This week on New Mexico in Focus, host Gene Grant and the Line Opinion Panel and talk through new polling data showing Democrats with big leads in several state races. 

The panel also discusses the rollout of a new tool meant to reduce overdose deaths – fentanyl tests strips. 

Plus, the panel assesses the dire situation in Las Vegas where ash and wildfire debris have contaminated the city’s drinking water source.  

Correspondent Antonia Gonzales sits down with a Navajo novelist to talk about her new book ‘Shutter,’ which follows a young woman from the Navajo Nation who becomes a forensic photographer. Author Ramona Emerson also explains why she thinks it’s so important for indigenous people to tell indigenous stories.  

Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus explores heat waves with University of New Mexico Professor Blair Wolf. Professor Wolf studies how birds cope with the heat, directly and through behavioral changes, and how declines in some bird communities are associated with increased warming.   

New Mexico in Focus airs on NMPBS 5.1 (KNME HD) Friday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 4 at 7 a.m., and streaming on the PBS video app.  

NMiF Segments

'Shutter’: Behind Navajo Novelist’s Debut Book 
Correspondent
Antonia Gonzales 

Guest
Ramona Emerson, author, filmmaker, Diné 

Heat Waves & Bird Deaths
Correspondent

Laura Paskus

Guest
Blair Wolf, University of New Mexico, Department of Biology 

New Mexico in Focus is the New Mexico PBS prime-time news magazine show covering the events, issues, and people that are shaping life in New Mexico and the Southwest. NMiF takes a multi-layered look at social, political, economic health, education, and art issues, and explores them in-depth with a critical eye to give them context beyond the "news of the moment." 

Senior Producer of New Mexico in Focus is Lou DiVizio with Kathy Wimmer, co-producer. NM PBS Public Affairs Executive Producer is Kevin McDonald. 

Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by the McCune Charitable Foundation and Viewers Like You. Funding for the Your New Mexico Government Project comes from the Thornburg Foundation and New Mexico Local News Fund.

Funding for Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present & Future, is provided in part by the Neeper Natural History Programming Fund for KNME-TV. 

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