In The NoCo

In the second Trump administration, we've seen deportations surge, along with some very visible operations by ICE agents — nationally and in Colorado.  

One argument — maybe an assumption — for deportations goes something like this: They will help American workers. Arresting and deporting workers who are in the country without legal status clears up space on the payroll for jobs that can go to American citizens instead.  

A new study by a University of Colorado economist calls that assumption into question. It looked at what happens to companies who lose workers without legal status due to immigration enforcement.  

The study found that not only did those companies lose the workers targeted by ICE, but they also had fewer jobs available for workers who are citizens. Because those companies affected by raids tended to contract, which actually means fewer job opportunities for US-born workers. 

Chloe East, the economist who led the study at CU Joined Erin O’Toole to talk about the research. 

The CU study has generated national interest — including pushback from the White House, which dismissed the research in a Washington Post story last week.  

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Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

When someone decides they need help with a drug or alcohol addiction, or to leave an unsafe living situation, one obstacle they often face is this: While I’m getting help, who will take care of my pets?  

For many people, the bond with a dog or cat is a lifeline. But most in-patient treatment programs or domestic violence shelters can’t allow animals – which can force people to have to choose between recovery or their furry family members.  

This didn't sit well with a former veterinary technician named Serena Saunders. In 2021, she started an unusual nonprofit from her home in Denver called PAWsitive Recovery. She offered foster care for a few pets of people recovering from mental health issues, addiction, or abuse.  

The program has grown so popular, and the need is so great, that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International is now working to expand it across the U.S. 

Serena spoke with Erin O'Toole earlier this year about what pushed her to create the PAWsitive Recovery program – and what it’s like to help people working to get their lives back. We’re listening back to their conversation today. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Unless you have nothing but cacti in your yard, your plants and garden are going to need extra help this summer.  
 
In addition to the heat, your plants will have to cope with less moisture than usual. While this week’s snowstorm brought a bit of relief, it won’t be enough to compensate for a very dry winter. So, our guest today offers tips to help – and explains the science behind keeping plants healthy in a dry year. 
 
Deryn Davidson is a sustainable landscape specialist with CSU Extension. She often answers questions from the public about native and drought-tolerant plants and xeriscaping. And she sees this moment as an opportunity to rethink how we choose to landscape in our arid climate.
 
Deryn spoke with Erin O’Toole in an onstage interview last month at In The NoCo’s first live episode taping.  

Planning a more drought-tolerant garden this year? Check out CSU Extension’s recommendations for perennials and other plants. 

And get expert advice on lawn care in this live conversation with Alison O’Connor, a turf grass specialist with CSU Extension. 

The promise of the weather phenomenon known as El Niño.  

Don’t let this week’s spring snowstorm fool you: Mountain snowpack across Colorado's high country is dismal, and much of the state is in a persistent drought. Which means less water in reservoirs and dry conditions that are ripe for wildfire this summer.  

But there’s one potential bright spot: Forecasters are predicting an especially strong El Niño in the months ahead. 

El Niño is a climate pattern that can reshape weather across the West – and potentially bring badly needed rainstorms.  But how soon will it get here? And are we pinning too many hopes on El Niño?  

To learn more, we reached out to Colorado’s State Climatologist and Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University Russ Schumacher. He told Erin O'Toole that an El Niño could bring some needed relief to the parched Front Range by early fall. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

These days, artificial intelligence does a lot for us. AI gives us personalized shopping recommendations. It writes emails for us. It helps us run businesses. 

And all those tasks require lightning-fast computing and huge amounts of data. Which is why tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are building massive data centers around the country. 

Some state lawmakers have proposed incentives for companies that want to build data centers in Colorado. They say the facilities will create jobs and tax revenue – and that Colorado is competing with other states for that economic boost. 

But skeptics point out that data centers use enormous amounts of electricity and water, which strains power grids and water supplies.   

