Jonah was too young, then, to truly understand. He was old enough to see. To internalize. His father was once a self-described “young menace to society,” a longtime gang member with the Bloods in South Stockton trying to rid himself of his past. But the reaper kept knocking at Jamon’s door, and winking at his son.

“Just because I walked away from it,” Jamon once told his mother, “doesn’t mean people have forgotten what I’ve done when I was a part of it.”

So Jamon pulled up to Stribley Park this day wearing all black, with no trace of red except a splash across his Nikes. The park sat on the east side of town, across lines and into blue-affiliated territory. He was there, simply, to pick up Jonah from football practice, who was then playing with the East Stockton Yellowjackets. Jamon had no rag. He had no gun tucked in his waistband. The Crips at the park that recognized him, though, had guns tucked in theirs.

They approached, and Jamon lifted up his shirt. No weapon, he told them. No malice. No violence. He bowed down. It wouldn’t have worked, perhaps, if Jamon didn’t point to Jonah peeking from behind his legs.

“My son’s right here,” Jamon recalled telling them. “He’s playing football. I’m trying to teach him something different.”

The group cooled, eventually, because of the fleet-footed boy who was drawing whispers in Stockton.

“�ճ󲹳�’������dzܰ���son?” the group asked.

He was. Over the years to come, Jonah grew into the pride of Stockton, and Jamon cheered for him in stadium stands alongside men who would’ve once wanted him dead. Subsequent run-ins cooled. Jamon drew hints of his son’s halo. And a son gradually became something more to his father.

“That was his miracle child,” said Trent Washington, a pastor in Stockton and longtime family friend.

Jamon Coleman now believes Jonah Coleman saved his life, in one way or another. It took his son’s rise in football for his father to fully pull away from gang ties, even as his skin is still pockmarked with bullet scars that may never fully fade. And in return, Jamon dedicated much of his life to protecting the son and the gift that saved him.

Years after his dad’s reformation, Jonah sits on a bench at the Broncos’ practice facility in Dove Valley, gazing out at the green expanse of his future. He has run all the way from Stockton to Arizona, to Washington, and to Denver, a fourth-round rookie running back who can play a major role in the Broncos’ shot at a Super Bowl.

And if he runs far enough in Denver, Jonah hopes the force of his steps can ripple back to Stockton and shake the same generational forces that he helped his own father escape.

“Stockton is tough, man,” Jonah said Wednesday during the team’s minicamp. “It’s so easy to get wrapped up in whatever the hell is going on around you.

“A lot of people set this ceiling, like, right here,” he gestures, raising his hand to chest level, “instead of trying to shoot past the stars. You know what I mean? And for me, I wanted to shoot past the stars.”

A breeding ground for gang activity

Marcella Johnson was showing plenty during her brief stint in San Joaquin County Jail in 2003, several months pregnant at the time. She was struggling to make ends meet while taking care of her dying mother, and was booked on welfare fraud for not properly reporting income from one of her jobs, she said.

And she’d coo to the boy in her stomach, as he’d jostle around.

“Hold on, guy,” she’d say, munching on some fruit. “We’re going to be out of this real quick. Eat this orange. Eat this apple.”

Shortly after his mom got out of prison, Jonah Coleman was born, already knowing what it felt like to want out.

He began walking at 7 months old, Jamon said. When his father took him to the toy store, little Jonah eschewed trucks and toy weapons in favor of a ball. The neighborhood kids on Stockton’s south side would gather for rowdy games of tackle football in front of Jamon’s apartment building, and one day Jamon saw Jonah toddling around with them, the smallest kid around.

Jamon saw his son get popped hard a couple times. Jonah started crying.

“I was like, ‘OK, well, he’s done,'” Jamon recalled. “He’s going to come in the house now.”

Jonah pulled up his shirt, wiped his face, and kept on playing.

Eventually, young Jonah went to stay with his mother for a time on the south side of Stockton after Marcella and Jamon separated amicably. He would come bursting into the house, sweating from running in the California sun, and Marcella used to ask her son why he smelled like a wet dog. He did not stop. He went to Stribley Park one day to find the Yellowjackets practicing and tried hopping into conditioning drills — unsuccessfully — without paying any fee or obtaining written approval from his parents.

He got it, eventually. And thus triggered environmental forces that Jonah could see, but took years to fully understand. became best friends with Jonah while both played for the Yellowjackets, and the pastor remembers the area around the park in East Stockton seeing gunfire yearly. Shooting drills, Washington called them.

The team had a chant, Washington remembered. Call-and-response.

“Who are we?”

“East Side!”

Washington always noted, from seeing years of kids come through the Yellowjackets and get caught up in gang activity, that the call was actually referring to the territory, not the team mascot.

“To me, it was a breeding ground,” Washington said. “‘Where you from? East Side’ … when you start saying that, you’re poisoning their mind, and you’re influencing – ‘East Side. East Side.’”

In a team meeting this week, the Broncos held a conversation about domestic violence and how it can be passed down through generations, Jonah told The Post. The 22-year-old said his mind drifted back to his own beginnings, in Stockton, on that concept of general generational trauma.

“Like, as far as the gangbanging, the way how people act, the way how people move, all that stuff is passed down, from generations,” Jonah said. “It����ap kinda like what you go outside and see, everything as a kid — you can’t really talk or anything yet. The most you can do is see. Like, you see things. You see before you can talk. So when you’re a kid, that����ap all you see.”

His father, before him, saw.

‘I want you to be way better’

Before he became a pastor at Victory In Praise Church in Stockton, Washington knew gang life, too. So did everyone in Stockton who’s watched Coleman grow up, in one way or another. The Crips and Bloods reached the apex of their Stockton influence in the 1980s and 1990s, Washington recalled, as the concept of fast money .

