HECHO EN WESTWOOD
CO
Founded in 2020 as the RISE Westwood Collective, Hecho en Westwood’s original mission was simply to help the Denver neighborhood’s Latino- and BIPOC-owned businesses survive the pandemic. But what started as a support system, including an online shopping platform and centralized curbside pickup location for its members, has blossomed into a cultural force that bolsters Westwood’s economy and celebrates its community. Just this year, the neighborhood group launched the biannual Saigon-Azteca Night Market, in collaboration with other partners such as the Far East Center, and a free Danza Mexika after-school program for 18-and-unders. The Indigenous dance and spiritual tradition, which survived underground in Mexico after Spanish colonization, has seen a resurgence, says Hecho en Westwood Danza Mexika instructor Metzli Aragon. “We’re teaching the art of movement, the art of healing through movement,” she says, and that healing means reclaiming the culture that was forcibly taken from them.
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NO. 399
WY
Since their listing as an endangered species in 1975, grizzly bears have rebounded in the Greater Yellow-stone Ecosystem, a three-state region that includes Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. A large part of that success can be attributed to No. 399. The 27-year-old sow bear became the region’s oldest known ursine mom when she was spotted emerging from hibernation this past May with her 18th documented cub in tow. The birth was a borderline miracle: Not only have Greater Yellowstone grizzlies seen sharp decreases in recent decades of the foods they depend on, such as cutthroat trout and whitebark pine seeds, but female Yellowstone grizzlies also only have about a nine percent chance of reaching No. 399’s age, much less reproducing at it. She faced plenty of adversity to get there, including losing cubs to car crashes and almost being culled after she chomped a hiker in self-defense in 2007. To help keep her safe, Grand Teton’s volunteer Wildlife Brigade scours the park for unsecured food and helps manage the paparazzi that No. 399’s celebrity can’t help but attract.
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REPUBLIC OF MOLOSSIA
NV
The Republic of Molossia celebrated its 25th birthday on May 26—an
