Featured
Colorado may owe feds millions after Medicaid overpayment due to ‘human programming error’
DENVER – Colorado is trying to figure out how to set aside $25 million in case it needs to pay the federal government back after a computer programming error led to the state being overpaid by millions of dollars in Medicaid funds.
On Feb. 15, Office of State Planning and Budgeting Director Henry Sobanet sent a letter to Sen. Kent Lambert, the chair of the Joint Budget Committee, informing him of the overpayment. Continue reading
How does the House GOP health care bill differ from Obamacare?
DENVER – Top Republicans in Washington began their push to promote the new health care bill drafted by the House GOP Tuesday as critics from both sides of the aisle surfaced, and as many wondered exactly what the draft bill would mean for them.
House Republicans and President Trump unveiled the American Health Care Act late Monday. Trump and other Republicans had campaigned on the premise they would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, but the new bill has drawn plenty of criticism already. Continue reading
ICE agents illegally detained Colorado US citizen for days because he was Hispanic, lawsuit claims
DENVER – A Gunnison man born in Colorado was picked up by immigration officers after a court appearance and illegally detained in immigration detention centers across the state for days, according to two newly-filed federal lawsuits.
Bernardo Medina, 22, is Hispanic and was born in Montrose in May 1994. He and his parents moved to Mexico before his first birthday, which is where he spent much of his early life. But Medina moved back to the Western Slope when he was 18, settling in Gunnison. Continue reading
Trump’s new immigration executive order: 7 differences from first travel ban
DENVER – President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on immigration Monday that revises his initial order that banned immigrants from seven predominantly-Muslim countries.
The new order contains some differences from the initial order, which was signed in January, but was challenged by federal judges in Washington and Minnesota. The suspension of the order was upheld by a federal appeals court. Continue reading
Class-action suit certified for 60K+ detainees at Aurora ICE facility ‘forced’ to work for $1 a day
DENVER – A federal judge in Colorado will allow tens of thousands of people housed at an Aurora immigration center who were required to work, in some instances for $1 a day, to form a class to continue a lawsuit against the company that is contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to run the facility.
Nine people have filed lawsuits over the past two years against the GEO Group, which is contracted to run the ICE facility in Aurora. All were housed at the facility while awaiting deportation. Continue reading
Holly Moore’s death was a suicide and was properly investigated, CBI review and coroner say
DENVER – Castle Rock teenager Holly Moore’s 2015 death was correctly ruled as a suicide, according to a Colorado Bureau of Investigation peer review completed in February and obtained by Denver7.
The review was obtained through a records request to the Castle Rock Police Department that was returned Friday, the same day the forensic pathologist who performed Moore’s autopsy spoke for the first time about the case to Denver7.
Both the documents and interview unveiled new details into the controversial case days before the two-year anniversary of the young woman’s death. Continue reading
Colorado politicians sound off on AG Jeff Sessions’ recusal from Russia probe
DENVER – Two members of Colorado’s congressional delegation say U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in last year’s election amid reports he misled or lied to the Senate about his contacts with the Russian ambassador in the months before the election.
By Thursday afternoon, Sessions had done just that. Continue reading
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner talks marijuana, Russian meddling, health care in telephone town hall
DENVER – Colorado Senator Cory Gardner answered questions from 12 Coloradans ranging from marijuana to health care and the administration’s executive orders on immigration in a 45-minute telephone town hall Wednesday morning.
The telephone town hall was an olive branch to frothing constituents who have demanded in recent weeks that the Republican senator hold in-person town hall meetings with his constituents, despite most of his fellow Colorado Congressmen also refraining from doing so. Continue reading
Hickenlooper: States have ‘sovereignty’ on recreational marijuana issue, a ‘great social experiment’
DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper seems to have warmed to the legal recreational marijuana industry in the state, according to comments he made Sunday on NBC’s Meet The Press.
Moderator Chuck Todd asked Hickenlooper, who is in Washington for the 2017 National Governors Association Winter Meeting, on his thoughts about the recreational marijuana industry and how it might be affected by new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Continue reading
Data: Crackdown on legal marijuana industry would cost thousands of jobs, billions in revenue
DENVER – White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s Thursday statements that the Department of Justice may crack down on states with legal recreational marijuana could lead to far-ranging effects on the burgeoning industry should they hold any water.
A Forbes report based on data from New Frontier Data says that if the legal marijuana market continues to grow unimpeded by the federal government, the industry would create more jobs than the manufacturing industry by 2020. Continue reading