Once, Washington went to a party in the Nightingale Avenue area in southeast Stockton, later known as the birthplace of As Washington remembers, a man got shot in the foot. He limped down the street, retrieved a gun from the trunk of his car, and started shooting up the party in return. Washington scrambled to the roof, where a friend’s cousin pulled out her own gun and shot.

It jammed. The bullet shot into her own stomach. Washington and “associates,” as he put it, rushed the girl to the hospital.

“You would think, at that time, common sense would tell you to go home,” Washington said.

They went to another party.

“Those moments — did that stop me from going clubbing or being in a gang, or dealing drugs?” Washington said. “No. That stopped nobody.”

That, certainly, didn’t stop Jamon Coleman. His own father wasn’t in his life while he was growing up. His family eventually explained to him that his dad was a pimp. Attention, instead, came from the array of faces he’d pass on the way to the store and on the corner, gang members beckoning with brotherhood. They sensed he was fearless. He accepted an initiation ritual of sorts that involved breaking his ribs and sending him to the hospital, to build trust that he wouldn’t turn to police if a situation got violent.

“There’s no secrets to what his dad went through,” said Nate Howard, Jonah’s eventual high school coach at Lincoln High.

Bullets flew through Jamon’s life, and wove directly into the start of Jonah’s. Jamon rattled off: he has been shot in his side, and his groin, and his leg twice, and his back, and his head. When Jonah was 3, sound asleep in his room at his older sister’s birthday party, bullets from an assault rifle cracked through the windows of Jamon’s house and left holes above his bed. When Jonah was a few years older, riding his bike, he watched as a car pulled up next to Jamon and occupants shot his father several times.

Jonah sprinted towards Jamon, crying, as his father laid on the ground leaking blood. In that moment, Jamon told his youngest son to promise him to never pick up a rag in his life.

“I don’t want you to be like me,” father told son. “I want you to be way better.”

Slowly, though, Jamon’s son began to help him heal, from a life thrust upon him. On another occasion, Jamon got shot after going to a party with Marcella. The bullet hit close to his spine, leaving his legs numb. Jamon, for a time, was in a wheelchair, hoping he’d eventually be able to walk again.

One day, a young Jonah — lively as ever — jumped knee-first onto his father’s lap, in the wheelchair. Jamon pushed his son off him.

“What did you do that for?” Jamon recalled telling his son. “That hurt!”

Jonah looked back at him, shocked. Quiet.

“Dad,” Jonah asked, “you can feel your legs?”

Jamon started crying.

‘If you don’t love the process, you won’t last long.’

In Washington’s eyes, this particular Stockton life is an addiction. To material things, sure. But an addiction to attention. To reputation. A hit so powerful, indeed, that it dulls one’s own innate sense of self-preservation.

Even still, as cracks of pain spread through Jamon’s voice when discussing his past, hints of pride drip through.

“It just became a part of me,” Jamon said.

Eventually, though, that piece of Jamon could no longer coexist with the size of his son’s ambition. Around 9 or 10 years old, Jamon brought Jonah to trainer Vince Carter, a Stockton native . Immediately, Carter recalled, he could tell Jonah “wanted different.”

“He was not OK with how the generations were before him,” Carter said. “Like, he really wanted to change.”

Jamon went to his associates on the south side, and told them he couldn’t run with them anymore. He went to older enemies on the east side, and told them he’d be crossing territories solely to watch Jonah play with the Yellowjackets. East-side Crips began to ignore Jamon in favor of telling his son “good game” and to “put on for the 209.” Friends watched as Jamon got a house for himself and his children, and removed himself from the street corners he used to frequent.

“I told Jonah, ‘Some of this stuff is only possible because of you,’ Jamon said. “I was like, ‘Man, you changed Dad’s life so much, man. And I appreciate you. So I’m going to make sure that — there’s going to make some days that you’re going to be upset with me, but I’m going to push you to the limit.’”

In the summers, Jonah would strap on a football helmet and a 25-pound weighted vest and run up a 5-mile hill carrying a football, three days a week. Jamon would putter behind him slowly in his car, drinking lemonade and blasting the air conditioner. At the summit, he’d make Jonah take off the vest and run back down with the football.

If he dropped it, Jamon told his son, he’d have to start all over again.

“It was just hell, man,” Jonah told The Post in May. “You got to love the process. And I loved every bit of it. If you don’t love the process, you won’t last long.”

Kids that Jonah and friend Tyrei Washington grew up playing with on the Yellowjackets, as the elder Washington remembered, got caught up in gang activity and left football. They had friends both affiliated and EBK, two of the most prevalent gangs in Stockton. But Jonah never accepted plenty of welcoming hands despite rubbing elbows in such crowds, and Jamon hardly let his son leave the house, least of all for a party.

And over time, as Jonah became a star running back who once ran for 30 touchdowns his sophomore year at Lincoln High in Stockton, Jamon found himself barbecuing and playing dominoes with some South Stockton members who had gradually become friends.

“They saved each other,” Johnson said. “Jonah saved his dad, and ‘Mon kept him out of the streets and kept him out of the negativity that was going on out here. So I would just say, it made ‘em both grow.”

A tone-setter and a leader

After Jonah ran for 1,053 yards as a junior at Washington in 2024 — transferring there to follow head coach Jedd Fisch and running backs coach Scottie Graham from Arizona — Jamon’s phone buzzed incessantly with calls from programs trying to not-so-subtly persuade his son to hit the transfer portal again. They bandied about potential NIL offers of up to $2 million as incentives, Jamon said.

