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Roots of rebellion: A forum
Four experts discuss threats to federal public-lands employees and where we go from here.
Reports from the front lines
Excerpts from official accounts of threats against U.S. Forest Service and BLM employees.
Extraction taxes are on the ballot
North Dakota and Nevada voters might learn something from Wyoming.
Defuse the West
Public-land employees are easy targets for a violent, government-hating fringe.
Ray Ring and Marshall Swearingen
Oct 27, 2014
From the
print edition
In defense of the cattle industry
A new book flips an old debate on its head.
Wyatt Orme
Oct 29, 2014
Web Exclusive
Making sure every Native voter has the opportunity to cast a ballot
Mark Trahant
Opinion
Oct 29, 2014
Web Exclusive
Mapping threats on public land
Intimidation of federal officials is widespread across the West
High Country News
Oct 27, 2014
From the
print edition
The lost navigator
Before Parkinson’s, my father never needed to consult a road map.
Jane Koerner
Essay
Oct 27, 2014
From the
print edition
From saltwater to drinking water?
California considers desalination as a remedy for water woes
Regulators release report on viability of nuclear waste storage at Yucca
But it doesn't mean the Nevada site is safe — or even back on the docket.
In campaign ads, emotion trumps fact and guns buy votes
What I learned from watching political ads on YouTube two weeks before the midterms.
Utilities experiment on the rural Northwest
Real-time response to demand could radically shift how the grid operates.
Outside spending soars in the West’s key Senate races
Colorado and Alaska have the most expensive midterm battles in the region.
How to pass a wilderness bill in 2014
Lessons from southwest Colorado’s Hermosa Creek.
From the Tipi to the Tesla
Activist Winona LaDuke on environmental justice and foregoing unclean technology.
Offshore oil rigs can provide prime fish habitat
But will California's platforms stay in the ocean once the oil runs out?
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Defuse the West
Reports from the front lines
Lost in the woods
Mapping threats on public land
Flash flood chaser
Dave Axford on On the hunt for fireflies in Utah
Daniel Watts on Charles Bowden’s Fury
Daniel Watts on Charles Bowden’s Fury
Alexander Clayton on Utilities experiment on the rural Northwest
Jerry Nolan on From saltwater to drinking water?
In small-town baseball, a wider world
Auden Schendler
Will a small town’s underground economy get legitimized?
Eric Goold
Ten lessons from the American Robin
Pepper Trail
Multimedia
Pronghorn Passage: Tracking the antelope migration in western Wyoming
Emilene Ostlind and Joe Riis tracked the western Wyoming pronghorn migration for two years. But it wasn't until their final spring that they truly experienced it.
Oct 27: Pronghorn were shot and left on the side of the road in Wyoming. ›
Climate
Faces of the grassroots climate movement: rowdy and rowdier
Marches around the country this week show ideological diversity among a new cohort of activists.
The walrus detectives
What's behind the Alaska walrus haul-outs? Everyone's calling climate change, but the truth is, we don't know.
Climate change found to have spurred worldwide heatwaves
But floods and droughts have less certain links to planetary warming.
Wildlife
Has the Obama administration hobbled the Endangered Species Act?
A new policy may set the law back half a century.
The Earth has half as many animals as it did in 1970
In the Western U.S., megafauna is on the rise — but amphibians are in trouble.
Extreme Makeover, the BLM episode
How a gigantic federal bureaucracy is positioning itself to manage resources at a “landscape” level.
1989: Tumbleweeds triumphant
Communities
Navajo ranching in the Chuska Mountains
Keeping a tradition alive in western New Mexico.
Depression era photos from your hometown
A new Yale project allows viewers to explore 175,000 images by county.
Teaching aliens to talk
How global warming made me change my life.
Energy & Industry
NASA finds methane hot spot over Four Corners
The culprit is the extensive fossil fuel industry infrastructure, not just fracking or coal mines.
For the first time in a decade, Alaskan oil heads for Asia
Amid energy boom in lower 48, Alaska looks to sell its oil overseas.
About the price of oil
Since rig counts follow oil prices, the current slump will hurt Western economies.
Water
Flash flood chaser
One man’s obsession improves forecasting in southern Utah.
Don’t drink the water
Portland’s fluoridation battle shows how tricky it is to integrate science into debates that have as much to do with values as policy.
Watershed moment
The U.S. and Canada prepare to renegotiate the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty.
Politics
Obama declares new national monument in the mountains above Los Angeles
Trails, campgrounds and wildlands will qualify for federal funding for improvements.
Colorado’s first legal hemp harvest since 1957 is underway
But a ban on seed transport hampers farmers.
Can Hickenlooper get his middle-of-the-road magic back?
The Colorado governor has Democratic politicians calmed and fractivists pissed.
Tribes
Navajo language threatens candidate's presidential bid
Chris Deschene faces disqualification over lack of fluency.
A plan for California desert conservation comes online
Will it stop more solar and wind projects from being built in the wrong places?
Two political elites prevail in Navajo primary melee
Shirley and Deschene pull ahead of 15 other candidates.