But the ‘s $331 million “starter service” trains would roll by January 2029 with three daily roundtrips, at speeds up to 79 mph, also stopping at Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins.

And the 150 residents who attended the meeting in the East Boulder Community Center mostly applauded. The Front Range Passenger Rail District presentation was the latest in in which state officials are rallying support for a tax increase to eventually fund an expanded Colorado Connector rail service with 10 daily roundtrips linking cities from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

“Boulder is ready for rail. We have been for 20 years,” said Kristofer Johnson, the city’s comprehensive planning manager, referring to the voter approval of a tax hike in 2004 to fund a FasTracks train linking Denver and Boulder, which the Regional Transportation District has failed to deliver.

That����ap been a sore spot in northwest metro Denver. RTD collected sales tax revenues that residents paid over the past two decades, setting aside about $190 million in an agency savings account. Johnson pointed out that Boulder developed a “transit village,” including apartments and shops near an existing RTD bus station, in anticipation of trains to Denver.

Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy, who also serves on the rail district board, addressed questions from residents about what happened to the sales taxes they paid for two decades.

“The actual costs of FasTracks just far exceed the revenue that was raised. You cannot change that,” Levy said.

“We’re hoping to tap a substantial amount of that money that RTD has put away,” and RTD is expected to pay a share of the annual operating costs, around $25 million, she said. “For more than that, we just have to be realistic about the funding that is available.”

The starter service trains would run on existing RTD B-Line tracks to Westminster, then shift to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway freight tracks. RTD directors and several state boards must first approve funding.

At Wednesday’s meeting, residents wanted to know the train timetables. Where could riders park their vehicles at stations? What’s the potential for an expanded system eventually to bring all-electric fast trains at higher frequencies?

“I was underwhelmed,” said Indira Pranabudi, who moved to Boulder from Boston, where she relied only on public transit. “I came in here quite hopeful. Then I heard ‘three daily round-trips.’ That����ap not enough.”

Afterwards, she sat with fellow Boulder resident Andrew Robinson, who embraced the plans. “It����ap definitely a start.”

The turnout on a weeknight, following crowds of up to 300 at meetings in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Denver and Longmont, shows that “people really want this service,” Front Range Passenger Rail District director Sal Pace said.

He and attorney John Putnam, chairman of the rail district’s board and former general counsel for the U.S. Department of Transportation, also acknowledged residents’ desires for higher-frequency, faster trains in the future.

“I want that, too,” Putnam said. “Ultimately, we want to be there. If we want that, how do we get there?”

Updated 1:15 p.m. April 16, 2026: This story has been updated to correct Kristofer Johnson’s title. He is Boulder’s comprehensive planning manager.

Both men will appear on the June 30 primary ballot. Bottoms, who is one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state Capitol, won slightly more than 45% of the 2,145 ballots cast, comfortably beating Marx’s 39% and topping a field of more than a dozen candidates who vied for gubernatorial ballot access. When Marx’s total was announced and Bottoms’ victory assured, the lawmaker’s supporters shouted and jumped around him in the bleachers of Colorado State University-Pueblo’s arena.

“This is our year. This is the year we’re going to do this,” Bottoms, who is in his second term in the statehouse, said in brief remarks earlier Saturday. He promised to work with federal immigration authorities, to build nuclear reactors and to “reclaim safety and security.” He also pledged to “DOGE the mess out of everything in this state,” a reference to billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” which gutted a number of federal programs last year.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, who also is running for governor, did not participate in the assembly process and has instead submitted signatures to appear on the primary ballot. Marx also submitted signatures while also seeking the assembly nomination.

The party also nominated state Sen. Mark Baisley for U.S. Senate, former Colorado Libertarian Party official James Wiley for secretary of state, and Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham for state treasurer. All those candidates will be appear on the ballot alone in June, virtually assuring them places on the November general election ballot.

For attorney general, the assembly sent Michael Allen, the district attorney in El Paso County, and attorney David Willson to the primary election in June.

The day was marred by delays, mistakes, long lines and, as afternoon turned into evening, a voting discrepency: About 80 more ballots had been cast than delegates had been credentialed to cast them. The assembly then voted to accept the new ballots as legitimate (the official running the meeting said they likely were).

