Animals crash through glass door of 74-year-old man’s home and claw at him when he tried to get them to leave
A 74-year-old Colorado man was injured after a black bear with three cubs crashed in through his sliding glass door and he was unable to get them to leave, the Colorado parks and wildlife department said.
Residents of the home were startled by a loud crash at about 8.30pm Thursday night and saw the bears coming in through the sliding door which had been left ajar.
Continue reading...Judge reduces sentence to four years of probation for Peter Cichuniec, who injected McClain with ketamine in 2019
A Colorado paramedic convicted in the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man whose name became part of the rallying cries for social justice that swept the US in 2020, is being released from prison after a judge reduced his sentence to four years of probation on Friday.
Judge Mark Warner ruled that “unusual and extenuating circumstances” in the case justified reducing the five-year prison sentence for Peter Cichuniec, the Denver Post reported.
Continue reading...Sergio Ferrer, 36, charged over death of 57-year-old Paul Peavey, whose 10 doberman puppies have not been found
Authorities investigating the murder of a Colorado dog breeder believed searching for his 10 doberman puppies might lead them to the perpetrator. But on Friday, officials said, they had charged a suspect and are now hoping this development will also help them locate the missing dogs, which are still unaccounted for.
Paul Peavey, a 57-year-old resident of Idaho Springs, Colorado, was found shot to death on 24 August – days after he had been reported missing by friends and family – by a search party combing through his sprawling 110-acre property.
Continue reading...Injured hiker became stranded after co-workers descended without him before storm in Rocky mountains
A Colorado man survived a night on a mountain by himself – while injured – after being left behind by his co-workers during an office retreat, which rescue officials pointed out may lead to some “awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks”.
Colorado’s Chaffee County Search and Rescue South (CCSAR-S) shared the hiker’s harrowing ordeal in a Facebook post earlier this week, saying that at about 9pm last Friday, it was “activated for a report of an overdue hiker”. The hiker was wearing all black on the standard route of Mount Shavano, a high mountain summit in the southern Sawatch range of the Rocky mountains.
Continue reading...Attendees who fell ill suffered from dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke in 96F temperatures
More than 100 people were treated for heat-related illness at a Colorado airshow on Saturday, with attendees describing a lack of shade and free water on festival grounds as temperatures soared to 96F (36C) highs.
The Colorado Springs fire department said those who fell ill at the Pike’s Peak regional airshow suffered conditions such as dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, according to KRDO.
Continue reading...Jon and Carie Hallford found liable as court rules for victims’ families – but amount unlikely to be paid out
The Colorado couple who owned a funeral home where 190 decaying bodies were discovered last year were ordered to pay $950m to the victims’ families – a largely symbolic victory for families of the deceased.
According to an email sent to victims by Leventhal Lewis, the firm that filed the lawsuit, it is the largest judgment in Colorado’s history.
Continue reading...Governor says national guard will support first responders as state becomes latest in west to battle several major fires
One person has died and at least five homes were destroyed as Colorado becomes the latest western state to battle several major wildfires.
The Boulder county sheriff, Curtis Johnson, reported the death was discovered in one of the five homes burned by the Stone Canyon fire near the town of Lyon, but did not provide further details. The fire has burned more than 1,500 acres (607 hectares) and was reported 20% contained on Wednesday evening.
Continue reading...Researchers say rattlesnakes have an undeservedly maligned reputation but are social creatures who make good mothers
A “mega den” with as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes isn’t top binge-watching for many people. But a round-the-clock webcam in Colorado is providing a viewing bonanza for scientists and other snake enthusiasts whose observations are helping to broaden understanding of these unusual – and undeservedly maligned – reptiles.
The remote site on private land in northern Colorado is on a hillside full of rock crevices where the snakes can keep warm and hide from predators.
Continue reading...Bitter intraparty fight is one of two elections that could help determine control of Congress in November
Despite a series of personal scandals, Lauren Boebert, a hard-right Colorado Republican who narrowly avoided defeat in 2022, won out over a crowded field of other Republican primary candidates in the fourth congressional district – previously led by Ken Buck – which leans more heavily Republican.
Boebert’s primary win is one of the most closely watched results of Colorado’s primary elections, which chose the winners in several bitter intra-party fights among the state’s Republicans, including in two competitive House districts that could help determine control of Congress in November.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Trump’s trial, read our full coverage here.
While his primary contest may be too close to call, the vote count thus far shows Republican congressman Bob Good trailing his challenger John McGuire by a small amount.
Good is now casting aspersions on the fairness of the election, NBC News reports:
Good claimed during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Monday that Lynchburg “did not secure their drop boxes.”
“There’s no accountability for when those boxes were opened,” Good said. “They were apparently left to be stuffed for two or three days after the election.”
Continue reading...Report published by Native American-led non-profit identifies 10 tribal nations tied to land and how it was taken
A report published this week by a Native American-led non-profit examines in detail the dispossession of $1.7tn worth of Indigenous homelands in Colorado by the state and the US – and the more than $546m the state has reaped in mineral extraction from them.
