The agency’s  on Monday accused the district of having clubs that “exclude students based on race” and of using students’ race to determine class assignments and academic support, according to a news release announcing the investigation.

The Office of Civil Rights did not identify the clubs in question or provide further details about those allegations.

“We strongly disagree with the characterization of district programming,” Cherry Creek Schools spokeswoman Ashey Verville said in a statement. “The district has not yet received a copy of the complaint. Without the complaint, we are not in a position to respond further.”

The Education Department said it is also investigating a parent committee — called the — that the Office of Civil Rights said grants access based solely on race, “denying other parents an equal opportunity to participate in the decisions that directly impact their children’s education.”

The Voices of Color Committee is made up of parents, teachers and administrators and has a goal of creating “an inclusive and safe environment” for students of color, according to the district’s website.

The Education Department said it has received complaints that the district trains teachers that the U.S. “was founded on ‘white supremacy’ and categorizes individuals as ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed’ based only on their skin color,” according to the news release.

The agency accuses Cherry Creek Schools of violating .

The Denver Post asked the Education Department for more information about its allegations against Cherry Creek Schools, but an unidentified spokesperson said via email that the agency would not comment on an open investigation.

“These allegations of racially discriminatory conduct in this District seem to permeate almost every aspect of the school community, affecting students, teachers, and parents alike,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement. “Federal law prohibits racial discrimination, which means that race cannot be a factor in how the school educates its students or trains its teachers.

The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to pull federal funding from K-12 districts nationwide that implement policies the federal government has called discriminatory, such as those that aim to recruit more Black teachers, place more students of color in advanced classes or otherwise relate to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The Trump administration previously launched separate investigations into Denver Public Schools and Jeffco Public Schools, accusing those districts of discriminating against girls with policies that support transgender students.

Both DPS and Jeffco Public Schools — the state’s two largest districts — defied the Education Department, refusing to alter their policies despite pressure from the federal government.

DPS hasn’t heard from the Education Department in months. But last week, the department threatened for a second time to pull Jeffco Public Schools’ funding for allowing transgender students to play sports and use girls bathrooms.

At the college level, the Trump administration launched an investigation last year into the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus, accusing the school of discriminating against students because it “supported” a conference held by a nonprofit that aims to help students from underrepresented groups earn business degrees.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is set to be the first sitting U.S. president , bringing strict security measures that will require  fans to navigate an extensive safety perimeter around Madison Square Garden and an expected lengthy wait to get inside the building.

The security for Game 3 between the Knicks and  and the scene around the arena more closely resembled New Year’s Eve in Times Square, and for fans, it might seem more akin to a trip to the airport. They were asked to get to the game two hours early and will be required to provide a ticket to get past various checkpoints along with passing through a TSA-style magnetometer.

Trump’s appearance led the New York Police Department and Secret Service to establish a multi-block security perimeter around the arena,  and institute a no-bag policy for ticket-holders. Fans had gathered around the Garden to watch games during this playoff run, during which the Knicks have won 13 games in a row to reach the final for the first time since 1999 and move two victories from their first NBA title since 1973.

“The NYPD in coordination with the Secret Service made the decision for Game 3, where we have a presidential visit, that we could not support watch parties right outside of the Garden,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference Monday. “We are looking forward to bringing back watch parties for Game 4. But I think New Yorkers are used to presidents coming to town, and they understand that that generally means lockdowns of areas and that����ap what you’re going to see tonight at the Garden.”

Trump has attended several major sporting events in his time as president, and the security measures have created major hassles for fans.

Thousands of fans  of last year’s U.S. Open men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner because of lengthy security lines. Even though the U.S. Tennis Association pushed back the start of the match by a half-hour, many fans still couldn’t get in because added measures meant that they had to go through screening not only when they arrived at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center but again in front of the steps into Arthur Ashe Stadium, where Trump watched from a suite.

Asked his thoughts on Trump attending, Knicks center Mitchell Robinson said: “Cool, I guess. We can still get out there and play (no matter) who’s here and who’s not.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other dignitaries are also expected to be at the game Monday night.

It was already hard enough for Knicks fans to get inside Madison Square Garden because of astronomical ticket prices.  is higher than the average cost of monthly rent in New York, surging over $6,000. The best seats are tens of thousands of dollars. Mamdani said he bought his ticket for about $1,000 directly from Madison Square Garden.

The difficulty of seeing the game in-person has prompted fans to crowd bars, streets and watch parties all over the city. The watch party near the Garden has become a major event all through the playoffs, but with Trump attending, that event will be moved a few blocks away outside the security perimeter, at Bryant Park.

“We improvise,” said Knicks guard Jose Alvarado, who is a New York native. “We’re New Yorkers. We’re going to find a way to watch a game, and that����ap what we’re doing.”

AP Sports Writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this report.

AP NBA:

are scheduled around the state on June 14, which is also President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. The parties will livestream the “” concert in New York City, which organizers said is a celebration of the First Amendment and will be co-hosted by the . The concert will feature celebrities like Jane Fonda and Bette Midler, and it will be headlined by musician Rufus Wainwright.

As of Monday morning, watch parties in Colorado are planned for Loveland, Granby, Golden, Alamosa, Longmont, Superior and Crestone.

More than 200 watch parties are scheduled nationwide, The event sets out to “celebrate the freedoms guaranteed by our First Amendment — of speech, religion, press, assembly, and protest.”

The event will run at roughly the same time as the Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the White House on Sunday.

The “No Kings” group is a national protest movement that has broadly criticized Trump and his administration. Previous protests in Denver and elsewhere in Colorado have attracted tens of thousands of marchers and attendees.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, a new poll finds.

