This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.

The state has issued what it says is one of its largest campaign finance fines ever imposed on Republican gubernatorial candidate Victor Marx for accepting campaign contributions above the state’s legal limit.

“The scale of the violations are without precedent,” said administrative hearing officer Macon Cowles.

His initial decision recommends a nearly $58,000 fine against the Marx campaign, which is higher than the state requested.

The Marx campaign has admitted to "unintentionally" accepting campaign donations above the state’s legal limit. Colorado’s constitution bars candidates for governor from accepting cumulative contributions from any one individual above $1,450.

Marx's campaign blamed the excess contributions on inexperience. The campaign’s attorney Chris Murray said during the hearing that the state’s requested penalty was “out of whack with the nature of the conduct.”

Murray did not respond to an immediate request for comment from CPR on whether the campaign planned to appeal the initial decision.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office said the campaign accepted 203 contributions well over legal limits to the tune of about $83,000. State rules require the original contributions to be refunded, or if that’s not possible, donated to a charity.

“The person charged with compliance did not know what he was doing, and no one above him made sure that he did,” Cowles wrote in his decision. “Why an experienced professional was not hired when the Marx Campaign carried a balance of ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ in its bank account.”

The Marx campaign asked for a reduced fine, noting that the campaign tried to return the funds and also reported all the overages to the state.

“Respondents get credit for two things. Every prohibited contribution was disclosed in the campaign’s own reports; there is no allegation of hidden money,” Cowles said. But he added that it wasn’t enough to reduce the fine, especially when the campaign kept the additional money ahead of the competitive June primary election.

Marx defeated state lawmakers Barbara Kirkmeyer and Scott Bottoms to make the November ballot.

Cowles said the volume and duration of the violations, their continuation after the state notified the campaign of issues, depositing excessive checks, and the campaign’s disregard of pop up warnings on the state’s campaign finance site led to the large fine.

He also said that his decision was impacted by the, “months-long retention of prohibited funds, the failure to document a single reattribution as the rule requires, and the mass of mistaken and amended reports are each aggravating factors. Together they far outweigh Respondents’ disclosure."

This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.

During its last week in session, U.S. senators tried to pass a flurry of bills with little success.

Republican leaders teed up procedural votes to advance two bills that Democrats signaled they would not support, including Colorado Republican Rep. Gabe Evans’ Ratepayer Protection Act.

Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper voted against advancing both measures.

The bill, which passed the House 417-3, would require states to consider having data center owners pay for any added infrastructure or electricity costs and not have it borne by ratepayers.

Democrats slammed the bill. “The bill is a fraud. I can sum up the shortcomings of the Republican data center bill with one word: optional. The bill is optional,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said on the floor.

“Basically this bill’s a piece of s***,” quipped Hickenlooper, saying the bill is not enforceable, but merely a suggestion. “But we’ve got a couple of bills that are already out there that are much stronger.”

Evans, however, criticized the move as political.

“Rather than joining the House in putting Americans first, Senate Democrats choose to prioritize political games over a commonsense solution that protects ratepayers across the country,” he said in a statement. “The House proved that this wasn’t a partisan issue. Senate Democrats decided to make it one.”

Bennet said he’d be the first in line to vote yes on a bill that lowers costs for ratepayers and makes data centers pay their own way. “This bill fails that test and does nothing to undo the tens of billions in tax breaks for data centers that Gabe Evans and other Republicans supported,” he said in a statement.

Bennet was referencing tax incentives (100% bonus depreciation, Opportunity Zone Enhancements) in the One Big Beautiful Bill, otherwise known as the Working Families Tax Cut, that data center operators have been utilizing.

The bill did not have any hearings in the Senate before being brought to the floor and was led by Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, who like Evans, is facing a tough reelection fight.

The other bill that failed to advance via recorded vote is one designed to stop stock trading by members of Congress. Senate Democrats blocked the Stop Insider Trading Act, which the House passed by a narrow margin in July, from clearing a procedural vote. House Republicans attached an unrelated poison pill measure that would require showing ID to vote.

Still, these votes will provide messaging opportunities for Republicans on voter ID and affordability, casting Democrats as the “Party of No".

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic move to bring to the floor a resolution that would require the State Department to report on violence against U.S. citizens in the West Bank by Israel. The Democrat-led resolution was sponsored by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

Senators from both sides of the aisle blocked attempts to pass bills via unanimous consent, a process that can get a bill passed quickly but only requires one senator to object and block it. Bills ranging from the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill to hold social media companies and digital platforms accountable for harm to minors, to attempts to stop President Trump from unilaterally cutting congressionally approved funding to setting up a National Fraud Enforcement Division within the Department of Justice all faced objections to quick passage.

