A second mental evaluation of Aurora theater shooting gunman James Holmes will be postponed until objections raised by Holmes’s attorneys have been resolved, Judge Carlos Samour ruled this week. Samour’s order (on view below) is in response to three motions filed by the defense on March 14 asking Samour to…
It’s been two weeks since Colorado farmers could begin registering with the state Department of Agriculture to grow industrial hemp, and the department reports that twelve producers have completed the process. As of March 17, seven producers had registered to grow hemp for commercial purposes and five producers had registered…
Attorneys for Aurora theater shooter James Holmes have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to compel Fox News reporter Jana Winter to reveal her sources in court. Specifically, they’re asking the high court to overturn a New York appeals court ruling that Winter, who is based in New York, is…
Update: Javier Gallegos Rosales, the young immigrant whose story we posted earlier today, has been granted a continuance in his deportation case. His lawyer, Hans Meyer, tells us that Gallegos Rosales is due back in court in October — and Meyer says they’ll use the extra time to strengthen their…
Alfredo Carrillo, Norma Barron and more than 150 other immigrants will attempt to cross the California-Mexico border today as part of #BringThemHome, an effort being led by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance. The purpose? To reunite family members who’ve been separated by deportation and other immigration laws. Carrillo’s wife and…
Hemp farmers can now register with the Colorado Department of Agriculture to become sanctioned growers of the long-outlawed crop. The registration officially opened on March 1, a Saturday — and this is the first business day that hemp registration is, well, open for business. But the state agriculture department wants…
Aurora theater shooting gunman James Holmes has a new trial date: October 14, 2014. But that date, which is already a postponement from Holmes’s original February trial date, could be pushed back again. At a court hearing this morning, Holmes’s defense attorneys indicated that they plan to challenge a ruling…
Denver Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson is taking his shirt off for animals. That is, he’s starring in a new ad for PETA in which he declares that he chooses ink (tattoos, of which he has many — including one of himself) and not mink (basically, weasel fur). “I’d rather…
The judge in the Aurora theater shooting case has ordered gunman James Holmes to undergo a second mental evaluation by a different psychiatrist. Holmes was first examined last summer by Dr. Jeffrey Metzner. But prosecutors alleged that Metzner’s evaluation contained “numerous deficiencies” and that the doctor himself had an “unfair…
When she was sixteen, Aubrey Lloyd ran away from an abusive and dysfunctional home in Colorado Springs. But where she ended up was arguably worse: Lloyd was drugged, raped and then forced to work as a prostitute. On Thursday at the Capitol, she was the last speaker at an afternoon…
This week’s cover story, “Beauty of the Beasts,” delves into the world of animal sex — and explains how zookeepers carefully match captive animals to ensure that future generations are healthy and sustainable (read: not inbred). The Denver Zoo is home to the official matchmakers for all African lions and…
A lot has changed at the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy, a local charter school whose stellar test scores belied the tense environment that characterized the school when we wrote about it in November 2011. In March 2012, the founder of the school — and the man who teachers and parents…
Back in September 2012, we brought you the story of Claudia Folska, a then-candidate for the Regional Transportation District board of directors. Blind since childhood, Folska is a regular rider of the city’s public buses and light rail. She’s also an engaging and outspoken advocate — and Westword isn’t the…
This week’s cover story, “Beauty of the Beasts,” is all about the matchmakers who help zoo animals find love. Or at least another animal to, you know, mate with. And some animals have a strange way of doin’ it, as explained in our sidebar about weird mating habits. (Did you…
Birds do it, bees do it — and the Denver Zoo takes note of when and how, as explained in this week’s cover story, “Beauty of the Beasts.” Back in 1997, the zoo sent out a racy release touting a Valentine’s Day “Animals and Amour” tour. It included facts about…
Hollie Colahan’s second-floor office at the Denver Zoo features a standard magnetic whiteboard. But its content is far from standard: This is the Magnetic Whiteboard of Lion Sex. That’s not what Colahan calls it, of course. To her, the board’s blue dots (boy lions) and red dots (girl lions) represent…
Have you ever been to the zoo and caught an eyeful of two animals in flagrante delicto? This week’s cover story, “Beauty of the Beasts,” explains why and how that happens. One of the weirdest animal mating habits included in the story’s sidebar is a tidbit about giraffes: In order…
This week’s cover story, “Mind Games,” takes a look at what happens when accused killers plead insanity in Colorado — just as Aurora theater shooting gunman James Holmes has done. That case is still working its way through the court system; a trial scheduled for this month was postponed because…
Colleges and universities in Colorado and other states where industrial hemp is legal are now allowed to grow the crop for research purposes, thanks to a provision in the Farm Bill signed into law on Friday by President Obama. The provision, which was originally introduced as an amendment by Colorado…
Here’s what the Denver Metro Fair Housing Center did: It sent two people — one white and one Latino — to the same Denver metro apartment building to inquire about renting a unit. The two people had similar incomes and similar employment and rental histories. The purpose of the experiment…
James Holmes is a killer. His defense attorneys have admitted as much. A year after he was accused of opening fire in a sold-out Aurora movie theater, leaving twelve people dead and seventy wounded, they wrote in a court motion that “the evidence revealed thus far in the case supports…
In December 2010, Karina Sartiaguin Vargas was shot while standing outside Aurora Central High School. Then sixteen, Karina was left paralyzed below the belly button. As we explained in our recent cover story, “Bullet. Proof.,” the teenager eventually began speaking out about gun violence — even testifying before Colorado lawmakers…