The survey from highlights many Americans’ feeling of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. It presents a jarring contrast as communities around the country commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Only about one-quarter of Americans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world, the new poll found, while 44% say it����ap one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others. About 3 in 10 say there are better countries than the U.S., an increase from 19% in conducted in June 2016.

Americans remain divided about whether diversity is an essential feature of the U.S.’s identity, and agreement about other aspects of the country’s underlying character appears to be eroding, the survey found. Americans are less likely to see a democratically elected government as “extremely” or “very” important to the United States’ identity as a nation than they were just a few years ago. About two-thirds of U.S. adults now say a democratically elected government is highly important to the U.S.’s identity as a nation, down from 80% in 2021.

“It����ap not that the democracy part is not working,” said Derricka Wall, 24, of Chickasaw, Alabama. “It����ap the people that are actually being put in office that is the problem.”

Wall believes politicians have damaged America’s governing system, which was designed to ensure representation and guard against government misuse.

America, she said, “is not what it used to be. I feel like our founding fathers would be kind of disappointed with how it is now.”

Rising belief that democracy is not essential to American identity

Young adults are much less likely than older Americans to believe the U.S. is special, compared with other nations, the poll found.

About 4 in 10, 44%, of U.S. adults under 30 say there are other countries better than the U.S., compared with 22% of U.S. adults ages 60 and older.

Fewer, too, see democracy as a key element of the U.S.’s identity. Only about half of Americans under 30 believe this, compared with 81% of those 60 and older.

Wall said the people who established the government with co-equal branches thought they were erecting safeguards to keep any one person or group from attaining too much power. But she believes they didn’t foresee how easily those guardrails would crumble if the people in the system stopped enforcing them.

“I feel like they would actually roll out of their graves,” she said. “I feel they would be very disappointed in us.”

The belief that politics isn’t working for everyday people extends beyond the youngest generations. Kent Stage, 62 and a retired senior enlisted man in the Army, is a registered Republican in Indiana. He does not think the current political system addresses the country’s problems. He’d like to see term limits on politicians and more working-class people serving.

“I’ll trust the ambulance-chasing lawyer and a shady used car salesman before I trust the politician,” he said.

Stage, who is also a former Marine, believes public servants make self-serving choices for their families “while mine and yours still got to hit the old grindstone.”

Many feel it����ap harder to get ahead in the US

The survey also finds widespread cynicism about America as the land of opportunity. About half of U.S. adults, 51%, say the American Dream — the idea that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead — once held true but does not anymore. About one-third say it “still holds true” while 15% say it never held true.

Jack Hermanson, a 27-year-old software developer in Denver, said his belief in the American Dream changed when he saw his engineer husband struggle to find a job. “That really shattered my impression that if you work hard, you get what you deserve,” Hermanson said.

Only 22% of Americans under 30 say the American Dream still holds true, compared with 46% of Americans ages 60 and older.

Angela Toombs, 31, works at a senior living facility in Atlanta where her clients talk about how easy it was to buy a house while working their first regular jobs in their 20s and are incredulous about the obstacles facing Toombs’ generation. Toombs recently gave up her own apartment to rent a room in order to save money.

Skepticism about the American Dream is more widespread among Democrats and independents, compared with Republicans. Most Republicans, 57%, say the American Dream still holds true, compared with about one-quarter of independents and 17% of Democrats.

Republicans are also much likelier than Democrats to see the U.S. as exceptional. About half of Republicans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world, compared with only 7% of Democrats.

Quintin Sharpe, 28, lives in a resort town on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. A financial planner who is Republican, he said the American Dream remains accessible and he is proud of the country. “It����ap been a great experiment.”

“The opportunity is there for those who want to work for it,” he said. Sharpe believes the country is “a meritocracy, and the best ideas, the best work ethic, those with the best succeed regardless of race, skin color, any of those factors.”

He and his wife will celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary watching the fireworks over the lake.

Divides on whether diversity is essential to US

Just over half of U.S. adults — 56% — say a shared American culture and set of values are “extremely” or “very” important to the country’s identity, down from 65% in 2017. Younger Americans are less likely than older ones to say a singular set of values is important to U.S. identity.

But Americans remain sharply divided on the centrality of welcoming diverse perspectives: About half of adults, 51%, say the ability of people to come from other places in the world to escape violence or find economic opportunities is “extremely” or “very” important to American identity, while 55% say this about the mixing of cultures and values from around the world.

Only about 4 in 10 Republicans see the mixing of cultures and values from around the world as central to the country’s identity, compared with 76% of Democrats.

Rose Nunez, 70, of San Antonio, was a small business owner but now is a caregiver for family members. Nunez, who tends to vote for Democrats, said there is an unease and tension that are just beneath the surface, especially focused on Hispanics. She said some people have started carrying their papers showing their immigration status in case they are challenged.

“It is hard to celebrate when the feelings towards immigrants and communities of color are so strong,” she said of the upcoming America 250 celebrations.

She said even citizens are questioned now. If it gets to a point where being naturalized is challenged, “guess what, my mom would be leaving. She’s been living in this country since she was maybe four years old. She’s 93.”

The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

I’m writing this letter to urge our candidates for governor to take a stand to repeal the 1981 law prohibiting local control of rents. Local communities are the best locus to determine affordability for their residents. The conditions in Denver are different from places such as Fruita, Aspen, Durango or Lamar. Stripping municipal and county governments of the ability to assess the needs of their communities is fundamentally anti-democratic.

