Yes, animals are adorable. But they can also be destructive, as witnessed by the havoc wreaked by a certain squirrel this week — more on that below. The chaos-loving rodent inspired us to round up five recent stories about critters gone wild, in a manner of speaking. Count down our…
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, aka Jihad Jamie, put Leadville in the national spotlight a couple of years back when she was arrested as part of a terror plot. Also gaining unwanted attention: Christine and George Mott, her mother and stepfather, who later wound up with custody of Jamie’s then-six-year-old son. Now, the…
Political observers realized that Mike Coffman’s recent birther comments were a political gaffe. But even the wisest of them couldn’t have guessed his clumsy attempts to deal with the fallout would transform him into a nationwide punchline. Thanks for the latter goes to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who last night zinged…
Marijuana keeps Craig Rodgers alive. With his muscular physique and energetic, fast-talking personality, the 36-year-old Las Vegas resident seems the epitome of health — except for the banana-size scar on the left side of his head. Rodgers was on a good career track as a trade-show organizer until 2006, when…
Dispensaries that were operating in towns that have enacted local bans have had the option of moving within their existing city limits or to a new municipality that allows medical marijuana businesses, as dispensaries in Fort Collins have done. But centers that shut their doors after receiving letters from the…
Let’s say you’re a big-time Hollywood filmmaker. You’ve heard about Colorado’s new film incentives and you’d love to take advantage of the cash rebates natural splendor the state has to offer. But where to start? A new website called Shoot Colorado makes it easy, providing a digital directory of locations…
This week’s cover story, “Sucker Punch”, explores the legal aftermath of an assault on a fan at the 2010 Mayhem Festival — an incident that left a somewhat fragmentary record behind, thanks to concertgoers’ penchant for uploading videos of Mayhem moshes and crowd rowdiness to YouTube. The clips don’t capture…
Denver blog posts keep on keepin’ on. Colorado Pols on Mike Coffman’s clumsy effort to make his birther gaffe go away — by delivering the same weak mea culpa to 9News’ Kyle Clark five times in a row! Ed is Watching on the “True North” report on Denver Public Schools…
A Good Samaritan bill aimed at ending busts after 911 overdose calls cleared the Colorado Senate in February. But while the measure passed the House prior to the civil unions logjam that prompted a controversial special session and awaits John Hickenlooper’s signature, it was diluted in ways that leave a…
The statistics are heartbreaking. In five Denver neighborhoods — Baker, Westwood, Whittier, Villa Park and Valverde — residents are several times more likely to experience cardiac arrests than anywhere else in the city. Worse, locals who had heart attacks in three of the five communities during two recent years didn’t…
Dr. Robert Spitzer’s decision to repudiate his own study supporting reparative therapy — in essence, a “cure” for being gay — fired up disagreements in our post between Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton and One Colorado’s Brad Clark, as well as folks analyzing their views. Here’s a provocative exchange…
Every week, writers for Westword and our parent company, Village Voice Media, produce elegant, magazine-style feature writing, a gritty portion of which comes in the form of true-crime stories. Now VVM has collected some of its best recent true-crime yarns into an ebook: Seven Sins: A True Crime Anthology from…
Even as it planned sweeping copy-editor layoffs, the Denver Post touted a circulation leap, albeit one taking place mainly online. Indeed, the number of physical papers being delivered keeps sliding — hence “Sunday Select,” a Post program that makes free deliveries to homes of former Sunday subscribers. But participants only…
The website Raw Confessions specializes in unsigned posts, because anonymity encourages honesty, whether it’s unflinching, ugly or hilarious. We’ve collected and photo-illustrated the ten most notable rants with Colorado connections. Some of the items encourage sympathy. Others definitely don’t — but all of them are memorable. Count down the rawness…
The arrest affidavit pertaining to Father Charles Robert Manning, an ex-Catholic priest in Colorado Springs who’s been busted on suspicion of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, is currently sealed. But comments from a woman who says she reported Manning to authorities suggest…
Cynics who believe there’s no fired Denver police officer the Civil Service Commission won’t reappoint have a new example to cite as evidence they’re right. His name is Derrick Saunders, and the commission overturned the decision to sack him even though he pleaded guilty to driving 143 MPH while drunk…
This isn’t just another one of those “Jamie Moyer is really old, but still doing things” stories. No, it’s a “Jamie Moyer is really old and still doing things, but it’s really depressing because it’s basically the only highlight of the Rockies season” stories. See the difference? At 49-years-old, almost…
Civic Center Park will soon be back in shape. The city closed the park in late March, but employees are re-sodding the Broadway Terrace this afternoon. The work is expected to continue through the end of the week, and the fences surrounding the perimeter will last only through the 2012…
The Denver Police Department has released the training bulletin that details how officers should approach violations of the city’s new urban camping ban. Before the ordinance goes into effect May 29, officers are partnering with homeless outreach workers to prepare a department-wide response that de-prioritizes the status of homeless individuals…
Denver blog posts make the difference. Mile High Report’s John Bena on Peyton Manning’s insistence that he’s running the Denver offense, not his own. Coyote Gulch: The snowpack is all but gone across Colorado weeks ahead of schedule. If Mayor Hancock is going to grind his ax, Brad Jones will,…
Initiative 52 would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, as long as they provide an individual tax identification number, last year’s tax return and a form of government-issued ID from their country of origin. Today, backers of the initiative held a press conference at the Capitol to call for…
Tonight, Neill Franklin, a former Baltimore narcotics cop who’s now the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, aka LEAP, will be speaking in Denver (details below) about ending marijuana prohibition in Colorado. If that happened, he believes, “it would be very significant in reuniting police and the community again.”…
