Yesterday, Denver city officials proposed a way to grant legal status to unauthorized DIY art spaces and may potentially become one of the first cities in the country to do so. Any space that is operating without the proper city permits can come forward and obtain a conditional certificate of occupancy. The process involves a city inspection in order to bring the space up to code. This effort comes after the recent deadly fires in Oakland and Portland that consumed community DIY art spaces. Denver hopes to avoid this outcome by implementing this new program. It will go before the SAFEHOUSE committee on June 28th to be reviewed.
The University of Colorado released a study last week examining the effects of fake news from 2014 to 2016. The researchers found the fake news outlets and partisan outlets interacted the most in terms of issue agenda setting. The study reassured that fake news does not appear to be gaining agenda-setting power over the entire news media industry.
The study also found that fact-checking sites appear to be declining in their overall influence of news media. In fact, fact-checkers ended up having about half the influence fake news articles did in 2016.
With deaths from opiate use rising both nationwide and in the state, The Colorado Hospital Association is taking steps to reduce opioid use in emergency rooms. Boulder Community Health’s locations in both Boulder and Lafayette will be among the 11 facilities to participate in a 6 month program to study the effectiveness of alternative painkillers.
Over 400 people died from opiate overdoses last year, and that was the first annual decrease Colorado has seen the year 2000. This program hopes to combat this issue by finding the best ways to manage pain without using such potent and addictive drugs.
Last week Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman joined a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general across the country in an investigation as to whether drug manufacturers broke any laws in marketing opioids. They are also investigating any connections between drug manufacturers and the opioid epidemic in Colorado and nationally.