The report, shared first with the Associated Press, identifies 10 tribal nations that have “aboriginal title, congressional title and treaty title to lands within Colorado” and details the ways the land was legally and illegally taken. It determined that many of the transactions were in direct violation of treaty rights or in some cases lacked title for a legal transfer.
Continue reading...Supporters gather enough valid signatures to put measure – that would enshrine abortion rights into constitution – on to ballot
Voters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.
The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
Continue reading...Jeremy Cooper injected McClain, 23, with ketamine after police forcibly restrained him as he walked home in Denver in 2019
A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with ketamine avoided prison and was sentenced to probation on Friday after his homicide conviction in the Black man’s death, which helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests.
Jeremy Cooper faced up to three years in prison. He administered a dose of the sedative to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after police stopped him as he was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019.
Continue reading...Threats lean toward sexual or domestic violence, attacks on their families and criticisms that they can’t do their jobs
Carly Koppes kept her pregnancy hidden from the public as long as she possibly could, fearing the potential harassment that could come from those who frequently attack the Republican elections clerk.
When Koppes, who runs elections in Weld county, Colorado, did media interviews, she asked the people behind the camera to position her so her growing belly wasn’t visible, fearing her harassers would see the images or videos and make comments about her future child. She “never in a million years” anticipated that she’d have to hide her pregnancy, she said.
Continue reading...Jon and Carie Hallford accused of fraudulently obtaining nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds from US government
The couple who owned a Colorado funeral home – where 190 decaying bodies were discovered last year – have been indicted on federal charges for fraudulently obtaining nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds from the US government, according to court documents unsealed on Monday.
The new federal charges against Jon and Carie Hallford add to charges in Colorado state court for abusing corpses. The 15 fraud charges filed against each of the Hallfords carry potential penalties of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, according to the indictment.
Continue reading...Sandra Fish, who has covered politics since 1982, was asked to leave by security about an hour into the state party assembly
A politics reporter from the Colorado Sun was removed from the state Republican party assembly this weekend because the state party chair Dave Williams claimed her reporting on the party was “very unfair”.
The reporter, Sandra Fish, who has covered politics since 1982, received a text early morning on Saturday from a Republican party organizer saying she was no longer invited to attend the assembly. Fish went anyway, receiving a credentialed pass at the door until she was asked to leave by security about an hour into the event.
Continue reading...Colorado Republicans chose former mayor Greg Lopez, who plans to step down, leaving no incumbent or favored primary candidate
A Colorado Republican panel made the surprising decision on Thursday night to choose a former mayor, Greg Lopez, to be congressman Ken Buck’s likely replacement until the November general election, a saving grace for Lauren Boebert’s bid for another term in Congress.
Lopez will now run as the Republican candidate in the 25 June special election after Buck’s resignation at the same time GOP primary candidates are vying to be the congressman’s successor.
Continue reading...Donald Trump looks all but certain of Republican presidential nomination as Nikki Haley rejects suggestions of third-party bid and says she may keep fighting
Over at CNN, Ronald Brownstein has an analysis piece which looks a little at the potential weakness of Donald Trump support away from his core base. Brownstein writes:
[Trump’s] performance so far reflects his success at transforming the Republican Party in his image. He’s reshaped the Republicans into a more blue-collar, populist and pugnacious party, focused more on his volatile blend of resentments against elites and cultural and racial change than the Ronald Reagan-era priorities of smaller government and active global leadership that former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley has stressed.
But while the primaries have underscored Trump’s grip on the GOP, they have also demonstrated continued vulnerability for him in the areas where he has labored since he first announced his candidacy in 2015 – particularly among the white-collar suburban voters who mostly leaned toward the GOP before his emergence. The early 2024 nominating contests have shown that a substantial minority of Republican-leaning voters remain resistant to Trump’s vision.
Continue reading...Proposals would stiffen state’s lax funeral home laws after series of gruesome cases, from sold body parts to fake ashes
After nearly 200 bodies were found stacked and rotting in a Colorado funeral home, lawmakers have proposed bills to overhaul the state’s threadbare funeral home regulations, which failed to prevent a string of gruesome cases – from sold body parts to fake ashes.
The cases have shattered hundreds of families. Many learned that their loved ones’ remains were not in the ashes they ceremonially spread or held tight for years but were instead decaying in a building or, in one case, the back of hearse.
Continue reading...Peter Cichuniec one of two paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide for role in 23-year-old’s death after police stop
A former Colorado paramedic has been sentenced to five years in prison in the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain after he was stopped by Aurora police.
Peter Cichuniec was one of two paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide for their roles in the 23-year-old’s death, which sparked years of protests and changes in the law. A jury also found Cichuniec guilty of second-degree assault. The outcome marks an extremely rare instance of a paramedic being found criminally liable and facing a prison sentence for a death in police custody.
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