 
To sort through the economic benefits and the environmental costs, a while back we reached out to Vijay Gadepally. He's a senior scientist at MIT who researches high performance computing and artificial intelligence. He’s also the chief technology officer of an AI cloud computing company that hopes to build a data center in Colorado.  

He talked last year with Erin O'Toole about how data centers work, and why some people think Colorado’s a good place to build more of them.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

An ancient collection of dice discovered by archaeologists might rewrite the history of how humans have understood mathematical concepts like probability.  

A new Colorado State University study examined the earliest known dice in human history.  Native American hunter-gatherers across the western U.S. first used the dice as early as 12,000 years ago.  

Robert Madden, the CSU researcher behind the finding, says these dice weren't just for entertainment. They were tools of commerce. They helped people barter and trade goods – and also helped shape early thinking about probability and other math concepts. 

Robert spoke with Erin O’Toole about the discovery and what it reveals about humanity’s long-running fascination with games of chance.  

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Last week, the In The NoCo team gathered some plant experts from CSU Extension and interviewed them about caring for the plants in our lives as we move from a warm, dry winter into what looks to be a hot, dry summer. It was part of In The NoCo’s first live episode, taped in front of an audience in Fort Collins. 

Today, we share one of the conversations from that night, about lawn and turf triage. Alison O’Connor, a horticulture specialist with CSU Extension, shared tips with Erin O’Toole about why you may want to skip aeration and fertilization this spring, and why it’s OK to let your yard look a little browner this year.  

We’ll share excerpts from these timely interviews in the coming weeks.   

If you’re considering planting new turf to withstand a warmer, drier Colorado climate, check out this list of recommended turf grasses from CSU Extension. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

It's one of the more unusual exhibits on display at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. 

Stroll past the colorful butterflies and other insects, and you'll find a 250-gallon saltwater tank. It houses part of a nationwide collaboration to save a badly damaged coral reef found off the coast of Florida. 

The rescue project began in 2020 after a coalition of zoos and aquariums teamed up to house and grow coral in response to a disease that spread across the underwater habitat off Florida. 

The Butterfly Pavilion stepped up to be part of the project. Six years in, we wanted to hear how a coral colony ended up in Colorado and what challenges its handlers overcame along the way. 

Sara Stevens is a marine biologist who manages the coral ark project for the Butterfly Pavilion. She spoke with Erin O’Toole about this unusual rescue mission. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

TikTok has become a go-to source for news, especially for younger audiences.  

But short-form videos on the social network don’t look or sound much like traditional journalism. Users see a stream of bite-size videos that favor strong opinions and controversy over nuance and depth. 

So, how does consuming political content on TikTok actually affect young people? 

Michaelangelo Landgrave is a political scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, and co-author of a new study that looked into that question. He and his fellow researchers found that TikTok may not change young voters' political views – but it does tend to make them feel more angry, sad or anxious about the world.  

They recently published their findings in the journal Political Studies Review.  

Michaelangelo spoke with Erin O’Toole about the study, which he said was partly inspired by seeing his students use TikTok and other social media far more than traditional news outlets. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

Democrats tend to position themselves as champions of workers: pro-union, pro-labor. But a bill that passed recently at the Colorado statehouse called some of that into question – and caused a split among Democratic state legislators.   

Earlier this month, lawmakers voted to scale back overtime rules for farm workers. The vote followed several days of intense debate before 11 Democrats ultimately sided with Republicans to pass the bill.  

Supporters argue that existing overtime laws in Colorado hurt farmers by forcing them to pay steep overtime wages for farm labor. Supporters also say the rules often have the effect of reducing how much work seasonal farm laborers can get.   

But opponents of the bill say this move weakens protections designed to prevent the exploitation of farm laborers.  

So why did 11 Democrats split from their caucus to support the bill?   

Rae Solomon covers the state capitol for the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. She spoke with Erin O’Toole about how the bill will affect people who work in Colorado's farming industry – and what the vote reveals about labor issues at the statehouse this year. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like 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'Toole
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.