It would’ve been roughly $400,000 to $500,000 more than Washington could pay him, as Fisch told The Post. Eventually, though, Jonah simply told his father to stop answering any more calls. He wanted to graduate in four years, which would’ve been made more complex by transferring again.

And he didn’t want the fast money.

“He was kind of like the poster child of players,” Fisch told The Post, “that we wanted to promote within our program.”

At a younger age, Jonah made a promise to his late grandmother that he’d graduate college. At one practice during the fall of 2024, Washington’s assistant athletic director of football academics Diamond Brown was standing on the sideline when Jonah bounded up to her in full pads and begun complaining about his grade in a music class.

Brown replied that his overall GPA was at a 3.9, as she remembered.

“That’s B.S.,” Jonah retorted. He resolved to talk to his music teacher. He wanted a 4.0.

He finished with a 3.94, good enough to land himself as a 2025 , honoring the nation’s premier student-athlete. Last week, he flew back to Washington for his graduation. It fulfilled his promise to his grandmother. It also fulfilled a personal goal for Stockton.

“Give kids hope that they don’t have to be a gangbanger, they don’t have to be a drug dealer, they don’t even have to be a football player,” Jonah told The Post. “They don’t have to do nothing. You can go to college, and get your college degree. And just because you came from Stockton don’t mean that you can’t do that. You can still do that. Just being able to change a generation, ultimately.”

Such a platform, of course, will come foremost from Sundays in Denver. Jonah led the Big Ten in touchdowns (17) in 2025, and finished his college career averaging 5.5 yards per carry. His supplementary skills mesh directly with necessary running-back responsibilities in Sean Payton’s offense; the running back is an “elite pass-protector,” as Fisch said, and has had a heavy workload in Broncos summer practices catching passes out of the backfield.

As the Broncos have placed a premium on drafting and acquiring players who specifically fit their ideals around leadership and IQ in the locker room, Jonah’s intangibles stood out, too. Broncos general manager George Paton is a close friend of Fisch, and the Washington head coach gave a glowing evaluation.

“He’s an alpha,” Paton told The Post on Jonah, after the draft. “He’s a tone-setter. He’s a leader. Jedd says that he’s one of the best players he’s ever coached.”

It is all apparent in the way the 220-pound Jonah carries a football, molded by following Jamon’s bumper up a hill.

“That����ap why you see him running so angry at times, running over people,” Washington said. “It����ap like, ‘I got somewhere to go. Somewhere to be. And it����ap not in Stockton.’”

A father’s goal

In late April, Marcella Johnson and her family loaded four cars, each with five people, and caravanned the seven-hour drive from Stockton to San Diego for Jonah’s NFL Draft party. No one involved wanted to host it specifically in Stockton.

“We (didn’t) want, running to some store to get some ice or something, something to happen,” Jamon said.

After the Broncos drafted him in the fourth round in late April, Jonah didn’t return to Stockton through the team’s offseason program. That was by design. In his first couple of years returning from college, Marcella said, her son would stay at a hotel in a surrounding area around Stockton like Manteca, California, rather than sleep at one of his parents’ homes. And he often visits preacher Washington’s house first before heading home to Jamon’s.

“He knows there’s nothing out here that����ap good,” said Rob Alcazar, a friend of Jamon’s and Jonah’s former 7-on-7 coach.

In time, of course, Coleman’s family hopes he’ll return to Stockton consistently and set up youth camps, similar to . For now, though, he wants to move his father away. Jamon has left the past behind, but danger still lurks. Shortly after he was drafted, Jonah called his dad in May and asked if it would alleviate stress if he got him out of Stockton.

In response, Jamon told his son that he didn’t owe him anything.

“I’m not one of those parents that����ap like, ‘Oh, my son’s in the NFL, so now he owes me a house. He owes me a car,'” Jamon told The Post. “No, I’ll drive my same car and I’ll live in my same house, if I have to. My goal and my gift was to see him make it.

“If I walk outside and I drop dead on my way to heaven, or wherever I’m going, I can say, ‘Yeah, my son made it.’”

It was born of a tree on my parents’ land in Western Massachusetts, where the maple trees grow like weeds, spreading their roots and generating saplings that love the clouds and humidity that section of the country offers.

My dad, gone more than 35 years now, loved to garden and landscape. He planted and cared for the maple, dogwood, apple, pear and plum trees, as well as the grape vines, blueberry bushes, tomatoes and zucchini plants in the summer.

His Japanese red maple sprouted so many offshoots that he took to handing them out like Halloween candy. You can still spot them and their offspring all around the neighborhood, as well as in Maine, New Hampshire, Cape Cod and Colorado, where Dad’s children and grandchildren carried them — and keep them going still, in his memory.

Two of my nieces have done their part: Jen gave potted maple saplings to all 150 guests at her 2008 wedding (along with a lovely little story about Dad’s green thumb), and Lee distributed them at her backyard bridal shower in 2010. Who knows how many are still out there?

To many landscapers and gardeners, the power of nurturing life is a mighty draw. To me, it’s mostly about nostalgia, family and friends.

Sister Charlene in New Hampshire makes strawberry and rhubarb jam and pies every summer from the rhubarb cuttings given to her by the neighbors across the street from Mom and Dad. She got them in 1973.

She and sister Jay, in Massachusetts, still nurture Christmas cactus and aloe plants, the beginnings of which were in mom’s kitchen for years. I recall having to water them when I still lived there in the late 1970s. And I still have spider plants from “spiderettes” (yes, that’s what they’re called) that originated from one I had in my Miami apartment in 1985.