I have lived in Denver for 30 years and have always been a renter. I retired as a state employee over eight years ago. Currently, I pay approximately 45% of my net income for my housing. Recently, my rent was increased 17%, where I have resided for 10 years. Inflation at that time was 3%. I believe that with reasonable rent control by the city of Denver, such an increase would never have been allowed. At this rate, I will soon be forced to leave the city I love.

Increasing the housing stock is one step, but it is not a solution, especially if new rental units are unaffordable. There needs to be a limit on the amount a landlord can increase the rent, and a fair and easy mechanism for enforcement. We need our elected officials, and our candidates running for governor and other offices, to commit to working with us to overturn this unjust law that favors corporate landlords over residents.

Jeff Schweinfest, Denver

What is causing overpayments in the first place?

Re: “Unemployment: Overpayment appeals, probes under scrutiny,” May 31 news story

The Sunday article on people’s inability to challenge claw-backs of their unemployment benefits was very interesting! Thanks for doing it.

But I was left totally confused by the whole process. The reason money is clawed back presumably is because the agency determined that they had been given too much money. But that is the same agency that determined how much to give them in the first place.

So why didn’t they use the proper process (that determined how much they got in excess) right off? This is crazy! Something is really wrong here.

Steve Pomerance, Boulder

Details, please, candidates

Re: “So you’ll fight Trump; what else?” May 30 letter to the editor

Responding to the letter about the Democratic candidates for governor and running their campaigns on fighting Trump, I can only say, “Here! Here!” I am also independent and am no fan of President Donald Trump.

But it should just be assumed that any Democrat running for any office is planning to fight Trump (I wish the same could be said for the other side, but that����ap an argument for another time). You would better serve your constituents by telling us how you’re going to make life better for us in this state. What is your plan? Fighting Trump should be a given. Stop wasting most of your 30-second ads on Trump and what the other candidate did or did not do. Tell us your plan. And that goes for you as well, Congressional District 8 Democratic candidates!

Andrea Llamzon, Thornton

Marx sounds a lot like Santos

Re: “Marx draws rivals’ criticism,” May 26 commentary

The achievements Victor Marx highlights as a self-proclaimed minister, such as having traveled the globe to help thousands of people victimized by trafficking and persecution . . . as well as ministries in Haiti and the Middle East where he personally battled with ISIS, sound awfully outlandish and familiar.

I’m thinking of the former Republican from New York, George Santos, who made up all kinds of wild stories about his past, which eventually got exposed — but, of course, the GOP didn’t care.  Just needed his seat in Congress despite his lying and cheating, kind of like the guy sitting in the White House.

Yet, Marx is the frontrunner in the primary campaign for governor against two far more qualified candidates with genuine experience in government, whom he declines to debate. Can’t see him winning in blue state Colorado. I guess they’re more concerned about MAGA bona fides than winning.

Jeannie Dunham, Denver

Amanda Gonzalez for Secretary of State

Re: “State Sen. Jessie Danielson for secretary of state,” May 31 endorsement editorial

I was disappointed to read of your endorsement of state Sen. Jessie Danielson for Colorado Secretary of State. While she has been active in election law, she has not, as you pointed out, ever run an election.

Amanda Gonzalez has extensive election experience in Jefferson County, one of the largest counties in Colorado. In these troubled times, we need someone with nuts and bolts experience of the process, not just the laws. I hope the people of Colorado will think seriously about the qualifications of the two and vote for Amanda Gonzalez.

Kathleen N. Jones, Centennial

Michael Dougherty for Attorney General

When my husband, Kevin Mahoney, and nine other victims were killed at King Soopers in 2021, District Attorney Michael Dougherty showed up tirelessly for all of us from day one. His empathy, integrity, and years of legal expertise mattered.

It����ap no surprise a guilty verdict was reached.

Now Michael is running for attorney general where he would take on the role as top lawyer for our state — a role he would excel at. I’m confident Michael will work hard for all of us in Colorado to protect our communities and natural resources. With nearly 30 years as a prosecutor, Michael knows how to tackle the toughest legal battles. He has prosecuted violent crimes, protected consumers, and defended civil rights. He continually fights for the rights and safety of our families, our children, and grandchildren. It����ap a powerful fight for justice because he truly cares about people. This is a time in our country when our very democracy is at stake.

We need an experienced, hardworking, and courageous individual like Michael to take on the relentless chaos and corruption through our legal system. This is the exact expertise he brings to the table. Colorado primary day is Tuesday, June 30. Let����ap elect Michael Dougherty as Colorado’s next attorney general.

Ellen Mahoney, Boulder

Sue Flageolle for Jefferson County Assessor

When it comes to the Jefferson County assessor’s race, the choice is straightforward: experience, integrity, and a genuine commitment to this community. Sue Flageolle is that choice, and she has earned my enthusiastic support.

Sue is not a political newcomer looking to use the assessor’s office as a stepping stone. She is the current deputy assessor for Jefferson County, with more than 28 years of service in our own office. Her career in real estate appraisal spans over four decades, and she has held a Certified General Appraiser License since 1989. This is not a résumé built for a campaign — it’s a career built in service to Colorado property owners.

What sets Sue apart is her understanding that the assessor’s office must work for everyone. Property owners — homeowners, small business owners and renters — all feel the downstream effects of how assessments are conducted. When valuations are inaccurate or inconsistent, the consequences ripple through our entire community: inflated tax bills, strained household budgets, and inequitable burdens on those least able to absorb them.

Sue’s commitment to fair, transparent, and market-reflective property values is not a talking point; it’s the philosophy she has practiced throughout her entire career.