But some bills did pass with unanimous support from all Senators, including the Crystal Reservoir Conveyance Act. The bill led by Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd in the House and Sen. Michael Bennet in the Senate would convey property and water rights around Crystal Reservoir to the city of Ouray. That bill will now head back to the House.

A bipartisan duo of Western senators also got a bill to ensure that states aren’t penalized under the Clean Air Act (CAA) for conducting prescribed burns. The House passed a different bill on how prescribed fires would be treated under CAA from Evans called the FIRE Act.

Senate poised to advance permitting reform after the election

Senators did get one major bipartisan policy win before adjourning. The leaders of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources committee released text of a permitting reform bill, titled the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act.

“This is a major step towards making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects, certainly without giving up any of the strong protections for our environment,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, the Republican chair of the Environment and Public Works committee.

It contains priorities for Republicans, such as reforms to how environmental reviews are conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. And it contains Democratic priorities like making it easier to place major interstate power lines and getting the White House to lift its block on some solar and wind projects.

It also has a provision that would mandate that data center developers pay the costs for extra generation and infrastructure and not ratepayers.

“The wins from this, I think, could be very, very big ones,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, ranking member of EPW. “This should lower electricity costs measurably for Americans. This should increase clean power significantly for Americans. This should significantly add construction and jobs across the country, and this should contribute to a lift in America’s overall economy.”

The Senate is expected to act on the bill when the chamber returns after the November election. Hickenlooper, who has long pushed for permitting reform, said he was cautiously optimistic.

Capito, Whitehouse and Republican Chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Ranking Member Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said they expect their colleagues to review the text and offer amendments. They added they were also in touch with key counterparts in the House.

The quartet did not expect the midterm elections to impact the outlook for the bill.

“We have negotiated this thing in a way that really is good for both sides,” Lee told reporters.

Capito said the goal is to have this bill be the first vote when the Senate returns on Nov. 9.

Snowmaking machines are firing up after a storm system crossed the state Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, giving the High Country a bit more moisture to work with and dropping snow above 11,000 feet.

Friday, Oct. 9, 2026

Arapahoe Basin, Keystone

Friday, Oct. 30, 2026

Winter Park Resort, Winter Park

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026

Keystone Resort, Keystone

Friday, Nov. 6, 2026

Breckenridge Ski Resort, Breckenridge

Copper Mountain Resort, Frisco 

Loveland Ski Area, Dillon

Friday, Nov. 13, 2026

Eldora Mountain Resort, Nederland

Vail Resort, Vail

Saturday, Nov. 21, 2026

Steamboat Ski Resort, Steamboat Springs

Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2026

Aspen Mountain, Aspen

Beaver Creek Resort, Beaver Creek 

Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Crested Butte 

Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026

Aspen Snowmass, Snowmass Village

Telluride Resort, Telluride

Friday, Nov. 27, 2026

Granby Ranch, Granby

Friday, Dec. 4, 2026

Monarch Mountain, Salida

Powderhorn Mountain Resort, Mesa

Saturday, Dec. 5, 2026

Howelsen Hill Ski Area, Steamboat Springs

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2026

Copper Mountain Resort, Frisco

Saturday, Dec. 12, 2026

Echo Mountain, Idaho Springs

Sunlight Mountain Resort, Glenwood Springs

Monday, Dec. 14, 2026

Buttermilk Ski Resort, Aspen

Aspen Highlands, Aspen

Thursday, Dec. 31, 2026

Silverton Mountain, Silverton

One thing to remember, the weather can change a resort's plans. Last year, multiple ski destinations pushed back their start date as a strong drought slowed the winter season.

The white Cessna banked right to reveal dense forests of Douglas fir, pines and quaking aspen in varying shades of green bathed in the early morning light. Yet secreted under the layered bark of some pines is a pest whose upcoming flight places Colorado's highest concentration of real estate and infrastructure values at risk.

Damage wrought by the mountain pine beetle is already evident in thousands of dead and dying red-needled ponderosa pine knitted throughout these stands. Their gray skeletons line highways, heighten already elevated wildfire risk and threaten watersheds that millions of residents rely on for clean drinking water.

On some mountain properties about 40 miles west of Denver most every pine is dead. Many residents cannot afford to remove the infested century-old ponderosas. One quote ran $15,000 an acre. The growing price tag to mitigate the damage and protect high-value trees from the next onslaught presents a quandary for local, state and federal agencies.

