For six weeks, Eldren violinist Josh Lee waited in custody at the Immigration Customs and Enforcement detention center in Aurora after a recent criminal charge complicated his immigration status. As he collected money for his $20,000 bond, the Denver music community rallied around him, staging fundraisers and benefit concerts for…
Put up or shut up. After a group of Democratic leaders staged a press conference last week to demand that Mitt Romney release more of his tax returns, ABC News asked the group if they would make public their 1040s, too. Several refused to do so — but not Aspen…
Last night, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff visited the grand reopening of the CELL, the downtown terrorism prevention center, to discuss cyber security and impending concerns in the Middle East. In front of a packed house at the Denver Art Museum, Chertoff talked both Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah –…
Jose Luis Vazquez Campos doesn’t have much time. An undocumented immigrant, Campos must prove to federal immigration authorities that he’s in Mexico on July 18, which means he’ll have to board a bus in Denver on Sunday to get there. Yesterday, the American Friends Service Committee held a rally to…
Ana Vasquez says she tried to explain to the police officers that it was her boyfriend who’d abused her, and not the other way around. She had a broken finger to prove it: In the midst of an argument that turned physical, her boyfriend trapped her fingers between his and…
A poll released yesterday by a pro-Obama organization shows that voters, well, generally like the President more than Republican challenger Mitt Romney across five key swing states. And breaking down the data further shows that folks in Colorado appear to support Obama and dislike Romney at percentages higher than the…
Wildfire season — which has included several massive Colorado blazes already this year — puts thousands of seasonal firefighters to work. But because many have temporary status, they aren’t eligible for federal health insurance — a concern Representative Diana DeGette hoped to address in a new bill…
Mitt Romney spent yesterday in Colorado: raising cash in Aspen, visiting the fire zone in Colorado Springs and speaking in Grand Junction, where he attempted to flip the script on some of the many Barack Obama campaign commercials currently running in the state by labeling the President the “outsourcer in…
More than eight months ago, Occupy Denver protester (and former Westword cover subject) Corey Donahue called it a “bad nut-tap joke gone wrong.” But this morning, during his trial for the misdemeanor charge of unlawful sexual contact, the events of October 15 grew more serious. After a day-long trial that…
After months of research, Denver City Councilwoman Robin Kniech concluded that Denver’s city council was among the worst in the country when it came to allowing public comment. Heated debates followed. But this week, Kniech successfully lobbied her colleagues to agree to a change in standards that will give the…
Illustrating the importance of Colorado as a key battleground in the presidential election, Mitt Romney is campaigning in the state this week — and the Dems aren’t letting him get away without a counterattack. Romney is hosting a fundraiser in Aspen tonight and has an event tomorrow morning at a…
Correction: A previous version of this post referred to Crossroads GPS as a super PAC, when Crossroads GPS is in fact a nonprofit group that is a sister organization to American Crossroads, a Republican super PAC. They didn’t waste any time. Just hours after the latest unemployment statistics came out…
Initiative 84, a proposed ballot measure that would have reformed the state’s foreclosure process, is effectively dead — but it will enter a third life in the next legislative session. Five weeks before 87,000 signatures were due at the Secretary of State’s office — and with only 25,000 in the…
John Buechner, former mayor of Boulder and former head of the University of Colorado, thinks he has some solutions to the challenges of local government — mainly that elected officials don’t actually get that much done and citizens don’t really care. He outlines his prescription for low-level politicians in his…
Exactly six months after Arapahoe County District Court blocked Marla Sneed’s house from foreclosure, the 53-year-old mother of three is back to square one. Or perhaps square negative one: Earlier this week, she received a letter from PNC Bank demanding a payment of more than $42,000 by July 15 lest…
Bringing the 2022 Winter Olympics to Denver has the potential to bring people together in a way that nothing else can, Governor John Hickenlooper said today, expressing serious interest in a possible bid. The governor chatted with Westword this morning about what the Olympics could mean for Colorado after he…
If you’re a woman, you would be totally friggin’ insane to vote for Mitt Romney. That was the theme of most speeches at the official launch of Obama-campaign-sponsored Women Vote 2012 Summit Tour, which took place in Wheat Ridge yesterday afternoon with celebrity support from actress Eva Longoria…
The Obama campaign is hoping to make news in Colorado for something other than today’s presidential visit to the Waldo Canyon fire zone in the Springs. The fight for swing state votes will hit Wheat Ridge Sunday, when Obama staffers will join former Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria for the…
The Supreme Court’s heath care ruling has made such a splash that it’s easy to forget SCOTUS also weighed in on Arizona’s controversial immigration law this week. What’s the latter got to do with Amendment 64, the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act? Plenty, say opponents, who see the opinion as…
Big news today for Barack Obama and, you know, tens of millions of Americans across the country: The Supreme Court of the United States has finally issued its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, essentially deciding to keep most of it intact. And advocates in Colorado are cheering the news,…
This was not how Bike To Work Day was supposed to go. Sitting in on part of a Denver City Council retreat yesterday, Westword learned that ex-councilman Doug Linkhart, who ran for mayor last year, was hit by a pickup truck while cycling to a Bike To Work Day event…
A new group called Fight Back Colorado has a message for the lawmakers who voted to kill a bill to legalize civil unions: Watch out. The group launched an effort today to defeat those legislators in November’s election — though they haven’t yet named names…
