Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

"Short cuts, subsidies and tax breaks helped create 7,000 jobs in the Powder River Basin. Damage to water, air and land is part of the price borne by the public, too."

"The glittering diamonds of the Milky Way over the Sawtooth National Recreation Area will be preserved for future stargazers, as the International Dark-Sky Association on Monday approved the nation’s first dark sky reserve."

"Missoula was the only city in Montana that had a privately owned water system. Now, after decades of effort, it has succeeded in taking back the utility. City leaders explain how it happened."

"Hoping for more unfettered production of coal, oil and gas even as it erects wind farms, a Wyoming county sees the president as a key to job security."

"The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a special claims court be activated for people who have contracted asbestos-related disease or died from asbestos exposure from a now-shuttered W.R. Grace mine in northwestern Montana."

"An agreement approved Monday between U.S. officials and environmentalists would ban the use of predator-killing cyanide traps on Colorado public lands, but a government agency said federal workers already had stopped using the devices except on the state’s private lands."