I still believe that I was hired at The Denver Post because of my dad’s apple tree. The managing editor called me for an interview one day in 1990, just when I was taking a pie out of the oven for Dad, who had peeled and sliced apples from his tree and brought them over for me to make him a pie. Thinking only of the pie, I brusquely asked her to call me back so it wouldn’t burn. (I got the job anyway. Turns out that she, too, made pies for her dad.)

Right now, I have a bucket of zinnia seeds in my garage. Each spring, I scatter them over tilled soil and thrill when they pop up, bright boutonnieres of fuchsia and orange and yellow and pink. The original seeds were given to me more than 20 years ago by dear Colorado buddies Pat and Dave Darnell, both long gone now.

In mid-March, I suddenly realized how late I was in starting my vegetable seeds for this year’s crop, and now I am looking forward to trading some seedlings with former Denver city councilman, friend and farmer extraordinaire, Charlie Brown.

Gardening and growing things are just part of who we are. It connects us to our place, our roots and to each other. It’s not how much pride I take out of harvesting those cukes and Cherokee Purple tomatoes; it’s the friends I will be sharing them with: Kathleen loves the yellow teardrop tomatoes; Betty asks for the English purple cherry; LeAnna wants the yellow squash; TJ the super sweet hybrid 100s; and Michelle will usually take anything out of the garden that I’m offering (and who will get my help setting up her own raised bed this year).

I had so many cucumbers last year that I couldn’t find enough people to give them to, so my partner ended up taking them to his office along with much of his abundant harvest of zucchini and tomatoes. (Building work alliances through garden gifts can’t hurt, amiright?)

The excess made me wonder about why I go through it all: the expense, the watering, the time, the sunburn, the bugs, the dirt under my fingernails. The failures. It’s certainly not cheaper than just buying produce from the grocery store, and there are other things I could be doing with my time in Colorado’s temperate climes (golf, anyone?).

It’s about the connections: To the land. To the people living on it. To family and friends. And memories.

In the latest episode of the Nuggets Ink podcast, beat writer Bennett Durando is joined by former host of the show Matt Schubert to discuss:

• An abrupt and embarrassing end to Denver’s once-ambitious 2025-26 season
• Who’s to blame for the first-round loss to the Timberwolves? Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray underperformed, but David Adelman and Christian Braun seem to be taking more heat from fans
• Can the Nuggets trust Aaron Gordon’s health going forward, or is it time for a major roster shake-up beyond just Cam Johnson?
• Denver’s offseason trades might seem motivated by a resounding basketball failure, but finances are just as important a consideration to the Kroenke family
• Bennett’s idea for a new way to structure the lineup around Nikola Jokic

All this and more on the Nuggets Ink Podcast.

Subscribe to the podcast

������ ���� | |

Producer: AAron Ontiveroz
Music: “The Last Dragons” by Schama Noel

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On Saturday, the House passed the long bill, the name given to the 600-plus-page spending measure adopted each year. But not without some short-lived intrigue: Earlier in the week, Rep. Brandi Bradley, a Republican, triggered the legislative equivalent of the nuclear option and asked that the entire bill be read aloud.

That request — all 15 hours of it, in this case — must be honored. A computer in the House began reading the bill Thursday night, then picked up again Friday morning and finished a half-day later.

When the reading finally concluded Friday night, House leaders quickly moved to wrap things up. They invoked a rule that limited debate on the budget to one hour, and the chamber then passed the full budget — and several dozen subsidiary spending bills — on Saturday.

As an aside (and warning of things to come): Working weekends isn’t all that unusual for the legislature, especially in the final weeks of the session and double-especially when the minority caucus (or, in this case, one member of the minority) slows down the House’s proceedings.

Bradley’s move, which she made to protest how the House handled her ethics complaint against a fellow Republican, was significant in how unusual it was and how long it took to overcome. Still, it only modestly upset the legislature’s apple cart.

The Senate will begin deliberating on the budget this week, as it was scheduled to, and that chamber should have its work wrapped up by week’s end. After that’s done, the lawmakers who write the budget will gather in committee to consider — and definitely not instantly smite — the various changes their colleagues made to the document on the floor during its two-week legislative voyage.

Lost sleep for Colorado lawmakers as they reckon with budget cuts for disabled people, immigrant children

Once that's all wrapped up (likely next week), the budget will roll down the Capitol stairs to the governor's office for signature into law.

Given how much time and energy the budget takes up, expect little else to happen in the Senate this week. The House has a modest committee schedule, with more legislation likely set for debates in the full chamber.

Once the budget's cleared, we'll enter the final, frantic weeks of session. The last day is May 13.

That caveat aside, here's what you can expect to see in the legislature this week, with schedules subject to change.

Monday

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to take up , which is aimed at helping shore up the state's criminal justice competency system. The committee will also take up several bills related to easing the state's prison population, a key demand of lawmakers as Gov. Jared Polis looks to open new detention facilities.

The House's Finance Committee is scheduled to hear , which would further tighten how state and local authorities interact with federal immigration efforts.

Tuesday

The Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee will debate , which seeks to curb financial scams against older and vulnerable adults. That bill generated some controversy in the House because of the various forms of immunity it would grant to banks.

Potential floor debates

Other bills are due for discussion but lack certain timing. The House is scheduled this week to debate , which would regulate gun barrels. That bill's kicked around on the House's calendar for a few weeks now.

Fresh off of , the House is also scheduled to bring up this week. That bill would make it harder for some agricultural workers to qualify for overtime.

The new proposal is the third attempt in two years to find agreement on how to regulate AI, and it’s the second involving a specially convened task force. Gov. Jared Polis signed Colorado’s first-in-the-nation regulations into law in 2024 under the broad understanding that those rules would serve as a cudgel to force some fine-tuning in years to come.