Sue is also leading Jefferson County’s transition to a modern, cloud-based mass appraisal platform launching this year. We need someone at the helm who understands both the technology and the appraisal principles behind it. Sue does.

Jefferson County deserves an assessor who walks in on day one knowing exactly what the job requires. That person is Sue Flageolle.

Jamie Eickhoff, Littleton

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NEW YORK — A federal lawsuit seeks to halt the upcoming on the White House South Lawn in a show timed for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and part of the celebration of the nation’s .

The filing Saturday by the Public Integrity Project on behalf of two Virginia residents contends the Trump administration’s authorization of the June 14 event was unlawful. The lawsuit says such approval violated National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, Congress did not consent to the overlooking the event space and no environmental review was conducted before the construction.

“This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” said Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And that is what is motivating this lawsuit.”

The White House said in a statement that the legal challenge was “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” attempt to prevent Trump from hosting the fight and that the event was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.”

UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn. Trump has said the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.

The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.

But though some of their party, it’s far less certain if that discontent is strong enough — or focused enough — to pull off a seismic upset against Hickenlooper, the former brewpub owner and onetime Denver mayor and Colorado governor now finishing his first term in the Senate.

Gonzales’ progressive bona fides in Denver and the state Capitol will have to overcome Hickenlooper’s experience, his comparably vast fundraising and the inherent advantage that comes from being a fixture of Colorado’s political scenery.

“There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of collective outrage at Colorado’s incumbents — like John Hickenlooper, like (fellow U.S. Sen.) Michael Bennet,” said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver. “We’ll see what actually happens in the election. But that����ap really Gonzales’ best ticket to office — if there’s a lot of anger for incumbents seeming too complacent nationally or not willing to fight hard enough against the Trump administration.”

Gonzales, a 43-year-old two-term state senator from Denver, has framed her candidacy in large part as a progressive critique and challenge to the Democratic Party’s more moderate standard-bearers, like Hickenlooper.

“Does Colorado want to continue with more of the same, go-along-to-get-along politics?” said Gonzales, whose legislative work has focused on immigrant rights and progressive staples like tenant protections. “… Over the past six years, (Hickenlooper) has not met that moment in responding to (voters’ economic) pain — versus my track record, where I have shown up, done the work, advanced progressive and durable policy that has made concrete impacts on people’s lives.”

Hickenlooper, in contrast, repeatedly spoke of his candidacy — and his desired return to office — as laser-focused on responding to President Donald Trump. In a phone call last week, he didn’t acknowledge Gonzales and sidestepped a question about anti-incumbency feelings among Democratic voters.

He said his campaign was about “fighting back” against the president and responding to healthcare cuts and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He highlighted his own extensive experience as mayor and governor, and his work in helping to pass the

“Right now, with Trump in office, that����ap what we need,” said Hickenlooper, who raised $40.7 million in 2020 on his way to defeating Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner. “We need that experience of being focused on his lawlessness and combating his reckless attacks on our traditions, on the American way.”

The primary election is June 30, and mail ballots will be sent to voters beginning Monday. Both Democratic and unaffiliated voters can weigh in on the race.

The winner of the Democratic contest will face off in November against state Sen. Mark Baisley, of Woodland Park, who is running unopposed in the Republican primary.

In a nod to the progressive messaging adopted by both Hickenlooper and Gonzales’ campaigns, Baisley said they appeared to be trying to “out-liberal the other person.” He, too, was hoping to harness voter dissatisfaction — albeit in a far more conservative direction — to fuel what would be an upset win in November.

“There has been such a long run of single-party control in Colorado that everyone’s realizing that their freedoms have been curtailed in an enormous way,” he said.

Hickenlooper seeks a final term

Now age 74, Hickenlooper’s potential second term would end a month before his 81st birthday. He has already said he wouldn’t run for a third term, and he told The Denver Post that he would serve the entirety of his second term, should he be reelected.

“We’re going to have to rebuild better,” he said of his plans for a second term, echoing a slogan from the early years of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. He has called for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be overhauled, and he’s backed broad reforms to the agency’s practices. “That����ap part of what I’m committing to, in my six years — I think we cannot just build back what we had, but build back in a much better form from what we should’ve had.”

Gonzales has served in the legislature since her election in 2018. A Yale University graduate, she was an organizer and worked for a prominent immigration law firm in Denver.

She said she would support “Medicare For All,” a proposal that typically means single-payer health insurance coverage for all Americans in a program run by the government. To achieve its passage and other reforms, she would advocate for ending the Senate’s filibuster, the rule that requires at least 60 senators to agree to end debate and move to a vote. She supports expanding the U.S. Supreme Court and instituting term limits for both justices and federal lawmakers.

She said she would not support U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to continue on as the Democratic leader. She also said she would not support sending any military aid to Israel.

“I’m not only going to talk about standing up to Trump,” she said. “I also want to share the vision where all Coloradans can thrive.”

Hickenlooper said he supported giving Americans “universal (health insurance) coverage” but did not commit to supporting Medicare for All specifically. He highlighted to increase healthcare pricing transparency.

He said he was open to court reforms that would include term limits and a set number of appointments per presidential administration. Asked about Schumer, he said that he didn’t think the New York senator wanted to continue as minority leader and that other, younger lawmakers were interested.

He noted that the filibuster had prevented some Republican priorities from passing under the Trump administration, but he said he wasn’t “ruling out addressing the filibuster.” In 2021, he said he wanted to “change the filibuster” to pass voting rights legislation.

