Today is Oct. 18, 2023, and here’s what you need to know:

Pressure mounted on House Republicans to elect a speaker Wednesday as U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan lost a second round of balloting for the vacant position.

Members of Colorado’s delegation voted the same as they had a day earlier, but Jordan fell short by a wider margin, with the number of GOP lawmakers casting ballots for someone other than Jordan increasing from 20 to 22.

“It’s Groundhog Day, except it’s not just a repeat – Jim Jordan is actually losing ground,” U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, told Colorado Politics after the vote.

“The urgency couldn’t be greater,” DeGette added, pointing to an approaching deadline to fund the federal government and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

“We need to have a speaker. We need to have resolute action by the House,” she said.

When it comes to fundraising for Colorado’s 2024 congressional contests, the state’s 3rd District stands head and shoulders above the rest.

For the third consecutive quarter, the crowded battle for the seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert has dominated campaign finance reports to an extent seldom seen in state history.

Taken together, the sums reported by the incumbent and her four leading challengers – including eye-popping totals posted by her chief Democratic challenger, former Aspen City Councilman Adam Frisch – dwarf the hauls in the state’s seven other House districts.

Between Boebert, Frisch, Democrat Anna Stout and Republicans Jeff Hurd and Russ Andrews, the $5 million raised by candidates in the 3rd Congressional District accounted for just under 75% of the roughly $6.8 million raised by Colorado House candidates in the most recent quarter.

The Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in a pair of cases that could make it easier for homeowners to pursue late-filed property damage claims through their insurance policies.

Under the longstanding approach to property coverage, the burden fell to homeowners to show that a claim filed beyond their policy deadline should nonetheless proceed because extenuating circumstances prevented them from filing earlier.

However, plaintiffs in Denver and Boulder County are asking the state’s highest court to instead put the obligation on the insurance industry to show why they would be disadvantaged by a late-filed claim. The “notice-prejudice rule,” as it is known, requires insurers to demonstrate a policyholder’s late notice harmed their ability to investigate and defend against a claim.

To date, the Supreme Court has only extended the rule to a narrow class of insurance claims. The industry argued to the court that it is reasonable to expect homeowners to report property damage within a one-year deadline. Moreover, broadening the scope of the notice-prejudice rule would affect the willingness of insurers to provide affordable coverage.

Brandon Hughes, a Denver homeless man living in a hotel shelter, joined Mayor Mike Johnston on Wednesday when he was portrayed as an example for White House officials to see the mayor’s housing-first strategy in action.

Denver announced a partnership with the Biden-Harris administration’s ALL INside initiative – started by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and its 19 federal agencies – with a focus on housing homeless people nationwide.

The mayor’s strategy is to shut down homeless encampments, move people into housing, and provide mental health, employment and other services, eventually leading into permanent housing opportunities.

Created in May, ALL INside Denver is now the initiative’s seventh community after Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle and the entire state of California.

Once an activist in a left-leaning youth movement, Rubén Dávalos is now among the millions of disaffected voters in Argentina planning to cast their ballots for right-wing populist and self-described anarcho-capitalist, Javier Milei.

“In this country, you can’t plan for the future,” said the 30-year-old Dávalos, who began selling cellphone accessories at flea markets after surging inflation ate away at his manufacturing job wages. “I know I’m going to die poor.”

Milei, a pundit-turned-presidential candidate, has captivated the downtrodden and most polls showing him with a slight lead in Sunday’s election in South America’s second-largest economy. Earlier this year, his eyebrow-raising bluster seemed more like a sideshow to boost television ratings than the launch of a viable candidacy – until he shocked the political establishment by winning the most votes in the August primary.

Polls indicate Milei will fall short of the votes needed to avoid a November runoff. Most show Economy Minister Sergio Massa of the ruling center-left Union for the Homeland coalition in second place, followed by former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich of the main opposition coalition United for Change.