It’s not a common goal, or even a popular one these days, but to Eugene Duran it was real: He wanted to be a labor lawyer. And for seven years he was, negotiating higher wages and fighting against unfair firings for Teamsters Local 435. Last year the labor lawyer and…

Is the State of Colorado losing several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of real estate to a developer of plush Summit County mountain homes? The developer says no, but the current owner of the land–the Colorado Department of Transportation–says it isn’t so sure and that it will delay turning over the…

part 1 of 2 Most working ranchers and farmers would find tending to the Colorado Farms spread a respite. The foreman of the ranch, Delbert Jenkins, is 33 years old and owner of a bushy horseshoe mustache and a droopy Stetson. He runs about three dozen cattle on just over…

part 2 of 2 Concerned about the massive erosion washing billions of tons of soil off private lands each year, Congress in 1985 enacted several sweeping conservation measures. CRP was by far the biggest. The idea was simple. In exchange for taking “highly erodible” cropland out of production, the government…

At the time it was announced, it seemed the perfect example of picayune government rules stifling entrepreneurship. A year and a half ago, the federal Food and Drug Administration fined Boulder’s Lexicor Medical Technology Inc. for violating agency rules. The amount of the FDA’s proposed fine, $1.6 million, was approximately…

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part 2 of 2 Surrounded by an expanse of rich corn and soybean farmland in northeast Iowa, Eagle Grove is 370 miles from Chicago and an hour-and-a-half drive from Des Moines. Its proximity to the cities makes it an ideal location for truck-transfer stations; at one time, fully one fourth…

part 1 of 2 Although he met him only once, nearly two decades ago, T.W. Norman reserves a special place in his memory for James Christensen. In 1976 the then-assistant district attorney for Jefferson County prosecuted Christensen on charges of sexually molesting his own children. When the file passed across…

When Richard McSpadden wanted to put in some new pay phones at Union Station, he didn’t have to look far. “In the past several months I’d say I’ve gotten about eight calls from companies wanting to either put in new phones or rip out our phones and put in their…

Usually, Colorado’s wild animals mind their own business–but now flocks of government agents and self-appointed experts are doing it for them. This summer they will attempt to relocate, reintroduce and otherwise manipulate vicious carnivores, bad bears and smelly weasels. To find out what’s happening, you could sit through a bunch…

Detective James Rock remembers it as one of the worst professional decisions he’d made in 24 years with the Denver Police Department, although there was no way he could have known that at the time. He simply made one of those judgment calls that cops make a dozen times a…

Anyone contemplating renting out a room in a residence that’s not up to code might want to consider this: Apart from gang members and assorted dime-store hoods, the fastest-growing segment of Denver’s heat-packing population is the city’s Department of Zoning Administration. In fact, every single one of the concealed-gun permits…

Imagine that you have a good idea, perhaps even a great idea, for a product that might help humanity–and, of course, make some money along the way. So you start your company and a few years later raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling stock to the public. Years…

The problem, as Gregg Greenstein sees it, is fourfold: It’s too noisy and it will lower property values. And along the way, he adds, the environment will suffer. So will education. The quality-of-life scourge that Greenstein, a Westminster lawyer, is talking about is the prospect of commercial passenger flights at…

The political turmoil shaking Mexico appears to have spilled north into Colorado. Aeromexico, the country’s largest airline, suspects its former top executive of embezzling tens of millions of dollars. According to legal documents filed here, the company now hopes to use a Denver court to lure him back to his…

Jack Dempsey lived in Creede, Denver, Steamboat Springs and Montrose, fighting in mining camps across the entire Rocky Mountain region before becoming the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. But he was still known as the “Manassa Mauler.” This summer Dempsey would have been 100 years old. And the tiny…

It’s been four months since the Aronsons of Evergreen charged in a civil lawsuit that their neighbors, the Quigleys, tried to drive them out of town because the Quigleys hated Jews. Since that time, lawyers for each side have been busy gathering evidence showing numerous alleged low-level infractions of neighborly…

Has Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Colorado secretly been nickeling-and-diming its clients so it can earn extra millions of dollars in profits? The company denies it, and in a lawsuit settlement reached last week it admitted no wrongdoing despite shelling out $3 million to consumers. Yet officials in states…

In 1972, when Nixon was in the White House and the notion of a black hole first was conceived, two promising young scientists met and became close friends. One was an academic who went into university research. The other worked for a huge drug company. Over the years, both rose…

The recent death of local millionaire Chuck Stevinson had an effect on many people. But perhaps no one outside his family will feel the loss more than a controversial South Carolina physician who also operates a cancer clinic in Denver. Indeed, the death of the Golden automobile and real estate…

The state chapter of the Democratic Leadership Council is about to announce that it’s forming its own public-policy think tank. Not surprisingly, politics already is intruding. Gleeful members of the right-thinking Independence Institute, a Golden-based tank that has enjoyed a recent flurry of publicity, are touting the Democrats’ action as…

Hey, CSU! You’ve just hit the ranks of big-time football! You’ve got a conference championship, a national audience, TV contracts and a big bowl game! Whaddaya gonna do next? Forget Disneyland. It’s time to fire up the cash registers. The real test of whether you’ve found the college-football limelight is…