Hickenlooper recently voted against sending bulldozers and some munitions to Israel. Campaign spokesman Jess Cohen said Hickenlooper “would continue to vote against weapons that fuel the war,” which Cohen said included the conflicts in Iran, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Scant polling has been released about the race. showed Hickenlooper with a 32-point lead — 45% to 13% — over Gonzales, with his other challengers in the low single digits. Thirty-seven percent of respondents were unsure.

But the race tightened significantly after the respondents — 739 likely Democratic primary voters — were read “neutral-to-positive” biographies of the candidates. Those biographies were not included in the poll release. The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Gonzales faces name ID disparity

When it comes to fundraising, meanwhile, Hickenlooper has been dominant.

, the most recent reporting deadline, he had raised $5.7 million in total contributions and had more than $4 million in the bank. Gonzales, who entered the race in December, had raised $443,000 by March 31 and had just over $114,000 on hand, .

The fundraising disparity will make it harder for Gonzales to increase her name recognition across the state, already at a deficit against a well-known figure like Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper is taking the race seriously enough that he’s running ads to support his campaign, Masket noted. But the strength of his name recognition alone presents a formidable challenge.

“That’s hard, particularly against someone like Hickenlooper, who’s been in public life in Denver and Colorado for several decades now, and he was a popular governor, a popular mayor,” he said. “That’s very hard to overcome.”

Gonzales has criticized Hickenlooper’s support for several Trump cabinet nominees; , the third-most among Democratic senators.

He voted against 13 cabinet nominees last year, according to Ballotpedia, and Hickenlooper said he’d voted against 96% of Trump’s appointments overall. He said he wouldn’t vote again for any of the nominees he did support.

“I thought they would push back on the president,” he said. “I thought that a good executive — even a bad executive — if they get a senior staff that challenges them and pushes back, they make better decisions. … And yet this group of appointees, not one of them have come outside their shell and pushed back.”

To offset the fundraising disparity in the campaign, Gonzales has launched a statewide tour, and she earned her place on the ballot at the party’s statewide assembly earlier this spring. (Hickenlooper initially participated before withdrawing from the assembly process, instead filing petitions to make the ballot.)

Last month, Gonzales appeared , a leftist personality who has backed progressive Democratic candidates in other states. On Wednesday, Gonzales’ campaign announced that she and Melat Kiros, who is hoping to ride a similar upset wave and unseat longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver, would participate in a Denver rally with Piker on June 14.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer report who have recently been released from its custody, in a change that could obscure the full human cost of the Trump administration’s mass detention policies.

The move rescinds a 2021 policy implemented by the Biden administration that required ICE to report to Congress and investigate deaths of detainees that occur within 30 days of their release.

The goal of the 2021 policy was to ensure that ICE could not avoid accountability for deaths by releasing severely ill people from custody. Detainees who were brain-dead or suffering from infection, for instance, have died shortly after ICE released them in the past.

Two health experts who have investigated ICE custody deaths criticized the change Friday.

“Tracking deaths immediately after custody is a standard approach that allows health systems in jails, prisons and immigration detention to learn about that may occur before a person leaves a facility,” said Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of the New York City jail system. “Eliminating reporting of these deaths represents a willful act of ignoring the most serious health outcome that can reflect inadequacies in care or help track outbreaks.”

ICE detainees also routinely die at hospitals where they are taken for treatment after their conditions deteriorate inside detention facilities, records show. Those detainees, however, have generally been considered to remain in ICE custody.

The Washington Post first reported the policy change Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, later confirmed the move in a statement that framed it as “common sense.”

“Under this updated policy, when an individual is no longer in ICE custody then ICE will no longer be responsible for monitoring or reviewing deaths that may occur,” the statement said.

The statement said ICE remained committed to transparency and that the revised policy includes procedures for “timely notification, review and reporting of deaths occurring in ICE custody.” ICE did not immediately release its full updated policy.

The decision to limit death reporting comes as a greater number of ICE detainees have been dying. At least 18 detainees have died since Jan. 1, which is on pace to surpass last year’s death toll, which was the highest in two decades. Detainees at an unprecedented pace, and experts say many other deaths from natural causes likely would have been preventable with timely medical care.

Dr. Sanjay Basu, a University of California-San Francisco epidemiologist who recently published an analysis of more than 270 ICE custody deaths, said the policy change will “make the mortality statistics appear lower without any actual improvement in care.”

“The period immediately following release is when deaths attributable to inadequate care during confinement become apparent,” he said. “Missed diagnoses, interrupted medications, untreated infections, and decompensating chronic conditions don’t always kill someone while they’re still in the building.”

As of early April, ICE was holding more than 60,000 detainees across its national network of detention facilities, up from around 40,000 at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. ICE denies allegations that detainees suffer from medical neglect, saying they receive comprehensive health care services.

Before announcing Thursday’s policy change, DHS acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis told the AP on Tuesday that no detainees died in its custody in May. That was the first month without a detainee death since November. At the time, Bis did not address AP questions about whether any death reporting policies had changed.

“As we have repeatedly stated, deaths in ICE custody are exceedingly rare,” she said then.

Associated Press reporter Michael Biesecker in Washington, D.C., contributed.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects.

The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking data from little-known state systems that allow hospitals and clinics to exchange detailed, identifiable patient information, KFF Health News has learned.

In private meetings, some public health leaders have objected to giving Kennedy’s team access to such data, raising doubts that it����ap legal or that the information would even be useful.

They have also expressed concerns about allowing the federal government to peer into the minutiae of Americans’ medical records, which could mean viewing anything from doctors’ notes to prescription history. HHS has offered no insight into how it will protect or handle the personal health information it obtains.

