-
In the high-stakes fight against fentanyl-induced drug deaths, one remedy is fairly simple: blue and white strips of paper. Fentanyl test strips work like a pregnancy test. One line shows up if there’s fentanyl in a solution. Two lines if there’s none. But where are they needed most?
-
Fatal drug overdoses are skyrocketing, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl. And that potentially deadly drug has made it to the Mountain West — the last part of the U.S. to face the brunt of the opioid crisis.
-
For many, opening up your windows at night used to be enough to keep your house cool during the summertime. But extreme heat from climate change has made that more complicated. Wyoming Public Radio's Maggie Mullen reports.
-
After months of repeated written questions and public records requests from NPR and the Mountain West News Bureau, Interior Department officials said they now plan to contract with an outside agency to examine the troubles plaguing tribal detention centers.
-
The National Congress of American Indians has urged the federal government to place medical personnel in its tribal jails, arguing that the current situation "exacerbates the already challenging problem of health disparities for American Indians."
-
"The corrections officers are basically holding these lives in their hands with their decisions."
-
Willy Pepion had a cracked skull, and guards at the federal jail on the Blackfeet Reservation dismissed his pleas for help. He died in his cell. Three hours went by until anyone noticed.
-
Those living with compromised immune systems are facing a double whammy with the region's low vaccination rates and the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine may not offer them the same protection as their peers.
-
New research shows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn’t been following its own health protocols, possibly resulting in detention center deaths. ICE's own documents revealed that medical aid was slow, inadequate or completely lacking in some cases.
-
A massive new infrastructure bill is slowly moving its way through Congress this summer. But a coalition of elected officials, farmers, conservationists and tribal leaders want to make sure it doesn’t include new big pipelines or dams along the parched Colorado River.
-
Oil production is ramping up on federal public lands despite President Biden’s promise to end new drilling. Approvals for new projects are on pace to hit their highest levels since the Bush administration. Environmentalists are objecting to the approvals saying it exacerbates climate change.
-
High-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountain region are burning more now than at any point in the past 2,000 years. That's according to a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.