A Washington Post editorial reprinted today in the Denver Post calls for a moratorium on the deportation of gay immigrants who are legally married or in civil unions until after federal courts decide the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)…
Maestro en Casa (Teacher at Home), a Denver Public Schools-funded radio series aimed at teaching English to Spanish-speaking parents, was launched last year. This week, 220 completed the program…
Denver Parks and Recreation membership fees could increase if the city council approves a task force’s recommendation to create a tiered fee structure for the city’s 27 rec centers. The centers would be divided into three categories: neighborhood (small), local (medium-sized) and regional (fully loaded)…
North High school will have a new principal next year, its fourth in six years. Nicole Veltze, the current principal at nearby Skinner Middle School, will take over for Ed Salem, who has helmed North since the fall of 2008. Tomorrow, the North community will have the opportunity to meet…
A bill to expand midwives’ scope of practice will likely become law, having passed both the House and Senate this week. While the bill allows midwives to administer certain drugs and IVs, it isn’t everything that advocates, including Westword profile subject Indra Lusero, had hoped for. A provision that would…
This week, Boulder County’s 22-year-old syringe exchange program — called “The Works” — became the first legal syringe exchange in the state, thanks to a state law passed in 2010 legalizing such programs…
“Coming Out To America,” this week’s cover story, follows two GLBT immigrants as they apply for asylum in the United States. One immigrant, a transgender woman named Kassandra, is afraid to return to her native El Salvador for fear of persecution. And for good reason. A 2010 report by several…
“Coming Out To America” tells the story of Sam, a gay Egyptian seeking asylum in the United States. Though Egypt doesn’t have any explicit laws against homosexuality, gay men there are routinely arrested and tortured. In one infamous incident, 52 men were arrested in 2001 on a floating disco called…
What does a gay man look like? Or a whistleblower? Or a woman who, were she to return to her home country, would be targeted for female genital mutilation? Those are the questions raised by “social visibility,” a criterion adopted by the Virginia-based Board of Immigration Appeals that some lawyers,…
In some countries, being gay is illegal. Gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender immigrants from countries that persecute, torture or imprison homosexuals can apply for asylum in the United States. Winning it, however, is another story — a story in which immigrants’ past can make or break their future. Read about…
In El Salvador, Kassandra stood out. “I always acted like a little girl,” she says in Spanish. “I would wear my mom’s makeup. I liked my mom’s clothes. I loved the kitchen and cleaning the house.” That wouldn’t have been unusual, except for the fact that Kassandra was born a…
Colorado already has 23 types of designer license plates, including one that benefits the Denver Broncos charities. Soon there could be two more if lawmakers pass a bill to create plates to benefit the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche charities…
When it’s finished in the spring of 2012, Asian Tropics, the Denver Zoo’s ambitious new exhibit, will be home to elephants, rhinos, leopards, flying foxes, fishing cats, otters, gibbons, tapirs and… a time capsule made by middle-schoolers…
Walkability — that is, how close a property is located to grocery stores, banks, restaurants, bus routes and bike trails — is becoming increasingly important to home-buyers and apartment-dwellers, says local realtor John Skrabec. “People see the benefits of a walkable lifestyle and so they’re seeking that out,” says Skrabec,…
Jenny is a mother of three whose husband has cancer. Faced with the decision of whether to renew her car registration or buy food for her family, she says she chose the latter. One night, as she was leaving her job, she was pulled over the by police for having…
Update below: Last month, our feature story “Bug Bedlam!” detailed Denver’s bed bug infestation, supposedly one of the worst in the nation. Tomorrow, the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee will hear a bill to repeal Colorado’s so-called Bedding Act, which requires that used mattresses be sanitized before they’re…
What makes someone “the most socially influential college student?” Off The Quad, a Boulder-based digital provider of daily tips about hot goings-on, has come up with a (nerdy) algorithm to figure it out that takes into account how often said college student posts stuff on Facebook and how many different…
Jesse Hodgson, a former firefighter for Mountain View Fire Rescue in Longmont, will have to register as a sex offender. The 37-year-old has pleaded guilty to instructing his 11-year-old stepdaughter to wear an adult diaper as punishment. Authorities say he also asked her to watch him urinate in his own…
There are two versions of Christian Laswell’s story, his lawyer said in court this morning. In one version, the 29-year-old seen here is a pimp of several women, including a seventeen-year-old girl and his sister, nineteen-year-old Theresa Laswell. In another version offered by his lawyer, he’s a college student who…
A bill to expand midwives’ scope of practice in Colorado that’s seen its fair share of compromises may have had its easiest day in the spotlight yesterday. After several hours of testimony and questions about infant death rates and medical liability insurance, the House Judiciary Committee passed the bill unanimously…
Last week, mayoral candidate James Mejia wrapped up his campaign to sleep over at homes across the city. I was at the last slumber party on Friday night, as it was hosted by my boyfriend’s house, Sleeptight, which he shares with four roommates in the Lincoln/La Alma Park neighborhood…
Theron and Teague Harrison, Manual High School’s top debaters and the subjects of our recent feature, “Say What?”, were in New York City this past weekend for the Urban Debate National Championship, along with Thomas Jefferson High debaters Danite Reda and Talan Lousignont. So how did Denver’s debaters stack up?…