An historic drought weakened ponderosa pines, allowing the beetles to chew their way through hillsides of trees bordering mountain towns at the gateway to popular ski areas and hiking trails. Impacted acreage increased 148% to 5,544 acres in 2025, when compared with 2024, alarming foresters, communities and lawmakers.

This year, the breadth of the insect's footprint and the intensity of its attack is expected to expand exponentially. At stake: More than 600,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest woven throughout areas where about 4 million people live in nine counties on both sides of the Rocky Mountains.

"We anticipate there to be anywhere from twice as much, to three times as much, activity as we saw last year," Dan West, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service, told Capital & Main in June.

"That is startling."

A U.S. Forest Service map of the endemic pest's potential to spread through 2030 is equally startling: Dark red blotches indicating infestation intensity cover forests at every latitude from Boulder, north of Denver, to the Black Forest, where high-end suburbs hug Colorado Springs, to areas behind Pikes Peak to the south. The counties most at risk contain thousands of acres of ponderosas. Some of the pines sit just outside the state's Capitol.

To minimize the spread, foresters are prioritizing early detection and response. It's no easy task. Forests harbor twice as many trees as those better able to resist a beetle outbreak. A century of fire suppression and more intense and extreme weather caused by heat-trapping emissions from expanding oil and gas extraction in Colorado and elsewhere contributed to the dire outlook.

Across the country, climate change is ravaging ecosystems, bringing more robust storms, rising sea levels, record-setting conflagrations and fatal heat waves. In Colorado, the staggering die-off of the majestic pines is difficult to stomach.

To track the outbreak, West regularly hikes to infected stands to inspect last year's broods. What he found this spring surprised him: Females who burrowed into large green trees in 2025 laid double the number of larvae the scientist observed in previous infestations. The lack of sub-zero temperatures this winter -- which marked the state's lowest snowpack on record -- ensured their survival.

Peeling the bark off ponderosa pines with his hatchet, West counted between 60 and 120 larvae coming off each female pine beetle. The insects tunnel their way into the trunk, impeding the tree's water and nutrient supply and killing it within a year. During wetter years, trees are healthier and can more easily repel the beetle with sap. This year, many are defenseless against the rice-sized insect's relentless assault.

Its small stature belies its ability to wreak havoc. The last major outbreak, which spanned 1996 to 2013 and decimated about 82%, or about 3.4 million acres, of the state's pine forests, is fresh in Coloradans' minds. In some ski communities, such as Winter Park, entire mountainsides of trees perished, dramatically altering the landscape.

Dead lodgepole pines intensified the two largest wildfires in state history in 2020. The Cameron Peak Fire swept through 326 square miles of forest in Larimer and Jackson counties and Rocky Mountain National Park, along with 492 structures, while the East Troublesome Fire burned through Grand County and Rocky Mountain National Park, reducing to ash over 300 square miles and 500 structures and killing two.

The insects started to migrate from higher elevations to coniferous forests, but a historic 2013 rainstorm stopped their advance. Now, following the state's warmest climatological spring on record, the beetles are poised again to expand their territory.

Their advance threatens Denver Water's 2.5 million acre watershed -- at least a quarter of which is covered with ponderosa pine. The utility has spent $96 million since 2010 to restore forests in this region, including spraying some pines in hopes of protecting them from infestation, said Madelene McDonald, watershed planning manager.

"The threat of high intensity wildfire is not theoretical -- it's one we've experienced," she added. "High intensity fires lead to brown, sediment-laden water flowing into treatment plants, which is really expensive to treat."

McDonald is among 39 people who sit on a Ponderosa Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force created by an executive order Democratic Gov. Jared Polis issued in December after West, the entomologist, and the state forester warned him to get ahead of the outbreak.

The governor stressed an urgent need to educate residents, protect high value pines and prioritize the removal of diseased trees that harbor broods. This work must be planned around the insect's annual flight to find new trees between June and September. The task force is charged with quickly mobilizing resources to mitigate the infestation, which has overwhelmed residents and municipalities alike.

"It's hard emotionally as somebody who cares deeply about our forests -- in areas of our district there's not a tree left," said Jess Moore, wildland project coordinator for Evergreen Fire & Rescue. "We encourage homeowners to reach out to contractors, arborists and foresters so they can get the best support they can to protect their current trees." The "sheer volume of impact" has prompted some residents to take such steps, and to thin their trees, she said.

It's expensive and time consuming. Just ask retired environmental science professor Harv Teitelbaum, who lives in Evergreen on a wooded property that's long, narrow and hilly. He teaches people how to climb trees, including pines. Yet the infestation required him, with the help of volunteers and a tree care service, to remove 45 ponderosas from his land. The bill: $10,000. Another 40 or so are dead or dying.