But Kennedy told KFF Health News that medical records are key to investigating the cause of autism, vaccine safety, and chronic diseases. And millions of dollars in grant money has poured into a Nebraska nonprofit that has assisted Kennedy’s effort, according to state records.

He and his advisers have been frustrated that federal access to Americans’ medical records has been limited.

“We need a good health record system, and one of the things that really surprised me most when I came into office is that there is — that the systems are broken,” Kennedy said in a May interview. “We’ve had to go to the states and, luckily, we’ve got a lot of cooperation from the states, but we now have databases together that we can actually do the studies on. Those studies are in motion.”

HHS has not publicly announced any new projects involving medical records and autism or vaccine research. Kennedy faced blowback last year when he proposed compiling the medical records of people with autism to create a federal disease registry — which health department officials .

But Kennedy said in May, “We have a whole pipeline of studies that will be done over the next year.”

Though the White House has to U.S. vaccine policy ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections, President Donald Trump has regularly echoed Kennedy’s doubts about vaccine safety and last week signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children.

Kennedy’s political appointees and allies — including William “Reyn” Archer III, a former Texas health official and whom Kennedy hired as a senior adviser — have led the initiative for the health department to collect and examine medical records.

Federal officials met with leaders of the state-run health information exchange systems several times over the past year and asked how the personal medical records they maintain could be used for vaccine research, according to seven people who participated in the discussions or were familiar with them.

Craig Behm, who runs the Maryland health information exchange, said Kennedy’s team asked about how the vast trove of medical records they store from hospitals and health systems could be used to study vaccines.

“If this administration wants to conduct research on the effectiveness of vaccines, are you saying you all can help us conduct that research?” Behm recalled being asked by a top official at HHS’ health information technology office.

Last June, Behm and leaders of other state exchanges met with Kennedy’s top advisers to discuss sharing more medical data with federal agencies. The state organizations followed up with a pitch in October for a new surveillance system that would give the federal health department “real-time, 24-hour data feeds on opioid and chronic disease trends” within a year, according to a presentation reviewed by KFF Health News. Under the proposal, HHS would get data from 90% of the population’s medical records by 2028.

Administration officials regularly asked during the meetings how the records could be used to monitor vaccine safety. Kennedy has rejected the federal government����ap current vaccine-monitoring systems; decades of research has shown immunizations are safe and effective for most people.

“Vaccine safety, or whatever words you want to use, has come up pretty consistently in those conversations,” said John Kansky, CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange.

Kansky sees the potential value of sharing information from the exchanges for public health but is worried about the focus on vaccines: “It����ap like, oh man, I wish you would have picked something that pushed fewer buttons for people.”

A system to monitor chronic disease

Nearly every state has at least one health information exchange — often regulated by state laws and run by private companies or nonprofits — that enables hospitals and health systems to immediately share patients’ medical records with one another. The systems allow doctors and nurses to quickly pull up nearly anyone’s medical history and records at emergency rooms or share after-visit summaries and notes with patients’ primary care providers, for example.

In certain circumstances — most often dealing with cases of infectious diseases such as measles or flu — the exchanges notify public health authorities, like the state health department or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using the exchanges for broader public health purposes is not an unusual idea in itself. But it can present privacy, legal, and ethical complications, health officials say.

In the end, Behm said his organization in Maryland declined to share more data with the federal government for vaccine research, noting that sharing medical records for that purpose would require a rash of approvals from hospitals, state political leaders, and research boards. Any new data-sharing agreement should also have a clear, detailed framework outlining what would be shared and with whom, he added.

“A number of us said, ‘We can’t do anything our agreements don’t allow us to do, so no,’” Behm said. Indeed, most health information exchanges have contractual restrictions on who can access clinical data.

Kansky said Indiana is still weighing whether to provide additional data for Kennedy’s project, and that nothing has yet been shared.

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard did not answer questions about how many states are participating in Kennedy’s project, what new data the agency is collecting, how much the federal government is spending on the initiative, how it is protecting patient privacy, or who has access to the data.

“HHS is strengthening public health surveillance and modernizing data systems to better understand and combat the childhood chronic disease epidemic as part of Secretary Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” Hilliard said in an emailed statement. “Americans deserve robust systems to monitor the drivers of chronic illness.”

Kennedy has asserted, without evidence, that vaccines can cause chronic illness.

A Kennedy partner in Nebraska

At least one state has been cooperative.

The former leader of Nebraska’s state health information exchange has led the effort to share data from medical records with the federal government.

Jaime Bland, former CEO of CyncHealth — the Nebraska health information exchange used by in the state — said several states are looking to “open up channels” to provide more analysis to Kennedy’s team.

“They’re looking at the data differently and providing some insights back to the CDC,” Bland told KFF Health News.

Bland was among a group who proposed that CyncHealth would help kick off the initiative, according to a 43-slide PowerPoint presented to federal officials during an October meeting.

CyncHealth and other state health information exchanges would “ingest data from hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, payers, and social services agencies,” then “link claims and clinical records through a master patient index.”

Data from the exchanges “will be deidentified where appropriate,” according to one slide.

The federal government would pay the exchanges for furnishing the records, according to the proposal: $3 a person, annually.

Officials would “frame publicly that this is not a new database, but a federated trust model that delivers real-time data for all HHS missions,” the presentation reads.

After the meeting, Nebraska’s health department was awarded a large grant from the CDC, and CyncHealth in turn got millions of dollars from the state.

On Dec. 19, the CDC announced new funding under its , which sends money to state and local health departments for lab work, health information enhancements, and solutions for outbreaks.

