DENVER (KDVR) – From the outside, the Denver Mint may be just another two-story government office across from Civic Center Park. But inside the Cherokee Street building, staff and machinery are busy pressing metal coils into millions of coins per day.

According to the Mint, it’s one of two facilities responsible for making circulating coins in the United States – making it a huge part of the nation’s coin flow.

According to Tom Fesing with the Denver Mint, the facility produces roughly 4.5 million coins every 24 hours. Fesing estimates that about $750,000 to $1 million has gone through the facility each day this year.

That said, the Mint can’t exactly predict how much is going to be produced throughout the year as the number of coins depends on the orders the Mint receives monthly from the central bank, the Federal Reserve System, Fesing said.

Despite the millions of dollars in coins passing through, Fesing said the coin with the lowest value, the penny, has historically had the most production.

Those numbers depend on how many coins are needed for cash transactions in the economy, according to Fesing.

“When someone gets back a cent in change, what happens to them? They usually end up in piggy banks, or in a jar, and they’re not introduced into circulation as fast as, let’s say, a quarter or a dime,” Fesing said.

While the Mint can’t predict the numbers for the end of this year, it has produced almost 1.3 billion coins this year, with almost 800 million being pennies. In 2023, the Mint produced around 5.65 billion coins for the entire year.

MORELIA, Mexico (AP) — United States Ambassador Ken Salazar praised Mexico’s effort protect American agricultural inspectors in the conflict-ridden state of Michoacan on Monday, a week after the U.S. suspended avocado and mango inspections following an attack on inspectors.

Salazar traveled to the state, plagued by violence linked to organized crime, to meet with state and federal officials.

Earlier this month, two employees of the U.S. Agriculture Department were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state, prompting the U.S. government to suspend inspections.

The diplomat told the press that last Friday that Michoacan authorities had agreed to a security plan to restart avocado exports. “We are going to continue working on this,” he added.

The U.S. said that inspections in Michoacan would resume gradually.

Mexico played down the attacks, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to work with the United States to guarantee the safety of inspectors.

Many avocado growers in Michoacan say drug gangs threaten them or their family members with kidnapping or death unless they pay protection money, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars per acre.

There have also been reports of criminal groups trying to sneak avocados grown in other states that are not approved for export through U.S. inspections.

In February 2022, the U.S. government suspended inspections of Mexican avocados for about a week after a U.S. plant safety inspector in Michoacan received a threatening message.

Later that year, Jalisco became the second Mexican state authorized to export avocados to the U.S.

The latest pause won’t stop Michoacan avocados that are already in transit from reaching the U.S.

One of the primary elections that may not be on your radar, but maybe should be, is the race for Denver District Attorney.

Even if you live outside the city, Denver has a large representation in the state legislature, so statewide criminal justice policy is often in response to what’s happening in Denver.

Leora Joseph, who worked as a prosecutor in Massachusettes for 25 years, served as chief of staff for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and led Colorado’s Behavioral Health Agency, is facing off against John Walsh, former assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado.

Beth McCann, Denver’s current DA, said last year that she won’t seek another term.

Both have racked up endorsements from big-name Democrats. Joseph and Walsh agree on a lot, but where they split is on the issue of so-called safe injection sites — locations where drug users have access to clean needles and health services.

Proponents say the sites help reduce the spread of infectious diseases, help wean people off addictions and often have staff or volunteers on site who can address overdoses. Opponents say they encourage illegal drug use and make it easier for people with addictions to access drugs.

Both candidates have generally expressed opposition to the sites, but Walsh said he’d be open to a pilot program with one site if approved by the city council.

Political analysts Dick Wadhams, a Republican, and Mike Dino, a Democrat, joined CBS News Colorado political specialist Shaun Boyd to discuss the district attorney’s race in last week’s installment of Left, Right, Center.

Dino doesn’t think the race will hinge on the issue of safe injection sites but has more to do with representation.

“You’re right, I think they do agree on a lot of things or have a similar stance on issues,” he told Boyd. “I actually think we do have a woman DA, I do think Denver voters are bent on looking for getting more women into elected office in Denver and I think that would probably favor Leora Joseph.”

Wadhams says McCann’s endorsement of Walsh will likely weigh heavily in the race, but not as much as the candidates’ stances on issues such as the safe injection sites.

“It wouldn’t be a very strong endorsement from my standpoint. But I think she’s held in high regard by Democrats in Denver. So I think probably does help,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what; I do agree with Joseph on the safe injection. I think she’s dead right about that. That would influence my vote if I were a Democrat and if I lived in Denver, which I don’t.”

As the lead prosecutor for whatever judicial district they serve, district attorneys are tasked with overseeing criminal prosecutions and are often blamed when crime goes up and credited with reductions in crime rates when they go down.

“We’ve seen the car thefts go down significantly in Denver, so that’s been good, and violent crime has also seen a reduction,” Dino said. “They haven’t really been running on, you know, being the toughest crimefighter. That’s not their style. And, again, safe injection sites. I do think, by and large, Denver voters aren’t against them.”