The Colorado legislature began its mad rush into weekend work on Friday as the end of the 2024 session comes into sight, with plenty of major legislation still unfinished. Lawmakers have until the end of the day Wednesday to finish up bills on gun regulations, housing, land use policy, transportation, property tax reform and other priorities. This story will be updated throughout the day. Updated at 5:32 p.m.: Two bills to address construction defects appear destined to doom in the final days of the legislative session. Senate Bill 106 was aimed at creating a middle ground between lawsuits and ..read more

By John T. Bennett, CQ-Roll Call WASHINGTON — Protests on college campuses related to the Israel-Hamas war and humanitarian crisis inside Gaza that turned violent this week handed President Joe Biden a political headache and former President Donald Trump a new attack line. The unrest showed the risks of being the incumbent and allowed Trump to — once again — push his hardline views as disrupter in chief. Biden and his campaign aides have mostly dismissed criticism from Arab American groups for months over his “ironclad” backing of Israel. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian civilians have been ..read more

By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times In the analog days of the 1970s, long before hackers, trolls and edgelords, an audiocassette company came up with an advertising slogan that posed a trick question: “Is it live or is it Memorex?” The message toyed with reality, suggesting there was no difference in sound quality between a live performance and music recorded on tape. Fast forward to our age of metaverse lies and deceptions, and one might ask similar questions about what’s real and what’s not: Is President Joe Biden on a robocall telling Democrats to not vote ..read more

The Colorado legislature has expanded its floor calendars and plans fast agendas as it works to pass legislation on housing, gun regulation, transportation, taxes and other priorities ahead of the end of the 2024 session next week. Here are updates on major action and key developments. This story will be updated throughout the day. Updated at 3:16 p.m.: The House advanced a bill Thursday afternoon that would launch a study to determine “any potential historical and ongoing effects of slavery and subsequent systemic racism on Black Coloradans that may be attributed to practices, systems and pol ..read more

Molly Crane-Newman | New York Daily News NEW YORK — A judge considered holding Donald Trump in contempt yet again on Thursday for more potential gag order violations as his hush money trial resumed in Manhattan. Before jurors took their seats for the day, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan heard arguments from prosecutors and the former president’s attorneys concerning four more instances of Trump publicly commenting on witnesses and jurors in the case. Prosecutor Chris Conroy alleged Trump had sought to “infect and disrupt” the proceedings by his repeated remarks, including comment ..read more

People don’t seem to mind the idea of former President Donald Trump acting as a dictator, he told Time magazine in an interview that drew swift rebuke from the Biden-Harris campaign. In a wide ranging interview given to the magazine — and shared by the 45th President Tuesday morning via his Truth Social media platform — Trump was asked to explain comments he made to Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which the former president said he would become a dictator on his first day in office. “A lot of people like it,” Trump reportedly told Time. As might be expected, President Joe Biden’s reelection tea ..read more

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Two years after a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion signaled that the nation’s abortion landscape was about to shift dramatically, the issue is still consuming the nation’s courts, legislatures and political campaigns — and changing the course of lives. On Wednesday, a ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy, often before women realize they’re pregnant, took effect in Florida, echoing laws in two other states. In Arizona, meanwhile, lawmakers voted to repeal a total ban on abortion dating back to 1864, decad ..read more

It’s been more than five years since the Larimer County commissioners said no to Thornton burying miles of pipe in the county to transport water from the Cache la Poudre River. Now the northern Denver suburb is back in the same hearing room. And it has the same basic request: Let us move the water we own to our fast-growing and thirsty community. Larimer County’s board of commissioners will decide the fate of the 70-mile, half-billion-dollar infrastructure project as soon as Monday. As now proposed, the pipeline would follow an alignment that’s different from the one rejected in 2019. Instead ..read more

A bill aimed at barring landlords from using algorithms to set rents died in the Colorado Senate on Wednesday after a group of moderate Democrats joined Republicans to reject a more forceful House version of the measure. The crux of the disagreement was an adopted amendment that bill backers charged had been written by a software company fighting the bill. “I’m grateful for my colleagues who sided with renters, but ultimately too many Democrats sided with a corporation under investigation for price fixing against Coloradans who are feeling the worst of the housing crisis,” said Sen. Julie Gonz ..read more

Colorado lawmakers convened Wednesday with one week left in this year’s session of the General Assembly, giving them limited time to pass final bills on land-use reform, gun regulation, property tax relief, tax credits and other priorities. Here are updates on major action and key developments. This story will be updated throughout the day. Updated at 3:15 p.m.: A proposal to remake the state’s school funding formula so that it prioritizes at-risk students passed a formal vote in the House today — and along the way found that some of its staunchest opposition has softened. The bipartisan propo ..read more