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Ethics board clears DIA execs’ $100K Madrid trip—but blasts ‘appalling’ public spending
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CBS Colorado, Approved, Local

Ethics board clears DIA execs’ $100K Madrid trip—but blasts ‘appalling’ public spending

By Brian Maass | CBS Colorado Denver's Board of Ethics on Friday cleared Denver International Airport and its Chief Executive Officer, Phil Washington, of an ethics violation related to a trip to a conference in Madrid earlier this year. That trip was the subject of a CBS Colorado Investigation, but the board said it was "appalled by both the amount of funds that were expended for this conference and by Mr. Washington's seemingly cavalier attitude in responding to this complaint." Washington and eight of his top executives flew in April to the three-day airport conference in Madrid, with all of the executives flying either first class or business class for every leg of the trip, both to and from Madrid. CBS Colorado found that one of the tickets was over $19,000, and another cost nea...
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Teen survivor of Evergreen High shooting finally returns home after weeks in hospital
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CBS News, Approved, Commentary, Local

Teen survivor of Evergreen High shooting finally returns home after weeks in hospital

By Jesse Sarles | CBS News Children's Hospital Colorado says one of the teens who was being cared for at their hospital and was seriously injured in the shooting last month at Evergreen High School has returned home. Doctors released the 14-year-old from the hospital on Tuesday. For privacy reasons, the teenager's family is choosing to keep his identity anonymous. A student shot and injured two people at the school in Colorado's foothills on Sept. 10. That shooter later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Last Thursday, the family of the teen released a statement saying he has undergone several surgeries and has a "long and difficult journey of recovery" ahead. They said their son was shot "at close range" while he was confronting the gunman with anoth...
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Classroom or campaign: NEA handbook sparks questions in Mesa County
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The Business Times, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

Classroom or campaign: NEA handbook sparks questions in Mesa County

By Austin DeWitt | Commentary, The Business Times In the last two months, the National Education Association (NEA) released its 2025 Handbook, the document that sets the goals and priorities for the nation’s largest teachers’ union for the coming year. And then, just as quickly, it was gone. Within 24 hours, the handbook was quietly removed from its website. Why? What was so controversial that it had to be scrubbed from public view? Fortunately, a copy was preserved before it disappeared, and what it contains should give every educator, parent and taxpayer pause. What the NEA Is Promoting The handbook calls for “racial quotas over merit” – a direct rejection of merit-based advancement – and instructs that “all educators must acknowledge the existence of white supremacy culture ...
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Lawmakers Face Public Backlash After Violent Suspect Freed Under New Incompetency Law
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Lawmakers Face Public Backlash After Violent Suspect Freed Under New Incompetency Law

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A high-profile case out of Weld County involving an attempted murder has renewed debate about the state’s competency laws and public safety. The case arose from an incident last spring, in which a group of men led by 21-year-old Debisa Ephraim allegedly attacked a man and his friends in downtown Greeley. After Ephraim was found incompetent to stand trial, his charges, which included attempted murder, were dropped, and he was released from the Weld County Jail earlier this month. The office of Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams posted a video of the Greeley attack on X, saying Ephraim had been released under a 2024 law that, he said, required individuals declared incompetent and unlikely to be restored to be released from jail. “The state le...
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Residents report safer passage as Lakewood tunnel is cleaned and police increase patrols
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Fox31, Approved, Local

Residents report safer passage as Lakewood tunnel is cleaned and police increase patrols

by: Hanna Powers | Fox31 LAKEWOOD, Colo. (KDVR) — A pedestrian tunnel along Wadsworth Boulevard that neighbors recently called unsafe looks markedly different less than 24 hours after FOX31’s initial report aired Monday night. By Tuesday afternoon, construction crews had painted over graffiti, cleared trash and moved along people who had been loitering, and Lakewood police officers were on site patrolling and confiscating contraband, according to observations by FOX31 at the scene. Residents say the change is obvious. “I just feel more calm here now than … two days ago,” one commuter told FOX31 on Wednesday. “Two days [ago] I rode the bus later around 5 or 6, and I did see some of that. But at this time, I am not seeing that.” Earlier this week, neighbors described the ...
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Arkansas Valley Pipeline Could Finally Deliver Clean Water to Forgotten Towns
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, Local

Arkansas Valley Pipeline Could Finally Deliver Clean Water to Forgotten Towns

By Jerd Smith | The Colorado Sun Years of buying radium-free water from vending machines is coming to an end, but the cost to build the Arkansas Valley Conduit continues to rise and deadlines to use federal funds are fast-approaching. Rick Jones strides quickly into the offices of the May Valley Water Association. He’s running late after a morning of checking leaks in a pipeline that is one of several delivering well water to his 1,500 customers. Jones has lived in Wiley, nearly 200 miles southeast of Denver, most of his life and has served as superintendent of the association for 38 years. Outside the front door of his office in a small, well-kept brick building on Main Street, a dispenser delivers radium-free water for 25 cents a gallon to anyone who walks up with a container...
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No Signatures, No Recall: Aurora DA Stays in Office
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kdvr.com, Approved, Local

No Signatures, No Recall: Aurora DA Stays in Office

By Heather Willard | KDVR Fox31 DENVER (KDVR) — An effort to recall a Colorado district attorney whose office prosecuted an attempted kidnapping case at an elementary school that ended with the suspect walking free due to competency issues has failed. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and 18th Judicial District Attorney Amy Padden both confirmed that as of Tuesday night’s deadline, no signatures on the petition to recall Padden from office had been turned in. The petition needed 75,875 registered Arapahoe County voters to trigger the recall election, Padden said. In July, Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky announced she was launching a campaign to try and remove Padden from office after registered sex offender Carmen Galligan walked free. