In-Depth

CommentTULAROSA, N.M. — A strong rumble woke 13-year-old Lucy Benavidez Garwood in the darkness,shaking the three-room adobe house where she and her family lived and rattling dishes in the kitchen cupboard.

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the world has experienced profound ecological changes. Wildlife populations have , the result of habitat loss caused by rapid industrialization and changing temperatures.

In the rugged Tumacácori mountain region 45 minutes south of Tucson, the Wild Chile Botanical Area (WCBA) was established in 1999 to protect and study the chiltepin pepper—the single wild relative of hundreds of sweet and hot varieties including jalapeño,...

The young, muscular male approached from the east at about 4am. He paused briefly in front of the motion-sensor camera, seemingly posing for the photo.

On a warm day in April, Twila Cassadore piloted her pickup truck toward the mountains on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona to scout for wild edible plants.

JACKSON, Wyo. — On average, fresh produce travels over 1,500 miles from farm to fork in the United States — the equivalent of driving from Los Angeles to Houston.

Near downtown Tucson, Arizona, is Dunbar Spring, a neighborhood unlike any other in the city. The unpaved sidewalks are lined with native, food-bearing trees and shrubs fed by rainwater diverted from city streets.

Bill Gates-backed TerraPower to build state’s first nuclear power plant Oct. 1, 2022By Samuel GilbertSpecial to the Wyoming TruthKEMMERER, Wyo.—In late 2019, Teri Picerno heard that the Naughton coal power plant outside of Kemmerer would close in the coming years.

In Wyoming’s coal country, an emerging climate technology takes holdFeb. 15, 2023By Samuel GilbertSpecial to the Wyoming TruthIn 2021, a record high 36 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere, according to the International Energy Agency.

Bill Gates-backed TerraPower to build state’s first nuclear power plant Oct. 2, 2022By Samuel GilbertSpecial to the Wyoming TruthOn Saturday, the Wyoming Truth published the part one of a story about Kemmerer, future home of TerraPower’s Natrium reactor.

In her 30 years working as a health care professional in the Navajo Nation, Adella Begaye witnessed the health impacts of extractive industries on Indigenous communities in the Southwest.

The 50-square-mile stretch of public land known as Glade Run is described on the Bureau of Land Management’s website as a “great spot for the weekend warrior.” Glade Run is punctured by 600 oil and gas wells, connected by hundreds...

On a windy winter day in Acoma Pueblo in north-western New Mexico, Aaron Lowden knelt beside a field near the San Jose River, the tribe’s primary irrigator for centuries.

Youth who age out of the foster care system face myriad challenges associated with family instability and poverty. They often lack basic life skills or the support network needed to transition to adulthood.

TUCSON — Indigenous peoples have known for millennia to plant under the shade of the mesquite and paloverde trees that mark the Sonoran Desert here, shielding their crops from the intense sun and reducing the amount of water needed.

TUCSON — Indigenous peoples have known for millennia to plant under the shade of the mesquite and paloverde trees that mark the Sonoran Desert here, shielding their crops from the intense sun and reducing the amount of water needed.

Wendy Lane Henry vividly remembers the first pair of cowboy boots she ever bought. She was a teenager walking through a Neiman Marcus department store in Miami when she spotted a pair of burgundy-colored alligator skin boots.

SAN PEDRO — For the past 34 years, Roxanne Swentzell has worked to save the seeds of her ancestors. “I remember getting a small pouch of a variety of Pueblo white corn that had been passed down from my great-great-grandmother,”...

Mama T’s Road to Ruin — known for a chile-smothered chicken-fried steak that’s big enough to be served up on a car hood — is a can’t-miss joint if you’re anywhere close to this small town in Quay County.

In the mid-1970s, Charles E. Becknell, then in grade school, attended one of the first official Juneteenth celebrations in New Mexico. At the time, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery was an obscure one to many people outside the...

Nights at the GreenTree Inn are rarely quiet. During his first stay in the spring of 2020, Noah Armijo awoke to the sound of gunshots in the parking lot nearby.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Micah Garen/Getty Images When the remains of two undocumented migrants were found in the desert of south-western Arizona last July, one body lay next to an arrow drawn in the sand, pointing north, with...

At Sierra Vista Ranch in Arizona near the Mexican border, Troy McDaniel is warming up his helicopter. McDaniel, tall and slim in a tan jumpsuit, began taking flying lessons in the 80s, and has since logged 2,000 hours in the...

