FERNLEY, Nev. (AP) — A proposed industrial park east of Reno could benefit efforts to protect part of a desert trail used by the Donner Party and thousands of others as they journeyed west in the...

LOST DUTCHMAN STATE PARK, Arizona (AP) — As the setting sun left a yellow tinge on dirt-colored cactuses as far as the eye could see, park ranger Anna Roberts gave us a lesson on what we were...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is trying to coax "news deserts" into bloom with the second major expansion of a tool that exposes people to more local news and information. But the social network...

WADSWORTH, Nev. (AP) — Federal officials are making fish-friendly modifications to a northern Nevada dam that for more than a century has blocked off native spawning grounds for a threatened trout...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. wildlife officials rejected petitions Thursday to protect Yellowstone National Park's storied bison herds but pledged to consider more help for two other species — a...

CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man caused over $60,000 in damages while driving off-road at Crater Lake National Park.

Park officials said Friday that Even Metz, of Grants...

SANTA TERESA, N.M. (AP) — Work crews in Arizona and New Mexico forged ahead Friday with construction of taller border fencing funded through a national emergency declaration by President Donald...

PHOENIX (AP) — Construction crews broke ground Thursday on a small portion of the $664 million border fence project in the Arizona desert that is funded through President Donald Trump's national...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's governor signed a law on Wednesday that could delay a project to pump billions of gallons of water out from under the Mojave Desert.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has issued a final environmental impact statement for the Burning Man counter-culture festival that will cap attendance at the current 80,000...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A project to pump billions of gallons of water out from under the Mojave Desert and sell it to people in Southern California could be slowed by a bill approved for the...

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Imagine driving through the desert, passing endless mountains, sagebrush, cactuses and Joshua trees.

Out of nowhere, you spot something huge, opulent, clearly...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities say the U.S. Border Patrol has located a mother and 8-year-old daughter from India who had been with a 7-year-old daughter whose body was found in the Arizona...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. land managers violated environmental laws and their own regulations when issuing dozens of leases to drill in one of the nation's busiest oilfields, environmentalists...

RENO, Nev. (AP) — With Burning Man three months away, organizers are still waiting for permits and decisions by U.S. land managers that could reshape the counterculture festival in northern...

PHOENIX (AP) — A 16-year-old Boy Scout who collapsed last month on a troop hiking trip in the southern Arizona desert died of dehydration and overheating, an autopsy shows.

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities have released a 911 call about the Boy Scout who collapsed and died on a troop hiking trip in the southern Arizona desert.

PHOENIX (AP) — No charges are expected after a 16-year-old Boy Scout died while on a troop hiking trip in the Arizona desert, authorities said Friday.

PICACHO PEAK, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities are investigating the death of a 16-year-old boy during a hike with a Boy Scouts troop in the Arizona desert.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — Social media photos showing Miley Cyrus posing in a Joshua tree have drawn criticism from people concerned about protecting the iconic desert species.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A massive fireball soared into the sky in the central Utah desert after officials blew up 11 derailed tanker cars containing propane and biodiesel.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — In a remote stretch of New Mexico desert, the U.S. government put in motion an experiment aimed at proving to the world that radioactive waste could be safely disposed of...

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Conservationists are rallying around a pair of legislative resolutions opposing the U.S. Air Force's proposed expansion of a bombing training range they say would threaten...

BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — It started with the desert lilies in December. Since then a wave of wildflower blooms has been crescendoing across Southern California's Anza-Borrego desert in a...

BEATTY, Nev. (AP) — Environmentalists are taking over a faded Nevada mining town, but many locals don't seem to mind.

The Nature Conservancy has become the largest private landowner in the...

HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters have rescued a very big cat — a mountain lion — from a tree outside a home in the Southern California desert.

The homeowner called authorities Saturday after spotting the animal near the edge of the San Bernardino Mountains.

San Bernardino County firefighters found the large mountain lion perched on a branch about 50 feet (15 meters) high.

NEW YORK (AP) — A fleet-footed hound that hails from West Africa is the latest dog in the American Kennel Club's pack of recognized breeds.

The club announced Wednesday that the Azawakh (AHZ'-ah-wahk) became the 193rd breed in its roster. That means Azawakhs can now compete in many dog shows, though they're not eligible for the prominent Westminster Kennel Club show until 2020.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas is known as a dry desert town but the city's urban trees can be overlooked when competing for attention with the city's flash and neon.

The U.S. Forest Service wants to inventory Las Vegas' urban forest, identifying it as one of 100 U.S. metropolitan areas to eventually add to its annual national tree tally.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — A parcel of land that is prime habitat for the so-called teddy bear cactus has been purchased for a Mojave Desert conservation organization.

