Today is election day across the country including here in Colorado, where polls close at 7:00 this evening; the Montezuma-Cortez School Board also called an emergency meeting on Tuesday.

It’s election season in Colorado, and ballots for the 2021 election are due today - that’s today, Tuesday, November 2. KSJD’s Lucas Brady Woods has a run down on the questions and races being posed to voters right here in Southwest Colorado.

The Colorado Supreme Court has given final approval to a new map of the state’s congressional districts. And Colorado Governor Jared Polis is asking the state legislature for a grant to help the growing number of people experiencing homelessness.

A committee helping Colorado lawmakers decide how to spend four hundred million dollars of federal coronavirus relief money on affordable housing programs has released a draft of its recommendations; Students in the Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 School District will once again be allowed to participate in off-campus extracurricular activities after in-person classes and extracurriculars were cancelled earlier in the week.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser was in Fort Collins Wednesday, hosting a conversation about resilience in the face of crisis; The Dolores County Courthouse was put on lockdown on Thursday due to credible threats made against local elected officials, but a suspect has since been arrested and there is no longer an active threat; The Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 School District is providing at-home meals for students after district schools moved online this week due to spiking COVID-19 infections.

From the 1940s to the 1980s, hundreds of uranium mills opened across the Southwestern US. Historically, the mills provided working-class jobs for the region, especially for tribal communities. But uranium and other heavy metals can be toxic, and many mill workers suffered as a result. Now, the only operating uranium mill left in the US sits just a few dozen miles from Montezuma County, in Southeast Utah. On this week's Health & Prevention Report, KSJD's Lucas Brady Woods talks to Dr. Ed Razma, pulmonologist at Southwest Health System, to get a better idea of what uranium contamination can actually do to a person's health.

The Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 moved its schools online starting on Wednesday due to a spike in COVID-19 cases. And the Cortez City Council approved the City budget for the 2022 fiscal year this Tuesday night.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office says less than eleven percent of voters have returned their ballots with about a week left in this year’s election; The Attorney General’s Office in Utah is looking for help in suing the Biden administration over its decision to restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments.

A Denver judge has thrown out a lawsuit aiming to block one of Colorado’s three statewide ballot measures; After Monday, residents should return their ballots at a drop box or voting center to ensure they get counted, as opposed to mailing them.

The latest water data also show new rains could bring relief to SOME parts of the region. And the U-S Department of Labor announced this week it’s considering enforcing labor standards in Utah, itself.