By the 1960s, the North American jaguar had vanished from the southern US borderland after being hunted to extinction. Yet in the mid-1990s, there was a remarkablediscovery: the jaguar had reappeared in the Sky Islands of Arizona, a region of...

In the 1980s, when Kevin Dahl first began visiting the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument in southern Arizona, the border was unmarked, save for a simple fence used to keep cattle from a ranch in the US from crossing into...

As a national debate swirls around statues of Confederate officials, a new battle is brewing in the western US over the fate of monuments glorifying the brutal Spanish conquest of the Americas.

Officials are scrutinizing armed vigilante groups in New Mexicofollowing the shooting of a protester calling for the removal of a controversial colonial statue. Police are examining whether the shooter belonged to New Mexico Civil Guard, whose members were out in...

On demo day at the Border Security Expo, hundreds of law enforcement agents armed with M16s, automatic shotguns, pistols, and other high powered and military-grade weapons strolled around the grounds at the Bandera Gun Club outside of San Antonio.

Treasure hunters have reacted with shock, delight and disbelief to the news that a chest containing gems, gold and antiques worth up to $2m has reportedly been found in the Rocky Mountains.

On Monday, thousands of visitors from across the country descended on Yellowstone national park, which opened for the first time since its closure in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Inside a refurbished schoolhouse in a ghost town on New Mexico’s rural eastern plains, Debra Dawson sits on the side of her bed. “Some people call me a crazy cat lady,” she says, motioning toward the pile of kittens cuddling...

On Wednesday, Zion national park in Utah, one of the most popular natural attractions in the US, received its first visitors in more than a month as the Trump administration continued its push to reopen the nation’s outdoors as well...

Unlike the rest of the US, the sleepy border community of Ajo, Arizona, is busier than ever these days, as hundreds of border wall construction workers pass through each day.

“The first time I went, I wanted to cry,” said Lucía, a mother of three, describing how her economic situation would compel her to do the journey from her home in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez to line...

Soil is carefully dug and then brushed away and the bags removed from the ground. Inside are bones but also small items that give a touch of humanity and threads of stories where flesh – and names – are missing.

Diverting rangers is a way to direct federal resources to the border without the need for congressional approvalHelp us cover the critical issues of 2020.

Three months after one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history, the Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, where 22 were killed in an August rampage reopened on Thursday amid tears and smiles from customers and staff as...

Early this month Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem published a report on Israel’s policy in Area C and its implications for the population of the West Bank.

In the face of protests by environmental groups, the wall will traverse the entirety of the southern edge of the monument. It is part of the 175 miles of barrier expansion along the US-Mexico border being funded by the controversial...

This article appears in VICE Magazine's Borders Issue. The edition is a global exploration of both physical and invisible borders and examines who is affected by these lines and why we've imbued them with so much power.

Early in the summer of 1979, Larry King, an underground surveyor at the United Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock Uranium mine in New Mexico, began noticing something unusual when looking at the south side of the tailings dam.

On a warm day in 1988, Riana Peaker-Newman, then 16, and her father, Waylan Peaker, drove the 20 miles south from Santa Fe to Madrid, a once booming coal town nestled in the foothills of the Ortiz Mountains.

Above: Cowgirl Red in Madrid. On a warm day in 1988, Riana Peaker-Newman, then 16, and her father, Waylan Peaker, drove the 20 miles south from Santa Fe to Madrid, a once booming coal town nestled in the foothills of...

Nowhere is this consumer movement more apparent, and unique, than at Bow & Arrow brewery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The first and only brewery in the US owned by Native American women, it has carved a space in the predominantly...

On any given day at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can to see more than 60 varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarchsand other species can blanket the center’s 100 acres of subtropical bushlands that...

When the US banned alcohol production and importation in 1920, spirits from Mexico began illegally crossing the border. Alongside mass quantities of tequila was the lesser-known sotol: a north Mexican moonshine with a similar flavor profile.

When the US banned alcohol production and importation in 1920, spirits from Mexico began illegally crossing the border. Alongside mass quantities of tequila was the lesser-known sotol: a north Mexican moonshine with a similar flavor profile.

A US federal judge on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to allow long-term detention of illegal immigrant children, a key part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end the separation of immigrant families.

The first memory Hilda Ramírez has of the United States is the sound of helicopters. Four years ago, she, her eight-year-old son, Ivan, and five other migrants from Central America piled into a small raft on the southern bank of...

