Kirk Siegler

Tourists are visiting national parks and surrounding public lands in record numbers this summer, which is causing some overwhelmed national park gateway towns to rethink their promotion strategies.

Republicans are pressuring President Biden to withdraw his nominee to be the country's next public lands chief amid controversy over her alleged involvement in a tree spiking incident in the 1980s.

Growing crowds at America's national parks have prompted some of them to allow entry by reserved tickets only. Arches National Park in Utah may be next, and there's renewed controversy over that step.

Federal fire managers warn the U.S.'s firefighting resources are near full deployment, a declaration rarely made this early in the summer as Western states bake in record heat and drought.

Federal officials warn of a long, potentially dangerous summer of fire. Since January, more than a million acres have burned from more than 28,000 wildfires.

States with the lowest vaccination rates are clustered in the South and the Southwest. But there's one standout, New Mexico, where health officials now say some counties are close to 90% vaccinated.

Excessive heat warnings are in effect across the West, where temperatures will hit the triple digits — a signal that climate change and lengthening summers pose serious problems for the region.

President Biden's nominee to be the country's next public lands chief appeared before a U.S. Senate panel Tuesday where she was grilled over Biden's controversial freeze on new oil and gas leasing.

If confirmed, environmental leader Tracy Stone-Manning would be the first permanent director of the Bureau of Land Management in four years.

People in "the UFO capital of the world" are eagerly anticipating the release of a Defense Department report on its investigations into Unexplained Aerial Phenomena. As always, some see a cover-up.

People in "the UFO capitol of the world," Roswell, N.M., are eagerly anticipating the release of a Defense Department report on their investigations into UFOs.

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.

About 10,000 households in the area of Spokane, Wash., are behind in rent. Some people finally returning to work face homelessness as the state and federal eviction ban is expected to end next month.

Ninety percent of the West is under drought. Concerns of another bad fire year come as one farming community in Washington state has barely started cleaning up from a destructive fire last year.

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.

President Biden has nominated a Montana environmentalist to push his agenda calling for millions of dollars to restore ecosystems and clean water sources over some 600 million acres of public land.

Absent federal funding, volunteer aid groups are providing much of the humanitarian relief along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Border Patrol says the pandemic limits how many people they can safely hold at facilities. Officials say funding and jurisdiction issues also prevent them from transporting migrants to cities.

In rural Arizona, the Border Patrol is now dropping off migrants from overflowing detention facilities in small towns that are cut off from transportation and other services.

Amid pressure to reverse a Trump administration decision, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland travels to Utah to tour the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments.