Good morning and happy Presidents Day for all who celebrate.
Today kicks off the final week of my 30s (hello to my fellow February Pisces out there) and it’s from my privileged position as an elder millennial — old enough to remember the pre-internet world, young enough to be comfortable with Gen Z culture — that I bring you another “Interesting Colorado Fact I Learned on TikTok.”
One of my favorite accounts, @justinthetrees, rose to relative fame during the height of the pandemic by making a map of the United States where each state was carved out of wood from that state’s official state tree. But in the years since, he’s become a font of great tree knowledge, including the fact that there is a tiny grove of paper birch trees outside of Boulder that have become completely isolated from the rest of that tree’s native range.
He even drove from Utah to visit the tiny grove — a holdover from the last Ice Age — just to see the paper birches in person. It’s a short little video, but it’s a great reminder that there is deep history everywhere we look. And we’re seeing the evolution of that history in some of today’s news, from the complicated tale of a missing marker to rewriting bird names to work by the USDA to help preserve small family agriculture.
So let’s light some paper birch bark and get this fire going, shall we?
CTO & Newsletter Wrangler
THE NEWS
SUN INVESTIGATION
UCHealth sues thousands of patients every year. But you won’t find its name on the lawsuits.
15,710
Lawsuits filed in the past five years for money owed to UCHealth
In the past four years, virtually none of the lawsuits filed over money owed to the UCHealth system — a nonprofit community institution that is exempt from paying taxes — have been filed in the hospital system’s name. And the practice of working with third-party debt collection companies has shielded UCHealth from public scrutiny over the scale and frequency of such lawsuits — an average of more than eight new cases per day — according to a 9News/Colorado Sun investigation done in partnership with the Colorado News Collaborative and KFF Health News. Sun reporter John Ingold and 9News reporter Chris Vanderveen have more from the investigation.
FOOD
Beef, quality-stamped by an in-person grader, may soon be graded by someone looking at a picture
In the old days, beef got its USDA grades (“Prime,” “Choice,” “Select,” etc.) when a beef processor paid an inspector to travel to their plant to see the meat in person. But a new pilot program would train plant employees to take photos and send them to a remote USDA grader station. As Tracy Ross reports, small rural processors say this could give them a leg up in the market they desperately need.
CULTURE
A sign marking Denver’s historic Chinatown went missing months ago, not long after it was installed
Near the corner of 16th and Wazee in downtown Denver, a small concrete block stands as a double ode to what’s no longer there. Until a couple of months ago, the concrete block had supported a historical marker, installed last August in the heart of what once was Denver’s Chinatown — itself missing since the 1960s, razed during one of the city’s attempts at “urban renewal.” Reporter Parker Yamasaki takes us on a history lesson, with stops in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
ECONOMY
Colorado’s current economy and a peek into the future
This week’s “What’s Working” column takes a look at the latest ColoradoCast report to predict the next six months of the economy — spoiler, the chances of a recession are low. Tamara Chuang has this and more news about the economy, including an update on the Denver Basic Income Project.
MORE NEWS
COLORADO SUNDAY
What’s in a (bird) name, Colorado? Group reconsiders 152 birds named after people.
There’s a national movement to peck away at troubling bird names, like those named after slaveholders or Confederate generals. The push to rename them echoes the geographic naming disputes that led to the transformation of Mount Blue Sky from Mount Evans or the dozens of other sites labeled with a slur against Native American women being changed. But changing history is hard. Michael Booth digs into the controversy that’s stirring up among scientists and hobbyists.
Section by Eric Lubbers | CTO & Newsletter Wrangler
THE COLORADO REPORT
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Section by Olivia Prentzel | Reporter
THE OPINION PAGE
COLUMNS
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Thanks for sticking with us to start your week, and say hi to your neighborhood trees for me. See you back here tomorrow!
— Eric and the whole staff of The Sun
Corrections & Clarifications
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