
By Quentin Young | editor
“The lawsuit with the Town of Hudson is about more than one town or one detention center … It is about whether cities across Colorado will have the moral fortitude to resist intimidation by the Trump administration and hold firm to exercising their authority to protect our neighbors.”
— Meghan Carrier, the executive director of Together Colorado

The dormant Hudson Correctional Facility is pictured on Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
By Sara Wilson
A Denver-based nonprofit and a neighbor to the defunct prison set to become Colorado’s second immigration detention facility are suing the town of Hudson, alleging that town leadership is skirting local land use code in allowing the facility to reopen. The Weld County resident, Janet Carlson, and the multi-faith organization Together Colorado filed the lawsuit in state court on Wednesday afternoon. It names the town of Hudson, its town council, its planning commission and Planning Director Jennifer Woods as defendants. Earlier this month, GEO — a private company that operates the existing Aurora immigration detention center — announced a five-year contract with the federal government to reopen the prison in Hudson as an immigration detention center.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday, July 23, 2026 criticized committee Democrats opposed to the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general. (Screenshot from committee webcast)
By Ashley Murray
Members of the U.S. Senate tasked with advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcer on Thursday pushed the vote one week. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s delayed vote to send the controversial nominee to the full Senate is “per standard committee practice,” according to a spokesperson for Chairman Chuck Grassley. The Iowa Republican and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used the time that had been allocated for the vote to comment at length on Blanche’s nomination. Grassley then recessed the session because too many Republicans were absent, which he described as “kind of rude.”

Detail of an image of the Aspen Acres Fire posted July 1, 2026, to the Aspen Acres Fire 2026 Facebook. (Courtesy of Aspen Acres Fire 2026 Facebook)
COMMENTARY
By Quentin Young
For a long time the premise of climate news was that humans are causing the planet to warm, and without emergency action, environmental disaster would result. That’s changing. Increasingly the premise is that humans failed to take the climate crisis seriously and environmental disaster is here. It’s wrecking the land. It’s eliminating habitats. It’s hurting people. It’s killing people. And it will only get worse.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
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