The making of a California prison town.
History
Posted inMay 15, 2017: Prison Town
How private prisons became a booming business
The numbers and policies behind the immigration-incarceration economy.
Posted inMay 15, 2017: Prison Town
Learning to live with bears
Two books examine our evolving relationship with bears.
Posted inMay 1, 2017: Change Comes to Short Creek
Love, loss and nuclear reactors
Two new books explore the perspectives of women during the West’s nuclear boom.
Posted inMay 1, 2017: Change Comes to Short Creek
What happens when the church comes for your kids?
Former FLDS members fight for their families and homes.
Posted inArticles
100 days: Inside the agency Trump aims to dismantle
A look back at the first 100 days of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Posted inMay 29, 2017: The Cost of a Comeback
Montana refuge divides tribes and ranchers
The American Prairie Reserve offers a controversial vision for an intact prairie ecosystem.
Posted inMay 15, 2017: Prison Town
A tribe wins rights to contested groundwater in court
A major federal court decision acknowledges that tribes have priority rights to groundwater — and could limit how much other users can take.
Posted inApril 3, 2017: Firestorm
Inside the firestorm
New technology allows scientists to see the forces behind the flames.
Posted inMarch 20, 2017: The Tree Ring
A tale of two Roosevelts
Two books examine how both Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt helped build an American conservation ethos.
Posted inMarch 20, 2017: The Tree Ring
Scott Pruitt isn’t the first administrator hostile to the EPA’s mission
How Reagan’s EPA chief left a roadmap for taking down the agency.
Posted inArticles
A way of unforgetting
Author Lauret Savoy on tracing personal and national history through landscapes.
Posted inArticles
Jordan Downs’ toxic legacy
A public housing project in Los Angeles seeks to redevelop without a proper cleanup.
Posted inArticles
An island from the past
Teow Lim Goh’s poetry revisits a dark place in the West’s immigration history.
Posted inArticles
Happy birthday, Wallace Stegner
Reflections on a seminal Western author, years after his death.
Posted inArticles
Why keep the Salton Sea?
A history of the manmade — and now essential — inland ocean.
Posted inArticles
Gilded pain in the heart of New Mexico
A new collection of short stories offers a portrait of people on the fringes.
Posted inArticles
How to name a rose
A recent book provides a road map to finding literature in nature.
Posted inArticles
In the final days, our POC-in-chief delivers
Obama’s monument designations set a blueprint for diversity and inclusion in federal public lands.
Posted inArticles
Why a scientist cut down ‘the oldest living tree’
The Prometheus Tree in Nevada was nearly 5,000 years old when it was cut down. It could have lived a lot longer.