Kirk Siegler

Exceptionally dry conditions are fueling major blazes across the Pacific Northwest. A drought and rapid development in Washington mean the state may not be prepared to deal with a long, hot summer.

Progress is being made toward bringing water to thousands of Central Valley residents in underserved communities where wells have run dry. The question is how long this solution will last.

Lawmakers in hard-hit Western states are pushing for suspensions to the Endangered Species Act to free up stored water. But an entrenched partisan divide over the law continues to be a hang-up.

Drought-stricken Central Valley farmers are pointing fingers at the Sacramento Delta, where water still flows reliably. There's more pressure than ever to change a long-standing water rights system.

At least 70 ancient sites in the Kathmandu Valley were damaged or destroyed in last month's quake. Archaeologists and others are trying to protect and recover as much as they can, as fast as possible.

Earthquake victims in Bhaktapur need food, water and shelter. They assert that the government is not delivering.

Tens of thousands of victims have descended on Nepal's capital from remote, hard-hit mountainside villages that have seen little assistance. Already-strained hospitals are stretched even thinner.

Near Las Vegas, levels in the nation's largest reservoir have dropped 140 feet since 2000. Water deliveries to Nevada, Arizona and California may soon be rationed — and farmers would feel it first.

Rancher Cliven Bundy successfully stood down Bureau of Land Management agents near Las Vegas. He's considered a symbol for a national movement to wrest Western lands from U.S. agencies' authority.

Farms in California use as much as four times the water consumed by cities and towns. Now farmers are on defense after the governor decided to mostly exempt them from new, sweeping water cutbacks.