Before learning the ins and outs of lobbying, Rainy Upton didn’t realize how difficult it could be.

Anyone driving on the road in Santa Fe can attest to how bad some of the city’s drivers are. No one seems to use turn signals, and drivers pull in front of other cars without looking.

 Every year, thousands of tourists with open pocketbooks flock to Santa Fe for its multiple culture festivals, opera shows and art galleries.

The City Different consistently tops lists as one of the country’s best destinations for food, wine and culture. In 2011, Condé Nast named Santa Fe the third best place to visit in the United States. This year, the city was chosen over Lake Tahoe and others to host the International Mountain Biking World Summit, a highlight Mayor David Coss emphasized in his annual State of the City address this past fall.

“This is a great place for active, outdoor vacations,” Coss said in the October speech, “for nature and environmentally friendly travel; for food, wine, spas, wellness, art, culture and history.”

As Congress continues a tense debate over how to regulate the internet, the outcome will have lasting effects on New Mexico’s burgeoning film industry, as well as on the freedoms of the state’s citizens and media outlets.

As a sizable number of positions in the Department of Health remain unfilled, critics say they’re empty for a reason.

Jerome Block Jr. packed the headlines all summer and fall before his work as a Public Regulation commissioner came to a highly scrutinized end.

Count on a renewed debate over driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants this January. Gov. Susana Martinez has vowed to bring up the issue a third time, despite facing the same Legislature that didn’t alter the law during her last two attempts.

When the State Fair Commission narrowly approved a questionable lease for the Downs at Albuquerque racino this past fall, liberals jumped at the opportunity to criticize the governor for continuing the state’s old practices.

When Fabiola Melendez came to New Mexico from Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2002, she brought with her a sick daughter and limited English skills. After the move to Moriarty, Melendez says she spent seven months in the hospital with her daughter, who at the time was suffering from pneumonia.

For the past few years, layoffs and buyouts have been as much a part of the media business as ink-stained fingers. But at the beginning of 2011, the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media offered a cautiously optimistic picture of an industry in recovery after the bleak, layoff-heavy years of 2008 and 2009.