By Julia Goldberg | Editor-in-Chief
TGIF, folks! This week sure packed in the news. Below, you’ll find some highlights, including bad news for homeowners as insurance companies continue opting not to renew policies amid fears of wildfires and other natural disasters. We’ll have plenty of news for you heading into the weekend at sourcenm.com. And we’ll be keeping an eye out over the weekend as the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s State Central Committee opens voting to fill the vacancy for the party’s candidate for lieutenant governor.
A record number of New Mexico homeowners, particularly in fire-prone counties, such as Mora County pictured above, were forced to find new insurance policies in 2025 due to insurance company non-renewals, according to the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)
New Mexico insurers refused to renew policies for record number of homes in 2025, official says
Source’s Patrick Lohmann reports national insurers opted not to renew more than 6,200 homeowners’ insurance policies in New Mexico in 2025, marking the highest-ever number of non-renewals in the state amid increasing industry fears of wildfires, floods and other disasters.
New Mexico’s largest jail, the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center, has often functioned as one of the state’s largest mental healthcare providers. (Source NM file photo)
New Mexico court officials report positive early data from new competency, diversion law
Source’s Joshua Bowling reports officials with New Mexico’s Administrative Office of the Courts on Thursday told a panel of state lawmakers that they’re seeing encouraging preliminary results from a 2025 law that expanded judges’ abilities to order defendants to undergo treatment if they’re found not competent to stand trial.
Co-plaintiff Zac Anaya, left, attorney Jacob Candelaria, middle, and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Duke Rodriguez, right, speak with press on June 11, 2026, after Second Judicial Court Judge Elaine P. Lujan rejected their lawsuit alleging that state leaders improperly implemented the universal childcare program. (Photo by Joshua Bowling/Source NM)
New Mexico Supreme Court strikes down Republican lawsuit challenging universal childcare
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Wednesday shot down a lawsuit from three Republicans challenging the legality of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s first-in-the-nation universal childcare initiative. “This means universal childcare in New Mexico is here to stay, and families have no more reason to fear that this life-changing program will be stripped away from them,” Lujan Grisham wrote on social media.
Drug overdose deaths continue to plague New Mexico at more than twice the national rate. In June, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called for restitution from the federal government over allegations that U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials knowingly let fentanyl shipments into the state.
As national death rate dips, some states did better than others
The nation’s death rate may have fallen to a historic low last year as many of the killers of young people such as drug overdoses, gun homicides and traffic accidents continued receding in 2025, according to new federal statistics. New Mexico, however, had an age-adjusted death rate 9% higher last year than 10 years ago, as drug overdose deaths continue to plague the state at more than twice the national rate.
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