The Home Front: A Colorado university’s World Affairs conference had trouble booking pro-Trump speakers

The University of Colorado-Boulder World Affairs conference had a hard time booking speakers friendly to President Donald Trump, reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “It was, indeed, hard to find political spokespeople and all who had actually voted for Trump,” Betsy Hand, the community chair of the volunteer program committee at the CWA, told the paper. “We certainly had a good group of conservatives, but only one of those speakers that we know of was a real supporter of Trump, and that was Stephen Moore.”

“Reusable rockets built by nimble startup space companies are just one piece of a wider change being embraced by Air Force leaders who want to change how the service approaches its missions in orbit,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “Air Force Space Command’s Gen. Jay Raymond summed up the shifts quickly last week at the Space Symposium at the Broadmoor. “I really see a need to go fast,” he said. “We are developing ways to go fast.”

“During his appearance this week at a Boulder City Council study session on municipalization, David Eves, the president of Xcel Energy — Colorado, revealed a piece of news seven years coming,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “The Valmont power plant east of Boulder has burned its last trainload of coal, he said. Xcel spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo confirmed Eves’ announcement in an email, stating that the company stopped burning coal at Valmont on March 3. Other gas-fired generation at the plant will continue, she said. Xcel announced in 2010 its intention to stop burning coal in Boulder, as part of a plan to cooperate with the Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act that had been signed into law by then-Gov. Bill Ritter.”

“A quarter of Fort Collins’ homeless population is younger than age 24, according to recently released data from this year’s annual point-in-time count,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “The count surveyed Fort Collins’ homeless population on a single January night. Results from the count estimated 331 individuals were sleeping outside, in emergency shelters or in transitional housing in Fort Collins. Last year’s count surveyed 290 individuals but did not include a focus on unaccompanied homeless youth, which was included this year.”

The Greeley Tribune profiles a local woman who runs a medical supply thrift store in the area. “Now there are GoodHealthWill stores in Greeley, Loveland and Brighton,” the paper reports. “Wheelchairs, feeding tubes, CPAP machines, diabetic supplies, oxygen tubing, rehabilitation boots, formula and more now sit neatly in their assigned compartments in her three stores. Often, folks come in because they simply can’t afford expensive supplies. It could be because they are uninsured or their insurance won’t cover certain things, such as caregiver aids. Before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, folks would come to the store because they’d reached their lifetime limit of insurance coverage and still needed supplies.”

“Tyler and Kristy Hawkins know that life is too short, and that’s one of the reasons they’ve sold everything, left their home in western Colorado and embarked on an adventure with their kids,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “But this isn’t just a trip, it’s a new lifestyle they’re happy to share with anyone who wants to live vicariously. The 27-year-old Plateau Valley High School graduate and his wife, a 25-year-old Fruita Monument High School graduate, call themselves the ‘Windswept Gypsies,’ and are documenting their adventures on their blog, windsweptgypsies.com.”

“Individual legacies might be hard to pinpoint for a trio of outgoing Glenwood Springs City Council members who leave office April 20 after eight years serving together,” reports The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent. “But the collective legacy that came to define the tenure of Stephen Bershenyi, Leo McKinney and Matt Steckler is hard to miss.”

The Loveland Reporter-Herald profiles a local geocaching club. “The 20 students in science teacher Stan Polley’s geocaching club love the challenge of making puzzles adventurers must solve to find the coordinates that will lead them to a hidden cache as well as finding the treasures themselves.”

“A head-on crash between two SUVs on a snowy Rabbit Ears Pass sent four people to the hospital and brought U.S. Highway 40 traffic to a stop for an hour Sunday morning,” reports The Steamboat Pilot & Today. “Steamboat Springs Fire Rescue was dispatched about 10:20 a.m. Sunday to the crash near mile marker 145 and arrived with an initial response of one fire engine and two ambulances about 15 minutes later.”

“Colorado Senate President Kevin Grantham, Rep. Jim Wilson and Rep. Clarice Navarro all agree balancing the budget is going to be challenging, but it will get done,” reports The Durango Herald. “The officials addressed the budget during Saturday’s Legislative Hour at the Fremont County Administrative Building. Grantham said the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass the budget. “It’s not perfect, but we do have a constitutional obligation to balance the budget,” he said, adding there will be many things he won’t necessarily be happy about in the budget.”

“When patients walk into Dr. Michael Pramenko’s office in Grand Junction these days, they often walk in worried. Already, residents of Colorado’s Western Slope pay more for health insurance than just about anybody else in the country while also having a smaller selection of insurers to choose from,” reports The Denver Post. “The Republicans’ health care bill in Congress — which may yet be revived — could up their costs even more. And now, the Western Slope is bracing for more possible bad news about its health coverage. This month, Wall Street analysts who met with insurance giant Anthem reported that the company is “leaning toward exiting a high percentage” of the Affordable Care Act exchanges in which it currently participates. If that happens, it could leave as many as two-thirds of the counties in Colorado with no or only one insurer available on the state’s health insurance exchange. Almost all of them are in rural mountain areas.”