The winner of the June gubernatorial primary will face off against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet or Attorney General Phil Weiser, each of whom are seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Gov. Jared Polis next year.

The Republican candidates who emerge from the primaries will face a Colorado Democratic Party that has held all four constitutional statewide offices since 2018. No Republican has won the governor’s office since 2002, and the last statewide win for a GOP candidate was Heidi Ganahl’s win for a University of Colorado governing board seat in 2016.

Repubican contenders repeatedly promised to reverse those trends Saturday. Eighteen gubernatorial candidates initially were slated to speak, although several didn’t turn up and their candidacies did not advance. One candidate — Kelvin “K-Man” Wimberly — appeared to have no supporters present to nominate him. That prompted someone from the crowd to run up to the microphone, gesture to Wimberly and offer to nominate “this guy.”

As party members slowly trickled into the building Saturday morning, campaign volunteers wandered, handing out bags with posters for Marx or walking in slow arcs with signs for fellow chief executive hopeful Robert Moore. Scott Pond, who hopes to take on U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in November, signed a pair of baseball caps for one supporter. Many attendees — including the conspiratorial podcaster Joe Oltmann — wore “Free Tina Peters” stickers, a sentiment echoed by a banner hanging behind the assembly stage.

Several candidates, including Marx, pledged to free the former Mesa County clerk, who was convicted for orchestrating a plot to sneak a third party into a secure area to examine voting equipment after the 2020 election.

Oltmann briefly ran for governor before declaring his candidacy to become the state GOP’s chairman.

On Friday, former state lawmaker Ron Hanks was nominated to launch a right-wing primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, the freshman Republican who represents the Western Slope’s 3rd Congressional District. Hurd’s previous primary opponent, Hope Scheppelman, dropped out of the contest last month, after President Donald Trump re-endorsed Hurd.

The 52-year-old woman was found unresponsive in her housing area at the on Thursday afternoon, according to a .

Deputies at the jail and crews from the and all performed life-saving measures, but the woman was declared dead at the hospital, sheriff’s officials said. Her cause of death has not been released, but investigators said there were no initial signs of foul play.

The Pueblo County Coroner will release the woman’s name, as well as her cause and manner of death, at a later date.

RTD directors planned to vote later this month on whether to commit the funds for a roughly one-half share of the initial cost, around $333 million, for the trains linking Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins.

While RTD is facing a budget crisis with a $215 million annual deficit, an agency savings account holds sales tax revenues for RTD’s uncompleted FasTracks rail network, with a current balance of around $190 million, RTD records show.

Meanwhile, the three-member state team negotiating with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway to share existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks with freight trains — a key hurdle – expects to finalize that deal by mid-June, Colorado’s chief negotiator Lisa Kaufmann told RTD directors at an agency committee meeting Wednesday night.

“Because all these public entities are working together, from RTD to the governor’s office to the Colorado Department of Transportation, we have been able to find a cost-efficient way to deliver train service from Denver to Fort Collins, Kaufmann, an adviser to Gov. Jared Polis and his former chief of staff, said.

“We will be delivering twice the service for half the cost from the previous studies,” Kaufmann said. “It means more mobility choices: to be able to take a train from Longmont to a Colorado Rockies baseball game, or from Fort Collins to Longmont to go out to dinner. You will be able to do that by 2029.”

The overall deal is contingent on the RTD board of directors and three state transportation boards approving the plan. “Assuming they approve it, the term sheet would be signed by BNSF” a couple of days later, she said.

Colorado Department of Transportation agencies would have to commit to a $176 million one-time contribution, plus a one-half share of the annual operating costs.

Previous studies have estimated the cost of train service linking Denver with Boulder and Longmont at $650 million. The lower overall cost of $333 million resulted from an agreement to run a single train on the three trips a day, reducing the need for “siding” tracks to let trains pass each other, and by taking advantage of existing parking lots in the eight cities where trains would stop.

State officials in January said that voters in 13 Front Range counties may be asked this November to approve a ballot measure for a sales tax hike to raise funds for a broader 10-round-trip-a-day “Colorado Connector” Front Range Passenger Rail service, for which ultimate costs have been estimated at more than $2 billion.

