All Things Considered

When economist James Heckman was studying the effects of job training programs on unskilled young workers, he found a mystery.

He was comparing a group of workers that had gone through a job training program with a group that hadn't. And he found that, at best, the training program did nothing to help the workers get better jobs. In some cases, the training program even made the workers worse off.

In June of 1966, just two years before he was shot and killed in Los Angeles, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy went to South Africa to speak out against apartheid. There, at the University of Cape Town, he gave a speech — known as the "Ripple of Hope" speech — that would be repeated over and over again and even etched onto his tombstone.

In that speech, Kennedy told a crowd of white, anti-apartheid students,

A new study by the National Wildlife Federation finds there have been alarming declines in mule deer and pronghorn antelope populations in Colorado and Wyoming over the past three decades. 

With boating season still in full swing, Colorado parks and wildlife officials say they’re worried about the spread of invasive species after finding rusty crayfish in the reservoir at Stagecoach State Park near Steamboat Springs.

Depending on who you talk to, folk singer and environmentalist John Denver was either revered or reviled in Colorado.  And a petition circulating to name a mountain peak near Aspen after him is reopening the debate about his legacy in the Rocky Mountain state.