Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"Climate change is surfacing industries’ toxic legacy in marginalized communities."

"The Justice Department opened an investigation against the city of Houston on Friday to determine whether complaints of illegal dumping — including dead bodies and animals — in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods amount to civil rights violations."

"Texas is on a roll—an energy use roll, that is. This week, amid sweltering temperatures, the power demand on the state’s grid soared to an all-time high on Wednesday, reaching 80,000 megawatts of demand. This marks the eleventh time this demand record has been broken this year alone."

"Texas's power grid operator held off from imposing rolling blackouts on Monday using voluntary cutbacks and appeals to conserve energy as scorching triple-digit temperatures hit much of the state."

"Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt failed in his attempt to return to Washington yesterday, finishing far behind his opponents in the primary race for a U.S. Senate seat for Oklahoma."

"A federal appeals court ruled that a federal land swap giving a Native American tribal holy site in Arizona to a private mining company so it could be the site of a copper mine would not violate the tribe’s religious freedoms."

"The U.S. Forest Service made critical mistakes that caused a planned burn to reduce the threat of wildfires to explode into the largest blaze in New Mexico's recorded history, the agency said Tuesday. A new report found that employees made multiple miscalculations, used inaccurate models and underestimated how dry conditions were in the Southwest before lighting the flames."

"Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and California’s Death Valley all posted record temperatures on Saturday, as dangerous heat swept across the American Southwest."

"Residents of the New Mexico canyon scorched by the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires blame the government for the acres they lost".