Everybody poops, including elephants — who produce 200 pounds of the stuff every day. That’s the weight of a man. Hear that, kids? An elephant poops out a man every single day. And the Denver Zoo has a plan to turn all that poop into electricity to power its new…
Marguerite Endsley wants to spread the word about something near and dear to her heart: pole dancing. And in the process, she wants to raise some money for a fellow pole dancer who recently suffered a horrific accident: 32-year-old Debbie Plowman, a mother of two from England who fell on…
Andrea Merida, the controversial Denver Public Schools board member, survived a recall attempt this week when the voters asking for her removal didn’t collect enough signatures — although that’s not the way recall organizer Jose Silva explained the situation in two e-mails to Westword. In fact, he sounded a bit…
The invitation is alarming: “Come find out what nasty things Colorado Governor Ritter is contemplating doing BEHIND closed doors.” The nasty thing it’s referring to is Secure Communities, a federal program that would check the fingerprints of anyone arrested in Colorado against immigration records, possibly triggering a call to Immigration…
An attempt to recall controversial Denver Public Schools board member Andrea Merida appears to have failed. The three southwest Denver voters who asked for the recall had until Monday to submit a petition complete with the signatures of 4,342 voters in Merida’s district. According to Nancy Reubert of the Denver…
Clumsy, caffeine-crazed travelers who love carry-on luggage, rejoice. A Denver psychiatric nurse named Karen Porte has solved all of your problems. Porte is the inventor of the tugo, “a cup holder that keeps your drink suspended between the upright handles of your rolling bag,” according to the tugo website. So…
Every family has one: the annoying relative who mans the video camera on holidays, wandering from room to room and narrating the boring gathering in a voice that sounds as if he’s welcoming three-year-olds to their first day of preschool. Annoying relative: “Let’s go to the kitchen! I wonder who’s…
Westword cover-boy (cover-turkey?) Chris “Birdman” Andersen has a badass new neck tattoo. It’s so badass that it inspired us to post this photo gallery showcasing the Birdman’s gratuitous ink, as well as several smiling children and one scantily clad woman. But not everyone likes the Birdman’s new tattoo, a colorful…
Update, 1 p.m.: We picked a winner! Congratulations to Tara Hallam, whose entry was the least kiss-ass of any we received. If I could be Foursquare mayor of any place in Denver, I’d be mayor of Casa Bonita because a place that has all you can eat sopapillas, cliff divers…
This afternoon, a group of about thirty Catholics from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in North Denver marched into the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Denver. Their mission? To deliver a letter asking the archbishop for a third time to restore the church’s mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which…
Denver residents can now recycle yogurt cups and other No. 5 plastics, which include ketchup bottles, disposable straws and shapely containers of fake maple syrup. (We’re talking to you, Mrs. Butterworth.) The hooray-recycling initiative is thanks to a partnership between Yoplait and Waste Management. But is it also bad news…
Last night, the Denver Public Schools board narrowly approved a turnaround plan for six struggling schools in far northeast Denver, including Montbello High, largely by hiring entirely new staffs or replacing them with charter schools. But first, the seven board members listened for hours as supporters and opponents of the…
Finding the mayor of Shotgun Willie’s wasn’t easy. In spite of the fact that Foursquare enables oversharing (I’m at the grocery store! I’m at the gynecologist! I’m at the grocery store, and so is my gynecologist!), the program does a fairly good job of protecting users’ identities. Users go solely…
Most human smuggling cases in Colorado are handled by state prosecutors using a 2006 state law — the effectiveness of which is questioned in this week’s feature story, “Disappearing Act.” But human smuggling remains a federal crime, as well — and in cases where there are aggravating factors, such as…
Everyone likes cheap stuff, right? And cheap stuff is even better when it benefits a good cause, like the Denver VOICE. Enter the VOICE’s latest deal: wicked super-cheap Nuggets tickets to tonight’s game against the New York Knicks. As in, $85 club-level seats for $40. And $39 balcony seats for…
The Hydra, the roller skate-shaped trophy bestowed annually upon the best roller derby team in the country, won’t have far to travel in 2011. It’s now on display at the Denver warehouse that’s home to the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls, who won the 2010 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Championships –…
Colorado Border School sounds like an illegal immigration forum. But founder Pam Faraone, a chaplain with the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition in Texas, insists that’s not the case. “Border School really isn’t about immigration,” she says. “It is the rest of the story about the issues of border security.”…
This week’s cover story, “Disappearing Act,” examines the difficulties of enforcing Colorado’s anti-human smuggling law, which was passed in 2006. Though the law was well-intentioned, prosecuting the alleged smugglers has proven tough. As such, many smugglers end up taking plea deals that result in little to no jail time before…
In 2006, Colorado passed what lawmakers called “the toughest immigration laws in the nation.” Among them was a law that made it a state crime to smuggle humans. Four years later, Westword takes a look at whether that law is working. As detailed in this week’s cover story, “Disappearing Act,”…
Rinny, the Denver Zoo’s new tapir, looks like what happens when an elephant knocks boots with a pig, and then they have a baby and it’s Halloween and they dress the baby like an Oreo. But despite the fact that Rinny looks like a sandwich cookie, the zoo thinks she’s…
If the Nuggets lose Carmelo Anthony in a complicated trade deal, our fair city will lose another asset, too: Melo’s wife, the fabulous La La Vazquez, she of the custom pink Range Rover, gold Gucci heels and VH1 reality show. Because while Denver has a trendy bike share program, lots…
The gray, fifteen-passenger Ford van barreled down a rural stretch of U.S. 40 in eastern Colorado, headed west toward Limon. It was just before 2 p.m. on November 26, 2007, when the van sped past Colorado State Patrol trooper Mary Nall, who clocked it at 82 miles per hour. Nall…