Without any legislative action this spring, those much-debated regulations would take effect in June as originally written.

The proposal unveiled Tuesday would leave it to the courts to decide liability between the developers of AI tools and the organization that used the tools for any discrimination attributed to the use of AI, based on the circumstances of the individual case. The covered AI technology would include any technology that processes personal information and engages in computation to make predictions, recommendations, rankings or other information that is used to guide or assist decision-making about an individual.

The proposed bill would focus on when AI is used to make “consequential decisions,” such as those involving education or employment opportunities, housing, financial or lending services, insurance, health care services and essential government services.

Consumer tools such as spell-check, calculators, spreadsheets, robocall filtering and large language models, such as ChatGPT, would not be affected.

“I am very grateful to the hardworking members of the Colorado AI Policy Working Group that have reached a unanimous agreement on AI policy to protect consumers and support innovation in our state,” Polis said in a statement. “I look forward to supporting the recommended framework as legislation moves through the process, and commend the Colorado AI Policy Work Group for their efforts to get us here.”

The framework must now be turned into legislation and wind its way through the meat grinder of lawmakers and lobbyists who weren’t involved in the task force’s deliberations.

Those dynamics sank the prior attempts at fine-tuning the regulations during the regular legislative session in 2025 and the special session later in the year. Competing interests fought over coverage and who would be liable for the misuse of AI technology to make so-called consequential decisions.

Lawmakers ultimately voted in August to delay the start time for the 2024 regulations to give themselves a third bite at the apple.

At the heart of the issue is the danger of AI being used, willingly or not, to discriminate against consumers. Earlier proposals failed as Polis worried that regulations that were too strict would kill the industry in Colorado or put the state at an economic disadvantage. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a fellow Democrat, warned that having no regulations would hurt Coloradans and leave no recourse for misusing it.

Even now, uncertainty remains around how this latest shot will pan out, both inside the Capitol and outside. On Monday, the Washington Post that the Trump administration has been working with House Republicans to block state-level AI regulations as part of a package of federal legislation.

Though the framework was adopted by the group, nearly every participant also voted for “targeted revisions” to the draft — meaning that they wanted amendments. Each of those changes may be different and may rankle other members of the task force, and it����ap unclear how any lingering tensions will be resolved.

The Colorado Technology Association was among the groups represented on the task force. President Brittany Morris Saunders said in a statement that the association was among those that voted yes, with an eye toward changes.

“We look forward to seeing this progress reflected in the forthcoming legislation and to continuing the dialogue on how to protect consumers while enabling innovation to thrive,” Morris Saunders said.

Even more unclear is how the framework will be received in the Capitol. While significant interests were involved in the task force, including the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and prominent consumer groups, it was, by design, a small, cloistered group.

About every international technology business, such as Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, has invested heavily in the technology, too.

Task force members said they had not established a process for shepherding the bill through the legislature. Members, including Loren Furman, the president and CEO of the Colorado Chamber, said they wanted to try to keep the task force aligned as other interests or lawmakers proposed amendments and weighed in.

“As the legislative process unfolds, we’ll focus on ensuring the framework remains centered on consumers, functions effectively in practice and provides a foundation for adapting to future technology and emerging harms,” said Marissa Molina, the chief policy and communications officer for the Community Economic Defense Project and another task force member. She called the framework “real progress toward fairer technology accountability.”

That would offer at least something of a unified front — while defending the tenuously negotiated framework.

The framework “isn’t a completely finished product,” Furman said. “We’re still getting some revisions coming in, and we’re hoping this stays as intact as it can be as it hits the legislature. But as you and I know, people have opinions in the legislature.”

“It will be interesting to see how the task force can stick together and oversee the draft in its current form,” said Anaya Robinson of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, who sat on the task force. The process from here, he said, “is clear as mud.”

Adam Burrows, a co-founder of Range Ventures and member of the task force, praised the proposal as finding a solid balance between what consumer groups felt they needed and what would still allow the business community — particularly small and medium-sized businesses — to flourish.

He said he was one of the few to vote for the framework as is. But more importantly, the framework represents a vast improvement over the 2024 law, which passed as , he said.

That law is stocked with reporting requirements and broad definitions that Burrows called “massive, unnecessary and pointless burdens on businesses.”

His Denver-based firm works with dozens of companies, many of which are in Colorado. All would have been affected by SB-205 going into effect, he said. This proposal would clean up definitions and give clearer guidance, he said.

“This is much more specific — much more surgical — with the protections that consumer groups felt were really needed … and then making it workable for businesses,” Burrows said in an interview. “I feel really proud of what the group came up with.”

It����ap not totally clear who will sponsor the bill that’s eventually drafted from the framework, though Rodriguez has made clear he intends to be involved. He has held a tight grip on previous proposals, including stacking committees to get his preferred votes and voluntarily killing his own bill when it became clear that other forces would make changes he didn’t like.

Rodriguez had not yet reviewed the draft proposal and declined to comment through a spokeswoman on Tuesday.

The task force had worked through several iterations of its framework, and a final vote was delayed repeatedly as its members navigated late issues, including the question of whether to fully carve out hospitals and the insurance industry from being subject to the proposal. Furman said discussions around other areas of the policy continued into Monday night, dragging on to the point where she suggested another delay.

RTD chief executive and general manager Debra Johnson inspected the system at an electronic “fare validator” panel west of Denver’s Union Station.

Riders can pay for their trips using credit cards or mobile wallets scanned into panels adjacent to drivers on 952 RTD buses and at 235 train and bus stations across the district’s 2,342-square-mile metro Denver service area, which spans eight counties.

