Colorado's Spanish-speaking communities can now access comprehensive pricing information for health-care services through a new Spanish portal in the Shop For Care tool developed by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care.

Cari Frank, vice president for communications for Center for Improving Value in Health Care, said the tool is a game-changer, and has saved consumers thousands of dollars in medical bills, because it allows anyone to see the true costs of medical procedures across all of the state's hospitals and other care facilities.

"This tool actually enables people who maybe have high copays to be able to say, 'OK, if I need a colonoscopy, or I'm having a baby, I can actually use this tool to figure out where I can get the best quality of care at the lowest price,'" she said.

Creating a tool that Spanish-speaking Coloradans could access has been a top priority for the center. Frank said it works to improve health equity. More than half of Colorado Latinos speak Spanish and it is the sole language spoken by one in ten Coloradans, according to the Latino Leadership Institute. The Spanish and English versions can be accessed at the Center's website: 'civhc.org.'

Shop For Care also has been used by health-care providers to see how their prices compare, and to help patients without health insurance find lower-priced options. Frank said some medical procedures can cost as much as $60,000 more at one facility versus another. When consumers are better informed about their choices, she said they can be a significant driver in lowering health-care costs.

"And if a consumer makes a choice to go to the lower-cost facility that has just as great quality, then we're actually lowering the overall cost of health care, which reduces premiums for all of us," she said.

Price is not the only important factor to consider when choosing a health-care facility, so the tool enables consumers to compare health-care quality and patient experience at many facilities. In addition to the Spanish addition, Shop For Care has been improved to make the tool more mobile friendly, and can now be accessed using multiple devices.

Advocates and leaders are headed to the state capitol next week to voice their concerns over issues affecting Black communities in Tennessee.

The Equity Alliance wants lawmakers to know their human rights are in jeopardy. Seventeen percent of Tennessee's population is African-American and the group says their civil rights are under attack.

Alliance CEO Tequila Johnson said Black Tennesseans, LGBTQIA people and immigrants are being targeted when it comes to education policies, the makeup of the Nashville Metro Council... even drag show laws.

"Our Day on the Hill is our way of bringing everyday Tennessee as most of whom have never stepped foot in the state capitol, to the state capitol because we do believe that is the people's house," said Johnson. "And then the second thing is for them to hear from legislators and lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, we want people to be able to decide how they want to be governed and by whom."

Johnson said The Equity Alliance is also working to be sure people making laws in Tennessee, which are increasingly affecting more Black people, are face-to-face with their constituents impacted by the legislation.

Johnson said people statewide are concerned about what she calls an attack on public education, which heavily effects black and brown students in all parts of Tennessee.

She offered as evidence a 2021 law that requires schools to hold back third graders who don't pass the Tennessee Ready Reading Test, calling it 'extremely unfair and racially biased'.

"They are using the TCAP which there's tons of research that shows that standardized testing is biased culturally," said Johnson. "And it does not effectively measure a student's ability to read or whatever it is that they're testing them on. Standardized testing just measures of student's ability to take a test."

Johnson says the group's April 20 Town Hall meeting will focus on legalizing marijuana. The Equity Alliance is inviting experts and legislators to talk about what that might look like in Tennessee.

Incidents involving white supremacist propaganda reached an all-time high last year in the U.S., including a dramatic surge of incidents across New England.

White nationalist and neo-Nazi groups publicly marched, gathered and displayed hateful rhetoric in Boston, and beyond with some 465 incidents recorded in Massachusetts alone.

Peggy Shukur, New England interim regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said some hate groups are recruiting new members through often deceptive tactics.

"One group, Patriot Front, uses the Stars and Stripes to appear to be a mainstream group when instead they are a group that is virulently antisemitic and racist," Shukur explained.

In addition to the group's march through Boston Commons last July, groups also targeted bookstores, libraries, theaters and even hospitals with racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ messages. Shukur pointed out the incidents are being carried out by a small number of people having an outsized impact.

Researchers said the groups are increasingly moving from online forums to in-person gatherings, including on highway overpasses.

Shukur noted Massachusetts, known as the cradle of liberty, provides a dramatic flourish for hate groups to utilize, but she added communities are increasingly countering the hate with support for those being targeted.

"If your community instead comes out and said, 'we are with you, we see you', that's a really powerful message," Shukur emphasized.

Shukur stressed it is not recommended to engage or confront hate groups but the Anti-Defamation League encourages the public to report any incidents in an effort to hold them accountable.


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African Americans have played a foundational role in Wyoming since the 1860s, when they served as soldiers at Fort Laramie, and owned and operated some of Cheyenne's first businesses, which are just some of the historic nuggets uncovered by the Black Wyoming Project funded by the National Park Service.

Delia Hagen, the project's director, is documenting the history and historic places of Wyoming's Black community, a community underrepresented in the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks.

"The history of African American communities in general is underdocumented across the United States," Hagen explained. "That is especially so in places like Wyoming and Montana."

Hagen noted Black people in Wyoming played a major role as members of the workforce delivering fuel for heat and electricity to the entire nation. African Americans were prominent members of coal-mining towns including Green River, Rawlins, Rock Springs, and in Hanna, where dozens of Black men were among the 169 miners killed in Wyoming's worst coal disaster in 1903.

Hagen's research revealed Black residents have played important roles in all of Wyoming's major economic sectors, including coal, railroad, cattle, the arts, and sports, and she said they were part of the political, social and cultural fabric of every major city, many towns and most of the state's counties.

"Some sources even trace the origins of Frontier Days to 1870s riding exhibitions by a black cowboy named Sam Stewart," Hagen explained. "Stewart was also known as 'Bronco Sam,' and was renowned as one of the best riders in the region."

Hagen pointed out one goal of the project is to get more historic sites registered and into the written record we rely on, including the 1914 home of two of Sheridan's most prominent Black residents, Charles and Minnie Hardaway Askew. But Hagen added there are numerous opportunities at sites across the state to make the contributions of African Americans more visible.

"This history is almost wholly unknown outside of the descendant community itself, and a few scholars," Hagen acknowledged. "But this project shows that African Americans are an integral and prominent part of Wyoming history."