Voters in House District 46, which stretches from Santa Fe up through the northern pueblos to Española and includes parts of White Rock and Chimayó, have grown accustomed to power. Outgoing New Mexico House Speaker Ben Luján, who represented the district for more than 35 years, possessed a legendary ability to control the Legislature and defend northern New Mexico. But by next session, all of this will change.

He may live in one of the safest counties in one of the safest states in the country, but that doesn’t stop Gary Slider from carrying a handgun with him everywhere he goes. He’s been doing so for the past 35 years.

On July 12, 2011, Lynn Degenhart resigned from his post as a member of the New Mexico Passenger Transportation Association board with a message titled “Ethical Concern.”

Jagged shards of busted glass greet visitors at the northeast entrance to the second floor of the Railyard’s Market Station building. Inside, undeveloped rooms have been sitting vacant ever since construction ended in 2008.

Rob Rittmeyer makes an Old Fashioned with a little bit of bourbon, a little bit of sugar and “a little bit of love.”

Santa Fe has just four microbreweries to choose from, and two of them are owned by the same guy (art mogul Gerald Peters). But luckily, each location—Santa Fe Brewing Company, Second Street Brewery, Blue Corn Café and Brewery and the Marble Brewery Tap Room—offers a different experience. And, of course, different brews.

Nine years after the state approved a new rural public transportation district, nearly two-dozen free bus routes crisscross Santa Fe, Taos, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties. Last year, the district provided roughly 374,000 rides.

Six months ago, SFR reported on allegations that some New Mexico Public Education Department officials had improper educator’s licenses. Since then, PED has maintained that there’s never been a licensing problem. But prominent officials are raising questions about whether PED adequately dealt with employees’ concerns and urging better oversight in one of the state’s largest departments.

If state appellate judges uphold the rulings of their predecessors in a three-year-old lawsuit, New Mexico may be on the hook to pay millions—if not tens of millions—of dollars to current and former state employees.

It’s late afternoon in March, and spring is blooming. Roughly 50 of Santa Fe’s movers and shakers are gathered in a small building that resembles a slick, revamped old church, with bright white walls culminating into a triangular point in the center of the ceiling. Creative Santa Fe, the arts and culture nonprofit whose broad mission is to improve the city’s “creative economy,” is announcing a new direction after seven years of inaction, mostly on the city’s dime.