UNLV assistant professor Josh Baker began researching ways to raise funds for students with intellectual disabilities and autism to go to college back in 2013. The program is a success. He’s August’s Shining Star.

Around a decade ago, Jonesburg, Mo., resident Lee Hobbs and the city's United Methodist Church found they needed new shingles for their roofs. They bought Heritage Shingles from Tamko Building Products, a Joplin firm that guaranteed the shingles would last for 30 years. They didn't.

As the sole surviving species of the genus Homo, we Homo sapiens are one of the most taxonomically lonely species living on Earth today. But dig back a few thousand years or more and we find ourselves with plenty of company: Many now-extinct species shared the genus Homo, ranging from the robust Homo neanderthalensis, to the hobbit-like Homo floresiensis to the more primitive Homo habilis and Homoerectus. But do all these species, with their wide diversity of physical and cultural traits, actually belong in the same genus?

The politics of water in the West was the theme of the second annual Western Water Symposium, held at the end of July at Morgan Library on the Colorado State University campus. More than 130 attendees heard from a series of water experts that the politics of water in the West transcends party affiliation — and there’s probably not a more divisive issue, even in this election year.

During the summer months, everyone can hear the buzz. The sound seems to fill the air from June through August. It's the sound of cicadas.

June was a busy month at the Rape Crisis Center in Las Vegas. The Center assisted 32 percent more sexual assault victims than in the same month last year.

How could this happen in Oregon?

Lori Orchow Haney won’t be heading to work next Monday morning. She’s already arranged to take the day off for a very special trip: heading to the Cracker Barrel restaurant at the Silverton to be there on opening day.