Nebraska’s state health department was awarded $18.7 million — the most of any state last year, though Nebraska is the 38th most populous state. By comparison, Texas received $9.2 million, and California got $10.8 million.

CyncHealth was then awarded three contracts totaling $13.6 million from the state health department just weeks later, on Jan. 9 and Jan. 16, according to a publicly accessible database of state contracts.

Grace McNamara, a spokesperson for CyncHealth, said it retained $2.4 million of the funding for Kennedy’s project; the remaining money was distributed to “other participating states and various vendor organizations for implementation support.”

A former CDC official who was aware of the transaction, but not authorized to speak publicly about it, confirmed the money was intended for CyncHealth to supply data for Kennedy’s initiative to look at vaccines and autism. McNamara said that the “work is focused on improving outcomes related to acute and chronic illnesses.”

“The referenced project is not research, but rather a proof-of-concept project on how health information exchange and public health can work together to improve health outcomes and is not specific to autism,” she said in an emailed statement.

McNamara did not answer questions about what type of medical data is being provided to the federal health department or whether patients’ identifying information is removed.

Bland left her post at CyncHealth — where she was paid nearly — in December. She was named in April as the chief data strategist for the MAHA Institute — a think tank founded by allies of Kennedy and Trump to advance their Make America Healthy Again movement.

Bland agreed with Kennedy that data from state health information exchanges could provide more insight into autism’s causes or vaccine injuries.

“The data is so fragmented, so modeled when it comes to population health and public health, that we lose sight of the individual stories,” Bland said. She told a story she had heard about a woman who had a seizure after receiving the HPV vaccine.

“You know, the vaccine is safe — it absolutely is — but it wasn’t safe for her,” Bland said. “As public health officials, we say the vaccine is safe. But there are cases where it is not.”

Daniel Jernigan, a former top CDC official who left the agency last summer, said he tried to point Kennedy to data that would help the health secretary study vaccine safety and autism.

After 31 years at the CDC overseeing public health surveillance, emerging infectious diseases, and the influenza divisions, Jernigan thought the solution was simple. The secretary could work with researchers to obtain huge databases pulled from health systems nationwide and maintained by major electronic health records companies.

Those databases are deidentified, meaning they don’t include patient names or other information that can identify individuals. Jernigan said Kennedy didn’t seem interested.

Instead, as The New York Times first reported, the health secretary dispatched two top advisers — Archer and Hannah Anderson, his former deputy chief of staff — to the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta last July to download millions of identifiable patient records directly from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the system the health agency uses to investigate complications from vaccines. The records, though, were decades old.

Jernigan said the federal government has limited legal authority to access medical records from state health information exchanges. In any case, examining those records may provide a view of a person’s medical history that will not necessarily produce answers to Kennedy’s questions about vaccines and autism.

“If they’re just using the electronic health record data, there are limits to that,” Jernigan said. “If they’re only looking at electronic health record data, all you’re going to get is what was captured in the encounter. It����ap not going to be very satisfying.”

KFF Health News data reporter Maia Rosenfeld contributed to this article.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

But winning the attorney general’s race won’t come easy if her Democratic primary opponents have anything to say about it.

Ask them, and they’ll say Griswold is guilty of false advertising, is under-credentialed for the job, has skipped multiple campaign debates and forums, or is simply on a laddered quest for higher and higher office — with ultimate aspirations to land in the governor’s mansion.

For months, the best-known candidate in the race, who’s a lawyer but hasn’t done as much litigating as her competitors, has been a magnet for attacks.

“(Attorney general) is one of the most important offices to fight for the future of our country,” said David Seligman, 43, who heads up the nonprofit public interest law firm Towards Justice and is one of three Democrats taking on Griswold in the June 30 primary. “It’s too important to be a stepping stone.”

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, another primary candidate, attacking Griswold for falsely claiming that she argued the lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court that aimed to keep Donald Trump off Colorado’s 2024 presidential ballot. The court later ruled against that lawsuit, which was brought by Republican and unaffiliated voters. Griswold was a named defendant due to her position and filed a brief in support of the ballot challenge, and an attorney representing her was allotted time in arguments.

“The woman who argued the case at the Supreme Court was not Jena Griswold,” Dougherty told The Denver Post. “I would expect someone to call me out if I said I handled a case when I didn’t.”

Griswold, 41, called it “unfortunate” that her Democratic opponents had gone negative, saying the field should be “laser-focused on the problem ahead of us — it’s the Trump illegality.”

“As secretary of state, I helped lead the fight to defend democracy against (President) Donald Trump, and as attorney general, I’ll stand up to Trump and MAGA extremists to protect our democracy and fundamental rights,” she said.

Griswold cited her record of holding former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters accountable for her criminal role in an election equipment security breach following the 2020 election. Peters was released from prison earlier this week after Gov. Jared Polis granted her clemency in May.

She also pointed to her efforts to keep Trump off the Colorado ballot following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, “despite facing death threats,” as well as her refusal to “hand over Coloradans’ sensitive voter data to the federal government” after Trump retook the White House last year.

“The most burning issue is protecting Coloradans, our state and doing our part to protect the nation from Trump’s lawlessness,” Griswold said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop this administration from breaking the law and hurting our state.”

Griswold has a sizable target on her back because she is the candidate holding the most prominent position in the Democratic pack. The only statewide officeholder in the contest, she’s raised nearly twice as much money as her nearest competitor — $1.9 million as of Monday, the most recent filing deadline.

Two Republicans — El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen and attorney David Willson — are facing off in their own primary at the end of the month for their party’s nomination for the November general election.

