Linda Durham and her gallery have been a force in Santa Fe’s creative community since she first happened on her career and developed a habit of representing New Mexico and its artists locally and internationally. Now, after 33 years in business, Durham will close her gallery on March 11.

Federally-funded and state-supported drug task forces are running rampant in New Mexico. SFR reveals the results of two months of investigation into why armed, masked men in fatigues are landing in helicopters and routinely invading a normally peaceful town.

The Santa River has been in trouble for a while (the first dam was built upstream in 1881 and petitions from farmers whose acequias ran dry date back as early as 1886). But now, various conservation efforts and advocacy groups are finding the perfect chance to turn river restoration plans into action. On of these efforts is The Return of the River.

Republicans sure have interesting priorities. Even though they got elected on a fiscal agenda and arrived in legislatures and Congress with a budget crisis and a nation staring down unemployment, they’ve decided to put policing women’s bodies on the top of their agenda.

Despite the notorious drug problem in Santa Fe County, the successful Drug Court faces an uncertain future. With the paucity of funding available to sustain it in the current economic climate, Drug Court’s future is now seriously threatened.

There’s no shortage of complaints about nightlife in Santa Fe, but try and wedge all the great bars, clubs, lounges, dives and dance halls into a few pages, and it becomes apparent there’s a lot going on here—more than we can possibly include in one week’s worth of paper.

What follows then is an amended adventure through some of SFR’s favorite bars and haunts.

Veterans of the redistricting process say it’s consistently fraught with political infighting—not just between the two parties, but also among members of the same party. And a heated 2010 election season—which vaulted Republicans into power—is widely considered a litmus test for both public sentiment and partisan assertiveness.

The economy is in the tank and New Mexico faces a $400 million budget shortfall. A new governor has taken office and a wave of change will soon crash across all state agencies and trickle down to impact schools and youth services. Not only that, but the state’s political boundaries are shifting. Oh, and the federal government is eying New Mexico as the nation’s new nuclear bomb factory—as well as the final resting place for the nation’s accumulated waste from nuclear power plants.

We wrap up 2010 with a look back at the top stories that shaped the roller coaster of the last 12 months. True, not all of these stories woke us at 3 am with our teeth chattering. But the pervasive sense of seditious intent from the powers that be did fuel our thinking as we wrapped up the year. So we present not just the top 10 stories, but our own take on the conspiracies behind them.

At 6:40 am on a Saturday in November, the sun lingers below the mountains, and the temperature in Santa Fe lingers below freezing. We are waiting for la camioneta, the 15-passenger van that makes the 12-hour trip from Santa Fe to Chihuahua, Mexico, four days a week.