Kunc's Colorado Edition

A handful of Colorado schools monitor their students with cameras that use facial recognition software. It’s a security measure: An administrator with access to the technology can upload a student’s photo and then the system can use cameras around the school to pinpoint a student’s location.  More school districts across the state are exploring whether to adopt this technology, according to a recent story in the Denver Post. And it's highlighting a conflict between supporters who say it helps make schools safer and opponents who call it a violation of students’ civil rights.  In the NoCo’s Brad Turner talked with Denver Post education reporter Elizabeth Hernadez, who has been covering the subject and spoken with people on all sides of the issue. Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!Host and Producer: Erin O'TooleProduc

Crews recently began work to extinguish a blaze that has burned underground for more than a century.  It's happening on Marshall Mesa, south of Boulder in an area popular for hiking. A fire in a coal seam there has been smoldering beneath the surface for years. It's a remnant of a time when coal mining thrived in the area. Because heat from underground blazes can sometimes set fire to grass and other brush nearby, residents of nearby Superior and Louisville have been more concerned about potential dangers since the Marshall Fire.  So in the weeks ahead, crews from Colorado’s Inactive Mine Reclamation Program will prepare to dig up the combustible material at Marshall Mesa and bring it to the surface. They’ll mix it with cooler dirt to prevent future fires.  Jeff Graves, Director of Colorado’s Inactive Mine Reclamation Program will manage the job. He spoke with In the NoCo’s Brad Turner about how crews will snuff out the blaze.  Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story i

Endless work emails. Slack messages from coworkers. Virtual meetings on Zoom.  If these things boost your anxiety, you're experiencing something called technostress. Technostress can also include anxiety about keeping up with new technologies – or being replaced by them.   It makes employees miserable. And easing technostress at work is an ongoing struggle for employers, especially since technology seems to blur the boundaries between work time and personal time. Jason Thatcher is a University of Colorado researcher who studies how people do their jobs and use technology in the workplace. He teaches at CU’s Leeds School of Business. In a recent paper, he argues that the key to reducing tech-related stress is to understand that individual employees will react to different technologies in different ways.  Jason spoke with ITN’s Brad Turner about how you, and your boss, can lower the technostress you encounter at work.  Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email

Heart disease causes one out of every five deaths in the United States. Now, a University of Colorado researcher says she’s found promising clues that could help treat it, but the source of her discoveries might make your skin crawl.    Dr. Leslie Leinwand is a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at CU Boulder. Her insights come from research conducted on a rather unwieldy animal to keep in your laboratory – pythons. Leinwand and her team observe Burmese pythons – snakes that go weeks or months between meals without eating. She has studied pythons for decades and she recently published a new paper on her research.    Erin O’Toole spoke with Lienwand about her research and learned that, while humans and snakes have very different physiologies, the way snakes eat in the wild may inspire new treatments for heart disease and other metabolic conditions in people.   Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're

Colorado and its pets are suffering from a shortage of veterinarians.  It's leading to long wait times at some clinics. And the Colorado Sun reports that many animal hospitals are so swamped they’re forced to turn away dogs and cats who need care. On Election Day, Colorado voters will be asked to weigh in on a possible solution. Proposition 129  would create a new class of veterinary workers called a veterinary professional associate, or VPA.  VPAs would require less training than traditional veterinarians to become certified. If voters approve the plan, it could mean Colorado would see more professionals able to treat pets.  To help us understand the proposal, and the arguments for and against, ITN's Brad Turner talked with Jon Geller. He's a retired, Fort Collins-based emergency veterinarian, and a graduate of the school of veterinary medicine at Colorado State University. (He’s also the founder of the Street Dog Coalition, a nonprofit that helps provide pet care for people experiencing homelessness.) Jon h

 Wildfires in Colorado rip through communities. They torch homes and disrupt lives. But wildfires also cause some surprising – maybe even uplifting – things to happen. They make people more resilient. They strengthen the bonds between neighbors. And those stronger connections help people prepare for future emergencies.  That’s according to Lori Peek – a researcher who studies how communities come together during and after natural disasters. Lori is a sociologist and the director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.  Today, we’re listening back to a recent conversation she had with Erin O’Toole about the surprisingly robust field of study that examines how humans interact during and after a crisis. Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!Host and Producer: Erin O'TooleProducer: Ariel LaveryE

Since early 2023 hundreds of Denver residents experiencing homelessness received a monthly income whether they had a job or were unemployed. Eight hundred participants received the payment as part of a program called the Denver Basic Income Project.  It was a pilot program designed to study whether rates of homelessness decrease when people are given a base-line income. Participants received either $600 a year or $12,000 a year.  The money came from a combination of public and private sources, including $6 million dollars from the office of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.   But the mayor’s office recently announced it plans to end its funding of the project. A spokesperson pointed to disappointing results documented in a study of the program. So what were the results – and did the basic income payments help the people who received them? Erin O’Toole spoke with  Katie Calhoun -- an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University -- about the results of the study.  She served as a research lead on the project and