Front Range Passenger Rail District director Sal Pace, Kaufmann, and RTD chief executive and general manager Debra Johnson on Thursday briefed local government leaders on the tentative starter service deal.

FRPRD plans describe a three-trips-a-day service with trains running at speeds up to 79 miles per hour on BNSF tracks linking Denver, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins.  Later, train service would increase in frequency and eventually extend along the Interstate 25 corridor from Denver to Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Trinidad — depending on voter approval of funding.

The timetable that Kaufmann laid out this week envisions intensive design work through the end of this year, with construction starting in 2027. RTD’s contribution of $156 million would include $5.5 million to fund design work, she said.

CDOT and its enterprise arm would team with RTD in funding the starter service, drawing on revenues from the state’s new $3 rental car fee and fees on oil and gas production.

This summer, state officials will work with local government officials on setting up platforms and parking, Kaufmann told RTD directors at their meeting.

RTD directors expressed enthusiasm for participating in the project, part of a “joint service” approach in partnership with CDOT’s Colorado Transportation Investment Office and Clean Transit Enterprise division. RTD directors for years have wrestled with promises made to metro Denver voters who, in 2004, approved the FasTracks rail plan that included transit linking downtown Denver with Boulder and with southwest and north metro suburbs.

“I appreciate that this is a mechanism for us to meet some of our FasTracks promises,” said RTD Director Patrick O’Keefe, who chairs RTD’s 15-member elected board of directors. “This is the basis of a really good plan.”

However, Director Michael Guzman questioned how RTD could find the funds to contribute.

Director Chris Nicholson said the launch of Front Range passenger rail appears to be “within reach.” He told Kaufmann during the committee meeting that “we have the money in the FISA (FasTracks Internal Savings Account) to do this.”

BNSF officials could not immediately be reached.

State leaders’ goal of launching the Denver to Fort Collins train by January 2029 is “very ambitious, but still doable. ….. Nothing is final until these boards vote in support of this and appropriate the design costs,” Kaufmann said, emphasizing the need for RTD funds.

RTD directors in the coming years “are going to need to go back to voters” for public transit funding, she said.

“If they have not fulfilled their commitments from the 2004 vote before they go back to voters, that presents a significant barrier. What we are trying to do is partner with them….. to restore that trust, to fulfill that promise and do it in a financially sound way with the state making more than 50% of the investment.”

The sheriff’s office announced shortly after 6 p.m. that residents who had evacuated an area of the 20700 block of Outback View, about six miles west of Wigwam, could return.

The Hanover Fire Protection District, which is based a few miles south of Fountain, that two structures burned in the fire — a house and an outbuilding. Investigators are looking at the house as the potential source of the fire, which burned about 50 to 75 acres of grassland.

The district said its crews “remain on scene and will continue working diligently to locate and extinguish hot spots to ensure the fire is fully contained and safe.”

El Paso County Sheriff Sgt. Kurt Smith told The Denver Post on Monday night that his office is investigating a potential act of arson on Sunday in that “same general area.”

“As of right now, we have no evidence to connect the two,” he said.

He said the sheriff’s office will be issuing a press release on Tuesday regarding Sunday’s incident but wouldn’t provide more details.

The Bureau of Land Management said the blaze, which is called the , was human-caused but provided no other details.

Authorities issued the evacuation notice shortly after 4 p.m. on Monday.

The bipartisan effort to tweak Colorado’s competency laws is backed by major players in the criminal justice system who hope the 197-page will plug gaps in the state’s competency system, but it’s opposed by mental health advocates and competency experts, who say the proposal is misguided and unlikely to actually solve the underlying problems in the state’s system.

“It creates a whole host of concerns around wholesale warehousing folks,” said Jennifer Turner, executive director of , a state office aimed at connecting criminal defendants with severe mental illness to support and care. “They all have incredibly diverse needs. And responding to people by just throwing them into the same facility with the same care… can create longer-term problems because they may not be appropriately placed in that setting.”

