Colorado is using a major share of its 2023 settlement with Juul Labs to fund youth mental health and wellness support services. The state is offering $20 million in grants for school and community partnerships that help decrease youth vaping and build social connections. Chalkbeat Colorado Reporter Melanie Asmar joined KUNC's Michael Lyle, Jr. to get more on the story.

Data shows just a small fraction of people in the music industry are women, especially in studio jobs like audio production. A new nonprofit aims to change that – and their newest venture is focused on Northern Colorado artists. On In The NoCo, we talk with local musician Briana Harris about the project, and why it matters.

About 60 of the 330 kids graduating from Newtown High School will also be carrying the emotional burden of knowing that many of their former classmates won't get to walk across the stage with them.

More Coloradans are filing for bankruptcy and new data show the pace of filings is increasing. Chris Wood, editor and publisher of BizWest, joined KUNC to discuss what the numbers mean — and what they don't.

Friday was the last day Gov. Polis could sign bills passed by the legislature this year. Polis completed the most annual bill-signings in more than a decade, but also faced significant backlash for his vetoes.

Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a state mandate that requires middle and high schools to provide free period products in girls' bathrooms by 2028. The Colorado Sun Reporter Tatiana Flowers joined KUNC's Michael Lyle, Jr. to get more on this story.

New federal climate forecasts show that summer temperatures could be hotter than ever across the United States, especially in the Mountain West region.

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and removed federal abortion protections, a legal chess game is taking place among states. Some of these effects are being seeing in Mountain West states.

Reliable, high-speed internet access has long been a challenge in rural parts of the West. Recently the Western Governor’s Association sent letters to Congress to encourage efforts to improve the situation.

Recidivism rates in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world. And in Wyoming, 33 percent of inmates are back in prison within the first year. But studies show that animal therapy can help reduce that by teaching things like responsibility, nonviolence and empathy. Wyoming has a special program – one of only five in the country – that teaches inmates how to tame wild horses.

A new report shows the rate of spills from oil and gas drilling is dropping in the Mountain West region’s top fossil fuel-producing states.

Newly released data from the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility shows that vast swaths of the grazing land administered by the Bureau of Land Management do not meet the agency’s land health standards. States in the West showed a wide range of compliance with those standards, with 82 percent of assessed rangeland in Montana meeting standards compared to just 10 percent in Nevada.