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"Hello. Are you registered to vote in Colorado?"

It's a refrain many in the state have grown to loathe this summer – heard outside their favorite grocery store or shopping mall as signature gatherers race toward an August 4 deadline to put four energy-related measures on the November ballot.

With two of those measures backed by environmentalists, and the other two by industry-supported groups, all of the energy talk is leading to confusion among potential voters.

Among the hassled Colorado shoppers is Veronica Canto, a registered independent from Denver. On one day, she was approached by signature gatherers three separate times while visiting the downtown 16th Street Mall.

"They come up and out of nowhere. You're like, uh, man," says Canto, who works in education and says she hasn't had a lot of time to research oil and gas development.

"The only reason I thought about fracking today, for like the two minutes after, maybe, they left, was because they had asked me," she says.

Gov. John Hickenlooper had hoped to pass legislation that would stave off some of the ballot measures, but those efforts stalled mid-July. And lately, many Coloradans who don't normally think about energy are being deluged with messages by groups with very different agendas.

Sometimes, voters don't know what the petition they're signing actually stands for.

"You have both sides of the fracking issue, and they're putting out their talking points and they're spending lots of money, trying to persuade the electorate to their views," explains Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University. "And all that conflicting information can really muddy the issue for voters."

A few blocks away on the 16th Street Mall, signature gatherer Jessica Cerise is at work for the pro-environment group Coloradans for Safe and Clean Energy.

Fired up, Patrick Klimper signs her petitions - backing a measure that would increase setbacks between wells and homes from 500 to 2,000 feet, and a second one aimed at giving communities that ban fracking more legal protections in court.

"All I know is that we need to get rid of fracking, that's the big thing. I just think it's not great for the environment," he says.

So far voters in five Colorado communities have placed restrictions on fracking. But this July, a district court judge struck down one of those measures.

Inside a Denver high-rise office building, signature gatherer Telbe Storbeck talks to workers at the commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley.

Storbeck explains his measure is supported by an industry-backed group called Protecting Colorado. The measure he's promoting would prevent communities that ban fracking from accepting state oil and gas tax dollars.

"So it takes away that – so it's this fairness issue," he explains.

Most workers gathered in this conference room see their jobs in real estate linked to the energy industry – including Managing Director Steward Mosko.

"We're as close to being activists in these types of things as possible. We have to be because it affects our livelihood," he says.

Mosko signed the first initiative, and a second one that would require future ballot issues to have fiscal impact statements.

But back at the 16th Street Mall, Canto says her interactions with signature gatherers were unhelpful.

"I would say that even reading the information that they had and having them speak to me – they're both just as confusing as each other," she says.

Canto says she hasn't made up her mind yet on the topic. She intends to weigh both sides of the issue, judging how it will affect her life. All she knows now is that she won't be turning to signature gatherers for help.

About 100 miles north of Flagstaff, Ariz., a long dirt road ends at a precipice. Thirty-five-thousand feet below, the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers meet at the floor of the Grand Canyon.

Developer R. Lamar Whitmer took one look at this stunning view and saw opportunity. He envisions a gondola ride, two hotels, a restaurant, a cultural center, an amphitheater and an elevated walkway along the river's edge.

Whitmer believes the project would keep Navajos from moving off the reservation to find jobs.

Code Switch

The Map Of Native American Tribes You've Never Seen Before

The violent intensity of the month-old war between Israel and Hamas raises the question of whether Israelis and Palestinians have any empathy for each other.

A generation ago, they used to routinely rub shoulders.

Just how tense things are between Israeli Jews and their Arab neighbors is something my colleague Daniel Estrin recently witnessed at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

In the waiting room, he found two Israeli women shouting at a Palestinian mother whose son was being treated for a beating he received from a Jewish mob.

The Two-Way

U.S. 'Appalled' By Deadly Airstrike Outside U.N. School In Gaza

Months after a girl took the company to task for its female toy figures, Lego has released the Research Institute, a play set created by a "real-life geophysicist, Ellen Kooijman," the company says.

The set will let kids take on the roles of paleontologist, astronomer and chemist, using three female figures. It might also satisfy some of the demands set forth earlier this year by Charlotte Benjamin, a 7-year-old who wrote a scathing letter to the company accusing its female characters of being boring.

"I love Legos," Charlotte wrote. But, she continued, there aren't enough girls — and the ones the company has made just "sit at home, go to the beach, and shop," while the boy characters "saved people, had jobs, even swam with sharks!"

The girl's letter attracted widespread attention — and within a week, Lego responded, saying "we have been very focused on including more female characters and themes that invite even more girls to build."

The new research kit, which includes a telescope, a T-Rex model and a lab set, was selected by Lego Ideas, a program that lets customers submit their own suggestions for projects. In what could be a total coincidence, the company said it was reviewing the set for possible production just two days after Charlotte's letter began going viral.

We spotted the new playset in a blog post over at io9 this weekend. You can read Kooijman's review of the product she helped design, in a blog post that ends with the line, "Cheers to science and good play!"

The new Research Institute set costs about $20 — but it's currently out of stock, a look at the Lego online store shows.

The set continues a streak of more female-centric releases from the toy company — a trend that led NPR's Neda Ullaby to ask last year, "Girls' Legos Are A Hit, But Why Do Girls Need Special Legos?"

Back in 2011, Lego began a push to tailor more of its products to girls, introducing the Lego Friends series of toys. But a backlash ensued, complete with a petition posted on Change.org that attracted tens of thousands of signatures. It asked the company "to stop distinguishing between toys for girls and those for boys," as NPR's Tell Me More reported.

It seems the complicated question of whether boys' and girls' Legos should be different — and how — persists. A look at the Lego online store's "Girls" category today finds that its recent releases include a horse stable, a play house, a shopping mall — and a "Model Catwalk."