Bente Birkeland
Bente Birkeland has covered Colorado politics and government since spring of 2006. She loves the variety and challenge of the state capitol beat and talking to people from all walks of life. Bente's work has aired on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, American PublicMedia'sMarketplace, and she was a contributor for WNYC's The Next Big Thing. She has won numerous local and national awards, including best beat reporting from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. Bente grew up in Minnesota and England, and loves skiing, hiking, and is an aspiring cello player. She lives in Lakewood with her husband.
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Tina Peters — a local Republican election clerk who has been indicted on 10 charges of election tampering and misconduct — is running for Colorado's top election job in Tuesday's primary.
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State Rep. David Ortiz was paralyzed from the waist down while serving in Afghanistan. To give him access to the House podium, legislative staff say they have built the first lift of its kind.
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The Colorado Caroling Company shares the joy of performing holiday favorites for appreciative audiences.
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Election officials are trying to win over voter trust that ballots are handled and counted securely. In Colorado, a clerk went so far as to invite one skeptic to work at his office to see for herself.
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Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who in 2018 became the first openly gay man ever elected governor in the U.S., wed his longtime partner on Wednesday.
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Republicans in more than 30 states have introduced bills to criminalize or limit the rights of protesters. Simultaneously, some Democratic-led states are working to better protect protesters.
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Reports of psychosis associated with new cannabis concentrates have half a dozen states proposing new regulations They're also proposing more taxes to fund research about the unknowns in concentrates.
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Voting machine engineer Eric Coomer was falsely accused of rigging the election against former President Donald Trump by the conservative cable network. He faced death threats and has been in hiding.
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Weeks after the mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., the push for a statewide ban on assault-style weapons is losing steam, even among prominent Democrats who say it is the wrong strategy.
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Immediately following the shooting in Boulder that killed 10 people, some Colorado Democrats said they would push for a statewide ban on assault-style weapons. Now support for a ban is waning.