Keeping landscapes connected can help protect wild animals and plants. In the US Southwest, border wall construction is closing off corridors that jaguars and other at-risk species use.
Lightning during a monsoon storm in southern Arizona, Saguaro National Park.
Pete Gregoire, NOAA
Monsoons are weather patterns that bring thunderstorms and heavy rains to hot, dry areas when warm, moist ocean air moves inland. They’re challenging to forecast, especially in a changing climate.
Water flows into a canal that feeds farms in Casa Grande, Ariz.
AP Photo/Darryl Webb
A long-expected federal drought declaration underlines how serious the Colorado River water shortage has become for Western states.
The Supreme Court waited until the final day of its 2020-2021 term, July 1, 2021, to issue two controversial decisions, including one that may dramatically limit voting rights in the US.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The court upheld two Arizona laws that limit when, where and how people can vote.The ruling further guts the Voting Rights Act at a time when many US states are passing more restrictive voting rules.
Juniper trees, common in Arizona’s Prescott National Forest, have been dying with the drought.
Benjamin Roe/USDA Forest Service via AP
Without enough water, trees can develop embolisms, similar to blockages in human blood vessels, and they’re more likely to die from drought or fires.
The Maricopa County Election Department counts ballots in Phoenix on Nov. 5, 2020. Arizona’s election laws are the subject of a pending Supreme Court decision.
Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images
In Brnovich v. DNC, the court will decide whether two Arizona rules unfairly hurt poor, minority and rural voters. The ruling could determine the fate of many states’ restrictive new voting laws.
An orchard near Kettleman City in California’s San Joaquin Valley on April 2, 2021.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Debra Perrone, University of California, Santa Barbara et Scott Jasechko, University of California, Santa Barbara
The US has one of the highest groundwater use rates in the world. When wells run dry, households may opt to conserve water, find new sources or sell and move.
Aerial view of Lake Powell on the Colorado River along the Arizona-Utah border.
AP Photo/John Antczak
The Supreme Court recently dealt defeat to Florida in its 20-year legal battle with Georgia over river water. Other interstate water contests loom, but there are no sure winners in these lawsuits.
Rivko Knox, a volunteer with the League of Women Voters in Phoenix, and other voters sued Arizona over a law that bans the third-party collection of early mail-in ballots. The issue is now before the Supreme Court.
AP Photo/Anita Snow
The decision to go south for the winter during the ongoing pandemic is a complex one, informed by factors such as availability of recreational opportunities and cost of living.
Biden, here at an Oct. 9 event in Nevada, won Latinos – but not necessarily because his campaign did a great job reaching out to them.
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
As Joe Biden and Donald Trump spend the final day of the US 2020 election campaign in key battlegrounds – why a handful of states will be so crucial to the result.
At the Navajo Nation town of Fort Defiance, Arizona, staff pack food boxes. The Navajo Nation now has the highest per capita COVID-19 infection rate in the U.S.
Getty Images / Mark Ralston
Border wall construction through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona is encroaching on a site where people from many cultures have interacted for thousands of years.
The white “bathtub ring” around Arizona’s Lake Mead (shown on May 31, 2018), which indicates falling water levels, is about 140 feet high.
AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Western states adopted a 7-year plan in May 2019 to manage low water levels in the Colorado River. Now they need to look farther ahead and accept that there will be less water far into the future.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has ordered state agencies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
AP Photo/Morgan Lee
States are folding the social and economic costs of burning fossil fuels into their electricity policies, giving utilities a financial incentive to reduce greenhouse emissions.
The Mohave rattlesnake — poster child for venom variation among rattlesnakes.
W. Wüster
The Mohave rattlesnake is famous for its variable venom – but the reasons behind that variation are not as straightforward as we thought.
An envelope containing a 2018 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident as part of the nation’s only test run of the 2020 census.
AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith
If undocumented immigrants choose not to fill out the questionnaire, then the official population of several states would deflate, costing them House seats and federal funding.