"This has been a lot more devastating -- in the past, you would have isolated trees here or there that were killed," he said. "This is more widespread."

A few years ago, Teitelbaum lost his favorite training tree, a ponderosa nicknamed "Gramps," to the beetle. This year, to protect his remaining pines he stapled pheromone packets to their trunks and injected some with a chemical treatment. He hopes it works so he can continue to train new generations to climb on his property.

"Up there, you see a country you haven't seen," he said. "The tree is a living, breathing thing. You feel it swaying, and you're breathing oxygen it's giving off from its crown."

About a dozen miles south near Conifer, Brad Huddleston used similar methods to protect pines on his property. The arborist founded Splintered Forest, a fire mitigation company, 22 years ago after losing his family home in a wildfire. He advises clients to inject large pines with insecticide before the tree's green needles start to change color. The every-other-year treatment runs up to $300 per tree. Pheromone packets and spraying, which cost up to $25 a tree, are other alternatives. The pheromone treatments release a scent that tricks beetles into thinking a tree is full, causing them to go elsewhere.

"A lot of homeowners take solace when I tell them that despite them seeing major beetle destruction along our two main corridors, their properties are not destined for the same thing," he said. "We can turn the tide on individual trees."

Huddleston's company has been busy removing hazardous diseased trees near homes and access roads and thinning overgrown stands. The downed wood must be covered to smother the beetle, or hauled away to sites designed to handle infested timber, known as "hot logs."

Such work increased this year. Jefferson County, home to both Evergreen and Conifer, collected 10.3 million pounds of slash, or woody debris, in 2025, up from 9.5 million in 2024. The response underscored the stakes -- the region's wildfire risk is 98% higher than that of counties nationwide, said Jefferson County Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper, who is the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor.

"I went to a recent breakfast at the Conifer Chamber of Commerce, and the scale of the crisis and how its impacting constituents became crystal clear," she recounted. "I asked who was dealing with mountain pine beetles on their land and every hand went up."

Little infrastructure exists statewide to accommodate the amount of wood now coming off properties. The dry winter prompted counties statewide to ban slash burning, which some rural landowners rely on in part to dispose of beetle-kill. This practice allows property owners to burn small piles of wood on their property, in some cases with a permit and during certain weather conditions.

In smaller counties, a reduced tax base provides officials no wiggle room for mitigation funding. About 24 miles northwest of Conifer in Idaho Springs, lawmakers are seeking funds to mitigate the damage and to take protective measures. Of major concern is the stability of the Clear Creek Watershed, which 450,000 people rely on for drinking water.

"We are kind of raising the flag -- we just need more work, faster," said George Marlin, a Clear Creek County commissioner. "It's complicated to accomplish mitigation on interlocking federal, state and private land -- we need all of these entities to have adequate funding to get it done."

The challenge Marlin and his colleagues face is evident from the white Cessna's window. Red and brown ponderosas crown hillsides ringing the former mining town. The mosaic prompted pilot Evan Anderman, a volunteer with LightHawk, a nonprofit that works with pilots who donate their time and aircraft for conservation causes, to bank his craft yet again.

What's most worrisome is not yet visible from his aircraft. For every red tree, there are between 2 1/2 and 10 green infested trees. In the early stages of infestation, these trees are only identifiable by sawdust at their base, sap on the trunk, or tunnels under the bark. West urges homeowners to prioritize these trees for removal.

Residents in Jefferson and Clear Creek counties are getting the message. People in both areas approved tax increases in 2025 for fire protection services. Identifying additional funding for wildfire mitigation is among action items Polis' task force included in a June 30 work plan. The document identified numerous gaps in the current outbreak response.

These included "fragmented public communication," inconsistent coordination across governmental boundaries, a constrained workforce and "uneven community and landowner engagement." It also contained a stark warning: "The outbreak will persist for a decade or more, trees will die at a visible scale, and fire risk will remain elevated."

Keith McMillan knows how beetle-kill influences fire risk. The former fire captain worked 21 years with Breckenridge's Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District. The ski town lost 90% of its lodgepole pines between 1999 and 2013. Fire risk is highest when red and brown needles remain on the pines -- they can help speed a blaze through the canopy, he said.

McMillan, who today is the only fire mitigation specialist for a homeowner's association in the West, is using his experience to encourage residents in Ken-Caryl Ranch, a 4,400-home Denver subdivision, to protect their ponderosa pines.

