Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

"Fort Collins, Colo., led by a Republican mayor, approves targets to reduce emissions and become carbon neutral by 2050, but hurdles remain."

"An unprecedented attempt to protect sage grouse habitat across parts of more than 900 square miles of privately owned land in Nevada began under a deal Thursday involving the federal government, an environmental group and the world's largest gold mining company."

"A federal judge has granted two animal protection groups a unusual preliminary injunction to stop the Bureau of Land Management’s roundup of more than 330 wild horses in northern Nevada, saying the government cannot rely on a five-year-old environmental analysis that ignores claims the herd would be harmed by a pesticide given as a form of birth control."

"Native American activists gathered in Montana's capital on Tuesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of Yellowstone National Park bison killed this year to ease the worries of Montana ranchers about a cattle disease carried by many park buffalo."

"Grizzly bears at Yellowstone National Park are emerging from winter hibernation weeks earlier than normal because of the arrival of spring-like weather, with warmer-than-usual temperatures and rain instead of snow, a park spokesman said on Tuesday."

"For the past few years, the geologists Brenda Buck and Rodney Metcalf have combed the wild terrain of southern Nevada, analyzing its stony dunes and rocky outcroppings — and to their dismay, tallying mounting evidence of a landscape filled with asbestos."

"Colorado could see more infectious disease, negative impacts on the elderly and people living in poverty, as well as stresses to water, cattle and crops as byproducts of future climate change, according to a comprehensive new report commissioned by the Colorado Energy Office."

"It isn’t on its dying breath, but the J.E. Corette coal-fired power plant, for 40 years Billings’ worst air polluter, could be weeks away from its last gasp."