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The Hill That Women Built
On a hill overlooking Kabul, with little access to electricity, women have made their own houses, brick by brick, from the land beneath them. They have created what is known by Afghans as “The Hill That Women Built.”

Shadow Lives USA
Jon Lowenstein (APF – 2008) has compiled his recent work on deportation and immigration into “Shadow Lives.” Jon won a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a TED Global Fellowship. He is a member of the NOOR international photo agency, based in Amsterdam. His work

Is Wyoming Ruining Water Supplies to Produce Natural Gas?
PAVILLION, WY—Jeff and Rhonda Locker’s water changed abruptly one day in the mid-1990s while Rhonda was doing the laundry. A Denver-based gas company was working over an old well in back of their house. Suddenly, the wash water turned black. “It happened just

Crisis in the Caves: Researchers Race to Protect Bats from White-Nose Syndrome
Inside the gaping mouth of Mammoth Cave, hibernating bats sleep in permanent twilight, each huddled in its own limestone crevice. Every fall, these big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) squeeze their furry bodies into nooks in the cave walls.
The Environmental Toll of Gas Development
BLANCO, New Mexico—Chris Velasquez sees the impacts of gas development in the San Juan Basin of northern New Mexico through the eyes of a rancher. He and his dad ran cattle, until recently, on a grazing allotment called the Rosa, rolling high desert
Energy Pollution, Past and Future, in Utah’s Indian Country
ANETH, Utah—I first climbed the sacred butte at the edge of the Greater Aneth oil field in 1998. My husband, Doug, had been here before and knew where to find hand and footholds in a break along the steep sides. He told me
The Treasure of the Rocky Mountain Front
BROWNING, MT—Nowhere in the West does the rolling sea of the high plains meet the mountains with such dramatic effect as in northwestern Montana. State Highway 2 stretches through the northern Hi-Line for miles of coulees and intermittent creeks, antelope, buffalo and Plains

A Whole World Gone: The Loss of the American Chestnut Tree
Early McAlexander looks through the window of his granddaughter’s car onto a wide open hill fringed by a line of white pines. “All this land used to belong to my father,” Early says in a voice that’s surprisingly steady and strong for a

Lady of Limbo Land
She looked like a human crucifix — arms outstretched, left hand grabbing the wall while the right hand grasped the door, legs clamped. Maria Guadelupe Aranda was in labor.
I didn’t know Lupe when I put my hands on her belly. I didn’t even speak her language.

Importing Nuns to Save American Monasteries
PHILADELPHIA – The monastery’s gray stone mother house stands stoically amid lonesome pine trees and statues of saints. At one time, the Sisters of St. Basil the Great on Fox Chase Road numbered about 150. Today most sisters have quietly retired from

The Politics of the Habit
Faint voices floated from behind the faded drapes that separated the nuns’ portion of the parlor from their visitors’. On my side, an armchair was stationed in front of the curtains, like a theater set for an audience of one. I could only wonder what was waiting on the other side.

Risking the Pope’s Wrath
Pope John Paul II, who recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of his papacy, has issued strong denunciations of women who have tried to widen their role in the Catholic Church. Just a week before the liberal Loretto Sisters met, he called for “just punishment,” including excommunication, for those who support ordination of women.

The Masada Complex
(JERUSALEM) — Readers have been exposed to a great many words lately about the Islamic resurgence, some of them coming from this very typewriter. A rebirth of Koranic zeal helps explain to Westerners the recurring episodes of what looks to us like bizarre

End or Begin?
CAIRO – Hassan AI-Tuhami is one of those men who, at first sight, conveys to you a special presence, and even something more. I had asked for an interview because he is known as Anwar Sadat’s eminence grise, and apart from Sadat himself

Israel: Revisionism Resurgent
(JERUSALEM) – It came so suddenly, this surge of power from the Revisionists, and no one expected it at all. Menachem Begin, their political leader for so many years, was an authentic hero of the war of independence. Vladimir Jabotinsky was Begin’s intellectual

Islam As Raison D’Etat
What is this religious fervor that is gripping the Islamic world? Institutional Islam has toppled a government in Iran, threatens a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, executed a former prime minister in Pakistan. Interpreters say that the huge influx of wealth from

Impossible Dreams
(JERUSALEM) – The “melting pot” is an American concept, without bearing in the Holy Land. In the Old City of Jerusalem, where the great religions exalt their symbols of spirituality, Moslems, Christians and Jews rub shoulders in crowded streets, and barely stop to

Defining Islamic Terms
This article was written before the seizure of the United States Embassy in Teheran by student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Some time ago, writers adopted the convenient habit of categorizi

Adapting on the Atoll
(Alicia Patterson Reporter, Spring 2009) Tuvalu Map FUNAFUTI, TUVALU – Karl Tili joined the Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau in 1976, when the former Ellice Islands colony first began to produce its own stamps in the early years of self-government leading up to independence. He
The Complicated Problem of Stopping the Poaching of Wild Animals
March, 2009 – GORONGOSA NATIONAL PARK, Mozambique — For years, the rangers at this long-struggling national park knew about Tato Alexandre. They knew how the slim farmer crossed the muddy Pungue River into their protected area, and how he looped wires around trees

Inside the audacious mission to bring a rare toad back from the brink


She Managed to get a Temporary Farmworker Visa

‘They Beat Me Like a Slave’: Signs of Violence in Sheriff’s Office Dated Back Years

Opinion | Are Embryos Property or People? Even the Courts Don’t Know

The Coyote Next Door




How Robots Helped My Parents’ Dementia

The Allure and Dangers of Experimenting With Brain-Dead Bodies

In Kosovo, War Survivors Turned Homes Into Their Own Museums

A Country Shaped By Poetry

How a controversial US drug policy could be harming cancer patients worldwide

US push to turn farm manure into renewable energy draws concerns


Pope’s Environmental Stand Splits Catholics

Fractured Worship

Sign of Catholic Divide – Women Want a Bigger Role in the Church


The American Wildcatters Who Sought Syrian Oil



California’s Dual Water Crisis








The Secret to Getting What You Need in Ghana






New Dominion

Is Natural Gas a Fossil Fuel with a Great Future Behind It?

The Limits of Disturbance

No Justice in Veracruz, as Journalist’s Death is Unsolved

The House Over Hades



Death by Dust

Coachella Valley Farm Workers


Arctic Treaty Nears 100 in Heated Climate



Methane: Arctic Promise and Peril

Dying Inside

On The Edge: Reindeer and Climate Change

BOOM: North America’s Explosive Oil-by-Rail Problem