First-time and occasional riders, perhaps visitors in Denver for Broncos football games, will find RTD with this “Tap-N-Ride” payment system more convenient, Johnson said.

“You can use whatever is in your wallet,” she said. “The flexibility and the ease of payment will entice those who might have trepidation about using our system.”

The number of riders on RTD buses and trains is lagging. This year, agency records showed a decline, with about 40 million fewer riders per year compared with six years ago. RTD executives’ newly proposed $1.3 billion budget for 2026 does not include funds for boosting bus and train frequency — widely seen as crucial for ridership.

This week’s rollout of credit card tap payment puts RTD on par with other major public transit agencies that offer that option in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon.

RTD board chairman Julien Bouquet anticipated the new system would not only increase ridership but also help the agency raise revenues. Bus and train fares cover about 4.9% of RTD’s operating expenses.

Over the past year, RTD transit police and contract security agents have stepped up enforcement to make sure riders pay. Police making checks — they made more than 460,000 last month — can use a handheld validator device to check a rider’s card or device and verify whether the rider paid as required.

“Our main drive as a board is increasing ridership,” and the tap payment option will make the system more accessible, Bouquet said.

“People want a more welcoming transit environment. That’s what the directors want. It’s going to be an easier experience for you to pay for that ticket. If we can generate more revenue, that’s a plus. We’re in a pretty tight financial situation coming into 2026.”

Riders can still use cash or pre-loaded funds available via RTD’s “MyRide” accounts to pay for their transit. Those choosing the new tap payment system can skip buying tickets at vending machines and rely on a quick, secure and convenient transaction using Visa or Mastercard credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards or mobile wallet cards such as those provided through Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Agency officials said they’ll add American Express and Discover card Tap-n-Ride options in 2026.

RTD police officer Leon Duran said riders who board without paying and are caught may be asked to leave trains and buses. Transit police can issue tickets with a penalty of $86 for nonpayment. The handheld devices that let police quickly check whether a rider paid may, in the future, also be used to collect funds.

“It gives a less confrontational way of having somebody pay their fare without embarrassing someone,” Johnson said.

The agency’s elected directors included funds for setting up the credit care system in the RTD’s record-high $1.2 billion budget for 2025. The RTD is funded mostly by residents of the eight metro Denver counties who pay sales and use taxes.

The White House released a list of contributors Thursday. In addition to Palantir, the roster included crypto companies and enterpreneurs; technology companies like Meta, Apple and Amazon; major businesses like HP, Caterpillar and T-Mobile; and prominent Republican donors.

It’s unclear how much Palantir, , contributed to the project. The company did not return an email seeking comment Friday morning, and the White House did not identify how much had been given by each donor.

The company was also included on a guest list for a dinner that Trump previously held for nearly 130 supporters of the ballroom,

The donations have helped pave the way for Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing and his plans to replace it with a new, 90,000-square-foot ballroom.

The ballroom project has yet to receive approvals from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, although White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who was also tapped by Trump to lead the planning commission, said approval is not needed. The commission vets the construction of federal buildings.

At the donor dinner earlier this month, Trump said there are no zoning requirements for him as the president of the United States and he can do whatever he wants with the construction.

Palantir’s valuation and prominence have exploded in recent years as it has increasingly offered its services of merging, analyzing and utilizing massive datasets to government agencies. Palantir is now worth more than the combined value of every other Colorado-based company tracked by The Denver Post.

Palantir’s donation to Trump brings the company even closer to the administration. The company has received more than $100 million in federal government contracts since Trump took office, including controversial contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Most recently, the company signed an $11.4 million contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs at the end of September, along with roughly $20 million in recent contracts for the U.S. State Department, according to federal contracting records.

The company has also undertaken high-profile work for the U.S. Department of Defense and, outside of the U.S., for the Israeli military — an association that drew criticism from a United Nations official.

Palantir’s billionaire CEO, Alex Karp, has long supported both Republican and Democratic causes, including some Colorado Democrats. But his donations this year have increasingly tilted conservative:

He’s spent $575,000 on a handful of groups supporting Republican Senate candidates in states like Texas, Louisiana and Maine, according to federal campaign finance records. He donated $1 million to a Trump super PAC shortly after Trump won a return to the White House last year.

The New York Times and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Not the happiest of times.

You strike up a conversation with the guy from the next car, someone seemingly sensible beyond his years. Out of nowhere, he drops this bit of wisdom: “You know, someday just two companies will be worth as much as the entire U.S. economy right now.”

“Sure thing, buddy,” you say, spinning your finger next to your head to sign “crazy” to your spouse in the car. Anything is possible. But realistic? Yeah, right.

Yet … here we are.

In 1979, the inflation-adjusted GDP of the entire United States was $6.97 trillion. Today, the combined market capitalization of Microsoft and Apple alone is about $6.94 trillion. Combine Nvidia and Microsoft, and it����ap $8.28 trillion. In other words, the total value of all goods and services produced by the United States in 1979 now equates to about 84% of the value of just two of its top companies.

Admittedly, this is sort of an apples to oranges comparison. GDP measures output, not value, like market cap. But that assessment, while fair, misses the point: progress via innovation. Innovation, especially in technology, is cumulative — and at times, exponential.

The 1970s were a mess. After Nixon left the gold standard in 1971, inflation surged. Real incomes fell as prices rose. The S&P 500 peaked in 1973, shortly before being cut in half. The Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Arab Oil Embargo all contributed to a turbulent geopolitical environment. Lines formed at gas stations. It was an era of malaise on many fronts.

