Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

"SALT LAKE CITY -- Bald eagles are dying in Utah - 20 in the past few weeks alone - and nobody can figure out why."

"A number of unexplained bald eagle deaths in Utah when hundreds of the government-protected birds have migrated to wintering grounds in the central Rocky Mountains has wildlife officials worried."

BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- "A judge's order issued Tuesday evening has further muddied the already cloudy situation surrounding the fracking ban approved by Broomfield voters."

"Federal and state wildlife managers of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone National Park area recommended on Wednesday that U.S. Endangered Species Act protections be lifted for the animals, a decision that would open the way for them to be hunted."

"No other coal deposit on the planet is so big, so close to the surface, and so cheap to mine as the rich seams in eastern Wyoming and Southern Montana."

"A week after opponents of coal-fired electricity flooded the chambers of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, regulators have denied a bid by Idaho Power to charge its customers $130 million to help implement mandated pollution controls for two of four generators at the Jim Bridger coal plant near Rock Springs, Wyo., where the utility company is part owner."

"SIDNEY, Mont. -- One cold morning last year, a math teacher jogging through her hometown in eastern Montana was abducted, strangled and buried in a shallow grave. Charged in her death were two drifters from Colorado, drawn to the region by the allure of easy money in the oil fields."

"Eagle deaths lead to Duke Energy Corp. paying $1 million for birds killed at two Wyoming wind farms. It was the first time a US wind energy company had been successfully prosecuted for the deaths of eagles or other protected birds."