KUNM News Update
After more than 50 school districts sued the state and its education secretary over extending the school year to 180 days, a state judge has issued a temporary restraining order. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the order prevents the Public Education Department from enforcing the rule it passed in March amid pushback from school staff and lawmakers.
Local News
Sunday marked the second anniversary for the National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person’s Awareness Day. The New Mexico Indian Affairs Department partnered with the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women to host an event for families to share their stories with officials – and bring attention to the ongoing crisis.
Let's Talk New Mexico
The state Public Education Department recently mandated public schools to operate for 180 days – that’s a 5 day school week. Districts across the state are pushing back with a lawsuit citing lacking funding and transportation, especially in rural areas. Is the mandate overreaching, or, does it fulfill the state’s obligation to students?
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Pro-Palestinian protestors on college campuses have taken up “Disclose and divest” as a rallying cry.The ask is for universities to stop sending money to entities that stand to profit from the war in Gaza, and to make more information about their finances public so it’s clear what those investments are.KUNM’s Megan Myscofski spoke with Ernesto Longa, a University of New Mexico law librarian who is helping to organize faculty and students calling for divestment. He says that there’s precedent at UNM for this.
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Faculty and staff and the University of New Mexico sent University of New Mexico President Garnett Stokes a letter Thursday rebuking the school administration’s response to student protests.The letter has over 200 signatures, with about 40 withheld names. It calls for the university administration to support free speech and urges the university to include encampments in its definition.
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A group of tribes that use Colorado River water sent a list of principles to the federal government amid contentious talks about how to share the shrinking supply.
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Whiskey Tender, by Deborah Jackson Taffa (Quechan and Laguna Puebo) tells her own story of growing up first on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation and then in Farmington. The story of seeking to understand her own identity brings her, and her readers, to the wider tale of generations of trauma and erasure of Indigenous people at the hands of United States' policy.
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An expert on artificial intelligence told a legislative panel that state lawmakers were right to protect themselves from AI’s potential harmful effects on their election campaigns, but now they need to offer the same protections to everyone else.
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