Tariffs, layoffs and federal funding clawbacks stress budgets.
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Posted inNovember 2025: Precious Metalheads
For rural Californians, unreliable power has become the norm
Years ago, the state’s largest utility rolled out a power outage program designed to reduce wildfires. Customers now experience thousands of outages a year.
Posted inSeptember 2025: Who Controls Our Food?
Who controls food in the West?
Consolidation, shifting politics, water rights and the myth of the cowboy all play into the region’s ability to feed itself.
Posted inAugust 2025: Fire Culture
The West’s data centers suck (water and power)
From simple searches to chatGPT, the big digital buildup threatens the grid and water supplies.
Posted inJuly 2025: Seeds as Sustenance
Western states step up to save their wetlands
The West’s vital wetlands are in trouble — but states are working to safeguard them.
Posted inJune 2025: The Promised Land
Wolves return to the West
After being driven to near-extinction, these animals, and the politics around them, are back.
Posted inMay 2025: The Art of the Cruise
See 60 days of DOGE chaos
Charting the mass culling of the federal workforce.
Posted inApril 2025: A Monumental Reckoning
Bird flu finds its way into Western wildlife
The deaths of two Washington cougars suggest the virus is more widespread than thought.
Posted inApril 2025: A Monumental Reckoning
Is a nuclear renaissance coming?
Data center power demand is sparking interest in new reactors.
Posted inMarch 2025: The Berry Pickers
The rise of the recreation economy
Public-lands tourism outpaces mining and drilling in much of the West.
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories
The climate fight endures
Despite a hostile administration, local governments in the West recognize the need to
continue the energy transition, and they have plans.
Posted inArticles
Montana’s ag tax slashes bills for thousands of million-dollar homes
Properties classified ‘agricultural’ get a tax break despite no bona fide operations. Can lawmakers’ new proposals tighten qualifications?
Posted inJanuary 2025: The West's Most Wanted
Who voted in the 2024 election?
Many Democrats stayed home, while independents swung to the right.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
2024 was a year of wacky Western weather
When assessing the region, not much was normal but climate change.
Posted inNovember 2024: The Once and Future Prairie
How the climate is changing your energy bill
Wildfires and winter storms are costing utilities and families.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
The downballot issues driving the West’s 2024 elections
From climate and public lands to shifting political allegiances, the region faces critical choices at the ballot box.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
What happens when a concrete jungle becomes a ‘sponge city’
Engineering for flood resilience can address storms heightened by climate change.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
Get to know the western bumblebee
Bombus occidentalis may soon be the West’s new face for insect conservation.
Posted inAugust 2024: In the Wake of the Floods
The inequity of heat
Extreme heat doesn’t discriminate; the ability to escape it does.
Posted inJuly 2024
Abandoned mines cover the West
Their legacy is destruction and pollution of lands and waters.