Victorian Death Experiences is a Halloween attraction with a historic twist.  The program takes place in the historic home which houses the Center for Colorado Women’s History in Denver. Visitors see rooms decorated for mourning. They hear stories of death in the Old West. And they see fascinating artifacts, like hair jewelry made partly from the hair of a deceased loved one.  “We’re really not focused on having a haunted house, but rather, experiencing some reverence around our understanding of death,” said Cat Jensen, education coordinator for the center. Above all, the program highlights the central role that women have traditionally played when a loved one died – preparing bodies for burial, hosting wakes, and other acts that allowed people to mourn at the end of life. “Certainly, death, for Victorian women, was a deep and sacred act. Women, regardless of race or class, have long been the arbiters of life and death,” Jensen said.  This is the second year for Victorian Death Experiences. It takes place on

Weld County’s Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes has a noticeable online presence. She posts lots of informational videos around election time telling voters how to cast a ballot or get ready for Election Day. But here’s something that keeps Koppes -- and a lot of other election officials -- up at night. Artificial intelligence is developing so quickly that a bad actor could take one of Koppes’ videos and convincingly alter her voice, so that it sounds like she’s saying something misleading -- such as giving the wrong hours when polls are open. Koppes and other clerks from Colorado’s 64 counties recently gathered to talk about those scenarios as Election Day approaches.  Koppes spoke with host Erin O’Toole in August to discuss how election officials like her are gearing up to respond to misleading emails, deepfake videos, and social media misinformation. With the election just three weeks away, and ballots showing up in voters’ mailboxes now, we’re listening back to that conversation.  Not sure if your voter reg

 Today we've got something special for In The NoCo listeners. It's the first episode of "Ending the Hate State," the new season of KUNC's podcast The Colorado Dream. If you heard our Friday episode of In The NoCo, you already heard Colorado Dream host Stephanie Daniel talk about the new season. This first episode explores a time in the 1990s when Colorado voters refused to protect people from being discriminated against based on their sexuality. It's about civil rights, boycotts, activism and a legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Stephanie and the other KUNC reporters who make The Colorado Dream dig into recent history and capture how it changed the lives of everyday people here in Colorado.   If you want to hear the upcoming episodes of The Colorado Dream, follow that show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks! 

Nearly three decades ago Colorado was known as The Hate State. In 1992 Colorado voters passed Amendment 2, which banned anti-discrimination laws meant to protect gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. But the Amendment never went into effect because there was immediate backlash. It was challenged again and again for being unconstitutional, bringing it all the way to the supreme court.  Season 4 of KUNC’s Colorado Dream podcast retraces Colorado’s tumultuous history and evolving relationship with its queer and transgender population.  Stephanie Daniel is the Executive Producer and host for the Colorado Dream. Erin O’Toole spoke with Daniel about the new season, which began earlier this week. Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!Host and Producer: Erin O'TooleProducer: Ariel LaveryExecutive Producer: Brad TurnerTheme music by Ro

A new tax on sales of guns and ammunition could be used to fund services that help crime victims.  That’s the idea behind a proposal Colorado voters will consider on the November ballot. Proposition KK would add a 6.5 percent excise tax on guns, some parts and accessories, and ammunition. Buyers in Colorado already pay state and local sales taxes on the purchase of firearms and ammunition, and a federal tax of around 10 percent. It’s a novel approach that its backers say will generate about $39 million dollars a year to fund programs that address some of the harms of gun violence, including mental health support services. But opponents say it will just make it more difficult for law-abiding Coloradans to buy guns.  To learn more about what this tax would do, host Erin O’Toole checked in with Lucas Brady Woods, who covers politics and state government for KUNC. You can read up on all 14 statewide measures on the November ballot here. * * * * *Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Fee

More law enforcement officers in Colorado are using artificial intelligence to create their police reports.  Boulder Police launched a pilot program earlier this year allowing artificial intelligence to help officers generate reports related to minor crimes. A few months later, they expanded the policy to let AI help write police reports for all types of cases. That’s according to a story from Boulder Reporting Lab.  Boulder officers use a new technology called Draft One. Fort Collins police have also been using Draft One since April.  So how reliable is this technology? And will the police reports it generates hold up in court? Host Erin O’Toole spoke with Melissa Inglis, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Oklahoma – who studies how law enforcement uses artificial intelligence programs – to answer those questions.  Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The

Patients in Colorado feel the brunt of a growing healthcare crisis every day. There’s a shortage of primary care doctors and other health care workers in most Colorado counties – and that has an especially big impact on low-income and rural communities.  That physician shortage is projected to get even worse, with roughly a third of doctors in the state aged 60 or older, and nearing retirement – according to a recent report by the American Association of Medical Colleges.  To help boost the number of primary care doctors, a new medical school – just the third one in Colorado – is being built at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. UNC officials celebrated the groundbreaking for the new College of Osteopathic Medicine on September 28. The new school has a price tag of around $200 million, and will eventually graduate 150 new doctors each year when it opens in 2026.  ITN host Erin O’Toole spoke with the founding dean of the new medical school, Dr. Beth Longenecker, back in May when the school was fir

