Colorado's budget hole just widened to $1.6 billion, and Medicaid is almost entirely to blame. Enrollment has dropped 31% since 2023, but costs are up 92%, and new federal caps on hospital fees will squeeze the state even harder starting in 2027.
— via Colorado Sun, Brian Eason
A steel Schwinn from 1940, an antique coaster brake that "spits out all its grease," and a 38-mile grind over Pearl Pass at 12,700 feet. Fifty years after Crested Butte's beer-fueled bike tinkerers first pedaled this route, their klunker tour still argues for the town's claim as mountain biking's birthplace.
— via Colorado Sun, Jason Blevins
Colorado Startup Week banned online attendance entirely this year, betting more than 10,000 in-person visits on the idea that founders need face time, not screens. One investor calls it the "Experience Economy" and argues Colorado could build its next big companies around it.
— via Colorado Sun, Tamara Chuang
Colorado just flipped a 2023 law requiring courtrooms to livestream every criminal case, handing judges a three-month window to shut cameras off instead. The chief justice cites hundreds of pirated YouTube clips, one channel with 432,000 subscribers, and a sexual assault trial posted online with the victim's name attached.
— via Colorado Sun, Justin George
Drew Litton's latest sports cartoon takes a wry look at Colorado's teams, drawn by the artist behind decades of "Win, Lose & Drew." A quick, sharp visual take on the state's sports scene from a longtime local voice.
— via Colorado Sun, Drew Litton
Denver's book clubs range from a taproom's "smutty" fiction nights to silent reading meetups where no one talks about the book at all. One citywide pick drew nearly 6,000 readers last year; here's where to find your crowd this fall.
— via Westword, Shannon Tucker
A stun gun, three arrests and a 7-2 vote: Colorado Springs council punted its Garden of the Gods data center decision to April after a hearing turned physical. Statewide polling shows why officials are stalling: 82% of Coloradans don't want a data center anywhere near them.
— via Colorado Sun, Michael Booth
Pueblo City Council voted 5-2 to deny the da Vinci museum's $885,000 sales tax request, with one member citing average employee pay of $34,000 as falling short of "primary jobs" criteria. The mayor calls it a wasted six-month process; the museum says it will seek grants instead.
— via Colorado Sun, Sue McMillin
A federal appeals court just cleared the way for Denver Water to finish raising Gross Dam by 130 feet and start filling the reservoir, tossing out a lower court's injunction. The $600 million project, 23 years in permitting, can now proceed despite objections that regulators ignored climate change's threat to Colorado River flows.
— via Colorado Sun, Michael Booth
The Supreme Court just blocked Trump's mail-in voting scheme, but don't celebrate too hard. He's already called on MAGA to "cheat like hell," and the real danger looms on January 3rd, 2027, when a compliant Mike Johnson, not Mike Pence, oversees the new Congress being sworn in.
— via Colorado Sun, Mike Littwin
Trump won Las Animas County three times even though registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans there. Local organizers say the party keeps writing off rural Colorado, chasing votes where they're easiest to get instead of walking the 20 miles between neighbors.
— via Colorado Sun, Caitlyn Kim
A century-old roadside tower on Colorado's Eastern Plains claims a view of six states from its top floor, a Ripley's Believe It or Not! boast nobody can quite verify. After the longtime owner's death left it shuttered for over a decade, four Denver artists have taken over its floors for a reopening this weekend.
— via Colorado Sun, Parker Yamasaki
Crested Butte just installed five new avalanche exploders that run on hydrogen instead of propane, a fuel swap that fixes a cold-weather flow problem and leaves only water behind. The Wyoming inventor behind the system built his first prototype from a scrapped lift tower and parts ordered on Amazon.
— via Colorado Sun, Jason Blevins
The Forest Service wants to flip a 2005 rule: off-road vehicles would be allowed on federal trails by default, not banned, unless protections are fought for case by case. The proposal could touch nearly 200 million acres, and it's already splitting Jeep clubs from conservationists bracing for court fights.
— via Colorado Sun, Michael Booth
Five state agencies must now cut pesticide use and favor pollinator-friendly controls under a new order from Gov. Jared Polis, a former beekeeper. Highways get expanded bee habitat, and local governments get state help pushing back on neonicotinoids, among the pesticides most harmful to bees.
— via Colorado Sun, Jennifer Brown
A black bear clamped onto Kathleen Baran's arm through her tent wall near South Fork, Colorado, and she punched it in the face to break free. She insists she had no food inside, disputes officials' account, and says the "puncture wound" description undersells how much it actually hurt.
— via Colorado Sun, Michael Booth
82% of Coloradans oppose a data center in their own city, and 55% now back an outright construction ban. Yet Weld County, Aurora and Colorado Springs are pushing ahead anyway, betting that water and noise conditions can buy off the backlash.
— via Colorado Sun, Michael Booth