Rita Daniels

Over the past year, a group of Taos High School students have been literally trying to cure cancer. Specifically mouth cancer caused by chewing tobacco.  After long hours toiling over laboratory equipment, their extracurricular endeavor has paid off.  The multi-ethnic crew, who call themselves the Wyrmies, have been chosen as finalists in the E-Cybermission competition for their use of the traditional Native American herb Cota.

A landfill in southern New Mexico, rumored to be the final resting place of the 1982 Atari video game ET, is about to be excavated. Rita Daniels reports, the big dig for ET, is part of a Canadian Television companies attempt to document the game, and its role in crashing the fledgling home gaming industry.

A uranium mine near Grants that's been idle for 23 years is seeking a shift in its permit status to "active." The Albuquerque Journal reports that Rio Grande Resources Corp. applied last month to the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division to revise the Mt. Taylor Mine's permit by October 2014.

There were numerous independent reports on Friday regarding the hazy skies and subsequent poor air quality within the Albuquerque Metro area.  The City of Albuquerque Air Quality Department released a Health Alert at 849am for poor air quality due to wildfire smoke which combined with dust from windy conditions. Additionally, a back door front ushered in a dramatic increase in low level moisture which enhanced the development of haze and associated visibility impacts. KUNM's Rita Daniels spoke with National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Frazier.

The Navajo Nation moved closer Monday to taking over a coal mine on the reservation. Tribal lawmakers voted to form a limited liability company that would run the Navajo Mine near Farmington, N.M.

This week, the Albuquerque Environmental Health Department convened a Bed Bug Conference to educate the public on bed bug basics: how to identify an infestation, how to treat it, and most importantly, how to prevent an infestation in the first place.
KUNM's Poverty and Public Health reporter Tristan Ahtone went with Rita Daniels to learn about the bugs, and spread the message.

You may recall that on Monday the Mayor and City Attorney of Santa Fe released  legal analysis stating that same-sex marriage is legal in New Mexico, encouraging County Clerks to issue same-sex marriage licenses and urging couples to apply for them.  Since then the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Bernalillo County Clerk, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, for denying marriage licenses to same sex couples.  Chip Hindi and Paul Sanchez have been together for over six years.  They are one of a handful of couples who've applied for the license thus far.  Here is their story...

Chances are you may need either a reminder or tutorial of how exactly a bill becomes law here in New Mexico. Luckily KUNM's Rita Daniels also needed a refresher and brings us the story.

Earlier this year, President Obama signed an amendment allowing federally recognized tribes to seek Federal Emergency and Major Disaster Declarations directly from the President, instead of having to go through the state. Today Mr. Obama declared that a major disaster exists on the Navajo Nation due to extreme temperatures the Nation experienced this winter and the havoc it caused. KUNM's Rita Daniels spoke with Ernie Zah, a spokesman with the Navajo Nation.

Special Education funding is in jeopardy here in New Mexico.  Alexa Schirtzinger, editor of the Santa Fe Reporter, gives us the scoop.  Of course you can read the entire article here.

An election post-mortem with Alexa Schirtzinger, editor of the Santa Fe Reporter.

As we close in on the last few days of the election season, the KUNM News Team has been hitting the streets, trying to get a sense of what's propelling New Mexicans to cast their votes.

“My name's Romeo Rocha…”

Romeo says when his mom was pregnant with him, his dad took her to see Romeo and Juliet, hence the name.

Romeo: “Yeah when you are younger and everyone is making fun with you it seems like a curse but after awhile you get used to it.”

  Read the article: 

Next in our Voices Behind the Vote series, we go to Texico, New Mexico, near the border with Texas.
Rita Daniels:  On a drizzly afternoon, I'm making my way into Texico, New Mexico, 16 miles east of Clovis, seeing signs for Romney/Ryan; no Obama signs out here.
On a drizzly afternoon, I met Mark and Twilla Koss
Twilla Koss:  I'm Twilla KossMark Koss:  Mark Koss

Sometimes it takes a whacky circumstance to recognize our true potential and life path. Renowned performer, writer, comic and all out Public Radio star Mike Birbiglia tells Rita Daniels about the first time he realized he was funny.  Birbiglia is performing at The Lensic on Wednesday night, September 19th, in Santa Fe.

As teachers and students alike gear up to go back to school in the next few days, KUNM's Rita Daniels takes a look at an innovative math class that really seems to be working.

As teachers and students alike gear up to go back to school in the next few days,

KUNM's Rita Daniels takes a look at an innovative math class that really seems to be working.

When a young filmmaker from New York came up with the idea to shadow three Navajo students out on the Rez through their senior year of high school, expectations were moderate.  But hundreds of hours of footage and editing later, a feature length documentary began to take Film Festivals by storm.  Here, both the stars and filmmaker talk about their experience. The film screened in Albuquerque July 25th, 2012.

Hundreds of Educators and Parents gathered at the States Public Education building in Santa Fe on Wednesday to submit testimony to Secretary of Education Designate Hannah Skandera regarding her proposed Teacher Evaluation System.

Rangina's family fled Afghanistan when she was a young child during the Soviet invasion, and for decades there was never any reason to return home.  But after September 11th, 2001, Rangina was overcome by a calling much bigger then herself, to go back and serve her people. 

In 2005 Gayle Lemmon headed to Afghanistan for three weeks on a writing assignment for the Financial Times.  She hoped to find a meaningful story about entrepreneurs who were really making a difference.  Contacts of contacts put her in touch with a very young woman who had started a dressmaking business that supported her entire community under the rule of the Taliban.  Lemmon was struck most with the realization of just how much work woman were actually doing inside their homes during the years when they could not go outside.

With this week being the official launch of Summer, KUNM News took a tour of a few unique farms around New Mexico.  The first one Rita Daniels headed to was the Alvarado Urban Farm in downtown Albuquerque where she meet up with a group of Veterans who are learning how to cultivate veggies and then some. You can find out more about the project here.

This past Tuesday, governor Susana Martinez announced that the city of Hobbs, NM was the choosen location for a $1 billion scientific ghost town, that's going to be built by a private group called Pegasus Global Holdings.  It's being called the Center for Innovation, Testing and Technology or CITE.  KUNM's Rita Daniels had the chance to speak with the mayor of Hobbs, Sam Cobb, to try and shed some light on what this all means.

David Lescht, the man responsible for bringing hours upon hours of free live music to New Mexico each summer during the Santa Fe Bandstand project, died unexpectedly early Friday morning.  

Lescht was also responsible for starting the Outside In program which brought music to prisoners, hospitals and shut-ins. He believed that music helped people deal with boredom, isolation and despair and told the Santa Fe New Mexican that "I just try to bring a little light from the outside into dark place."  

Lescht was also a beloved afternoon freeform host here at KUNM and will be greatly missed.

With summer break just around the corner, it's tempting to forget all about the hot issues currently going on in New Mexico on the subject of education.  So before that final recess bell rings, KUNM's Rita Daniels takes a visit to some classrooms, and brings us this audio postcard.

Public media's teamed up and created the American Graduate Initiative to try and tackle the high school dropout crisis in our country.  In New Mexico, 2 out of 5 students don't finish high school.   PBS' Newshour correspondent Ray Saurez visited the Duke City this week to see why.