Today is Aug. 9, 2024, and here’s what you need to know:

Colorado Democrats join Zoom resurgence to rally Kamala Harris supporters | TRAIL MIX

It didn’t come close to breaking Zoom — like some of the virtual campaign rallies that inspired Colorado Democrats to hold one of their own have — but last week’s local version connected hundreds of in-state Kamala Harris supporters and helped kick off what the party says already looks like a record-breaking fundraising month.

“We get to reach a lot of folks, and people get to build some community,” state Democratic chair Shad Murib told Colorado Politics. “It’s been an excellent volunteer recruitment tool as much as it’s been a great fundraising tool for us.”

Dubbed a virtual grassroots organizing call, the state Democrats’ July 29 gathering drew an estimated 700 participants over the course of the 45-minute meeting on the industry-leading Zoom teleconferencing platform, organizers said.

Donald Trump agrees to three debates against Kamala Harris

Former President Donald Trump said he has agreed to three debates against Vice President Kamala Harris in a bid to “set the record straight” against the new Democratic nominee.

“I think it’s very important to have debates, and we’ve agreed with Fox on a date of Sept. 4. We’ve agreed with NBC, fairly full agreement, subject to them on Sept. 10, and we’ve agreed with ABC on Sept. 25. So, we have those three dates,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

His campaign quickly clarified that the ABC News debate will be held on Sept. 10, which Harris previously agreed to, and the NBC News debate will be held on Sept. 25.

Appeals court takes no issue with defense lawyer who admitted client's guilt at trial

Colorado’s second-highest court on Thursday concluded an attorney did not violate his client’s constitutional right to make key decisions about his defense when the lawyer unilaterally told the jury his client committed some of the charged crimes.

The U.S. Supreme Court has provided guidance in recent years about when criminal defense attorneys may concede their client’s guilt. In 2004, the court determined in Florida v. Nixon that an attorney was not barred from admitting his client committed murder in hopes of avoiding the death penalty, as the defendant was aware of that strategy and neither objected nor consented.

However, in the 2018 case of McCoy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court agreed a defense attorney in a similar death penalty case was wrong to tell jurors his client committed murder when the defendant “vociferously” protested he was innocent.

Following Colorado regulators' OK, oil and gas company turns attention to individual well sites

Following state approval for oil and gas drilling operations in Arapahoe County, the process now moves to the local level, where individual well sites also need to get the green light.

State regulators also vowed to watch the operations very closely.

Commissioners said they would “closely review and ensure the actual proposed locations at the OGDP stage meet or exceed all state and commission requirements for avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating any potential impacts on human health or the environment,” said Kelsy Been, a spokesperson for the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission.

Appeals court clarifies significance of pinpointing drug exposure for child neglect cases

Colorado’s second-highest court on Thursday clarified it does matter whether a child experienced drug exposure in her parents’ custody, rejecting a Montrose County judge’s conclusion that the location was irrelevant to determining whether the infant was neglected.

A child is neglected under Colorado law if, among other things, their “environment is injurious” to their welfare. The state Supreme Court has determined that a parent need not be at fault, just that the environment itself is harmful.

However, a three-judge panel concluded the question of a parent’s fault for a child’s drug exposure is distinct from the question of whether the exposure occurred before or after a child was removed to foster care. It is not the case, wrote Judge Karl L. Schock, that a finding of child neglect can ignore the possibility the foster home was actually the harmful environment.