power
Be it a national or state power grid emergency, or simply a lower utilities bill, Santa Fe Community College is ready. The school last month finalized a cutting-edge project more than a decade in the making since talks first began: a standalone...
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In pair of markets, old meets new
Downtown Santa Fe will be filled with New Mexico art this weekend, with side-by-side markets showcasing both traditional and contemporary styles. The Traditional Spanish Market, marking the 100th anniversary of its first show in 1926, will take place...
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ANGLING FOR NO. 2
The race to pick Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland’s new running mate is heating up ahead of the start of voting Saturday, with everyone from the Republican ticket to Democratic lawmakers to a Hollywood icon picking sides. Roughly 500...
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Something to look up to
Street artist Shepard Fairey unveiled a towering new mural at Santa Fe’s midtown campus late last week and opened a solo exhibit at a Canyon Road gallery, drawing hundreds of people. Days later, he was still drawing attention on the city’s streets:...
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DOOM AND BLOOM
No bites on the fishing line and lack of shade on the shoreline of this snow-fed lake in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains factored into Rita Sanchez and her family’s decision Friday to pick up their belongings and look for a new spot....
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REZ BALL REVIVAL
Look out from most anywhere in this Navajo Nation town, over neighborhoods where asphalt is reserved for small basketball courts and hoops hang over dirt and gravel. You will see it. The stone monolith that gives this place its name towers some 1,500...
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Wildfire smoke from Canada engulfs D.C.
NEW YORK — Millions of people in the Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states muddled through another day of unhealthy air from uncontrolled wildfires on Friday. The thick smoke enveloped the nation’s capital in a gloomy, eerie haze and prompted...
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Wildlife center soaring high with 40 years of animal care
Black-footed ferrets Phoenix and Verga scurried down tubes in their habitat at the New Mexico Wildlife Center in Española while Anna Tobin fed them small, pink mice. The endangered ferrets are spending their retirement from a breeding program in...
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Man guilty in sword slaying case
Isaac Apodaca didn’t wield the 3-foot sword used in a grisly slaying on Santa Fe’s south side in 2022. Still, prosecutors convinced a jury he had manipulated his girlfriend to carry out the killing. Jurors deliberated for about two hours Wednesday —...
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Ashes to dust at St. Kate’s
The claw of an excavator sent brick walls tumbling and rubble cascading as clouds of dust ascended, until nothing remained of a historic edifice that housed generations of Catholic boarding school students. The sizable girls’ dormitory at the St....
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‘Just a brilliant satirist’
Pat Oliphant, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist whose cutting sketches critiqued power and corruption in U.S. politics over a lengthy career that made him one of the most recognizable and lauded artists in the newspaper business, died...
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Still waiting for period products
Looking back at her four years at Santa Fe High School, recent graduate Ari Sandmel isn’t convinced public school districts are complying with a state law requiring them to stock bathrooms with free menstrual products. “As far as I know, there’s never...
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At St. Kate’s, memories left in ashes
WSANTA CLARA PUEBLO alter Dasheno’s mind drifted toward the distant past as he studied the small black-and-white photograph, with 11 serious-looking Native American teens staring back at him. Dasheno still knows the names of the other 1965 graduates...
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IN FOR A LONG HAUL
Standing atop one of three empty water cubes on the truck trailer, Dana Carlisle gripped the pipe hard as the sudden rush of liquid poured from the bulk water station and the surrounding parched desert glinted with heat. Carlisle was hauling water for...
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PASA DAY
◆ Santa Fe’s Desert Chorale and Chamber Music Festival season kickoffs ◆ ‘Eugene Onegin’ operatic study guide ◆ Folk art market award winners
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‘Isaac is the architect’
Deputy District Attorney Haley Murphy opened the state’s case against Isaac Apodaca by reading his own text messages into the record. “With the dagger, bring it up. Turn flat, south to north, and with the hilt, east to west, hilt north to south, and...
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Fueling Cuba cultural projects
Apair of Cuban painters who have sold art at Santa Fe’s International Folk Art Market for more than a decade credit the event with providing them the money and recognition needed to launch a constellation of cultural institutions in their home...
