Colorado gun law relies on flawed estimate
A law expanding background check requirements on Colorado gun sales has been in effect for about a year, and an Associated Press analysis of state data compiled during that span shows the projected impact was vastly overstated in a key budget report. The discovery has prompted a prominent Democratic lawmaker to question whether the flawed estimate led to an inaccurate projection of the law’s cost.
Immigrants face uncertainty after floods
Immigrants living in the U.S. illegally returned to their mobile home parks in flood-ravaged Colorado to find that there was little left to salvage — not the water-damaged cars, not the old family pictures and not the sheds carried away by the rushing waters.
Voter fraud: Republicans find little
Republican election officials who promised to root out voter fraud so far are finding little evidence of a widespread problem.
Wild West town for sale in Utah for $3.9 million
The real estate listing reads like a Wild West exhibit: An old gold mine, a geyser, and a supposed hideout of famed outlaws. It's all in a middle-of-nowhere ghost town for sale three hours southeast of Salt Lake City. Listing price? $3.9 million.
‘One with the sky’: Funeral pyres in Colo. town
Belinda Ellis' farewell went as she wanted. One by one, her family placed juniper boughs and logs about her body, covered in red cloth atop a rectangular steel grate inside a brick-lined hearth. With a torch, her husband lit the fire that consumed her, sending billows of smoke into the blue-gray sky of dawn. When the smoke subsided, a triangle-shaped flame flickered inside the circle of mourners, heavily-dressed and huddling against zero-degree weather.
Mexico grabs alleged leader of La Familia gang
Federal police arrested an alleged leader of a drug cartel that purportedly offered to disband if the Mexican government proves it can protect citizens from other criminals in a western state, authorities said Tuesday. Jose Alfredo Landa, 37, was in charge of La Familia operations in Morelia, the Michoacan state capital, said Ramon Pequeno, the federal police anti-narcotics chief.
Drug war refugees return to Mexican town
Residents of Ciudad Mier, the colonial town near the U.S. border that was nearly emptied by warring drug cartels a month ago, are slowly returning and tentatively putting their faith in new military patrols, a town official said Wednesday.
‘Abandoned’ label irks hamlets’ residents
Two girls walk into a shop for strawberry and chocolate ice cream, and Ronda Dudeck rings them up. Scissors snap as a pair of women sit in front of mirrors and get their hair cut at a salon. Men drink beer at a noisy bar. There’s no shortage of activity in Sedalia on a recent afternoon. And yet the town is said to be “not currently existing” in a June 18 letter written by Douglas County authorities.
“As soon as his hand came out at me, I started stabbing him.”
Calvin Warren Johnson admits he is a dangerous man. And after his acquittal this year in the stabbing of a homeless man at the downtown public library — a crime he now says he committed — Denver police records show he isn’t bluffing.
Some strip clubs allow smoking despite ban
There was no shortage of ashtrays, matches and clouds of smoke at PT’s Showclub this week as topless women danced on stages inside the club. Turns out, at least three large metro-area strip clubs still allow smoking nearly one month after the statewide smoking ban began. The billboard above the entrance to PT’s advertises, “Still Smoking After All These Years . . .”