Colorado Matters

Some scientists believe a 6th mass extinction is underway. We hear from New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert who's the author of "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History." We also found a high school class in Jefferson County that's reading the book. Then, a state tax you didn't know you had to pay: The U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Colorado law that requires online retailers like Amazon to tell customers how much they owe in state sales tax. Plus, Colorado bands that had a good year and are poised to break out in 2017.

Colorado's governor says the state needs more money for transportation, so he's looking for options that would be acceptable to Republican lawmakers. One possibility is a sales tax; another is a device in your car that keeps track of your driving and charges you accordingly. Also, we ask the governor what he would say if he got some time with President-elect Donald Trump. Then, we hear from Boulder's Yonder Mountain String Band which is hard at work on a new album. And, it's time to curl up with a good book or give one as a gift. Two Colorado booksellers offer their holiday picks.

A Boulder judge’s decision to sentence a convicted sex offender to probation highlights a controversy over a sentencing law. A Fort Collins journalist and a firefighter rescued hundreds of refugees from rickety boats and rafts during a two-week trip to the Mediterranean Sea. The University of Colorado Boulder library has been tapped to preserve government documents dating from the Sand Creek Massacre to 9/11.. CPR Classical offers its picks for best Colorado recordings of 2016.

Very few people see the Grand Canyon like Colorado's Pete McBride did recently when he walked its entire length. McBride and his hiking partner, Kevin Fedarko, are nominated for National Geographic Adventurers of the Year. Then, as a child, Aurora native Geeta Malik loved movies and TV shows, but never saw anyone on screen who looked like her. She's now a screenwriter and director in Los Angeles and won a prestigious fellowship. Plus, how one man's backyard snow measurements, charted over 40 years, have helped scientists understand the effects of climate change. And, celebrating cultures in "Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum."

The voters have spoken, but the Electoral College hasn't yet. Electors choose the next president on Monday and some of them have a plan to stop Donald Trump. However, a court in Colorado just dealt their movement a blow. Then, what a Colorado family learned when they quit the city and bought a farm near Greeley. The property came with water, but it didn't mean they could always use it. Tershia D'Elgin's new book about her father is called "The Man Who Thought He Owned Water."

Hundreds of scientists, including roughly 70 from Colorado, have signed a letter to President-Elect Donald Trump asking him to "...take immediate and sustained action against human-caused climate change." We ask a CU-Boulder ecologist -- is it a quixotic move? Then sisters Jessica and Robin McIntyre are dealing with the prospect of early-onset Alzheimer's. One sister has inherited the genetic mutation, the other has not. Plus, how Colorado jump started craft brewing in Italy.

There's growing concern about a lack of diversity in metro Denver theater. A recent study surveyed the racial and gender makeup of playwrights, directors and managers at theaters in the Rocky Mountain Region. Then, before Bob Dylan became world famous he stumbled into Denver and didn't make a positive first impression. Also, a local photographer and author follows in the photographic footprints of his great-great-grandfather. And, the group "Magic Music" is considered to be Colorado's first Jam Band.

The water in the Fraser River, which winds through Grand County, is in demand. Native species and recreationists want water to stay in the river, but Denver Water plans to bring more of it to its customers on the Front Range. CPR's Nathaniel Minor found environmentalists disagree on what to do. Then, we take stock of how Coloradans voted in 2016. And, German, Japanese and Italian prisoners of war were kept in camps throughout the US -- including in Colorado -- during World War II. At one, Camp Hale near Leadville, an American soldier who sympathized with the Nazis tried to help two German soldiers escape.

At Colorado's largest online school, GOAL Academy, only a fraction of students logged on consistently, according to an investigation by Education Week. Now the school's founder is involved with the opening of two new online schools. Then, a father of modern radical Islamism lived in Northern Colorado briefly in 1949. He later went home to Egypt and authored writings popular with today's jihadists. Also, Colorado State University-Pueblo recently launched the country's first center for cannabis research. And on the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, we hear from a survivor who was on the USS Arizona that day.

Islam cannot fulfill its role, except by taking concrete role in a society, rather in a nation.

Later... what's billed as the country's FIRST cannabis research center... opens at Colorado State University - Pueblo. Then... it's the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. We hear from a Colorado survivor --nearly burned alive in the depths of the sinking USS Arizona...

"We were no escape there from down the hatch, and down the ladder, since everything was so hot, and I tried to close the hatch and got burned pretty bad."

The small house in north Denver near Interstate 70 where Candi CdeBaca lives has been in her family for generations. She thinks a plan to expand the interstate is a civil rights violation. She provides her thoughts and we hear the state's viewpoint. Then, is there an ocean on Pluto? And, in 1966 two nuns founded one of the first schools in Colorado for kids with learning differences.