‘She’s a politician’

While Griswold has more name recognition than her Democratic opponents, a distinct advantage in a down-ballot race, University of Colorado at Boulder law professor Douglas Spencer said that doesn’t mean she has the contest wrapped up.

Griswold, he said, has cast herself in a political light — in large part by intensely focusing on Trump. (Griswold mentioned Trump or his administration 20 times during a 15-minute interview with The Denver Post for this story.)

It’s a focus she has been criticized for in her current role as chief overseer of elections in Colorado. While potentially strategic in a battle for a strictly political post like governor, such outspokenness may rub voters the wrong way if they’re looking for a more law-and-order approach from their attorney general, Spencer said.

“It is the chief law enforcement office, and the office gives you discretion over which cases to bring or not bring,” he said. “Some voters may say, ‘Let the political people go after Trump on the political front.’ Griswold’s biggest strength is probably her biggest weakness — she’s a politician.”

How much that will be a liability is uncertain in a state like Colorado, where the dislike for the president runs particularly deep and is borne out in Trump’s repeated losses in the state over the last three presidential election cycles.

The current attorney general, Phil Weiser, has aggressively gone after the Trump administration since he returned to office early last year. Weiser, who is term-limited from running again, has either brought directly or joined other states in filing 65 lawsuits against the White House over a multitude of issues, including immigration, federal funding cuts and tariffs.

In nearly half of those actions, the plaintiffs have won a preliminary injunction against the administration or a favorable ruling, said Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for Weiser’s office.

Weiser, a Democrat, is running for Colorado governor against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary. Griswold said she would keep up his robust pace of resistance to Trump if she succeeds him in his current office.

“I will absolutely continue to keep this administration at bay,” she said.

Her Democratic opponents share Griswold’s revulsion toward the man in the White House, but they say it matters how litigation is pursued. And that’s where courtroom experience comes in, they say.

Dougherty, who worked as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office before moving to Colorado to head up the DNA Justice Review Project of then-Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican, said Griswold lacks courtroom experience.

“As a leader, you should be willing to do the work you’re asking others to do,” he said.

Dougherty, 54, was the lead prosecutor in the 2021 Boulder King Soopers mass shooting and the 2025 Pearl Street Mall antisemitic firebombing cases. Both resulted in convictions.

It’s not just a matter of bringing cases, Dougherty said, but of figuring out which will most likely result in successful outcomes.

“Do we have enough evidence to take Donald Trump to court? That’s a decision that requires legal experience and leadership,” he said. “I believe the next AG has to have legal experience and integrity.”

Hetal Doshi, a former federal prosecutor in Colorado, said on-the-ground experience is crucial. Her pursuit of cartels, fraudsters and scammers as an assistant U.S. attorney wouldn’t have been as effective without courtroom experience in front of a jury, she said.

“We just can’t risk having that type of figurehead leader instead of a real leader,” said Doshi, 47, who later served as deputy assistant attorney general overseeing the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

And candidates have to show up for the voters — Doshi said Griswold has missed a number of recent debates.

“The failure to show up and not answer people is a failure of accountability,” she said. “You, as the voter, are entitled to know what I think.”

Griswold makes her case

As secretary of state, a mom and an attorney general candidate, Griswold said she’s had a full schedule.

Still, she said she’d attended nine forums as of late May and held 10 town halls. Two of her opponents, she said, “bought their way on to the ballot” — a reference to through the petition process rather than the caucus system. Griswold and Seligman secured their spots through the party’s state assembly.

Griswold, who is a 2011 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, acknowledges that she is not a career litigator but says the job of attorney general doesn’t require that.

“We are fortunate that Colorado has an attorney general’s office that is full of literally hundreds of legal experts on all aspects of Colorado law,” she said. “The AG is not the lead trial attorney — it’s the person setting the legal direction and managing a very large organization.”

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has just over 700 lawyers and staff.

Her lists Griswold as having been a litigation associate for two years at the law firm in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, where she “practiced general litigation with a focus on Latin America and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” She has also worked in the offices of then-Gov. John Hickenlooper — as a liaison between his administration and the federal government — and U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette.

Griswold said voters want someone to stand up to Trump and appreciate the perspective she brings from growing up in a working-class family and living through many of the challenges Coloradans face.

“I’m the candidate best-equipped to deliver for Colorado voters,” she said.

Griswold’s biggest stumble as secretary of state came days before the November 2024 election, when it was revealed that partial voting system passwords had inadvertently been leaked online months earlier. An investigation found that her office violated two state information security policies that contributed to the release of the passwords, but it absolved her and her staff of wrongdoing.

In March, on the day of the Democratic state assembly, Griswold faced allegations from a former employee who publicly accused her of creating “a hostile and volatile workplace” and a “climate of fear of retaliation” as secretary of state. That employee, Reese Edwards, served as the office’s director of government and public affairs in 2019 and 2020.

He wrote in a statement that he was speaking on behalf of six other “former executive and senior level staff” at Griswold’s office who “fear retaliation and retribution for their jobs and their careers.” They were not identified in the statement.

“They fear what she might try to do to them if she gets her hands on the most powerful judicial position in Colorado,” Edwards wrote.

Griswold declined to address the situation during her interview with The Post. She said she oversees an office of more than 150 employees with a $50 million budget and is “really proud of everything that the staff has accomplished.”

Spencer, the law school professor and an election law scholar, said voters will have to cut through the campaign noise and decide a fundamental question when it comes to who will become their next attorney general.

“Are we choosing somebody we trust to wield discretion in a way that will benefit our state and protect the rule of law?” he said.