COLORADO STATE HOMEPAGE TAKEN DOWN BY CYBERATTACK

The Governor’s Office of Information Technology and State Emergency Operations Center Wednesday reported that Colorado state government’s homepage, Colorado.gov, was taken down due to a cyberattack by an anonymous agent. There was no ransom demand associated with the attack. Other websites in state government were not affected. A temporary landing page, with links to unaffected government services, was put in its place. Officials had no estimate on when the main page will be available again.

HOME PRICES IN DENVER RISE SLIGHTLY IN SEPTEMBER

After dropping slightly or remaining flat all summer, the average and median sale prices in Denver rose slightly in September. The most recent Denver Metro Association of Realtors Market Trends report shows the average price for a Denver-area home reached $671,024 in September, up 2.2 percent from August and 8.41 percent from a year ago. The median sale price in September was $580,000, which was 1 percent higher than August, but a strong 9.43 percent increase from the median price in September of 2021. The number of listings jumped to 7,683, up 10.72 percent from the prior month and a whopping 93.48 percent from a year ago.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS RETURNING

The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) released final figures for July 2022 which indicated the international visitor volume to the U.S. continued to increase. Total non-U.S. resident international visitor numbers to the U.S. reached 5,210,752, which was an increase of 160.8 percent over July 2021. That total reached 67.6 percent of the pre-COVID international visitor volume in July 2019. July marked the 16th consecutive month that international visitor numbers increased on a year-of-over year basis. The largest number of international visitor arrivals were from Canada (1,467,348), Mexico (1,153,506), the United Kingdom (361,313), France (169,994) and Germany (163,675). Combined, these top five source markets accounted for 63.6 percent of total international arrivals.

EL POMAR FOUNDATION PROVIDES FUNDING FOR LOCAL NONPROFITS

Colorado Springs-based El Pomar Foundation has approved $165,000 in funding to nonprofit and governmental agencies in northwest Colorado and the San Juan region. The northwest region includes Garfield, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Mesa, Moffat, Rio Blanca and Routt counties. The San Juan region includes Delta, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel counties. Some of the larger grants include $25,000 to Mesa County for the Clifton Community Campus; $25,000 to the Mesa County Libraries Foundation for a new Clifton branch library; and, $15,000 to the Maslow Academy of Applied Learning in Montrose for a new satellite early childhood education center.

POOL AT DURANGO COMMUNITY RECREATION CENTER CLOSED THIS MONTH

The lap pool at the Durango Community Recreation Center will be closed for the month of October to resurface the bottom of the pool. The month of October is when the rec center typically closes for a single week of maintenance across the facility, but the pool and aquatics area will be closed for a longer period this year because of the need to drain it, remove the old surfacing and replace it with new plaster. The resurfacing will cost about $250,000. The recreation center has also placed the 20-year-old castle-themed jungle gym at the aquatics center up for bid at govdeals.com starting at just $1. The castle will be replaced with another water feature at a cost of about $177,000.

MORE THAN 300 IN SUMMIT COUNTY DO NOT RENEW STR LICENSE

From Aug. 1 to Sept. 30, short-term rental owners could renew their STR license for another year. Summit County officials reported that more than 300 licenses were not renewed this year. There were about 4,700 licenses in place as of August and after the renewal date, there were about 4,400. Officials said the nonrenewal rate was typical. For instance, it is fairly common for homeowners with a license to sell their property to someone who no longer wants to use it as a short-term rental. Also, there was an increase in the cost of an STR license, with the renewal costing almost three times this year what it cost in 2021.

NOBEL PRIZES 2022

Nobel Prizes are announced each year in October and this year’s award winners will be named October 3-10.
On Monday, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was presented to Svante Pääbo, a Swedish scientist who created a new field of ancient DNA studies. Dr. Pääbo launched an effort to decipher a Neanderthal genome and in 2010, he unveiled the Neanderthal genome. That eventually helped scientists to track genetic differences in modern humans.
Tuesday, the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Clauser, of J.F. Clauser and Associates in Walnut Creek, Calif.; Alain Aspect of the Institut d’Optique in Palaiseau, France; and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna in Austria. They authored independent works on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the paradoxical rules that govern behavior in the subatomic world. Their studies of this seemingly strange effect called quantum entanglement has broad implications in areas like cryptography.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless on Wednesday for the development of click chemistry and bio-orthogonal chemistry. The Nobel committee said, that their work has “led to a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together.”

WORLD’S BEST BARS

This year, Paradiso, a bar in Barcelona, was named No. 1 in the 2022 list produced of the World's 50 Best Bars. To get into Paradiso, visitors enter through a white refrigerator door and pass by a counter of pastrami. The awards this year were announced in a live event in Barcelona, the first time since the awards started in 2009 that the ceremony did not take place in London. Top bars in the world:

1. Paradiso, Barcelona
2. Tayēr + Elementary, London
3. Sips, Barcelona
4. Licorería Limantour, Mexico City
5. Little Red Door, Paris
6. Double Chicken Please, New York
7. Two Schmucks, Barcelona
8. Connaught Bar, London
9. Katana Kitten, New York
10. Alquimico, Cartagena