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Booked and released?
Three Santa Fe County inmates in a general population housing area sweated through push-up drills in beige jail fatigues as other men lounged around a table, studying their playing cards. Those men, incarcerated in late June, likely weren’t behind...
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‘That street is unsafe’
Roadway closures around the Santa Fe Plaza are frequent in summer months, when the park plays host to an increasing number of events — major art markets, Fiesta de Santa Fe, Pride on the Plaza festivities and a series of free concerts. If the Santa Fe...
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Milestone at Miles
The City Different’s Fourth of July celebration began a little differently this year. Instead of gathering near Santa Fe Place mall as residents have for years, thousands spread across Franklin E. Miles Park for the city’s first Independence Day...
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Tailgating in style
Tom Maguire, John Berkenfield and Gerard Martinez have been tailgating on opening night at the Santa Fe Opera for about 30 years. In the parking lot of the scenic venue north of the city Friday evening, about two hours before the curtain was set to...
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St. Kate’s burns
City firefighters battled a blaze for hours Thursday afternoon at the historic campus of the former St. Catherine Indian School near downtown Santa Fe. The fire was reported at about 3:45 p.m., and more than two dozen firefighters were still on scene...
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‘FRONT-ROW SEAT’
A250th anniversary Independence Day celebration in your backyard? Some Santa Fe residents who live near the new site of the city’s July Fourth fireworks show were irked to learn they have to apply for a pass to get into their own neighborhood after 4...
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Weighing cost of opting out
Mayor Michael Garcia is making good on a campaign promise to make developers pay more — a lot more — to forgo building affordable housing units. An ordinance he is sponsoring would raise the fee developers pay in lieu of building affordable units as...
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‘We need solutions’
Joyce Benavidez never thought she would become homeless. But after her fiancé died in 2013, she started drinking heavily. Alcohol turned to hard drugs and a downward spiral that ultimately resulted in “losing everything and everyone that I cared...
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Aging into crisis
New Mexico doesn’t have enough daycare — and not just that kind of daycare. The state’s adult daycare centers play a critical role in ensuring aging New Mexicans — particularly people with dementia — can age with dignity and in their own homes, while...
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‘Trying to make it illegal to be homeless’
Desiree Martinez was charged twice in Santa Fe when she lived on the streets: once for violating the city’s ban on camping on public property and once for trespassing. Both incidents led to additional charges as Martinez, in the grips of a fentanyl...
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Wanted: Livestock docs
Manny Encinias and two of his daughters led cattle into pens at his Buffalo Creek Ranch. Dust blew in the wind while he sprayed the cows with ivermectin to protect them from flies. The ivermectin spraying is part of his routine, Encinias said. But...
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‘Everybody’s on edge’ for fires
Residents of the Sierra Los Pinos community in the Jemez Mountains, who had gathered at shelters in nearby La Cueva, nervously watched a plume of smoke Thursday as crews battled a wildfire not far from homes they had fled. “There’s a lot of worry,”...
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FIRST-CLASS RIDE
In the late 1920s, the Central Railroad of New Jersey launched a high-speed, luxury line from Jersey City that was designed to transport wealthy riders from New York to the seaside resort of Atlantic City in classy, even luxurious surroundings. Now,...
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‘FIND THE MONEY’
Santa Fe city councilors have shot down a request from city staff to terminate a contract with the nonprofit Urban Alchemy to provide street outreach to people in the homeless community. The city had approved a four-year, multimillion-dollar deal with...
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Closer to kickoff
As hype for the 2026 World Cup continues to heat up in soccer-loving Santa Fe and worldwide, the city moves closer to expanding its fields, with plans to break ground on a longawaited project later this year or in early 2027. A watch party for the...
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CENTER OF ATTENTION
“No AI data center.” A movie theater marquee sign voicing opposition to a proposed development greets Raton residents and visitors of this small northeastern New Mexico city. Elsewhere in town, project opponents are gathering signatures on petitions...
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