Three Americans. Three lenses on what it means to be African American in Colorado in 2020, a year not even half over and already packed with global drama—disease, death and demonstrations. They spoke to Colorado Public Radio about this especially intense period in our country’s race relations.

The state’s mountain resort communities seem a world away from the protests against police brutality that came in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed Colorado’s sweeping police accountability bill, passed in the wake of George Floyd’s death, into law, calling it a necessary and positive step toward healing the state’s pain and hearing the public’s concerns. “This is a long overdue moment of national reflection,” Polis said just before he signed the measure at a ceremony in the Colorado Capitol. “This is a meaningful, substantial reform bill.” Colorado is one of the first states to take legislative action in the wake of Floyd’s death and demonstrations across the nation. The governor planned the bill signing for Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, the day slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free.

“There was a lot of joy. It was definitely a sense of relief,” said Alonso Reyna Rivarola, who came from Peru as an 11-year-old and now is assistant director for the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at Salt Lake Community College. “Everyone’s just sharing what a monumental decision this is, and how excited they are,” added Heidi Chamorro, a law school graduate who was brought from Mexico at age 3. “I’m still in shock because I honestly thought they would get rid of it. But it is a lifesaver for so many people.”

The Colorado Sun spoke to several Colorado DACA recipients on Thursday to gauge their reactions—and feelings about the future—after the long-awaited ruling on the Obama-era program

Wyoming Public Radio’s Savannah Maher spoke with two Wyoming DACA recipients, Jose Rivas of Jackson and Ana Castro of Laramie, about how the program has impacted their lives and what today’s ruling means for them.

Luis Cortes Romero, who is himself a beneficiary of the deferred immigration action program, thought about dropping out of law school because he may not be able to practice as an undocumented person. Instead, he finished school and took up a case in 2017 that led him to the nation’s highest court. 

Gallup and the Navajo Nation became known as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the West, with infection rates higher than any in the country. There are many reasons for this. But most simply, just as COVID-19 preys on the vulnerabilities in your body, it exploits the vulnerabilities of a community. Here in the high northwest desert of New Mexico, the virus found a people weakened by poverty, an anemic healthcare system and ingrained historic racism.

Gov. Jared Polis said Colorado has experienced a decrease in new cases in 12 of the past 14 days, but he warned that neighboring states like Arizona and Utah have seen an uptick.

In Utah’s fight against the coronavirus, Thursday was a tough day: The state’s health department announced a large number of new cases statewide, Salt Lake County’s death toll hit a tragic milestone, and another resident of a Salt Lake City veterans home has died.

The state has confirmed 158 new cases since June 9, the most in a 10-day stretch since the virus arrived in Wyoming.

It had been more than two months since Idaho reported 100 confirmed coronavirus cases in a single day. But that streak ended Thursday when the state’s seven health districts announced a combined 102 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, which is the most since 114 confirmed cases were added on April 3.

Communities from Idaho to Colorado are still hoping antibody tests can help them understand just how much of a foothold the new coronavirus has taken so far.

Amid a “concerning” increase of positive COVID-19 cases this week, Gov. Steve Bullock on Wednesday said the state will begin publicly reporting case numbers among visitors and part-time residents. 

One of Denver’s biggest oil and gas companies is laying off employees across North America, cutting 25% of its work force as it adjusts to a longer-term future of low production across the oil industry. Ovintiv Inc. (formerly known as Encana) has been notifying employees of job cuts at its downtown Denver headquarters and major offices in The Woodlands, Texas, and Calgary since Monday. “The layoffs have impacted all levels of employees, from executive-level down to employees who work for us in the field,” said Cindy Hassler, Ovintiv spokeswoman, in an interview Thursday.

Who’s behind the Western States and Tribal Nations Natural Gas Initiative?

The new oil and gas sites more than double the province’s orphan well tally, bringing it to 770, as dozens of Peace region landowners now await reimbursement from the BC Oil and Gas Commission for unpaid rents.

A new study finds an association between living near active oil and gas wells in California and low birth-weight infants, adding to findings elsewhere on health risks from oil and gas production.

Wyoming receives more funding for its abandoned mine land reclamation program than any other state. But the federal government’s authority to collect the fees that fund the program is on track to expire next year.

The company that owns and operates the West Elk Mine near Paonia was ordered by the Colorado Division of Reclamation and Mine Safety Thursday to stop building new roads in a roadless area where it plans to expand coal mining operations.

An 1,100-acre solar project slated for Baker secured a contract Wednesday to sell power to Basin Electric Power Cooperative and its Montana members.

This year, as politicians, voting rights advocates, and elections experts call for a sharp increase in the use of mail-in ballots to prevent the spread of Covid-19, many voters could find that their votes don’t count. That’s because significantly expanding vote-by-mail also expands the universe of ballots that get scrutinized by officials, and past experience shows that more scrutiny means more ballots get discarded, sometimes for good reason but sometimes by mistake.

After more than a decade of disasters brought on by water, the City of Calgary and Government of Alberta are looking for solutions to a problem that will only get worse with climate change.

A Teck Resources proposal to significantly expand the largest coal mine in British Columbia is raising questions about the province’s willingness to address the legacy of selenium pollution affecting fish in the Elk River, which feeds into a transboundary watershed shared with Montana.

Environmental groups on Wednesday pressed a Montana federal judge to issue a decision to prevent federal regulators from further authorizing a copper and silver mine project in northwest Montana until they comply with the Endangered Species Act by properly analyzing the impact on bull trout and grizzly bears.

The Boulder County Democrat says it’s time to “go big and be bold” with his sweeping 21st Century Conservation Corps for Our Health and Our Jobs Act, which provides economic relief from coronavirus shutdown while investing in overlooked forest management, wildfire mitigation and civilian corps.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife found a parasite that can lead to hydatid disease in the scat of a wolf pack in Moffat County. Opponents of reintroduction call it a “major public threat” while supporters call it “not news.”

Montana’s family farms and ranches face uncertainties as producers age toward retirement.

As chairman of the Federal Reserve and a confidante of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Marriner Eccles advanced New Deal policies that could help during our current economic crisis.