How many people voted in Idaho on Election Day? How many people registered Nov. 5? Were there any issues at the voting booth?

Because it’s a presidential election year, there’s been a lot of focus on not just who gets elected but also on how our election system works at both a national and local level.

To answer the questions that have come up this election season, we asked Idaho’s Secretary of State, Phil McGrane, to join Idaho Matters for a breakdown.

Along the Boise River, between the Barber Dam and the Highway 21 bridge, sits 700 acres of land that supports more than 300 native species.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hoping to restore some of the land at Barber Pool for fish, wildlife, water quality and people, and Boise State University is sponsoring a project to restore several side channels of the river.

Greg Kaltenecker, director of the Intermountain Bird Observatory at Boise State, joined Idaho Matters to talk more about this effort.

If you start at Hawaii and travel 1,000 miles south, you’ll run into a cluster of tiny islands known as islets that make up the Palmyra Atoll.

There’s just around 600 acres of land above the sea, but below it there are 15,000 acres of some of the most diverse coral reef systems on the planet.

Palmyra was decimated during World War II by deforestation and rats , which ate pretty much everything — crabs, insects, seabird eggs, chicks ... even the trees.

For more than ten years, there’s been an effort to reclaim Palmyra, and it’s succeeding — restoring the landscape and the reef and providing a blueprint for other conservation efforts.

Matt Miller lives in Boise and is the editor of the Nature Conservancy’s online blog "Cool Green Science" and author of the book, "Fishing Through the Apocalypse." Three years ago, he got to go fishing on Palmyra Atoll as part of the Fishing for Science Research Program and he’s going to share his story at the Boise Public Library on Tuesday, Nov. 19. He joined Idaho Matters for a preview. 

The Colorado River is shrinking, and leaders from the states that use it are on the hook to come up with a new plan for managing its water. They have to submit that plan to the federal government by 2026, when the current rules for sharing water expire.

KUNC’s Alex Hager reports those state leaders do not think President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House will change their strategy.

Idaho voters broke records this election, hundreds of students in eastern Idaho were turned away at the polls, legislators can now expect to see raises and state officials are preparing to head back to the capitol.

It’s Friday, which means it's time for our Reporter Roundtable when Idaho Matters gets you up to date on all the news that made headlines this past week.

Our journalist panel today:

After Tuesday’s election results, Boises Mayor Lauren McLean sent out a statement about the privilege we have in Idaho to vote in a “safe, free, and secure” election.

She said it was a tough election but that Boiseans should "move forward with the knowledge that we have each other."

The mayor sat down with our Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about her statement and how she’s feeling after Tuesday.

In today's world, cameras have become commonplace. They’re used in our stores, on our roadways, even in our parks.

And while this kind of monitoring may unsettle some, others say that it's an important part of our public safety.

Retired detective Mike Miraglia will be talking more about the role of surveillance in our lives this Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. He joined Idaho Matters for a preview.

You may remember the small volcanic eruption in Iceland three years ago when lava began burping its way out of a fissure. It created a few new craters while hot molten rock flowed around the rugged landscape.

Those craters caught the eye of Ian T.W. Flynn, who noticed they looked a little like a crater on the surface of Mars. As he looked closer, he found they were almost a perfect match.

Flynn was working at the University of Idaho at the time, and he realized that the similarity of these spatter cones meant Mars at one time had volcanoes like those found on Earth. To find out what this means for the red planet, Flynn joined Idaho Matters to talk more.

Put a picture of the Grand Canyon next to one of Mars, and it’s easy to see some similarities. Red rock formations dominate both landscapes. But just how closely related are the places carved by the Colorado River and the surface of the red planet? KUNC’s Rae Solomon talked to scientists trying to figure that out.

Spooky season may be over, but that doesn't mean we're done with scary movies!

Morning Edition host George Prentice joined Idaho Matters to give us some recommendations on What to Watch. And we take a look at how the world of entertainment is coping with election results.