The voice on the other end of the phone was calm, in control. That part wasn’t unusual. Women who call the offices of Highlands Investigations & Legal Services, Inc., often sound unbreakable. If only that were true. This one used an even tone, but it disguised a fire raging in…
Two organizations have applied to operate the first official syringe exchange programs in Denver, according to the city’s Department of Environmental Health. The office will now review the proposals submitted by the Harm Reduction Action Center and another agency whose name has not been revealed and make a decision in…
Jury selection in the trial of Robert Walters, an Iraq war veteran accused of killing his girlfriend and then putting a hit on his wife so she couldn’t testify against him, began Friday in Denver District Court, and opening arguments will likely begin tomorrow or Wednesday. The central question the…
Nine candidates are vying for three seats on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. That’s two more than the last time we wrote about the race, in early July. Of those nine candidates, eight have turned in petitions with fifty valid voter signatures…
A lesbian woman from Mexico who was facing deportation after a 2008 traffic stop revealed that she was an undocumented immigrant has been granted a reprieve, advocates report. A Denver immigration judge has delayed a ruling in Sujey Pando’s case for five months in light of a new deportation review…
Armond and Dorothy Rudolph wanted a say in how they would die. At 92 and 90 years old, they were ill and didn’t have much time left, says their son, Neil Rudolph of Alamosa. So they stopped eating and drinking in order to hasten their deaths — a decision that…
The Colorado Democratic Party has its sights set on a growing demographic — young Latinos — and has launched an initiative called the Latino Youth Council in order to organize and connect with those it sees as crucial to the future of the party. “We are seeing politically that this…
Denver Parks and Recreation is delaying the implementation of its new, more expensive fee structure by a month. Instead of going to effect on September 1, the new fees will kick in on October 1. Why the reprieve? According to spokeswoman Kathy Maloney, it has to do with the new…
Today, most Denver kids head back to school. And since this is 2011, they’ll probably all rush home, vlog about it and upload said vlogs to YouTube. So to celebrate the first day of school, we bring you five of the best back-to-school YouTube videos. Volume Two. (Click here to…
In May, we told the stories of two GLBT immigrants living in Colorado and seeking asylum to stay in the United States forever. Their stories of discrimination and abuse in their home countries tested the limits of asylum law. On Friday, another local GLBT immigrant, a lesbian woman named Mrs…
Dallas Cardenas will serve eight years in prison for trafficking a seventeen-year-old girl and pimping an adult woman, the state attorney general’s office announced today. Cardenas , twenty, of Denver, is the first person to be convicted under Colorado’s human trafficking statute, which was adopted in 2006. A jury in…
The Denver Children’s Advocacy Center has won a $50,000 federal grant to educate parents and pregnant women about Medicaid and other health insurance for low-income families. The grant is the second such award for the center, which serves children who have been sexually abused, neglected or traumatized by violence…
A twenty-year-old Colorado native who was vacationing in Italy with friends from the University of Washington died Saturday after falling from her hotel window, according to news reports. The Daily Mail describes Kelly Denman as a “university beauty” whose Twitter profile simply said this: die living. Denman reportedly fell a…
News that Sports Authority is hoping to relieve Invesco of the naming rights to the Broncos stadium — thus making the stadium’s name even more of a mouthful: Sports Authority Field at Mile High — is likely to rile fans who think the name is ridiculous enough already. But Denver…
A Denver-based “energy shot with eight superfruits,” Bazi has gone the way of the 7-Eleven. The beverage was once sold only through a multi-level marketing network — a scheme Westword explored in the 2009 cover story, “The Wizard of Bazi.” But now, Bazi has ditched that model for the tried-and-true…
Extreme marriage proposals that make YouTube sensations out of the bride-and groom-to-be are in vogue these days. But Josh Mullin of Greeley wasn’t trying for notoriety when he proposed to his girlfriend at the Kansas City airport in the background of a local TV reporter’s live shot for a ho-hum…
Jason Sadler had a brilliant idea: He’d take pictures of himself wearing T-shirts with companies’ logos on them and then tweet and Facebook and make YouTube videos about it all day. For money. Now, two and a half years later, he’s hired four other T-shirt-wearers who wear T-shirts all day…
North High School is old school — 100 years old, to be exact. And to celebrate its century-ness, the northwest Denver community is throwing a birthday party tomorrow that will double as a celebration of the school’s $24.7 million makeover — which includes a complete renovation of the castle-ish 1911…
Last week, we told you about a fake webpage masquerading as the home base for One Chance Colorado, a coalition of school reform-minded organizations that actually launches today. Here’s former Lieutenant Governor and coalition member Barbara O’Brien’s take on what it’s after and how it plans to get there…
Is it child abuse to encourage a five-year-old to bear-hug a 150-pound sheep and instruct said five-year-old to hold on tight as the sheep busts a move? Or is it just character-building, rough-and-tumble fun? The New York Times has now waded into the controversy surrounding mutton busting, a staple of…
Manual High School, home to super-debaters and Westword cover siblings Teague and Theron Harrison, could expand to include grades 6, 7 and 8. According to Education News Colorado, Denver Public Schools staffers are crafting a plan to grow the once-shuttered, now-reborn school — and the school board could vote on…
Vindication! Sweet, sweet vindication. As this CBS4 report shows, the city is sort-of, kind-of admitting that the “overnight parking” stickers on its downtown meters are confusing — and it’s pledged to plaster them with (hopefully) less confusing stickers by the fall. Does that mean that everyone (including me!) who got…
