In 2017, after about 10 years of discussions, then-superintendent Amy Shane finally got to see a much needed expansion at the O’Neill Public School District’s aging junior-senior high school get approved. Expanded classrooms, state-of-the-art science labs, a new gym. The difference-maker that helped push the $13.2 million project from proposal...
Scientists define a new category of heat wave: ‘Snow eaters’
Matthew LaPlante doesn’t have to go to a lab to see his research in action. On some mornings, he can just look out his own window in the mountains high above Salt Lake City. After a warm night when the temperature stays above freezing, he’ll wake up and see that...
They’re making record profits, but oil companies still won’t ‘drill, baby, drill’
Over the last two weeks, oil companies have announced eye-popping profits from the spring quarter. Exxon Mobil pulled in $14.5 billion. Chevron landed $12 billion, its highest quarterly profit on record. Shell posted $9.8 billion — more than twice its earnings from the same time last year. These profits are...
A new type of levee is taking root in Northern California
Visitors to the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, captivated by gliding birds overhead and golden hills across the Bay waters, could be forgiven for failing to notice that the preserve is also home to the Bay’s newest levee. Most levees look like steep, barren embankments or riprap-clad seawalls, designed to...
Canada’s wildfire season is taking a heavy toll on First Nations
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. When the chief of the Okanagan Indian Band looked down on his community from a helicopter last week, much of what he had known all his life was gone. Homes had burned. Photographs, memorabilia, and Salish baskets had disappeared with them....
A new plan to preserve Georgia’s marshes: Give them space to migrate
Decades ago, in order to build up a solid foundation for I-95 through southeast Georgia, construction crews dug some earth near the town of Midway, Georgia, about 50 miles south of Savannah, and left a deep pit. There’s now a public park in that spot, bounded by a tidal creek...
Floods can leave communities facing higher overdose deaths for years
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. Hush Sinn delivers needles, naloxone, and other medical supplies to people in the mostly rural mountain communities of Madison County, North Carolina. Sinn does this through Holler Harm Reduction, a grassroots...
In rural communities, fears amplified by ‘AI slop’ and social media hamper solar boom
Into a clear blue sky, the sweet-smelling smoke billows and spreads. Farmers have been burning and harvesting sugarcane this way for generations, but the practice creates ash fallout and hazardous air pollutants. Every year, farmers plan and coordinate the fires, to clear out pests like snakes and clear leaves, leaving behind...
Trump is blocking billions of dollars of grants that would fix the grid
In Wisconsin, utility Alliant Energy has called off a project meant to reduce power outages in disadvantaged and tribal communities, after the Trump administration terminated a federal grant that would have supported it. In California, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which has deployed and upgraded hundreds of thousands of advanced smart meters,...
In Montana, a controversial $2B pipeline hits a speed bump
The Bridger Pipeline Expansion project has been moving through the permitting process with unusual speed. If built, the $2 billion, 650-mile pipeline will run through Montana and Wyoming and is one of three proposed pipeline legs connecting oil sands in Alberta, Canada to the trading hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. The...