This latest effort to reform the state’s long-troubled competency system follows a high-profile case that drew attention from Elon Musk and Gov. Jared Polis last year, in which a 21-year-old man with an intellectual disability was found incompetent to stand trial in a pair of serious criminal cases in Weld County. He was released from custody with his charges dismissed, and then was arrested again within weeks after authorities said he brought a gun onto a college campus.

The new bill aims to create a clear pathway within criminal cases for such defendants to receive treatment and remain confined until they are no longer dangerous, even when the criminal charges must be dropped. The proposal would also shift some court standards and make it easier for people to qualify for involuntary mental health care.

“What we discovered is that not only do we not have adequate placements for people, we also don’t have the mechanism for civilly committing them,” said Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat and a sponsor of the bill.

There was often a “very long pathway” for some people to get placed in a facility, she added, which is what the bill is trying to address. But she also stressed that the state needs a more robust system “that helps people before they ever enter the criminal justice system to begin with.”

Creating a new pathway to commitment

Colorado’s competency process is designed to protect the constitutional rights of people who are mentally ill or developmentally disabled by ensuring they are not prosecuted for crimes when they are too sick or too disabled to understand the court process and to help defend themselves.

Defendants who are found to be mentally incompetent cannot be tried for crimes — rather, their criminal prosecutions are paused while defendants go through treatment aimed at restoring them to competency. If defendants can’t be restored to competency, the cases against them must be dismissed.

When such criminal cases are dismissed, judges can consider whether the defendant should be ordered into involuntary mental health treatment. Colorado has a narrow definition for who qualifies for civil commitment. The person must suffer from a mental health disorder, and, as a result of that disorder, be either a danger to themselves or others, or be gravely disabled.

Current state law says that an intellectual or developmental disability alone is not enough to qualify a person for civil commitment. The new bill would create an entirely new type of civil commitment, called an “enhanced protective placement,” for defendants who live with permanent disabilities or conditions like traumatic brain injuries or Alzheimer’s disease and who face serious criminal charges but are incompetent to proceed.

Under the bill’s proposal, prosecutors could seek either an enhanced protective placement or civil commitment for a permanently incompetent defendant if they can prove the defendant has a mental illness or developmental disability, committed either homicide, a crime of violence or a felony sex offense, and poses a substantial risk of serious harm to others.

That would then trigger a process in which the and its would look for a residential placement for the defendant. If the agencies can’t find a bed for the defendant, the person must be admitted to a state hospital.

The bill then sets up judicial oversight for the civil commitment — judges can terminate the commitment if they find the person is no longer a threat to others and is capable and willing to follow the law, or decide to extend a civil commitment if the person still presents a danger to the public.

“For these more dangerous people, it would be much more guaranteed the intervention happens… and the courts are more involved,”  said James Karbach, spokesman for the .

Bill focuses on involuntary care

The effort is aimed at people like the 21-year-old defendant in the Weld County case — but such people make up just a tiny portion of defendants in competency proceedings, and competency proceedings themselves make up just a small portion of overall criminal cases, so that portion of the bill would likely impact just a handful of people each year.

Between 2021 and 2023, roughly 25 to 40 people went through the court system with cases that might fit the criteria proposed by the bill, said Jessica Dotter, senior chief of legislative policy at the .

The bill is largely focused on involuntary mental health care. Turner said that framing is a mistake, because the vast majority of people who’d be targeted by the bill are willing to accept care voluntarily. In 2025, Bridges worked with 120 defendants who were found incompetent and unlikely to be restored and whose criminal cases were dismissed. A full 94% of those defendants were willing to enter a placement voluntarily, she said.

Bridges found placements for 60% of those people, but could not find placements for 34% of the group because of systemic barriers like regulations and finances, not because the group members were unwilling to receive care. Just 6% of defendants refused care, she said, and those cases included defendants with only misdemeanor charges.

“It’s rare that no beds exist,” Turner said. “We just can’t access the beds.”

The proposed new process, which orders that a placement be found for a defendant, doesn’t do anything to actually solve the regulatory and financial barriers that block people from care, Turner said. The process of finding a placement routinely takes longer than the timeframe proposed by the bill.

“It����ap assuming the individual is in an involuntary space, and all we need to do is order them into a placement and a placement will magically exist for them,” she said.