Sacha Johnston was inching along a dirt road in a narrow canyon in northern New Mexico. “Just guide me,” Johnston said to her search partner, Cory Napier, who directed Johnston and her white Toyota 4Runner.

This story appears in VICE magazine's Dystopia and Utopia Issue. Click HERE to subscribe to VICE magazine. At first, Jon Lomberg thought it was a joke.

IT ARRIVED IN A SMALL yellow bag, cut open lengthwise, with piping-hot red chile, ground beef, and beans poured directly over the corn chips inside, all topped with diced onions, yellow cheese, and lettuce.

On May 31, 2010, Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas, an undocumented immigrant and longtime resident of San Diego, died after being beaten and tased by US Customs and Border Protection agents.

An inmate in a GEO-run prison in California in 2013. Photo byJohn Moore/Getty Images Earlier this month Daniel Ragsdale, the second-in-command at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), confirmed he will be leaving his position to work at GEO...

Despite a rise in killings, the Mexican city has taken on a daunting task - to reinvent itself as a tourist destination. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - In the early 1970s, Richard Wright, a native of El Paso, Texas, began crossing...

My analyst and I grew more intimately connected each week of treatment...but I never saw this indecent proposal coming. It’s the waning moments of my fourth session with a new therapist.

Last week, 22-year-old Denise Gomez and her mother waded into the Rio Grande River, straddling the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. Their feet were wrapped in trash bags as they crossed through the cold, shallow water to...

On Wednesday, John F Kelly, the head of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the department tasked with implementing President Donald Trump's immigration policy, laid out the administration's vision before Congress.

In Oaxaca, the battle over education - and the view of Mexico it presents - has often turned violent. Oaxaca, Mexico - It is November 2, the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and the family of Anselmo Cruz Aquino...

As construction of the border wall continues, so does the flow of undocumented migrants hoping for a better life. On the night of Halloween in 1999, Carmen Caballero, who was then eight, and her three-year-old sister put on witches' costumes...

The decline and growth of the private prison industry in the United States. Last August the US Department of Justice released a statement that they would begin the process of phasing out private prison contracts in federal prisons, some 30...

Outside El Santuario De Chimayo, 20 miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Arthur “Lowlow” Medina leans forward on his wooden staff. The local artist and one of the pioneers of New Mexico lowriding motions toward his prized 1976 Cadillac...

New Mexico commemorates the anniversary of a supposed alien spacecraft crash in 1947 and an alleged government cover-up. Roswell, New Mexico - Each summer, thousands of people descend upon the town of Roswell, New Mexico, for the annual UFO Festival,...

A outdoor museum at the White Sands Base, housing the varieties of missiles and rockets tested in the White Sands Missle Range located south of the Trinity blast.

Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala – At the Cofradia de Conception in Santiago Atitlan, Juan Ramirez, 28, sits pensively on a wooden bench, his outstretched leg held gently by Don Juan Pacach, a Mayan priest and bonesetter.

Albuquerque, New Mexico - In January 1972, Rito Canales and Antonio Cordova, members of the Chicano youth organisation known as the Black Berets, were killed in a barrage of gunfire by the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) and New Mexico State...

New Mexico, US - Outside Tony's Rock Shop in the sleepy town of Magdalena, in New Mexico, Ben Valentino Otero stands amid a menagerie of animal statues, two wooden eagles, a merry-go-round horse, a metal sphinx and a variety of...

New Mexico, US – During the mining boom of the 19th century in New Mexico, thousands migrated to remote parts of the state, establishing towns to exploit the region’s rich mineral wealth.

“There used to be bars, stores, schools. Right over there was La Salla Dancehall.”

New Mexico, US - Twenty-four kilometres south of Santa Fe, the now defunct Penitentiary of New Mexico, or "Old Main", sits in managed decay, its imposing exterior rising above the plains that stretch southeastwards from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains,...

New York City, US - On the evening of October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy reached the inlet between Long Island and New Jersey and funnelled the Atlantic storm surge into the heart of New York City, inundating lower Manhattan with...

Seventy years ago last August, a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay released its 4,000kg load over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the sudden loss of weight jolting the US aircraft violently upwards as the pilot banked hard to escape...

A day after graduating from high school, Renea Gray left the Inyabito Chapter of the Navajo reservation in northwestern New Mexico and headed west to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Intensified by climate change, the current 20-year arid period is one of the worst on record, with wide-ranging effectsThe Enterprise Bridge passes over a section of Lake Oroville that is nearly dry in 2014 in Oroville, California.

