Today is March 8, 2023 and here is what you need to know:

A bipartisan bill to create a new Level 1 drug felony for peddling drugs that results in death squeaked out of a Senate committee on Monday on a bipartisan vote.

But that might be its last hurrah, given that the measure is opposed by both the top Democratic leaders in the chamber.

At its core, Senate Bill 109 sought to mirror what lawmakers did last year, when they made distribution of drugs containing fentanyl or its derivatives a Level 1 felony if it weighs more than a certain amount – subject to an aggravated range penalties if it resulted in death.

The hearing expectedly brought up sharp divisions over how to confront Colorado’s fentanyl crisis, with some insisting that a tough stance doesn’t solve the problem and others maintaining that peddling fentanyl is pernicious it must be met with the same level of severity.

Gov. Jared Polis unveiled proposed legislation Tuesday for a new $28 million initiative to improve student math scores over the next two years.

The governor also highlighted the work of 12 schools – including Roosevelt Charter Academy and Chipeta Elementary in Colorado Springs – with a “Math Bright Spot Award” and $50,000 from the federal Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funds.

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These schools, the Polis administration said, demonstrated “exceptional growth in math achievement since 2019.”

The funds will be used for tutoring, expanding student resources and faculty development – among other things.

Aurora could soon launch another program to curb youth violence by putting its spin on a national law enforcement model that’s been used to tackle violent crime in other major metros.

The city is developing its version of a “focused deterrence” program, a project that’s been in the works for some time and is entering the final weeks before it might get up and running. Next steps include creating a governing board and committees that will help launch it.

Representatives of the city’s Youth Violence Prevention Program and the Aurora Police Department, which are partnering on the initiative, presented an update to city council at its Monday study session.

Some of the progressive voices on council expressed cautious optimism at the program’s prospects and research supporting its merits. Conservative lawmakers focused on whether it would be lenient on violent offenders, which organizations the program would partner with and if the program focused on the right age groups.

If China or Russia blew up U.S. satellites, it could cripple critical infrastructure, such as GPS navigation and the debris could litter valuable orbits, perhaps leaving them unusable.

To deter such a conflict, the U.S. Space Force expects to focus on expanding the number of satellites it relies on and ensure they are disaggregated and diversified, making an attack in space too “escalatory and self-defeating,” said Gen. Bradley Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations.

“We complicate targeting; we get resiliency,'” he explained.

Saltzman was one of several high-ranking military officers to underscore the importance of ramping up the U.S. investment in space during the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora this week.

President Joe Biden’s support of a Republican resolution to block new District of Columbia crime laws has split members of his own party amid rising concerns about crime in the nation’s capital and other cities.

The GOP-led disapproval resolution is expected to easily pass the Senate on Wednesday with ample Democratic support. But most House Democrats voted against it last month, arguing as they have for many years that the District of Columbia should be able to govern itself.

The Democratic support for the resolution, which comes as murders have spiked over a number of years in D.C., is a shift for Biden and his party and could allow Congress to nullify the city’s laws through the disapproval process for the first time in more than three decades.