Bridges workers have spent 21 months trying to find a placement for one client — someone who would be a target of the proposed bill — and that person has been turned down by 64 facilities, Turner said, noting there is an “entanglement of state, federal and local regulations that inadvertently support risk-averse decision making by agencies which are meant to be society’s safety net.”

“That person is in their mid-30s, they are mortified at what happened, they have voluntarily agreed to live in locked memory care for the rest of their life,” she said. “…Even though this person has really proven they will be stable in the appropriate care, even though they are agreeing to something that is a heavy-duty version of a life sentence, they’ve still been refused care at 64 facilities. This bill does nothing to address the barriers that individual is facing.”

Rather than focusing on the “tail end of the legal process,” lawmakers could effect more change by reducing the state’s regulatory barriers, giving financial incentives to providers with existing beds and streamlining access to Medicaid and other benefits, she said.

But others said ensuring that dangerous individuals aren’t set free is a step in the right direction, even if it doesn’t solve the broader systemic issues.

“The timing of this is incredibly hard, but we have to find ways to make improvements,” Karbach said. “We are not going to solve the problem of an inadequate system of care for the mentally ill in this bill completely. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to make some improvements.”

When a long-term care placement can’t be found, the bill would default to sending defendants to the — a facility that is perpetually full and understaffed. The bill would essentially prioritize people committed under the new process over those waiting for competency restoration services, potentially lengthening the competency waitlist, said Jack Johnson, public policy liaison at .

The judicial oversight also raises concern, Johnson said.

“A judge could theoretically overrule the medical professional’s decision and leave you in a world where you are indefinitely incarcerated and no longer receiving treatment,” he said. “That is a huge area of concern for us as it relates to people’s civil liberties.”

The impact on the waitlist might be mitigated by the small number of people going through the new process each year. Across the state in 2025, only five people faced Class 1 or Class 2 felonies, were found permanently incompetent to proceed, and saw their cases dismissed, Turner said. Four of the five were successfully placed into long-term care through Bridges or other legal mechanisms, she said. Only one of those people was released without a plan for care, and that person was not assigned a Bridges liaison, she said.

‘There’s infinite need’

Capacity at the state hospital remains a significant concern, Karbach said.

Amabile said lawmakers are proposing to convert a facility in Pueblo to serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In all, that should create between 15 and 18 new beds. Lawmakers also want to contract with nursing homes and private mental hospitals to open more space as the state needs.

“There’s infinite need, almost, for these kinds of placements,” Amabile said. “It����ap about the level of security. So these most secure placements are what we’re lacking, especially in the nursing home and regional center space.”

Even in a cash-strapped budget year, lawmakers are trying to set aside millions of dollars to fund the bill. Amabile said the money set aside is about $9.6 million this year, $23.2 million next year and about $28 million after that.

But the bill’s current estimated cost far exceeds that. Amabile said the bill, as it’s written now, likely costs “hundreds of millions of dollars.” She said the bill will be amended to narrow its definition so it only captures people with specific needs, which will help trim the costs.

The bill has significant legislative heft behind it: Sen. Cleave Simpson, the Senate’s Republican minority leader, is sponsoring the bill with Amabile. The House’s top Democrat and Republican lawmakers — Speaker Julie McCluskie and Minority Leader Jarvis Caldwell — will take the reins if and when the bill reaches the lower chamber.

Through spokesman Eric Maruyama, Polis declined an interview request this week. Maruyama said the bill was part of the governor’s effort to lower Colorado’s crime rates.

“An important part of that is making sure that those who pose a danger to themselves and others are not released, which is what we want to see in this bill,” Maruyama said. “Governor Polis appreciates the work of the sponsors to protect public safety and improve our competency system, and looks forward to continued conversations to bring this bill to a place that the state can successfully implement.”

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities on Tuesday released American academic Dennis Coyle after holding him for more than a year, with the Foreign Ministry saying the release came on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

A statement from the ministry said the academic researcher from Colorado had been released in Kabul, the country’s capital, following an appeal from his family and after Afghanistan’s Supreme Court “considered his previous imprisonment sufficient.”

