By Julia Goldberg | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, folks. It’s Tuesday and we have plenty of news to start your day from near and far. Below, find stories on New Mexico’s ongoing housing challenges, new proposed federal grazing regulations, Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s reasons for joining a lawsuit challenging a big Hollywood merger and more. As always, you’ll find more to read at sourcenm.com, including stories from our colleagues in nearby states, such as the Utah News Dispatch’s report on President Trump’s executive order yesterday to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante (with comments from U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). Thanks for being here.
A construction worker hoses down the stucco at a newly constructed home in the Mesa Del Sol development in southeastern Albuquerque on July 13, 2026. Affordable housing developers told lawmakers they need additional tax relief and more-predictable state funding to continue to build new homes in New Mexico. (Photo by Danielle Prokop for Source NM)
New Mexico affordable housing developers ask lawmakers for tax relief, predictability
Even though the New Mexico Legislature has made historic investments of roughly $500 million in recent legislative sessions to address the state’s housing shortage, prominent New Mexico affordable housing developers told lawmakers Monday they are having trouble accessing the funding and building new homes. Source’s Patrick Lohmann reports on what those developers hope lawmakers will do to address the issue.
The campus of Western New Mexico University in Silver City, N.M., pictured March 9, 2026 (Photo by Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)
Court schedules trial in New Mexico AG’s case against former WNMU president
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s case against former Western New Mexico University President Joseph Shepard is set to go to trial next summer, according to court documents filed Friday. Torrez filed the case in early 2025, Source’s Joshua Bowling reports, after news reports and the Office of the State Auditor detailed how Shepard and other university executives used taxpayer money for international travel and luxury home furnishings.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez on July 13, 2026, said his office had joined a coalition of AGs challenging the Warner Bros./Paramount merger because it could hurt the state’s film industry. (Image by StockPlanets via Getty Images)
12 states, including New Mexico, sue to block Paramount-Warner Bros. merger
Twelve Democratic-led states, including New Mexico, on Monday sued to block Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The lawsuit argues the merger violates a federal law prohibiting mergers that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he was joining the lawsuit to protect the state’s film industry.
Cattle graze in Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in southern Arizona. (Photo by Roberto “Bear” Guerra, High Country News)
First major overhaul of public lands grazing rule in a generation looks to cut out the public
ProPublica reports the federal government is rewriting its rules governing ranching on public lands to increase the number of cattle, sheep and other livestock grazing on 155 million acres in the West, an area twice the size of New Mexico.
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