For many in the county, recovery requires a new lease, a new landlord, new schools and possibly a new state.
Economy
Posted inIssues
What happens after Utah’s coal-fired power plants close?
Department of Energy grants are helping eastern Utah plan for the energy transition.
Posted inArticles
How luxury real estate benefits from Montana’s agricultural tax code
Key takeaways from our investigation revealing how expensive properties use a system meant to help farmers and ranchers.
Posted inArticles
How the Park City ski patrol won concessions from Vail
As patrollers and management reach an agreement, other ski patrols are learning from Park City’s example.
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 inArticles
Who’s against wind development in ‘The Crazies’?
Amy Gamerman’s new book examines attempts to block the energy transition in Montana’s Crazy Mountains.
Posted inArticles
How Utah’s Christmas Festival has buoyed a changing coal community
Thirty-five years ago, Helper was nearly a ghost town. Now, art and tourism are providing new paths forward.
Posted inArticles
Utah’s coal mines can’t find enough workers
A mine just reopened in eastern Utah, but the industry has changed.
Posted inJanuary 2025: The West's Most Wanted
Legal weed entrepreneurs promised a windfall from tribal lands. Then it fell apart.
The Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone are still picking up the pieces from the failed cannabis cultivation venture.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
Can land repair the nation’s racist past?
California’s approach to Black reparations shifts toward land access, ownership and stewardship.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
Is your pension fund liquidating Oregon’s forests?
Lax state regulations create a timber bonanza for institutional investors.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
Denver rideshare drivers just launched a worker-owned co-op
A new alternative to Uber and Lyft aspires to give workers more income and more say over their working conditions.
Posted inArticles
Montana’s Jon Tester might lose. Here’s why that matters
What the Senate contest says about the unexpected shift in Western politics.
Posted inNovember 2024: The Once and Future Prairie
Is a farm that hosts weddings still a farm?
Agritourism divides a rural Washington county.
Posted inArticles
Denver’s last slaughterhouse is on the ballot
Voters face a complicated choice between jobs, workers’ rights and animal welfare.
Posted inArticles
In rural Washington, a ‘constitutional sheriff’ and his growing volunteer posse provoke controversy
Where some see a ‘rural neighborhood watch’ that saves money, others worry about liability and ties to extremism.
Posted inArticles
Befriending wildfire
A new book from Obi Kaufmann illustrates the reciprocal connection between California ecosystems and fire.
Posted inIssues
What to make of land art in the era of LandBack
‘City,’ a massive outdoor sculpture in Nevada, took Michael Heizer 50 years to make. Today, it is met with a mixture of scrutiny and awe.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
The scrappy store that gave me everything when I had nothing
Before its demise, the 99 Cents Only chain fed generations of families across four states.
Posted inArticles
Trying to escape sea-level rise, Northwest coastal tribes are drowning in paperwork
A new study shows how federal grant funding has actually become an obstacle to climate adaptation.