Coyle called Pueblo home but had spent much of the last two decades in Kabul studying Afghanistan’s linguistic diversity and helping local communities develop resources in their own languages.

He was detained in January 2025 on allegations of violating laws, although Afghan authorities never publicly stated what laws he was accused of having violated.

Molly Long, Coyle’s sister, told The Denver Post earlier this year that the family lost contact with the researcher for months. They finally received a letter July 3, confirming he was alive. Since then, Coyle’s family was able to speak to him during four or five 10-minute phone calls, she said.

“He had all his rights and freedoms taken away,” Long said.

“Today, 24th March 2026, our hearts are filled with overwhelming gratitude and praise to God for sustaining Dennis’ life and bringing him back home after what has been the most challenging and uncertain 421 days of our lives,” the family said in an email to friends and supporters Tuesday.

Coyle’s family declined interviews, saying they were “prioritising Dennis and his well-being.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the Coloradan’s release.

“President (Donald) Trump is committed to ending unjust detentions overseas — Dennis joins over 100 Americans who have been freed in the past 15 months under his second term in office,” Rubio said in a statement. “While this is a positive step by the Taliban, more work needs to be done,” he added.

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department announced the designation of Afghanistan as a sponsor of wrongful detention, accusing it of engaging in “hostage diplomacy.” Afghanistan joined Iran as countries singled out by the United States for detaining Americans in hopes of extracting policy concessions.

Afghanistan rejected U.S. allegations that it detains foreigners to obtain leverage over other countries, saying Afghan authorities arrest people for violating laws not to make a deal.

The State Department said earlier this month that the Taliban was believed to hold at least four U.S. nationals, including Coyle and Mahmood Habibi, an Afghan American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company.

The FBI and Habibi’s family have said they believe he was taken by Taliban forces in 2022, but Afghan authorities have denied holding him.

Habibi’s brother, Ahmad Habibi, welcomed Coyle’s release but said in a statement that “we hope that our family will soon have the same feeling of relief, when Mahmood is returned home to us.”

Rubio also mentioned another American, Paul Overby, who is listed on the FBI’s missing persons website as having disappeared in eastern Afghanistan’s Khost province in mid-2014 while conducting research for a book he was writing.

“We are still seeking the immediate return of Mahmood Habibi, Paul Overby, and all other unjustly detained Americans,” Rubio said. “The Taliban must end their practice of hostage diplomacy.”

In their statement, Coyle’s family acknowledged that Habibi and Overby remained in Afghanistan, and said they’d hoped all three men would have been released together.

“While we begin the healing process with Dennis back with us, we remain mindful of the many families who are still waiting for their loved ones to return…” the family said. “We recognize the immense privilege of our family’s reunion today, and pledge to keep praying and fighting for all Americans held to be swiftly released.”

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said his country “has not arrested citizens of any country to achieve political goals,” according to a statement released by the ministry. Coyle, he said, had been released “after going through the judicial process as a result of violating the laws.”

Both Rubio and Muttaqi thanked the United Arab Emirates for helping mediate the release, and mentioned Qatar had also played a role. The Foreign Ministry said Muttaqi had met in Kabul with former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad ahead of the release.

Afghanistan released Coyle “based on humanitarian sympathy and goodwill, and believes that such steps can further strengthen the atmosphere of trust between countries,” the Foreign Ministry said in its statement, adding that Kabul “also expresses the hope that both countries will find solutions to the remaining problems through understanding and constructive dialogue in the future.”

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops, nearly 20 years after they were ousted from power in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

The inmate, a 59-year-old man who has not been publicly identified, was found unresponsive in his housing area Monday afternoon, according to a .

Deputies and paramedics attempted life-saving measures but were unable to revive the man, according to the release.

“While the investigation is ongoing, currently, there is no indication of foul play,” sheriff’s officials stated in the release.

The Pueblo County Coroner’s Office will release the man’s identity and cause of death at a later date.

The shock drubbing, delivered ahead of a formal assembly vote next week, was among signs that Democrats participating in the party’s caucuses and assemblies are dissatisfied with incumbent officials. Some other incumbents, including U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in his reelection race and Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s race, have been leaning on the petition route to the ballot rather than facing primary opponents at the March 28 state assembly.