An anonymous donor bought the 599 acres (242 hectares) of Southern California land for $140,000 and deeded it to the Mojave Desert Land Trust, The Desert Sun newspaper reported .

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico's departing state land commissioner is warning against oil and natural gas drilling activities in a desert grasslands area where environmentalists have sought protections for decades.

State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn on Thursday urged the state to ensure that fresh water supplies and wildlife in the Otero Mesa area are safeguarded from contamination by the oil and natural gas industries.

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona's Game and Fish Department says it is restoring about 60 bighorn sheep to two historic habitats in the state.

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona transportation worker Zach Moralez knew something wasn't right when he saw a damaged fence along a highway.

Tracks went off the edge of the road and through the fence on the edge of the hill. Moralez, a highway operations technician, knew there had to be a car at the bottom.

"We got down there as quick as we could, hollering out if anyone could hear us," Moralez told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "No response."

EUREKA, Utah (AP) — Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines, an underground world that can hold serious danger and unexpected wonder.

They are a legacy of the region's prospecting past, when almost anyone could dig a mine and then walk away, with little cleanup required, when it stopped producing.

ORACLE, Ariz. (AP) — They lived for two years and 20 minutes under the glass of a miniature Earth, complete with an ocean, rain forest, desert, grasslands and mangroves. Their air and water were recycled, and they grew the sweet potatoes, rice and other food they needed to survive.

ALMOG, West Bank (AP) — An Israeli farmer has cashed in by making exotic honey from a rare tree that produces frankincense — the resin once worth its weight in gold and venerated in the Bible. But the farm's location in a far-flung West Bank settlement has left a bitter taste in at least one investor's mouth.

ALMOG, West Bank (AP) — An Israeli farmer has cashed in by making exotic honey from a rare tree that produces frankincense — the resin once worth its weight in gold and venerated in the Bible. But the farm's location in a far-flung West Bank settlement has left a bitter taste in at least one investor's mouth.

NEW YORK (AP) — Rihanna unleashed the wild beast in a lush tropical land that turned to arid desert with women of all shapes, sizes and colors writhing, cackling, frolicking and stalking like animals in lace, fishnet and satin that shined in jewel tones for her second season of Savage x Fenty.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A last-minute effort to require more state oversight of a company's plan to pump water from underneath the Mojave Desert passed a key committee Tuesday, advancing in the final days of the legislative session.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor, all urged lawmakers to pass it.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Another addax calf has been born at the Louisville Zoo.

A zoo statement says the male Saharan addax -- also known as the white antelope or screwhorn antelope -- was born Aug. 19 and weighs 18 pounds. The endangered animal is found in the wild in arid regions of Africa, including the Sahara desert, where they typically live in small groups.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Border Patrol authorities say 128 immigrants believed abandoned by smugglers in a remote desert area at the Arizona border with Mexico are facing deportation.

Agents at the Ajo Station patrolling near a border fence say the group included children — some as young as 4 — from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.

The immigrants were found Friday after apparently being brought to the border by human smugglers who remained in Mexico.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Climate change could be to blame for the collapse of bird populations in the desert along the Nevada-California border, scientists said.

The number of bird species has fallen by an average of 43 percent over the past century at survey sites across an area larger than New York state, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona clergy are calling activists to gather this weekend at the state's border with Mexico and leave large jugs of water on remote trails for migrants who continue to cross the desert during the dangerously hot summer.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Search and rescue crews are combing the desert for a teenager who ran away from a youth treatment program in Utah.

The Beaver County Sheriff's Office said Thursday that 13-year-old Roberto Madrigal, who is from California, had been in the Redcliff Ascent program for about a month when he disappeared.

Authorities say he's believed to be carrying water, but dehydration remains a concern in the arid climate and remote southern Utah location near St. George.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Latest on Pioneer Day in Utah (all times local):

9:50 a.m.

President Donald Trump is recognizing Mormon pioneers who journeyed across the west to build a new home in Utah.

Trump said in a statement issued Tuesday by the White House that the families who fled persecution in Illinois "worked tirelessly to transform the arid desert landscape into a blossoming new home."

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Federal law officers have seized more than 4,000 marijuana plants at a growing operation in Death Valley National Park thanks to a tip from hikers in the area along the California-Nevada line.

Rangers for the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management raided the site July 3 after the hikers encountered three men installing irrigation hose near a spring in the Mojave Desert's Hanaupah Canyon.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis urged governments on Friday to make good on their commitments to curb global warming, warning that climate change, continued unsustainable development and rampant consumption threatens to turn the Earth into a vast pile of "rubble, deserts and refuse."

RENO, Nev. (AP) — U.S. wildlife officials have agreed to consider Endangered Species Act protection for a rare toad in northern Nevada's high desert where one of the biggest producers of geothermal energy in the nation wants to build a power plant.