EDITORIAL: Help those who try ‘to be something more’
Kristopher Malan explained himself to The Gazette after another morning selling art on the street. I’m “trying to be something more,” he texted.
Reporter Kaitlin Durbin wrote the inspirational story of Malan, who anchored in Colorado Springs after aimlessly hitchhiking from California in 2015. Like so many among the city’s growing population of homeless migrants, Malan stood at street corners and begged for cash. Givers received nothing of market value in return.
It was a familiar downward spiral, for Malan and the community, without much hope in sight.
Malan found begging a degrading and embarrassing chore. Someone yelled “get a job.”
Gov. Jared Polis ‘frustrated, surprised’ at efforts to revive vetoed Worker Protection Act in 2026
Marissa Ventrelli
marissa.ventrelli@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 12 minutes ago
Gov. Jared Polis was surprised that Democratic lawmakers and labor unions are seeking to revive the Worker Protection Act in the 2026 legislative session, less than a year after he vetoed the bill due to concerns about its impact on...
Red Carpet Reception proves new home’s a winner for Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale | NONPROFIT REGISTER
Joanne Davidson Special to Colorado Politics
joanne-davidson-special-to-colorado-politics@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 57 minutes ago
NATIONAL WESTERN STOCK SHOW News: It wasn’t just the art that people were talking about at Thursday night’s Red Carpet Reception for the 34th Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale. A good number of the 1,000-plus guests were on their first visit to the show’s spacious new location on the...
Colorado candidates switch parties, races as midterm election year looms | TRAIL MIX
Ernest Luning
ernest.luning@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 3 hours ago
The final days of 2025 saw an unusually high number of Colorado candidates switch parties and races, reshaping at least a few primaries ahead of this year’s midterm elections. The state has seen its share of switchers over the years,...
Denver Auditor: Office of Social Equity and Innovation risks mismanaging, or losing, taxpayer money
Deborah Grigsby
deborah.smith@denvergazette.com
Updated 1 hour ago
Denver’s Office of Social Equity and Innovation has yet to implement half of the 14 recommendations made by auditors in 2024, leaving the city and the Colorado Youth Detention Continuum Program at risk of misusing small-dollar funds. A follow-up report...
Final Lap: Gov. Jared Polis outlines his 2026 agenda for Colorado as he nears the end of his term
Marianne Goodland
marianne.goodland@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 20 hours ago
A year from now, Gov. Jared Polis will wrap up eight years as the state’s chief executive officer, take off the governor’s mantle and go back to private life. The governor recently reflected on what remains to do in his...
Ski patrollers end strike against Telluride
RACHAEL WRIGHT Special to The Gazette
rachael-wright-special-to-the-gazette@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 21 hours ago
After 13 days, the longest ski patrol strike in U.S. history has come to an end. On Dec. 27, the 72-member Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association voted to go on strike after approaching Telluride Ski Resort (Telski) owner Chuck Horning...
Appeals judge urges restraint in labeling new offenses serious across board
Michael Karlik
michael.karlik@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 22 hours ago
A member of the state’s second-highest court urged his colleagues on Thursday to pump the brakes before declaring new offenses “grave or serious” in every possible scenario. The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment means sentences cannot be...
Federal judge opens new front in effort to increase magistrate judge handling of civil cases
Michael Karlik
michael.karlik@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 22 hours ago
One of Colorado’s federal judges rang in the new year with a new effort to spread out the U.S. District Court’s civil caseload among its roster of magistrate judges. “NOTICE ENCOURAGING CONSIDERATION OF CONSENT,” Judge S. Kato Crews has written...
Vance announces new assistant attorney general position to focus on fraud
Christian Datoc, Washington Examiner
christian.datoc.washington.examiner@gazetteedit.wpenginepowered.com
Updated 1 day ago
Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that President Donald Trump is creating a new attorney general position to lead government efforts to investigate and prosecute fraud cases. Vance joined White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at an unscheduled briefing Thursday...
House rejects effort to override presidential veto for Colorado Water Project
Marianne Goodland
marianne.goodland@coloradopolitics.com
Updated 21 hours ago
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a Colorado-led effort to override a Dec. 30 presidential veto of a measure that would have helped finance the Arkansas Valley conduit. The measure, known as H.R. 131 and sponsored by U.S....
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Officials: Colorado's election infrastructure not among 39 states’ reportedly hit by Russian cyber attack
Colorado’s computerized voter system doesn’t appear to have been targeted by Russian hackers who penetrated systems in two states last summer and reportedly tried to access files in dozens of other states before last year’s election, officials with the Colorado secretary of state’s office said Tuesday. While the Colorado system is subject to hundreds of […]
EDITORIAL: Chieftain uncovers a mess at the state hospital in Pueblo
Officials at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo have been keeping a secret. So, too, have officials at the state Department of Human Services, the agency that oversees it. Were it not for some terrific reporting and tenacity by The Chieftain’s Peter Roper, even state legislators from our area might not have learned about […]