People & Population

"Marta Cruz left Michoacán, Mexico with her husband and 1-year-old son a decade and a half ago to work in the fields of Homestead, Florida, picking lemons and tomatoes as farm workers. A couple of years ago, she began suffering from headaches but figured it was from the long hours working under the sweltering sun or the stress of figuring out how to pay bills."

"Wilma Subra, a diminutive grandmother, has long challenged the corporate polluters in one of the nation's most toxic regions."

"One of the firefighting teams trying to contain the Rim Fire in and around Yosemite National Park is the Geronimo Hotshots team from San Carlos, Ariz., one of seven elite Native American firefighting crews in the U.S."

As wildfires rage across the West, the costs of the fight to protect lives and property are up. But budget cuts imposed by an austerity-minded Congress have meant that funds to protect people are down.

"Anti-government activists in Syria are accusing President Bashar al-Assad's forces of deploying a chemical weapons attack on the suburbs of the capital, Damascus. The government denied the attack, but the allegations have prompted the United Nations to call an emergency meeting. Melissa Block talks to Washington Post reporter Loveday Morris for more."

"Two decades [after a tour of US National Parks, Audrey and Frank Peterman] ... are vocal and well-known parks advocates. One thing in particular has driven their passion: the lack of diversity in visitors to the national parks, a problem that also has long plagued the National Park Service."

A legislative and regulatory battle over slaughter of wild horses is dividing conservation celebrities and American Indians in the Southwest and Mountain West.