The Latest Breaking News from American West

In the arid American West, wildfires now define summer. Recent years have seen some of the worst wildfires in recorded history. Climate change, the loss of Indigenous burning practices and a century of fire suppression are increasing the risk of larger, hotter and more frequent wildfires.

Dire consequences could result if states, cities and farms across the American West cannot agree on how to cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado River

Chile, Argentina and the American West are in the midst of a decade-long, megadrought — the driest conditions those regions have seen in a century. And many areas in Western Canada and the United States are experiencing extreme drought — a once in 20-year event.

New Mexico is bringing sales of recreational marijuana to the doorstep of Texas as the movement toward broad legalization sweeps across more of the American West

LOS ANGELES — The extreme dryness that has ravaged the American West for more than two decades now ranks as the driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years, and scientists have found that this megadrought is being intensified by humanity’s heating of the planet.

The megadrought bedeviling the American West got even drier last year and is becoming the deepest dry spell in more than 1200 years