At the Denver Democrats’ county assembly on Saturday, Kiros — a 28-year-old doctoral student and former lawyer — won 646 votes, or 63%, compared to DeGette’s 336 votes, or 32%. The result was the first time DeGette, 68, has lost a county assembly vote since she entered Congress in 1997, Kiros’ campaign said.

If that level of support holds at the party’s 1st Congressional District assembly on March 27, Kiros will cruise to a place on the June 30 primary ballot. DeGette, meanwhile, cannot afford to lose any more ground: If fewer than 30% of delegates support her at that virtual assembly, she won’t make the ballot at all. Time is rapidly running out to switch tactics and get on the ballot by submitting voter signatures, with petitions due to the state on Wednesday.

“I think it����ap a testament to the organizing we were doing and the lack of organizing (DeGette) was doing on her part — and her thinking she would coast through,” Kiros said in an interview. ” … It was just an incredible, incredible day, and I’m really proud of what our campaign was able to accomplish.”

DeGette campaign spokeswoman Jennie Peek-Dunstone said the congresswoman “received more than the required threshold and we are confident she will be on the primary ballot.”

The polling win does not, by itself, mean that Kiros is a front-runner to prevail in the June 30 primary election, and her campaign will still need to flip DeGette delegates if it wants to keep the congresswoman off the ballot. That’s far from a sure thing, especially for a candidate with the experience and name recognition of DeGette.

But it does speak to the Kiros’ campaign’s organizing capabilities, and the results also represent something of a wakeup call, said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver.

“DeGette and others know their party and the people associated with it are not terribly popular right now,” he said. “Democrats in general elections have the wind at their back right now, but incumbents in primaries — not so much. It����ap a harder environment.”

DeGette faces progressive challenge

A first-time candidate and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, Kiros previously worked as a lawyer in New York. She was fired after writing in late 2023 criticizing law firms — including her own — that had signed onto a letter opposing anti-Israel protests. She then moved back to Colorado and entered a Ph.D program at the University of Colorado Denver.

She’s run a progressive challenge to DeGette, backing “Medicare for All,” universal child care and an embargo on arms sales to Israel, a nation that she has accused of committing a genocide against Palestinians.

Kiros has also been endorsed by the Justice Democrats, a left-wing Democratic group that’s backed candidates like now-U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna and Ilhan Omar.

In her Denver assembly speech Saturday, DeGette accused Kiros of lying about her — a comment that drew boos from the audience.

Already a longtime supporter of Medicare for All, DeGette has backed more progressive causes in the past year. She for a halt to providing offensive arms to Israel, and she told assembly-goers Saturday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished and that she wouldn’t support any funding for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. Those pledges drew cheers.

Kiros’ preference poll win was fueled by pre-assembly organizing, her campaign and supporters said, particularly on the part of the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Deep Singh Badhesha, a DSA member who supported Kiros’ campaign, said organizers had group chats, stickers, food — they’d even set up a system to find babysitters for those who needed it. Such organization also helped the campaign sidestep technology problems that delayed the assembly, he said.

Those tech problems have contributed to lingering concerns among the DeGette campaign about assignment of delegates for the assembly next week, though her campaign said she was not disputing Kiros’ polling victory.

The assembly results come amid a broader surge of challenges to incumbent Democrats nationwide by often-younger and more progressive candidates. More than a dozen Democratic U.S. House members will face primary challenges this spring and summer, .

Some of the contests pit older incumbents against newcomers. Some feature moderates competing against liberals. Some of the matchups have resulted from the nationwide redistricting wars that redrew incumbents’ seats. Most of the races share a common ingredient: challengers seeking to move past the party’s losses in 2024 — and to bring more energy to the fight against President Donald Trump.

“Within the Democratic Party, it����ap this notion of how you best respond to a country that Trump is dominating when you’re all, as Democrats, unhappy with that,” Paul Teske, a professor at CU Denver and former longtime dean of its School of Public Affairs, told The Denver Post on Tuesday. (Kiros was a student of Teske’s last year.)