The retired firefighter advises homeowners in what he calls an "urban forest" to spray or use pheromone packets on trees, or to remove them if they are too close to homes. It's emotional work. People are attached to trees they planted when they moved in, or to celebrate a child's birthday. And he doesn't have enforcement power.

"We are trying to stay ahead of it -- my No. 1 challenge is public perception" of public safety risks that accompany large tree die-offs, McMillan said. "We are just on the edge of the mountain pine beetle epidemic making it to our land."

This story was made available via the Colorado News Collaborative. Learn more at:

This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.

Getting health care is about to get a lot harder for thousands of legal immigrants in Colorado, who saw their Medicaid coverage revoked Thursday.

The changes come as Coloradans who rely on food assistance are waiting to see if Congress passes the Farm Bill within the next couple of months, or watch a government shutdown disrupt funding.

A group of refugees and asylees, people officially granted asylum after arriving in or seeking entry into the country, had their federal Medicaid eligibility withdrawn as of Oct. 1.

“I'm hearing a lot of fear. I feel like there has been a lot of confusion. There's been no comprehensive communication to the communities that are being impacted by these changes,” said Nicole Cervera Loy, senior policy manager at COLOR, which is the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights.

The group has been trying to spread the word that the federal government is cutting off many immigrants from the state’s Medicaid program, known as Health First Colorado.

Members contacted this summer

The agency that runs that program, the Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing, said it begancontacting potentially impacted members in May and June to let them know they may lose coverage due to the federal changes, via texts and emails.

“I'm hoping that they are not surprised. We've been very intentional about communicating that these changes were coming,” said Marivel Klueckman, the Eligibility Division Director with Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy & Financing.

The coverage change will have an impact, both on families that rely on the coverage and hospitals, clinics and health centers that provide them care.

“I think there'll be some uncompensated care,” she said, noting some people losing their Medicaid benefits may absorb some additional financial expenses trying to pay out of pocket. “I'm concerned that they'll just decide to not get any care because they just maybe can't.”

SNAP changes roll out too

Another key federal program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is in the middle of a major change to its funding model — as federal support is reduced, states like Colorado will have to carry a bigger chunk of the bill.

Still, people should continue to seek help, said state officials.

“My big point is I just don't want people to stop applying or stop engaging with the program,” said Abby McClelland, Director of Food and Energy Assistance for the Colorado Department of Human Services.

The first hurdle ahead is the passage by lawmakers in Congress of the Farm Bill, which expired Wednesday.

“The Colorado SNAP program is stable and reliable right now and fully funded with benefits through Dec. 11tas part of the continuing resolution,” said McClelland. “We don't know if we'll see a Farm Bill pass or there could be a Farm Bill extension as there has been in previous years. There's a lot of mechanisms by which benefits’ funding could be extended, and we're just hopeful that we will avoid a shutdown like happened last year.”

Folks on the food assistance frontlines say these are anxious days.

The head of the Food Bank of the Rockies, for example, said it provides enough food every day for 200,000 meals. SNAP provides nine times that volume.

“If lawmakers don't do anything by Dec. 11, there could be a disruption in SNAP benefits. And that's something sometimes people think, well, food banks and food pantries can fill that gap that we can fill in the need,” said Erin Pulling, CEO of Food Bank of the Rockies. “We are seeing more of a need than we can meet.”

The federal changes come as Colorado has faced its own budget crisis, which has spurred deep cuts to Medicaid, with more expected down the road.

Who among Colorado's immigrant population do the Medicaid changes impact?

Refugees, asylum seekers, people granted humanitarian parole, people granted withholding of removal, survivors of trafficking or domestic violence, and others who previously qualified for full Medicaid coverage are the ones affected, according to the state’s Medicaid agency.

Changes do not affect U.S. citizens or nationals, lawful permanent residents who meet applicable requirements, certain Cuban or Haitian entrants, children younger than 19, and people who are pregnant or were pregnant within the past 12 months may continue to qualify, according to a state Medicaid spokesperson.

How many people exactly are losing Medicaid coverage, and why?

Around 5,900 people are losing that coverage, according to state estimates. All are legal immigrants.

These changes are coming due HR1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans and President Donald Trump passed last year. That law made a lot of changes to the nation’s safety net programs. One of those is that people with certain types of legal immigration status can no longer get on Medicaid.

COLOR’s Nicole Cervera Loy said this change, along with all the other ways the federal government is targeting immigrants right now, is having a chilling effect, even for people who weren’t on the program.

“They are seeing these bills pass over and over again, and the discussion always ends up in who is deserving of care. So we are already seeing many members of our community feel like they are not. They are no longer deserving of care,” Loy said.

