The poet Rachel Richardson learns, through writing and motherhood, to defy fear.
Danger
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories
Unhoused people pay a disproportionate price for the West’s deadly roads
People experiencing homelessness are more likely to die from transportation-related injuries than the general population.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
Can Farmington hide from its legacy of anti-Indigenous violence?
It’s a reservation border town problem, not just a local one.
Posted inNovember 2024: The Once and Future Prairie
Tolt River Dam false alarms prompt worry and distrust
The town of Carnation has declared a state of emergency and is threatening dam managers with a lawsuit.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
The fatal flaw in the Border Patrol’s rescue program
The Missing Migrant Program is meant to prevent deaths. Instead, it may be causing them.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
La falla fatal en las operaciones de rescate de la Patrulla Fronteriza
La agencia tiene la tarea de salvar a migrantes en peligro pero puede estar empeorando las cosas.
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 inArticles
California’s Park Fire rekindles trauma from previous blazes
‘The PTSD is horrible.’
Posted inArticles
Hiking in the heat
A conversation with the head of the preventive search and rescue program in Joshua Tree National Park.
Posted inJune 2024: The Idea of Wilderness
California’s homelessness and climate crises leave unhoused communities vulnerable to floods
Seeking shelter, people are living in flood control channels and other flood-prone places.
Posted inMay 2024: A River Returns
How attacks on energy substations play into the hands of extremists
When the West’s electrical grid is targeted, motives tend to matter less than ensuing propaganda.
Posted inApril 2024: Epic Journeys
A border need not be a wall
An immigration journalist on confronting laws and encountering humanity.
Posted inArticles
California’s transgender Latinx people find refuge and empowerment in community
‘We are beginning to have that safety that we always desired.’
Posted inArticles
A hot spot for avalanche deaths in Idaho reveals forecasting gaps
Without reliable information, snowmobilers are riding eastern Idaho’s enticing terrain — and dying.
Posted inArticles
Disaster disparities in the West
The risk of climate catastrophe is complex, but people of color often face ‘unnatural hazards.’
Posted inMarch 2024: Fertile Ground
The West’s hazardous highways
America’s car culture kills people
and wrecks communities.
Posted inJanuary 11, 2024: The Creatures in Our Midst
Learning to live with musk oxen
The species were introduced to Alaska’s Seward Peninsula decades ago, without local consent. Now they pose danger to life and property.
Posted inIssues
As migration routes shift toward New Mexico, so does death
Migrant deaths in the state have jumped from 2 to 109 in a few years.
Posted inArticles
Report finds Arizona 911 dispatchers fail to help lost migrants
Pima County emergency services engage in ‘unconstitutional and abusive practices’ on the border, a humanitarian group says.
Posted inNovember 1, 2023: November 1, 2023
The climate crisis is pushing Washington’s prisons to the brink
Why not let people out?