In addition to Kiros, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James is also running against DeGette in the primary. She did not participate in the assembly process Saturday and planned to file a petition to make the ballot.

‘Scared of the base’

Elsewhere, in the Democratic race for governor, Bennet’s campaign as he filed his primary ballot petition that he wouldn’t also seek a spot on the ballot through the caucus and assembly process. His rival, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, is relying on next week’s state assembly in Pueblo to make the primary ballot.

State Sen. Julie Gonzales has launched a progressive Senate primary campaign against Hickenlooper, who dropped out of the assembly process last week after initially participating. Hickenlooper’s campaign noted that he didn’t complete the assembly process during his first Senate campaign in 2020 and that he’s already submitted petitions for his place on the primary ballot.

In an interview, Gonzales countered that the senator was “scared of the base.”

Some left-wing-versus-moderate fights are set for state legislative races, too. In the Colorado attorney general’s race, two newcomer candidates, David Seligman and Hetal Doshi, are challenging Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic nomination.

In a news release Tuesday morning, Seligman’s campaign said he led Griswold by 2 percentage points in a straw poll of Democratic assembly delegates statewide.

Teske and Masket underscored that success in the Democrats’ assembly process, which often draws more progressive or active party members, does not necessarily translate to a high likelihood of victory in the June primaries.

Kiros’ campaign and organizing helped turn out motivated and informed delegates and supporters Saturday, and they seemed to catch DeGette flat-footed. But the June contest will feature tens of thousands of voters, including many who are unaffiliated, and will require campaign organizing on a vastly different scale.

It will also require money. DeGette had more than $535,000 on hand as of Dec. 31, compared to Kiros’ $64,000. After 30 years in office, which has included DeGette sweeping aside the occasional primary challenge, she can also boast strong name recognition.

“I was surprised,” Teske said of Saturday’s results. “I think Melat’s campaign organized well, got a lot of people out, got young people excited. … Whether it builds any momentum or changes anything is hard to say, because it����ap still hard to beat an incumbent.”

The New York Times contributed to this story.

Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat and the measure’s sponsor, announced Monday morning on the Senate floor that he would voluntarily kill at the start of its hearing on Wednesday. In an interview, Hinrichsen said the bill didn’t have enough support on the Senate Judiciary Committee to proceed.

“That leaves us with a choice,” he said: Either voluntarily kill the bill, or “we can go through the entire committee process” while facing significant drawbacks.

He said that doing so “asks a lot of individuals who are members of a deeply marginalized community to come and fight for the bill in a forum that is very hostile, where they have — rightfully so — concerns about exposing themselves to surveillance. Doxxing has been a big concern.”

“I don’t think that’s fair, and I don’t think it’s productive,” Hinrichsen said.

Had it passed, SB-97 would have made Colorado the first state to fully decriminalize prostitution. Nevada has legalized prostitution in certain counties, and Maine has removed criminal penalties for sex workers but not for the people who pay for their services. Canada and some other countries have adopted similar policies.

The plan to remove criminal penalties, rather than to fully legalize sex work, meant that the state would not set up a regulatory system like the one utilized in Nevada.

SB-97’s proposed approach was also preferred by some Colorado sex workers, who have long called for decriminalization as a way to protect themselves. The bill had sponsors from various corners of the Democratic caucus in the Capitol, and it had some initial support from Gov. Jared Polis.

Still, Hinrichsen — as well as a sex worker who spoke with The Denver Post last month — acknowledged that the bill faced long odds in the Capitol. Conservatives were opposed, as were some other Democrats. Hinrichsen criticized what he called “disinformation” that had been spread about the bill by its opponents. He said some people in law enforcement had inaccurately conflated legalizing prostitution with his intention to decriminalize it.

He said he’d had several conversations with committee members and that they’d gotten close to a deal. But those talks failed, and he realized there was no path forward for the bill.

Devynn Dewey, the founding director of Don’t Strip Our Rights, a sex worker advocacy group supporting the bill, said Monday that the bill clearing its first committee would’ve been a huge victory. But she echoed Hinrichsen and said sex workers, particularly those who offer illegal services, didn’t feel safe to come and testify at the Capitol.

She said her organization would focus on educating lawmakers and the public about sex work.