Friday's Forecast: Soggy East, Blistering Heat West

In October, a group of Medicaid providers warned Colorado lawmakers that they were in trouble. One after another, the providers — from hospitals, mental health clinics and community health centers — described a budgetary collision that’s played out for more than a year: Hundreds of thousands of Coloradans lost Medicaid coverage after the pandemic ebbed, resulting in less money for the clinics’ already-thin operations.

Some people greet January with the post-holiday blues and are a pound or two heavier — or both. Not gardeners! (Well, maybe the weight gain part, but that will easily be worked off as the garden muscles get back into action.) Turn any blues into New Year garden resolutions that can recharge your attitude and set January in motion — think and plan ahead to an abundant harvest and colorful landscape.

“Impossible Creatures,” by Katherine Rundell (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024) Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you.

The mighty and fabled Rio Grande dwindles to barely a trickle in the winter west of Creede, exposing nearly a mile of rocky riverbed to dry under the weak sun. This section of the river near its headwaters wasn’t supposed to be left dry in the winter, according to environmental groups.

Out on his family’s 11,700-acre farm, Samuel Meisner calloused his hands and made himself a champion. The Wray senior is part of the fourth generation to contribute to the family business, Lenz Farms. And long summer days spent fixing fences, servicing equipment, sorting potatoes and scouting fields turned the 17-year-old into a football star (running back/middle linebacker on the Eagles’ undefeated title team) and wrestling state champion. “Growing up on the farm, it’s built character because it’s taught me a lot of lessons about hard work,” Meisner said.

In this four-part special report, The Denver Post investigates the state of professional sports stadiums in Denver and what could be coming next, from publicly funded facilities that set the trend (Coors Field) to those whose ambitions have yet to be realized (Dick’s Sporting Goods Park). Four stadiums/arenas were built in the Denver metro area in a 14-year period straddling the turn of the century — an era that saw a nationwide stadium boom funded in part by taxpayer dollars.