Immigrant rights group asks ICE to stay away from Strawberry Days Festival

Update below: Will federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement have a presence at this weekend’s 115th annual Strawberry Days Festival in Glenwood Springs? That’s what youth-led immigrant rights group AJUA wants to know. AJUA sent a letter to ICE, explaining that the agency’s presence at last year’s fair “traumatized our community.”…

Tapir escaper at the Denver Zoo! Keepers return animal within minutes

Ten acres of habitat just wasn’t enough for Rinny the tapir. This morning, the 800-pound black-and-white mammal briefly escaped from her new home at the Denver Zoo’s brand new exhibit, Toyota Elephant Passage, and went on an adventure to a fenced-in landscape area. Rinny’s entire excursion lasted five minutes and…

Lay Catholics, Gill Foundation make up funding lost by immigrant center

Lay Catholics and several big organizations, including the Denver-based Gill Foundation, have saved the budget of an immigrant advocacy group in Durango whose funding was yanked by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The Catholics stripped the immigrant group, called Companeros, of $30,000 because it belongs to a coalition that…

Photos: Denver Zoo’s $50M Toyota Elephant Passage opens today

This is it, zoo fans. This is what you’ve been waiting for and dreaming of since you approved that $62.5 million zoo-improvement bond in 1999. Big, hulking male elephants — up to eight of ’em — living in City Park. Big, hulking male elephants and their big, hulking…trunks. Today is…

Photos: Tour Denver’s new $28 million crime lab

Denver’s new crime lab smells like fresh paint and virgin plastic. Some of the office furniture is still wrapped in it, or stacked in boxes. But all of the major stuff — the lab benches, the fingerprint examination tables, the walk-in freezer and the test-firing range — is in place,…

Shoot Colorado: Website aims to help Hollywood find places to film

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…

Initiative 52 would let undocumented immigrants get driver’s licenses

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…