Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"Harvey continued to intensify as it steered for the Texas coast, with the forecasters saying early Friday that it had strengthened to a Category 2 storm."

"A hurricane warning was issued for the Texas coast Thursday morning, as Harvey regained tropical storm strength as it drifted in the Gulf of Mexico."

"Federal officials and contractors months ago surreptitiously began what appears to be preparation work for construction of border wall on the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in South Texas. Word recently got out and has galvanized opposition to that plan – and to the way it has been carried out."

"CHURCH ROCK, N.M. – Angie Hood grew up in a remote valley tucked along the edge of the Navajo Nation. On hot summer days, Hood and her three siblings would tend to the family’s sheep, play football in a steep-banked arroyo and explore the piñon-studded mesas. Then, to cool off, they would splash in a pool of water that streamed from a pipe. At the time, the Hood children had no idea they were playing in radioactive waste."

"All along the U.S.-Mexico border, about 840,000 mostly low-income, immigrant Latinos have settled in colonias – cheap plots of land outside city limits without basic infrastructure such as water and sewage systems, electricity and paved roads."

"Exxon Mobil Is Still Pumping Toxins into Black Community in Texas 17 Years After Civil Rights Complaint"

"While the economy in Texas has boomed over the last 20 years, along the border with Mexico about a half million people live in clusters of cinderblock dwellings, home-built shacks, dilapidated trailers and small houses."

"U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Wednesday he intends to approve a plan to accept the donation of a 3,600-acre ranch that would open the landlocked Sabinoso Wilderness in northeastern New Mexico to the public."

"Eloy Jacquez lives in the house his parents built on Los Lujans Road in 1948. There was no water in Santa Cruz then. The family waited several more years before the first well was drilled just up the street, next to land used as an informal waste dump."

"Green groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to force Texas to toughen its stance on air pollution by using stricter language in permits it issues to oil refineries and power plants."