“So they are already not going to the doctor,” she said. “They are already not wanting to sign up for the coverage programs that we have on the state side.

Many immigrants and their providers have told CPR there’s an increasing fear about getting medical care right now, which can have real consequences for people’s health.

What will this mean for Coloradans losing Medicaid coverage?

It probably means a lot less preventative care, for one thing. When people stop getting preventative care, particularly folks who are low-income, the consequences can be much bigger than someone’s individual health.

“They may not get the care that they need,” said Klueckman. “It may end up escalating to a point of emergency because they're not getting that proactive care ahead of time. “

If more people are waiting until they have to go to the emergency room, and then showing up without any way to pay, those costs eventually get passed along to the whole health care system.

What coverage options are there for members who lost, or may lose Medicaid coverage? 

People who receive a letter saying they will no longer qualify for benefits from the state’s Medicaid program, Health First Colorado, should also explore other health coverage options depending on their situation, including:

• Emergency Medicaid Services and Reproductive Health Care Services
• Hospital Discounted Care
• Community Health Centers
• OmniSalud
• Cover All Coloradans
• Connect for Health Colorado

What changes are coming to SNAP, the federal food assistance program?

Although eligibility changes for SNAP actually started rolling out earlier this summer.

We’ve already seen around 50,000 Coloradans lose their SNAP benefits because of changes to work and immigration status requirements.

The changes this week are on the administrative side. Now Colorado is responsible for 75% of what it costs to run the SNAP program here.

The state could end up on the hook for up to 15% of the actual cost of the benefits because of Colorado’s error rate.

That would be a big expense, coming at a time when the state already doesn’t have enough money for its current expenses.

Could Colorado cover federal cuts to SNAP?

State officials say they’re working to bring that error rate down, but there’s also concerns about funding for the SNAP program as a whole.

As of right now, Congress has only funded SNAP through December 11th, and we could see another interruption to benefits like Colorado saw last year. That has a compounding effects on people’s lives, according to advocates.

“What we're seeing across Colorado and Wyoming is really unfathomable. There's a lot of fear. There's a lot of loss of benefits,” said Erin Pulling, CEO of the Food Bank of the Rockies. “A lot of people are afraid to even apply for or receive SNAP benefits, and we are seeing neighbors in desperate situations, people having to make choices that none of us should have to make, like do they fill a prescription or pay their rent or buy groceries?

This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.

Before being appointed in 2017 by then Gov. John Hickenlooper, she was a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, where she directed the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law.

In January 2026, Hart stepped down from the bench after a nearly two month leave of absence. In her resignation letter, she cited health concerns stemming from two concussions she experienced in 2025.

While she was a justice, she taught at the University of Colorado Law School and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Hart told CPR in December that she hoped to stay involved with teaching in some way.

In reflecting on her time on the bench, she said she was proud of the court’s reforms in making legal issues more accessible like having forms with “plain language” and the state’s self-represented litigant coordinators.

Hart was also a supporter of the state’s first licensed legal paraprofessional program.

“Her colleagues will remember her wisdom, her warmth, and her devotion to the work of the Court. Justice Hart’s legacy will leave a lasting impact on those who knew her,” the judicial branch wrote announcing the news.

Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that on the day of her memorial, flags would fly at half staff. A date for that memorial has not been released.

“Justice Hart was a leader in family law and access to justice, and I am grateful for her service to the state and her judicial commitment to fairness and equality,” he said in a statement.

A cause of death has not been released.

The University of Northern Colorado will celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by honoring six women for their contributions to the region.

“Return of the Corn Mothers” is a continuation of the Colorado- and New Mexico-based Corn Mothers Project. The 25-year-old endeavor documents the impacts of Hispanic and multicultural women through advocacy, arts, cultural preservation, and working-class industries like railroads and mining.

The touring exhibition will unveil and add the new Corn Mothers’ portraits and biographies at an induction ceremony on Friday, Oct. 2.

One honoree, education advocate Juanita Martinez Rocha, is a member of Hispanic Women of Weld County and serves on the board for Greeley Dream Team, a nonprofit that works with the local school district.

Martinez Rocha told KUNC that becoming a Corn Mother was a direct result of her own mother’s support and sacrifices.

“She said, ‘Don't ever let anybody call you a dirty Mexican. Be proud of who you are and where you come from,’” Martinez Rocha told KUNC. “We were poor, but nobody ever knew. And yet with whatever little she had, she shared with everybody. She just had this heart of gold.”

The reverence and gratitude toward mothers was a common theme among the other Corn Mothers we spoke with as well.

