What to expect

Issue No. 162 — How Colorado could change under Trump ☼ Art you can drink ☼ “A Justified Murder of Crows”

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Nov 17, 2024 - 13:00
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What to expect
Donald Trump in a suit and red tie gestures with hands outstretched on a stage with campaign posters, American flag, and display text in the background.

Good morning, Colorado Sunday friends.

It took a minute for the last few races to be called in our state and for my brain to settle enough to think clearly about a second Trump administration and how that might work out for Colorado. On the road to clarity, I had the considerable advantage of having been through this drill before — though this go-round, I was determined not to let myself be surprised by an outcome in the presidential race that didn’t exactly mirror the sentiments of most Colorado voters.

But that’s very much not the state of mind of many people out in the world. Some say they are anxious and confused, and they have questions about many things that were promised by Donald Trump and his surrogates on the campaign trail — about abortion, health insurance, immigration, tariffs, energy, the environment, public lands, agriculture, the Colorado River and even where U.S. Space Command might be headquartered.

We took a look at these 10 topics, which unsurprisingly included many issues that our Voter Voices survey identified as important to Coloradans. Our reporters examined where we stand now and what we might expect as the curtain lifts on the next act of political theater. (Anyone remember the big show around moving the BLM headquarters to Grand Junction and then back to Washington when a new guy got the keys to the Oval Office? That’s what I’m talking about.)

Like most journalists, we understand that the reporting we were doing back then, and even today, is just the first, rough draft of history. As political volleys are lobbed, we’ll be right here with you trying to figure things out.

READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY PACKAGE

And while we’re on the subject of reporting over the long haul, this is as good a time as any to first, say thank you. As a Colorado Sun member, you are directly responsible for making our journalism possible — and we are especially grateful for that support. But if you’re feeling like now is a particularly good time to weigh in with extra financial support for independent, nonpartisan journalism, we hope you’ll consider donating to The Sun during our NewsMatch campaign. Contributing now through Dec. 31 will help us unlock significant matching funds, including a promise to match up to $1,000 per donation. Find the details at coloradosun.com/donate.

What do you see when you look around? This past week our photojournalists captured images that made us think about common subjects in different ways. Here are a few of our favorite shots.

Installing new turf at Empower Field at Mile High the Denver Broncos game Sunday afternoon included repainting the gridiron lines Wednesday. This is the third year in a row the Broncos have replaced turf midseason. Stripping the old sod and replacing it with new — 14 truckloads of rolls measuring 4 feet by 60 feet — took about 48 hours starting right after the last home game Oct. 27, Chris Hathaway, the director of turf and ground, said on social media. (Andy Colwell, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Empower Field is one of a handful sodded with Kentucky bluegrass. Most other NFL stadiums with a natural grass field have Bermuda grass. (Andy Colwell, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Sunlight illuminates a worker pressure washing the seats inside the stadium Wednesday in advance of the Broncos game Sunday against Atlanta. (Andy Colwell, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Leah Davis Witherow, right, curator of history at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, talks Tuesday to a group of school children about the exhibit “50% of the Story: Women Expressing Creativity.” The show is aimed at elevating women artists in southern Colorado. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)
A Colorado State University student looks at shelves of food at the Rams Against Hunger food pantry Tuesday in Fort Collins. Rams Against Hunger and its partners provide groceries to students facing food insecurity. (Garrett Mogel, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Prodigy Coffeehouse apprentice Aron Garcia demonstrates how to pour a layered design through his latte art technique. Garcia often decorates his customers’ hot drinks with hearts, tulips and rosettas. (Erica Breunlin, The Colorado Sun)

A blend of coffee and espresso forms Julisa Bezjak’s canvas. Her paint: steaming milk that never once splatters as the barista-turned-artist gently drizzles it into a mug resting in front of her.

Bezjak, an apprentice learning how to serve customers at Prodigy Coffeehouse, tops off many of her handmade hot drinks with a creative touch, turning simple cups of caffeine into sippable works of art.

She’ll put several months’ worth of polishing her craft to the ultimate test Tuesday, when she competes against 15 other apprentices at the coffee shop’s biannual Latte Art Throwdown.

