Today is Jan. 15, 2024, and here’s what you need to know:

Former President Donald Trump scored a record-setting win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday with his rivals languishing far behind, a victory that sent a resounding message that the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination is his to lose.

Trump was on track to set a record for a contested Iowa Republican caucus with a margin of victory exceeding the nearly 13 percentage points that Bob Dole won by in 1988. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished a distant second ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

In what was expected to be a low-turnout affair, caucus-goers endured life-threatening cold and dangerous driving conditions to meet in hundreds of schools, churches and community centers across the state.

Haley plans to compete vigorously in New Hampshire, where she hopes to be more successful with the state’s independent voters heading into the Jan. 23 primary. DeSantis, meanwhile, is heading straight to South Carolina, a conservative stronghold where the Feb. 24 contest could prove pivotal.

Trump has spent much of the past year building a far more professional organization in Iowa than the relatively haphazard effort he oversaw in 2016, when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz carried the caucuses. His team paid special attention to building a sophisticated digital and data operation to regularly engage with potential supporters and ensure they knew how to participate in the caucuses.

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday and endorsed former President Donald Trump after finishing fourth in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses.

Ramaswamy said he made the decision after determining there is no path forward for him in the race, “absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.”

The 38-year-old political novice, who sought to replicate Trump’s rise as a bombastic, wealthy outsider, said he called the former president earlier Monday evening to congratulate him on his victory in Iowa. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second, with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley just behind in third.

“Now, going forward, he will have my full endorsement for the presidency. And I think we’re going to do the right thing for this country. And so I’m going to ask you to follow me in taking our America First movement to the next level,” Ramaswamy said.

The Colorado General Assembly will not meet on Tuesday due to frigid weather conditions, according to an announcement from Senate and House Democrats.

The legislature will resume its business on Wednesday at 9 a.m.

Plunging temperatures have blanketed Colorado in the last several days. Metro Denver will subzero temperatures – as low as negative 10 degrees – on Monday night going into Tuesday morning.

For the second time, a federal judge last week refused to dismiss the excessive force claims against a Pueblo County sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed a man outside a middle school after the man accidently tried to get into a car he mistook for his own.

Kristy Ward Stamp, mother of the late Richard Ward, alleged Deputy Charles McWhorter, Pueblo County and other sheriff’s officials violated her son’s rights by fatally shooting him, and they violated her own rights by detaining and searching her without probable cause of a crime.

In July, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney permitted most of the claims to proceed. After Ward Stamp amended her lawsuit, the Pueblo County defendants once again moved to dismiss. Sweeney, noting the allegations in the new version of the lawsuit were “largely unchanged,” declined to alter her prior reasoning.

“Defendants’ renewed argument is an improper second bite at the apple,” she wrote on Jan. 11.

Several of the state’s rural lawmakers complained that Gov. Jared Polis has neglected their regions when he issued a disaster declaration as extreme cold conditions pummeled Colorado.

The governor’s office said disaster assistance is available to all parts of the state but added that none from the Eastern Plains has so far requested it.

Several legislators representing rural communities penned an open letter to Polis last week after he issue a disaster declaration, noting that the Eastern Plains had been enduring severe weather since the beginning of the month and suggesting that the declaration should have come sooner.

The letter noted that the warming centers Polis identified could be found in counties along I-25 north of Jefferson County.