Part one of KUNC's Republican River series showed how dropping river flows and groundwater levels are impacting farmers and ranchers in northeastern Colorado. From a 1930s flood to extended drought today, the river has been managed by three states, sometimes cooperatively and sometimes combatively. To meet the terms of a decades-old compact, 25,000 irrigated acres of Colorado farmland must soon be shut down. Part two looks at part of the history that got the basin to this point.

The Colorado River gets a lot of attention, but it鈥檚 not the only multi-state river that starts in Colorado. And it鈥檚 definitely not the only one facing a water shortage. On the eastern side of the continental divide is the Republican River. It flows through the cropland of Yuma County and feeds into Kansas and Nebraska. In the first of a three-part series, KUNC explores the economic and environmental challenges the Republican River basin faces.

Smaller county populations are shrinking as bigger counties鈥� are growing. 2020 census data show that is as true in Colorado as it is nationally. Rural birth rates are dropping, death rates are rising and young people are moving away. Some leave behind multi-generational farming legacies and the land that comes with it. Others are coming back.

Today on Colorado Edition, we hear why some Coloradans are returning to the small farming communities they planned to leave behind. And, we learn about a new initiative to increase the hiring rates for formerly incarcerated individuals.

There's a lot of misinformation surrounding the November 2020 election. Here are the facts about important dates and logistics of voting in Colorado.

Fewer than 15,000 people live in the Eastern Plains counties of Yuma and Washington combined. Before the coronavirus pandemic, just four families, give or鈥�

In 2005, under pressure from the telecom company Qwest (now CenturyLink), Colorado legislators passed a bill prohibiting towns, cities and counties in the鈥�

There鈥檚 often a divide between Colorado鈥檚 rural lawmakers and those representing larger communities along the urban Front Range. That dynamic was apparent鈥�

People living in many parts of rural Colorado still don鈥檛 have access to high speed Internet. It鈥檚 a problem for schools and businesses, and in eastern鈥�

Colorado legislators may see a revival of the 51st state debate under the dome in 2014. The subject of national curiosity, the movement continues after鈥