Think March Madness meets Monet meets mochas, lattes and cappuccinos.

Prodigy Coffeehouse, a training ground for young adults to pick up job and life skills, holds the throwdown regularly to showcase the skills and the newfound confidence of its apprentices. The event brings out the rizz (Gen Z-speak for “charisma”) and raw talent of up-and-coming baristas for an audience of family, friends, community members and donors. A lineup of apprentices will pour drinks head-to-head in a bracket-style set of rounds until a panel of baristas from other local coffee shops names a champion who has mastered their latte art.

The prize they’re vying for: an extra day of pay.

Bezjak has been practicing her technique during almost every shift she has worked the past nine months. Even after all the hours heating milk to just the right temperature and using it to carefully style a tulip or smiley face or even attempt a Halloween-themed skull, she doesn’t yet count herself a professional.

Still, she is a prodigy.

“What makes it fun is just seeing what you were able to do with milk and espresso, being able to create something out of a drink,” Bezjak, 20, said. “It’s just appealing to look at and it also makes it more appealing for the customers to drink because it looks pretty.”

Latte Art Throwdown: 6-9 p.m. Tuesday at Prodigy Globeville, 4500 Broadway in Denver.

EXCERPT: There’s just something about basements. Author Sue Alcon O’Connor taps into that spooky vibe in this excerpt from “A Justified Murder of Crows,” a genre-hopping, time-traveling mystery-comedy-thriller that’s set in the same fictional Colorado town of Patton that’s also the setting for her first novel, “The Bone Shelter.”

READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT

THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Sometimes an author’s characters come to seem like family. For O’Connor, they really are approximations of her kin, right down to some of the jokes they’d play on each other. Here’s a slice of her Q&A:

SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?

O’Connor: … Many of the characters are based on people in my family. The jokes are real — the murders are not. We came close one Christmas when my uncle set the house on fire, but we let him live. My books stand alone, but I think it’s much more fun if you read “The Bone Shelter” first.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH SUE ALCON O’CONNOR

A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.

The “Fallen Hero” statue by Loveland artist Austin Weishel is pictured at the Colorado Law Enforcement Memorial outside the Colorado Law Enforcement Training Academy at Camp George West on Tuesday in Golden. (Andy Colwell, Special to The Colorado Sun)

???? If you were hoping for one of the 30,000 summer gigs typically available with the U.S. Forest Service, may we interest you in doing the same work as a volunteer? Jason Blevins reports on how work in forests might get done as the agency faces a major budget shortfall.

???? If the results of two state House races hold after mandatory recounts, it looks like Democrats missed their goal of sewing up a supermajority in the chamber. Jesse Paul and Brian Eason have the details.

???? UCHealth reached a $23 million settlement — without admitting wrongdoing — in a whistleblower case alleging the hospital system fraudulently billed Medicare and Tricare patients in its emergency rooms. It’s a complicated deal, but John Ingold explains it deftly.

???? Water is sometimes free and plentiful when streams and rivers are running full. Lots of people appreciate the unregulated drink to ready their fields and pastures for the hot summer ahead. But some researchers in Virginia told Shannon Mullane this state of “free river” should be shut down in service to conservation efforts in the Colorado River basin.

???? We’ve been trying to read some of the tea leaves left by the election to better understand the electorate. Jason Blevins took a swing at the failed measure that would have banned hunting of mountain lions and sees some movement in the urban-rural divide.

???? One day Rio Blanco County was on the list of places where the next wave of gray wolves could be released in December, and then it was not. Tracy Ross has been paying attention to the machinations around reintroduction 2.0, including a request from a long list of advocacy groups and local governments that the whole program be paused.

???? Oh. It turns out we were at Mile High for reasons other than to cast our gaze on calming green grass. Tamara Chuang went over to learn about major tech advances at the stadium that should speed up everything but the television time outs.

Thanks for spending time with us today. We know we’ve given you a lot to contemplate with this week’s cover package. But if there is some issue you’d like us to explore, reach out. We exist in service to our community of readers. See you back here next Colorado Sunday.

— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun

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