But amid all this discontent, the microprocessor was born. Intel launched the first commercially available chip in 1971. In 1975, two young guys named Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft. The following year, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak formed Apple in a garage. Nvidia came a little later in 1993, when its founder Jensen Huang created specialized graphics processors for PC gaming. Today, revenue from these three companies accounts for almost 2.5% of the U.S.’s entire economic output.

That����ap a sizeable amount, but three companies do not an economy make. To further put this progress in perspective, remember that the S&P was at 108 in 1979. Today, it����ap about 6,300, a 58-fold increase. That����ap an 11.8% annual growth rate from the day equities died (according to BusinessWeek) to May of 2025. That means if you’d invested $10,000 in something tracking the S&P 500, you’d have about $1.6 million today, less taxes.

Headlines get attention, but they aren’t always right. Good ideas — those that power the next decade’s innovation — will work quietly behind the scenes, regardless of their press coverage. The media feeds on urgency, but investing and innovation take time and patience. As an equity owner, you can choose either fear or patience; historically, only one has been consistently profitable.

Those who waited patiently through the 1970s eventually saw the tide turn. The Volcker Fed broke rising inflation. America gained energy independence through innovations in shale and fracking. Vietnam became a key trading partner and producer. Equities rebounded, climbing higher than imaginable. Nearly all the fears blasted on the nightly news evaporated in the rearview mirror, only to be replaced by new end-of-the-world-causing events.

Being told in 1979 that two yet-to-be-founded companies would be worth more than the entire output of the U.S. economy would have sounded like science fiction. But this history offers a valuable reminder that the future is so big, it����ap almost incomprehensible. Looking ahead, what could these numbers look like in 30, 40, even 50 years? Innovation doesn’t wait for good news, and as investors, we must focus on owning a piece of it.

No timeline is ever smooth, but progress is inevitable. On what will you choose to focus?

At its core, investing requires optimism and a belief in the ingenuity of mankind. Setbacks will happen, but progress inevitably delivers a brighter future. It����ap possible, even probable, that our grandkids will compare today’s GDP to the value of a company being founded in someone’s garage today. Don’t let fear dissuade you from investing in it.

Steve Booren is the founder of Prosperion Financial Advisors in Greenwood Village. He is the author of “Blind Spots: The Mental Mistakes Investors Make” and “Intelligent Investing: Your Guide to a Growing Retirement Income” He was named by Forbes as a 2024 Best-in-State Wealth Advisor, and a Barron’s 2024 Top Advisor by State.

• Apple — Nine out of 10 in my extended family use an iPhone on the Verizon network.

• Google — I search for answers to just about everything, multiple times per day, usually in a Chrome web browser.

• Berkshire Hathaway — They’re the holding company behind Geico, Duracell, Burlington Railroad, and See’s Candy, which is a personal favorite.

• J.P. Morgan Chase — This is the biggest bank and the credit card provider (powered by Visa) we all use.

• Proctor & Gamble — For the “quicker picker upper” (Bounty), “the best a man can get” (Gillette), and “hair you can’t get enough of” (Head & Shoulders), we reach for P&G products. They make nearly everything under the sink and in the laundry room.

I’ll bet your list has some overlap with mine, and that we share even more than five in common. We consistently rely on — and budget for — these brands and businesses in our daily activities.

Now imagine that you could own part of these successful long-lasting businesses, and it wouldn’t require boardroom visits or restroom cleanings. Instead, you can purchase shares. Warren Buffett would agree: Buying what you know is a wise investing principle.

When you log into your investment account, do you see a list of stocks and their prices or a list of real companies you rely on every day? Imagine: no ticker symbols. No flashing red or green arrows. Just some of the businesses that influence your daily life.

Now ask yourself: If the price of these companies were to drop 50%, would you stop using their products or services?

This isn’t a trick question. Understanding that you’re the partial owner of real companies, not a speculator in abstract stock tickers, shifts everything. Far too often, people meld the concept of “the market” with the economy or their financial future. But in reality, the market is simply a collection of daily prices driven largely by headlines and emotions.

Businesses, on the other hand, are real. They hire people. They make things, solve problems and serve customers. The best ones innovate relentlessly, grow shareholder value, increase earning and improve efficiency.

If “the market” were to drop 50% in price, I bet you’d still buy shampoo. You’d still pay your phone bill. You’d still hop on Netflix tonight to find a new show. The distinction between “stocks” and “businesses” may sound subtle, but it����ap fundamental — and it becomes clear when you develop an ownership mentality. Prices can swing wildly based on moods and news. But a well-managed company still serves its customers, earns profits, and reinvests in its future.

Earlier this year, the S&P 500 was dominated by a handful of high-flying tech names priced at record-high valuations. Then, within just a few weeks, the market dropped nearly 22% from its peak. Did those businesses suddenly become less innovative? Did people stop using their products? Did their long-term earning power collapse overnight?

Of course not.

What collapsed was sentiment. The “tariff tantrum” reared its head, fear took the wheel, investors got spooked and prices fell. This quick emotional reaction was driven largely by unexpected news.

The stock market is often like a funhouse mirror, distorting reality in both directions. When times are great and things feel good, it����ap easy to fall into greed and chase high prices. Conversely, when things get scary and uncertain, it����ap easy to panic.

Resisting those urges, no matter how “logical” they may seem, is good investment behavior. The temptation to react will always exist, but panicking and selling great companies has never been a winning strategy. What separates successful investors isn’t their ability to predict the market, but their good investment behavior when it matters most.

Buinesses like those I’ve listed have delivered something remarkable over decades: the slow, steady, relentless compounding of value. Their stock prices may be volatile, but their results trend upward. Earnings rise, dividends grow and shareholders who stay invested are typically rewarded.

