In The NOCO

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 Bo...

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 –...

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 mont...

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 see...

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...

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...

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 C...

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 tw...

A measure on Colorado’s ballot this November asks voters to choose whether wildcat hunting in the state should be banned.    Supporters of the initiative point to what they say are cruel hunting practices, like using large teams of dogs to chase mountain lions up trees to then be shot and killed. Supporters also say the initiative would eliminate unethical “trophy hunting” – meaning hunting for sp...

A Boulder County jury reached a verdict Monday afternoon: They found the man who killed ten people in a mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers guilty on all counts. That includes 10 counts of first-degree murder and 45 additional charges.    At sentencing later that day, the judge overseeing the trial issued 10 consecutive life sentences, among other penalties.  The verdict comes three and a half...

Fall begins Sunday – which means leaf-peeping season is here in Colorado. Soon the mountains will fill with people looking to drink in the glorious sight of all those orange and gold aspen leaves that cover the hillsides.   And you can bet that quite a few of those tourists will look at those vibrant aspen trees and wonder why they can't just plant one in their own yard. Experts with Colorado Stat...

The college experience can seem like a carefree time, filled with social activities, weekend football games... and, of course, the occasional visit to the library or an all-night study session.    But reality paints a very different picture for many students.   Federal data shows that nearly a quarter of the nation’s college students struggle with getting enough nutritious food. That’s 3.8 million...

Kids who were babies or toddlers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic... are now preschoolers and kindergarteners in Colorado classrooms. And experts see signs that the pandemic changed their behavior compared to older children.    A recent round of data from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood seems to confirm that more kids now show signs of developmental delays. Behavior patterns like...

Being a farmer or rancher in Colorado means living with uncertainty on a daily basis. Hailstorms, drought and insects can wipe out an entire season of crops. Diseases and predators can devastate livestock without warning.   And then there are other pressures, like holding onto a farm or ranch that’s been in the family for generations so it can be passed on to future family members. Experts say the...

Greeley artist Armando Silva paints some of the most prominent artwork along Colorado’s Front Range. His vibrant, expressive murals depict sugar beet workers who helped establish Fort Collins ... or a steer to honor the Greeley Stampede. And he’s working to create a space for more artists to create more murals. He’s part of the team launching WeldWalls , a brand-new mural festival in Greeley that...

If you follow national news, you might think the biggest story in Colorado right now is centered on an Aurora apartment complex that was reportedly overtaken by an armed group of Venezuelan gang members. If you watched the presidential debate this week, you likely heard former president Donald Trump mention that gangs had “taken over” the city.  Many right-leaning media outlets across the country...

Homeowners in Colorado have been watching their insurance costs increase at rates faster than the national average. On average, they pay more to insure their homes than homeowners in other states – about $1,700 more, according to recent figures. You might hear that and assume it’s because wildfires and hailstorms cause more destruction in Colorado, and climate change seems to be making it worse.  ...

Officials in the city of Boulder say they have a problem: too many parking spaces.  Some transportation experts believe having too many empty spots is a waste of space, especially considering some of that space could be used for housing, retail, or a park. By some estimates, Boulder has twice as many parking spots as it needs .   Some city leaders say that’s a missed opportunity in a city that str...

Columbus B. Hill was a pivotal figure in Colorado’s culinary history. He was a Black man originally from Missouri – and he was possibly the most popular barbecue chef in Denver in the late 1800s. His food was so good that it was served to thousands of people at official functions at the state Capitol.   But even among hardcore barbecue fans, very few people know his name. And his legacy wasn’t alw...

Drew Petersen’s career has been marked by extremes. As a professional skier, the Silverthorne native made a living carving turns on some of the toughest terrain in the world. But in recent years, he’s spoken openly, and made two films, about a different part of his life: his struggle with mental health and severe depression, which dates back to his childhood.   In his new film, Feel It All , Drew...

Colorado's Republican Party is torn between people claiming to be chairman at the state level. And it's splitting the party leadership into two factions at a critical time. It’s a presidential election year, and a moment when the party is working to regain some of the seats they’ve lost at the state level.   The leadership of the state GOP recently voted out their chairman, Dave Williams, and inst...

Since the 1980s, a growing number of Colorado school districts have adopted a four-day schedule. Currently, about one in seven K-12 public school students in Colorado attends class four days a week rather than five – primarily those in smaller, rural school districts. These districts often have smaller budgets than schools along the Front Range and in mountain towns. And researchers say the four-d...

The Palisade peach might be one of Colorado's best-kept secrets.   Those grocery store peaches from California or Georgia are perfectly fine. But a good peach from Western Colorado is often juicier, sweeter and bigger than its out-of-state competition.   As peach season winds down for the year, the In The NoCo team wanted to find out: What makes the Palisade peach such a singular treat?   It turns...

The Colorado Tourism Office recently published a report outlining the economic benefits of travel in different regions around Colorado. And the numbers show that tourism is growing.   The report labeled one region the ‘Rockies Playground’ – that's an area that includes parts of Summit, Eagle, and Pitkin counties. And visitor spending in that region grew by about 50 percent between 2013 and 2023.  ...

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 those videos...