Update: Catherine Keske, the CSU professor sentenced to ninety days in jail for contempt of court over a parenting dispute with her ex-husband involving a secure e-mail account for her son, among other things, was abruptly released less than 36 hours after the hearing in her case recounted below. On…
Chasing wild horses with helicopters has long been a controversial but accepted method in the roundups of mustangs by the Bureau of Land Management. But a federal judge has blasted the BLM after seeing video of a contract pilot hovering over an exhausted horse and appearing to strike the horse…
Politics junkies are already so discouraged by the prospects in the 2012 presidential campaign that they’re looking ahead to 2016, proposing all kinds of unlikely candidates — including Governor John Hickenlooper, who was being measured for a White House run even before his inauguration eight months ago. Yet the buzz…
After years of battling the U.S. Army over its efforts to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, beleagured ranchers in southeastern Colorado got a reprieve this week from another branch of the military. The Air Force won’t be conducting intensive low-altitude training in the area after all…
It took Boulder District Judge Gwyneth Whalen less than a minute this morning to rule that prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to compel a Westword writer to testify in a criminal racketeering case simply because the newspaper had published an interview with the accused. The writer in question, yours truly, left…
The plea arrangement announced today in the case of a thirteen-year-old Burlington youth accused of killing his parents, who now faces seven years in the juvenile corrections system rather than a possible life sentence in adult prison, was hammered out through an unusual degree of collaboration between prosecution and defense…
In dealing with individuals who are resisting arrest, police officers are trained in the use of sophisticated techniques designed to subdue the unruly. But one Mesa County deputy has discovered that the fastest way to a man’s compliance is to get a firm grip on his balls…
Update: CSU professor Catherine Keske was jailed after being found in contempt of court in relation to a case brought by her ex-husband, Jeffrey Handley. Among other things, he accused her of interfering with his ability to communicate with one of his sons by failing to provide the boy with…
Residents of Garfield, Rio Blanco and Weld counties already know the drill, so to speak — the march of natural gas rigs across their landscape. Activists are gearing up to fight a surge in well permits in South Park. And now the Four Corners area is bracing for a possible…
This week’s cover story, “Meet the Neighbors,” examines the controversy stemming from a local ministry’s efforts to establish a treatment program for recovering addicts in an historic home in Capitol Hill — at the Bennett-Field house at 740 Clarkson Street, to be precise. Neighbors claim the effort violates zoning for…
Since his appointment as Secretary of the Interior in 2009, Ken Salazar has been the point man for the Obama administration’s efforts to put the brakes on the drill-baby-drill energy policy of the Bush years, often facing stiff opposition from congressional leaders and the oil and gas lobby in the…
According to just-released data compiled by the Colorado Division of Housing, the state’s apartment vacancy rate is the lowest it’s been in more than ten years. And, as this account from Inside Real Estate News points out, the rental market is particularly tight in Denver, with the average metro apartment…
If a team of urban explorers set out to gauge the health of neighborhoods in central Denver, they could do worse than to start with the 700 block of Clarkson Street. It’s a great vantage point for studying the city’s rich history, its triumphs and mistakes, its awkward efforts to…
Two years ago, I wrote about the tragic death of eighteen-year-old Whitney deMoraes Hendrickson, who died in a freak accident caused by a reckless driver at a gas pump in Colorado Springs, and the remarkable tributes to her short but eventful life that followed. Now one local artist, moved by…
In the stampede of controversy over efforts to remove thousands of wild horses from public lands, few states have sent out more mixed messages than Wyoming, which features a bucking bronc on its license plate and urges tourists to take a “wild horse scenic loop tour” — while pushing the…
Here at the Extreme Sports Desk, we’re big fans of work by Sweetgrass Productions, a cabal of Colorado College grads turned gonzo ski-and-snowboard documentary filmmakers. And now their most ambitious effort to date, a two-year epic journey to “landscapes never before visited on film” across South America, is headed for…
Regulars did some moaning when the popular Perk Hill coffee shop abruptly closed last spring, after a celebrated tiff with the landlord over its funky outdoor seating. But in a few weeks, the place will reopen as a tapas bar. Permits are in and construction has begun on Park Hill…
Most lists of the country’s cutest, prettiest, drunkest, most livable/affordable/promiscuous places and/or people are, well, about as stupid as they sound. Standard response: “Sez who?” But there’s reason to believe that Glenwood Springs earned being singled out as the “Most Fun Town in America” last week in a cross-country contest…
Not to be outdone by fellow Playboy cover girl Barbi Benton in the marketing of extreme cribs, Roxanne Pulitzer and husband Tim Boberg recently offered the Wall Street Journal a tour of their 23,000-square-foot Telluride home — which is up for sale for $19.9 million. That’s slightly higher than the…
It turns out that even Aspen’s elite can’t escape the effects of the world recession. Smarting from the latest stock plunge, high country homeowners are also digesting today’s report in the Aspen Daily News that assessed property values in Pitkin County have dropped $10 billion over a two-year period –…
Governor John Hickenlooper has walked a taut tightrope on energy issues since taking office, pushing for more natural gas drilling in a state already leading the region in drilling starts, while at the same time nudging the industry toward greater disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”…
One terrible morning in 2004, Peter Spitz’s wife, Teresa, took their infant son to a friend’s house, then shot Spitz in the face, blinding him, and killed his mother. Last week, after years of rehab and legal battles, the ex-Marine got a precious piece of his life back, when a…
