By Quentin Young | editor
There was a lot of news Friday around the ICE detention center in Aurora. As Chase Woodruff reported, an employee of the private-prison company that operates the facility was arrested by Aurora police, who allege he shot a protester outside the building. Immigration advocates fear the detention center is the site of a tuberculosis outbreak, according to reporter Sara Wilson. State health officials know of one confirmed case of the dangerous disease, but ICE had not permitted them to investigate other possible cases. Below are some of our other top stories from the week.
Demonstrators protest against potential new immigrant detention centers in Colorado outside the Hudson Correctional Facility on Sept. 13, 2025. (Photo by Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
By Chase Woodruff
A dormant, privately-owned prison in Hudson is set to become Colorado’s second Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention center, The GEO Group, a private prison company, announced Monday. The Big Horn Correctional Facility has been eyed by ICE officials to expand Colorado’s immigrant detention capacity since last year, and documents obtained by the ACLU previously showed the facility was under contract to operate as a new detention center. Monday’s announcement by The GEO Group is the company’s first public confirmation of those plans.
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, seen touring 4 Noses Brewing Company in Denver in May 2025, benefited from a late infusion of financial support before the June 30 primary election. (Photo by Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)
By Chase Woodruff
A centrist Colorado megadonor, a billionaire hedge fund manager and a national dark-money group were among those who funded two mystery super PACs that came to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper’s aid late in last month’s primary election. The two PACs, Common Sense Action Fund and Our Future Colorado, spent just under $500,000 to support Hickenlooper’s reelection campaign as he faced a primary challenge from progressive state Sen. Julie Gonzales. Kent Thiry, the former CEO of Denver-based DaVita and a longtime backer of centrist causes and candidates in Colorado, was the largest donor to Common Sense Action Fund.
Blue Mesa Reservoir sits behind the Blue Mesa Dam, at left, in this image from 2012. (Google Maps)
By Hank Lacey
The Wayne N. Aspinall Unit, Colorado’s only stake in a federal hydropower system that sells power across the West, is on pace to generate nearly 30% less electricity than its historical average dating to 1978, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. The shortfall is the latest sign of a decades-long decline eroding a system that accounts for about 3% of Colorado’s energy supply. Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest body of water entirely within Colorado and a part of the unit, is expected to end the year at just 17% of its live storage capacity. As water flows shrink under the stresses of climate change, so does the unit’s output.
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