Laws promotes development of knowledge facilities. Not everybody helps the concept. Right here’s why.
A invoice that would offer state tax rebates to attract information facilities to Colorado has run into opposition from critics who warn of the amenities’ giant calls for for vitality and water and doubtlessly greater prices for different electrical prospects.
The laws would provide state gross sales and use tax rebates for development supplies and tools beginning in 2026. Senate Invoice 24-085 declares that investing in tasks akin to information facilities “is essential for the financial system of the long run” and Colorado, thought-about a rising high-tech hub, is falling behind in attracting the amenities.
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Invoice making it simpler to restore cellphone, digital units passes Colorado Home
Coloradans would have a neater time repairing cellphones and different private digital units underneath a invoice handed by the state Home on Tuesday, the most recent in a slew of “right-to-repair” laws thought-about in recent times right here.
Home Invoice 24-1121 would require producers of assorted private digital tools — like cellphones and online game consoles — to supply substitute components, software program and details about repairs to third-party outlets and customers. That, supporters say, would open the marketplace for repairs exterior of producers’ management and make it cheaper and simpler to repair devices, whereas hopefully slicing down on repairable tools ending up in landfills.
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Gun payments, property tax reform, development defects and new financial forecasts within the Colorado legislature this week
This week will convey a serious mid-March milestone within the Colorado legislature’s quickening dash towards the top of the 120-day session.
The Joint Funds Committee, which is within the technique of writing the price range for the subsequent fiscal yr, which begins in July, will hear the ultimate financial forecasts earlier than lawmakers debate and vote on the price range. Predictions of financial situations, tax collections and the general price range image will dictate how a lot cash the lawmakers really feel comfy spending this coming yr.
Additionally, a half-dozen payments regarding firearms are scheduled for votes this week, together with two which can be getting ready to passing their first chamber.
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Colorado considers necessary minimal jail sentences for human traffickers
On most days, Alicia was despatched to a Denver-area lodge room, the place a gentle stream of individuals would present up and pay for intercourse.
From 9 a.m. to 4 a.m., she’d take name after name after name. After which she’d go residence to her pimp, and he’d demand intercourse, too. Slap her round if she resisted. When she bought pregnant together with his baby, she thought he’d let her out of the life.
When her perpetrator was arrested, Alicia was too terrified to stroll into the courthouse. She didn’t have a cellphone as a result of he’d tracked her that approach earlier than, so she didn’t tune into digital courtroom hearings. Ultimately, he bought probation, largely as a result of Alicia didn’t take part within the courtroom course of.
Now, Alicia is talking out in assist of a invoice within the Colorado legislature that might lengthen the statute of limitations on grownup human-trafficking prices from three years to twenty years, giving prosecutors 20 years during which to pursue felony prices and survivors extra time to return ahead concerning the crimes. The invoice additionally, extra controversially, units up necessary minimal jail sentences for these convicted of human trafficking.
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Who’s on trial in a intercourse assault case? Colorado invoice goals to guard victims from questions on clothes.
The clothes rack arrange in a Colorado Capitol hallway displayed a T-shirt and denims, a baby’s pink cardigan with a polka-dotted mini skirt, and an Military sweatshirt with shorts.
The outfits represented on a regular basis clothes worn by ladies and ladies throughout the nation after they have been sexually assaulted. Labeled with temporary descriptions, every outfit was meant to counter the parable, nonetheless pervasive at occasions in American tradition and courtrooms, {that a} sufferer of rape may need invited the sexual contact.
State lawmakers are debating a invoice geared toward strengthening protections for Colorado intercourse assault victims by increasing the rape defend legislation to forestall sure proof — together with what a sufferer was carrying — from being utilized by defendants in courtroom as proof of consent.
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Westminster wrestles with housing reform as legislators eye a statewide intervention
Jodi Lovejoy can look out the window of her Westminster condominium and see the mountains of the Entrance Vary. She will be able to monitor the rolling clouds and watch the climate change over the peaks, one thing she used to do together with her youngsters. The neighborhood is quiet, dotted by mature bushes. She doesn’t personal the 2 bedrooms she’s shared together with her daughter for the previous eight years , however the condominium seems like residence.
Nonetheless, Lovejoy needs she might personal. She’s grown accustomed to the annual negotiation together with her landlord about her rising lease. Final yr, she employed a Realtor and explored Westminster’s housing market. However the market was too aggressive, the houses she noticed wanted an excessive amount of work, the HOA charges too costly.
The circumstances weighing upon Lovejoy — a good housing market, excessive rents, restricted choices exterior of a conventional residence — aren’t distinctive to her. Nor are they distinctive to Westminster: Like different Entrance Vary cities, the suburb has struggled to handle a shortfall of housing items and rising prices which have displaced lower-income residents and restricted choices for future generations. Town finds itself whipsawed between vocal residents who’re against extra growth and anxious about assets, and a statewide housing disaster that legislators and Gov. Jared Polis are eying with impatience.
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