Alycin Bektesh and Elizabeth Stewart-Severy bring you the biggest local news stories of the week. Eagle County wants to get the ball rolling on new mental health services, even before the new pot tax starts trickling in. And a new assessment shows that catastrophic wildfire is likely in Pitkin County, and the county has new plans to reduce that risk. Also, there’s a new minimum wage in Colorado, and we’ll talk about the effects here in the Roaring Fork Valley. Plus, female veterans who were here

Amy Goodman is the host of Democracy Now! and will be speaking Friday at The Temporary in Basalt.

Pitkin County’s open spaces are increasingly being used for more than recreation, as agriculture is taking root on public lands.

City staff from the Parks and Recreation department and The Red Brick Center for the Arts made several requests of Aspen City Council in a work session this week. Arts and culture reporter Claire Woodcock and reporter Alycin Bektesh discuss.

Last month, veterans and service members from across America came to Aspen for Military Ski Week. It included a small group of women veterans working on a new mission.

The U.S. Grand Prix competition kicks off today at Snowmass Ski Area. I t’s a qualifier for the Olympics, and some local athletes are vying for spots.

Storycorps is in town, collecting stories about the Aspen Art Museum to be archived in the Library of Congress.

Joan Silber is the author of eight books of fiction. Her first book, the novel Household Words won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her other works of fiction are In the City, In My Other Life, Lucky Us, Ideas of Heaven , finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize, The Size of the World , finalist for the Los Angeles Times Prize in Fiction, and Fools, longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her new novel is called Improvement . Subscribe to the First

This spring, Basalt might take a page from Aspen’s playbook and bring a tobacco tax before voters.

Bear Matthews is the co-founder and CEO of the Tardigrade Group, an incubator which provides support and guidance to startups. But Bear Matthews? He's seventeen years old. And all the startups that the Tardigrade group has worked with are run by teenagers. I asked him how he’s challenging stereotypes about his generation.