Visit any farmers’ market in Colorado and you’ll see long lines of people waiting to buy produce that’s grown in the state.  And when fall arrives... it’s all about Pueblo chiles. The aroma of those dark green peppers roasting as they spin in large metal tumblers fills the crisp autumn air. People often buy extra bags of them – some to use now, some to freeze for use during the chilly winter months. But the popularity of those Colorado-grown peppers is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although farmers in Pueblo and other parts of Colorado have been growing different kinds of peppers for decades, Colorado didn’t really have its own signature variety of chile until the early 2000s.  That’s when Dr. Michael Bartolo, an agriculture professor with Colorado State University, developed the unique Mosco variety of the Pueblo chile. And in a few short years, they’ve become a regional rival to New Mexico’s more famous Hatch chiles.  ITN host Erin O’Toole spoke with the now-retired Bartolo to learn more about what makes

School districts across Colorado have been suspending kids for problematic behavior at significantly higher rates than before the pandemic.   A recent analysis of data in The Denver Post found that school administrators across Colorado have been issuing out-of-school suspensions 25% more compared to the 2018-2019 school year.  Those figures are even higher in Denver public schools, which have seen suspensions jump by 42% in that same time frame.  Many districts with higher suspension rates also struggle to hire school counselors or special education teachers – positions that often help curb problematic behavior.   Research shows certain students are more vulnerable than others to the long-term impacts of out-of-school suspensions or expulsions. A state legislative task force found those punishments tend to disproportionately target students of color or those with disabilities. And analysis from the University of Colorado found that students who attend schools with higher suspension rates are more likely to be

In 2002, Colorado saw a turning point for water use. It was the year Front Range cities got serious about how they use water and how to waste less of it.  Luke Runyon is a reporter who specializes in covering water issues for the University of Colorado Boulder’s Water Desk.  (You might remember him as the host of KUNC’s Colorado River podcast Thirst Gap.) In a new story, Runyon looked at how many Colorado cities grew dramatically since 2002 but also shrank their water usage.  Host Erin O’Toole talked with Runyon about how cities achieved water conservation and what they might need to do in the future as populations continue to expand.   Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!Host and Producer: Erin O'TooleProducer: Ariel LaveryExecutive Producer: Brad TurnerTheme music by Robbie ReverbAdditional music by Blue Dot Session

More students in Colorado are headed to college. And enrollment numbers at Colorado colleges are climbing faster than predicted. At the University of Colorado, for example, enrollment grew by 3.5 percent this school year – that's substantially more than the 0.5 percent increase the school’s officials had expected.  So, what’s behind the increase? And how is it changing who’s attending college in Colorado? Spoiler alert: It might involve CU Boulder football coach Deion Sanders. For answers, host Erin O’Toole checked in with Dr Angie Paccione – Executive Director of Colorado’s Department of Higher Education.  Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.orgQuestions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: NOCO@KUNC.orgLike what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!Host and Producer: Erin O'TooleProducer: Ariel LaveryExecutive Producer: Brad TurnerTheme music by Robbie ReverbAdditional music by Blue Dot SessionsIn The NoCo is a production o

If you want to feel empowered to reduce your carbon footprint and fight climate change, the meals you plan, and the ingredients you buy, may be a great place to make some changes.   That’s a central point in a new book by Mark Easter. He’s a retired ecologist in Fort Collins who studies the carbon footprint of the food we eat. In his book, titled The Blue Plate: A Food Lovers Guide to Climate Chaos, Easter walks readers through the typical ingredients in a home cooked dinner, like steak, potatoes, and fruit pie. Then he explains the carbon footprint of each ingredient, and how to reduce that footprint by making smarter purchases at the grocery store. Mark shares his research from places like orchards and feedlots. Mark will talk about his book at several upcoming events in Colorado: Sept 27, 6:30 p.m.: Foothills Unitarian Church, Fort Collins  Oct. 3, 7 p.m.: Patagonia, Boulder  Oct. 8, 6 p.m.: Tattered Cover (Colfax), Denver Brad Turner talked with Mark Easter about his new book, which was published this mon

Shared experiences that echo across different cultures... and the unique perspectives that people from different places bring to our community.  An art show on display in Fort Collins explores those ideas through poems, letters and portraits of immigrants living in Northern Colorado.     Curator Brigid McAuliffe collected images and writings from people representing thirty-eight countries for two projects that make up the show. Querida Familia features members of families from Mexico who now live in Fort Collins who wrote letters and recollections prompted by photos of significant moments in their lives. And in Hyphens & Hemispheres: The Places We Come From, participants created poems reflecting how they have been shaped by where they’re from. The dual exhibit marks the latest installment of Picture Me Here – a series of art and storytelling programs focused on immigrants and refugees, that started in 2012. McAuliffe says this show feels especially timely, as the topic of illegal immigration drives politi