Today is Oct. 20, 2023, and here’s what you need to know:

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck said one reason tempers flared at the meeting was the “constant barrage” of phone calls and threats aimed at lawmakers and their family members.

“So far, I’ve had four death threats,” Buck said. “I’ve been evicted from my office in Colorado – I have notice of an eviction because the landlord is mad with my voting record on the speaker issue – and everybody in the conference is getting this, so it’s natural. Family members have been approached and threatened, all kinds of things are going on. There’s going to be some tension.”

Buck hastened to add that he isn’t suggesting it is Jordan’s fault.

“There are a lot of TV pundits or a lot of radio pundits or a lot of grassroots groups that are putting out misinformation and hateful information,” he said. “And it just stirs people up. There are a lot of people that are scared about the direction of this country, and they’re taking this to heart.”

Several Republican House members who aren’t backing Jordan have alleged this week that they’ve been subject to bullying and intimidation tactics from Jordan supporters.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Refusing to give up, Rep. Jim Jordan told GOP colleagues Thursday he was still running for the House gavel – leaving Republicans few viable options after his hardline backers resisted a plan to expand the temporary speaker’s powers to re-open the House.

The combative Jordan delivered the message at a fiery closed-door meeting at the Capitol as the Republican majority considered an extraordinary plan to give the interim speaker pro tempore more powers for the next several months to bring the House back into session and conduct crucial business, according to Republicans familiar with the private meeting who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.

But neither option seemed immediately workable. GOP moderates who have twice rejected Jordan are unwilling to support him now, especially after some report harassing pressures and even death threats from his supporters. At the same time, Jordan’s hard-right allies are refusing to allow a temporary speaker to gain more power.

The prolonged stalemate risks keeping the House intractably shut down for the foreseeable future after the unprecedented ouster of Kevin McCarthy as speaker,

Colorado’s electric utilities will get roughly $200 million in federal funds to enhance grid resiliency and wildfire mitigation.

Xcel Energy, the state’s utility providers, received a $100 million award to boost its $597 million resiliency and wildfire program.?The grant requires $142 million in cost sharing from Xcel.

The U.S. Department of Energy said the grant will support a range of projects that enhance grid resiliency in the face of fires, severe storms, and other adverse environmental conditions and better protect lives, homes and forests, while reducing and preventing power outages. The Xcel projects will be based in Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas and Wisconsin.

“Grid resilience investments benefit all Coloradoans. While our next steps are to begin award negotiations and other processes required by DOE, we expect today’s DOE grant will provide nearly $41M to our Colorado customers, in addition to Xcel Energy’s $100M matching investment,” said Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy-Colorado in a statement to The Denver Gazette. “These investments will better prepare our grid for severe storms and a changing climate – while also keeping customer bills low.”

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden declared it is “vital for America’s national security” for Israel and Ukraine to succeed in their wars, making the case Thursday night for deepening U.S. involvement in a rare Oval Office address as he preparedto ask for billions of dollars in military assistance for both countries.

If international aggression is allowed to continue, Biden said, “conflict and chaos could spread in other parts of the world.”

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats,” Biden said. “But they share this in common. They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”

He said he would send an urgent funding request to Congress, which is expected to be roughly $100 billion over the next year.

Interstate 25 near Pueblo is fully reopened after the recent fatal train derailment, the Colorado Department of Transportation announced in an email Thursday. 

CDOT announced that I-25 reopened around 4:30 p.m. Traffic camera images displayed on cotrip.org show traffic flowing northbound and southbound on the previously closed section of roadway. 

The reopening follows three days of debris clearing following the Sundday train derailment that spilled coal and mangled rail cars onto Interstate 25 north of Pueblo, causing a bridge collapse and killing truck driver Lafollette Henderson, 60, of Compton, Calif.

The highway had been closed across all lanes of traffic between mile markers 110 and 101 while clean-up crews and investigators worked on the scene. Detours around the road closure had created delays of up to two hours for some drivers.

On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis toured the site and announced that I-25 southbound lanes would reopen to traffic that afternoon. CDOT confirmed the reopening around 2:15 p.m.