The tour group looked at the hatchet marks, still visible today on the concrete floor. “These were the inmates that fared the worse,” corrections officer and tour guide Trinidad Torres told us, pointing to the marred grooves, while 15 engrossed...

New York City – Like many children of undocumented immigrants, Lupe Martinez has lived a precarious life. Lupe’s parents migrated to the United States by way of Oaxaca, Mexico, living without the legal status that their daughter attained at birth...

New York City, United States - Standing in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, Frank Mills puffs on a thinly rolled marijuana cigarette, exhaling a long thin stream of smoke towards downtown Manhattan.

Flagstaff, United States – On the southwestern corner of the Navajo reservation, Twin Arrows Casino Resort towers over the empty Arizona desert, its lurid neon lights drawing travellers from the historic Route 66 highway to its bright Las Vegas-style gaming...

New York City, United States – More than 300,000 people converged on New York City to attend what organisers called the largest single climate change march in history.

Last week, at a park in New Mexico’s capital city of Santa Fe, tens of thousands of people gathered to watch the annual burning of what may be the world’s largest marionette.

The success of the pioneering Bitcoin has inspired a proliferation of new cryptocurrencies around the globe, and last week, six Israeli developers introduced their own virtual coin in an attempt to counter the concentration of power and wealth within the...

Occupied East Jerusalem – For the past two months, Hamzah Abu Terr has slept on the floor of his home. He gave his bed to his three small children whose room he was forced to destroy earlier this year, to...

Occupied East Jerusalem - For the past two months, Hamzah Abu Terr has slept on the floor of his home. He gave his bed to his three small children whose room he was forced to destroy earlier this year, to...

Israel’s aggressive vigilance of its borders has resulted in the loss of another Palestinian life. On Wednesday, 15-year-old Yousef Nayif Yousef Shawamrah Abu-Akar was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in the south Hebron hills.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited the White House on Monday, where he spoke with President Barack Obama about the peace negotiations with Israel that began last July and have continued amid growing violence and expanding Israeli settlement construction in the...

In December, the American Studies Association (ASA) answered the call from Palestinian civil society and endorsed the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, a milestone for the controversial Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which has only recently begun to make...

In 1945, the world’s first nuclear weapon was detonated at the Trinity site, in New Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert. The massive blast pulled the white desert sand up into an atomic fireball, the heat transforming the granules into green glass that...

In 2006, Mutussam Abu Karsh was playing soccer in the northern Gaza Strip when an Israeli tank shell exploded, ripping his leg and part of his hand from his body.

Mounds of radioactive waste dot the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation in the US state of New Mexico. The earthen monoliths contain contaminated material from the more than 250 abandoned uranium minesthat once provided the raw materials for the...

The FBI's arrest of 18 current and former Los Angeles prison staff in a sting operation earlier this month casts light on alleged "brutality" and civil rights violations in some parts of the US judicial system, analysts have said.

On December 4, the council of the American Studies Association (ASA) voted unanimously to endorse the call from Palestinian civil society for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions (USACBI), becoming only the second academic association in the US to...

Jerusalem – The Holy Basin – containing Jerusalem’s Old City and its surrounding territories – may be the most contested piece of property in the world.

Ramallah, Occupied West Bank – Twenty-six Palestinian prisoners, some held in Israeli jails for more than two decades, were released to their families in a “gesture of good faith” by Israel’s government.

On a fall Sunday in Ramallah, the courtyard in the $60 million Movenpick Hotel swarmed with hundreds of drunk Palestinians. On a stage at one end of the crowd, the Jerusalem-based band Khallas played their own brand of “oriental metal.”...

Ramallah, Occupied West Bank – Hundreds of people have gathered along a closed-off street on a Friday morning to watch a street racing event. Among the drivers are four women representing the “Speed Sisters”, the first all-female racing team in...

I’m driving around the streets of Ramallah, Palestine, with Noor Dawood, the celebrated Palestinian street racer and the only female drifter in the Middle East.

He was greeted with posters saying, “Dear Barack Obama: Don't bring your smartphone to Ramallah. You won't have mobile access to the Internet. make sure to only do as instructed, not more.

The sun has not yet risen on Eyal checkpoint in the northwestern city of Qalqilya. Already hundreds of Palestinians queue up and wait to cross into Israel and begin the workweek.