Emma Peña McCleave is founder and coordinator of the Mexican American History Project Greeley and sits on the board for Greeley Museums. She says her mother inspired her to persevere.

“She brought up nine kids in a small farming community. She was just the rock. And when I got old enough to know what strength is, it was my mother,” said Peña McCleave. “We had a garden, and all of us got involved in that. It was fun and it was fruitful, and my mother was behind that.”

Poet and author Elena Guerrero Townsend is a member of the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council. She was also the first woman trackman for the Santa Fe Railway in 1977.

“My mother was extremely proud of me. And then I became a clerk, and then a conductor, and a locomotive engineer,” Guerrero recalled. “That's when she became the proudest: when I could drive a train. And to tell her friends and boast about it and pound her chest - it was fun for her.”

Nomie Ketterling was named the United Way of Weld County's 2023 Humanitarian of the Year for her philanthropic and volunteer work to support Weld County residents. She’s grateful her mother challenged her to reach for the stars.

“I grew up in a small town. Everyone knew if I wasn't excelling, if you will,” Ketterling said with a laugh. “I think, ‘if we could just be the person that you raised and be the goodness in the world…’ All of us wanted to make our mothers proud.”

The induction ceremony starts at 5 p.m. on the first floor of the Campus Commons building.

A citizens group wants Weld County voters to have the final say on county commissioners' recent approval of a large data center project near Windsor -- and to require voter approval of all such developments in the future.

Two petitions backed by the group Protect Our Water and Energy Resources, or POWER, were approved for circulation Monday by the Weld County Clerk and Recorder's office, the group said.

One would force a referendum on the Weld County Board of Commissioners' Sept. 9 approval of New York-based Global AI's plans to construct a new 41-acre data center, which could become the largest such facility operating in Colorado, on the former Carestream Health site southeast of Windsor. The second measure is a citizen initiative that would prohibit the county from issuing an occupancy permit to any data center unless "approved by a majority of the registered electors of Weld County voting at a regular or special election."

Both measures need the support of at least 9,103 registered voters in the county -- equal to 5% of the total number of ballots cast there in the previous general election -- to go before voters.

"This referendum puts power back in the hands of the people of Weld County," Patricia Garcia-Nelson, a longtime Weld County environmental activist, said in a press release announcing the campaign. "We have the right to decide what happens to our community, not just on this project, but on the ones that come next."

Commissioners' 5-0 vote in favor of the Global AI proposal came after a daylong hearing earlier this month that included hours of public comment, mostly in opposition to the project. Local opponents have organized against the proposal for months, citing concerns about its energy and water use, noise levels and other potential impacts, part of a statewide and national trend that has many local governments weighing moratoriums on data center development.

Global AI has said that the facility will use a closed-loop cooling system that minimizes water use, and its initial 27.5-megawatt capacity would be served by the Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association, though it has long-term plans to expand to a much larger capacity of up to one gigawatt. The company claims the project will bring about 1,500 construction jobs and 200 long-term jobs to Weld County.

Local governments in Colorado enact moratoriums on data center development

In granting the project a so-called Use by Special Review permit, Weld County commissioners deemed it "compatible with the surrounding land uses" and with "adequate provisions for the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of the neighborhood and County."

Opponents have 45 days to collect enough valid petition signatures to trigger a veto referendum on the commissioners' resolution, and to put their initiated ordinance to voters. If the measures receive sufficient signatures, the county commissioners board must call a special election to be held within 60 days, according to the county charter.

"We have heard residents of Weld County speak out at meeting after meeting about their concerns with the Global AI data center," said Matt Cheroutes, campaign manager for POWER, in a statement. "Those concerns were not heard, so now we're taking this to the voters. The commissioners had their vote. Now it's the people's turn."

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Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit trying to block an immigration detention center from opening in Hudson, saying the federal government failed to study the environmental impacts of reopening a former private prison to hold people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The lawsuit names the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and its leaders as defendants. It asks a judge to throw out the five-year, $528.7 million contract the government signed with the GEO Group to operate the nearly 1,200-bed facility as the Big Horn immigration detention center in the town about 30 miles northeast of Denver along Interstate 76. It seeks to stop any detention center from opening until the federal government conducts an environmental review that Weiser says is required under National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Marty Lenz spoke with Colleen Slevin who covered this story for the Colorado Sun.

“This facility has been shuttered for quite some time. It can’t just be picked up and put into use without going through the required reviews. They’re there for a reason,” Weiser said during a news conference.

He believes the center could be on track to open by the end of the year.

The Department of Homeland Security said the lawsuit wasn’t really about the environment.

Read the full article on the Colorado Sun's website.

