Kirk Siegler
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If confirmed, environmental leader Tracy Stone-Manning would be the first permanent director of the Bureau of Land Management in four years.
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The pandemic has made the housing market even tighter in the mountain West, where first-time buyers are trying to decide whether this is just the future or a bubble headed eventually for a bust.
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Some conservative, rural states have resettled refugees at the highest per capita rates. In Idaho, employers applaud President Biden's pledge to lift a Trump-era cap on refugee numbers.
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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has a long and seemingly insurmountable to-do list, including a pledge to begin repairing a legacy of broken treaties and other abuses against tribes.
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Of the 109 people currently listed as missing in South Dakota, 77 of them are indigenous. The state's legislature passed a bill this week to address the alarming crisis on and off reservations.
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The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is vaccinating its community at rates faster than the rest of South Dakota. That mirrors a trend in Indian Country, which has been hard-hit by the coronavirus.
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The Biden administration is expected to be sued over its ban on new oil and gas leasing on federal land. In top fossil fuel states like Wyoming, cuts to services and mass layoffs were already looming.
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Most of the oil and gas drilled in Wyoming comes from federal land and communities there are bracing for job losses and school funding cuts in the wake of a Biden administration pause on new leasing.
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Violent acts of insurrection like the U.S. Capitol mob have been incubating in the western U.S. for years, where self-described "patriots" have led armed uprisings, often with few legal consequences.
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Some rural areas, where health care is usually harder to get, appear to be leading the nation in delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine. But health leaders are cautioning there are caveats.