I believe the greatest returns don’t come from picking the fastest growing stocks but instead from fostering good investment behavior and sticking to a long-term perspective. To invest requires optimism, believing that no matter what happens day-to-day, our future will be brighter. Markets may consist of numbers and headlines, but investing is ultimately human.

When you’re tempted to check your portfolio five times a day, remember you’re not just holding stocks; you’re part-owner in businesses you rely on and understand. That little shift in thinking can improve investor behavior and make all the difference in your financial success.

Then, the next time volatility strikes and people are running for the exits, take a breath. Your job is to stay focused on long-term ownership of those quality companies you’ve chosen — the ones that improve lives and create lasting value.

Steve Booren is the founder of Prosperion Financial Advisors in Greenwood Village. He is the author of “Blind Spots: The Mental Mistakes Investors Make” and “Intelligent Investing: Your Guide to a Growing Retirement Income” He was named by Forbes as a 2024 Best-in-State Wealth Advisor, and a Barron’s 2024 Top Advisor by State.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple tried to regain its footing Monday during an annual developers conference that focused mostly on incremental advances and cosmetic changes in its technology.

The presummer rite, which attracted thousands of developers from nearly 60 countries to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, was more subdued than the feverish anticipation that surrounded the event during the previous two years.

Apple highlighted plans for more AI tools designed to simplify people’s lives and make its products even more intuitive while also providing an early glimpse at the biggest redesign of its iPhone software in a decade. In doing so, Apple executives refrained from issuing bold promises of breakthroughs that punctuated recent conferences, prompting CFRA analyst Angelo Zino to deride the event as a “dud” in a research note.

In 2023, Apple unveiled that has been little more than a niche product, and last year WWDC trumpeted its first major foray into the AI craze with highlighted by the promise of a smarter and more versatile version of its virtual assistant, Siri — a goal that has hasn’t been achieved yet.

“This work needed more time to reach our high-quality bar,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s top software executive, said Monday at the outset of the conference. The company didn’t provide a precise timetable for the Siri’s AI upgrade to be finished but indicated it won’t happen until next year, at the earliest.

“The silence surrounding Siri was deafening,” said Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee said. “No amount of text corrections or cute emojis can fill the yawning void of an intuitive, interactive AI experience that we know Siri will be capable of when ready. We just don’t know when that will happen. The end of the Siri runway is coming up fast, and Apple needs to lift off.”

The showcase unfolded amid nagging questions about whether Apple has lost some of the mystique and innovative drive that turned it into a tech trendsetter during its nearly 50-year history.

Instead of making a big splash as it did with the Vision Pro headset and its AI suite, Apple took a mostly low-key approach that emphasized its effort to spruce up the look of its software with a new design called “Liquid Glass” while also unveiling a new hub for its video games and new features like a “Workout Buddy” to help manage physical fitness.

Apple executives promised to make its software more compatible with the increasingly sophisticated computer chips that have been powering its products while also making it easier to toggle between the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

“Our product experience has become even more seamless and enjoyable,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told the crowd as the 90-minute showcase wrapped up.

IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said Apple seemed to be largely using Monday’s conference to demonstrate the company still has a blueprint for success in AI, even if it����ap going to take longer to realize the vision that was presented a year ago.

“This year’s event was not about disruptive innovation, but rather careful calibration, platform refinement and developer enablement –positioning itself for future moves rather than unveiling game-changing technologies,” Jeronimo said.

Besides redesigning its software. Apple will switch to a method that automakers have used to telegraph their latest car models by linking them to the year after they first arrive at dealerships. That means the next version of the iPhone operating system due out this autumn will be known as iOS 26 instead of iOS 19 — as it would be under the previous naming approach that has been used since the device’s 2007 debut.

The iOS 26 upgrade is expected to be released in September around the same time Apple traditionally rolls out the next iPhone models.

In an early sign that AI wasn’t going to be a focal point of this year’s conference, Apple opened the proceedings with a short video clip featuring Federighi speeding around a track in a Formula 1 race car. Although it was meant to promote the June 27 release of the Apple film, “F1” starring Brad Pitt, the segment could also be viewed as an unintentional analogy to the company’s attempt to catch up to the rest of the pack in AI technology.

While some of the new AI tricks compatible with the latest iPhones as part of free software updates, the delays in a souped-up Siri became so glaring that the chastened company stopped promoting it in its marketing campaigns earlier this year.

While Apple has been struggling to make AI that meets its standards, the gap separating it from other tech powerhouses is widening. Google keeps packing more AI into its Pixel smartphone lineup while into its search engine to dramatically change the way it works. Samsung, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is also Meanwhile, ChatGPT that will bring former Apple design guru Jony Ive into the fold to work on a new device expected to compete against the iPhone.

Besides grappling with innovation challenges, Apple also faces regulatory threats that could siphon away billions of dollars in revenue that help finance its research and development. A federal judge is currently weighing whether proposed in search should include a ban on long-running deals worth $20 billion annually to Apple while another federal judge from collecting commissions on in-app transactions processed outside its once-exclusive payment system.

On top of all that, Apple has been caught in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s with China, a key manufacturing hub for the Cupertino, California, company. Cook successfully persuaded Trump to exempt the iPhone from tariffs during the president����ap first administration, but he has had less success during Trump’s second term, which seems more determined to prod .

The multidimensional gauntlet facing Apple is spooking investors, causing the company’s stock price to plunge by 20% so far this year — a decline that has erased about $750 billion in shareholder wealth. After beginning the year as the most valuable company in the world, Apple now ranks third behind longtime rival Microsoft, another AI leader, and AI chipmaker Nvidia.

Apple’s shares closed down by more than 1% on Monday — an early indication the company’s latest announcements didn’t inspire investors.