Scattered around the main exhibit at the Greeley History Museum are old irrigation tools, a bullet mold and a dress made out of snakeskin. Together, they tell a story.

“This is the full history of Greeley,” Laura Cutler, secretary of the nonprofit, Friends of the Greeley Museums, said. “I have lived in the city my entire life, and there's so much that I never knew, and never even thought to look into before.”

The Utopia: Adaptation on the Plains exhibit looks into the city’s founding back in 1870. There are old photographs of how settlers started to make Greeley their own.

“When they first got here, they were living in tents and ramshackle little buildings that they just had to put together once they stepped off the train,” Cutler said.

This is one of a few exhibits in the downtown museum, and one of four museums in the system. Just a few minutes down the street is Centennial Village, an outdoor living history museum. That is where the annual History Fest takes place, where fourth graders go every year to immerse themselves in pioneer life.

Cutler went to History Fest as a child and said it was a core memory for her.

“Seeing the staff just fully dressed up in old garb, getting to actually physically churn butter, seeing these old houses and these beautiful artifacts just blew my mind,” Cutler said. "It was like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

But those experiences could come to an end. Greeley City Council is discussing cutting the museums’ budget by nearly 25%, or roughly $400,000. Some staff members have already been cut, and the recommendation is to rely more on volunteers.

Cutler said the museum might have to reduce hours or limit rotating exhibits. History Fest could feel the cuts as well.

“They're already running on what feels like a skeleton staff. I can see a lot of burnout happening,” Cutler said. “If they aren't able to get enough volunteers, then it would be impossible to hold because that's thousands of kids all in one week.”

While the museums are less than 1% of the city’s total budget, they and other city departments are all taking some sort of hit. Greeley has to address an $18 million deficit that has been growing since the pandemic.

“We just had to do it,” Nathan Mosley, the director of budget and policy for the City of Greeley, said.

Mosley said some of it comes down to numbers. Hundreds of thousands of people use the Family FunPlex, a large local rec center. A small fraction of that go to the museums, around 13,000. It also came down to council priorities, with fire and police taking some of the lowest cuts in the interest of public safety, Mosley said.

“If these are being used this much by the community, how can I strategically distribute the cuts that are needed, and have the least impact or serve the most people that we can with the resources that we have?” Mosley said.

He did hear community concerns this summer. History Colorado even drafted a letter of support to city council expressing concern about the cuts. After some discussion, $60,000 is being added back into the recommended budget for museums specifically.

Mosley believes the public can still enjoy the museums’ core operations for now.

“Our kind of promise to the community is that we're going to work to monitor the impacts and adjust going forward,” Mosley said.

But others, like Randy Graubard, think these cuts are too much. He retired in July after spending 50 years working with kids through teaching history at local Northern Colorado schools and volunteering at Centennial Village.

“You lose your history,” Graubard said. “If we don't know where we come from, how can we figure out where we're going?”

He loved getting to teach rope-making or explain custom home practices from that era – like hanging eucalyptus as an air freshener – at Centennial Village. He also enjoyed watching the “lightbulb” moments, like students seeing a historic photo of a 19th Century house.

“(They say,) ‘Oh, my house looks like this!’ And then they get an idea of how old their house might be,” Graubard said. “To see them connect all that history together in a line and not just, ‘Oh some teacher’s telling me,’ it's so valuable.”

Graubard personally relies on the museum for research about the city. It currently has around 100,000 items from Greeley’s past, many from places that do not exist anymore – like movie chairs from Chief Theatre or religious books from the First Baptist Church. He wants to make sure local history for small towns continues to be preserved.

“Greeley Museums have a reputation all across Northern Colorado of having stuff that you thought may be lost forever,” Graubard said. “It's not something to be cut up lightly.”

Additionally, museum staffing is already tight. The registrar position was removed as part of a voluntary separation agreement. The museum has put a moratorium on taking in new objects.

Chris Bowles, the former Museum Manager, also lost his job this Spring. He said it was due to cutting costs.

“The museum, as a functioning museum, is basically on life support,” Bowles said.

He understands that there are hard decisions ahead, and that other communities are facing this, too. The Loveland Museum has had to raise prices and reduce hours after facing similar budget cuts. There are some bright spots, like Longmont Museums’ grand reopening in mid-October, but it still had to hike admission fees for the first time in 12 years.

He hopes that as the City Council discusses the budget, they will remember that museums are a public service.

“We don't necessarily have to make (a) profit, right?” Bowles said. “We're not there to create wealth and capital for the city. We're there to educate, to make the city a better place.”

The next budget hearing is in October. It should be finalized in November.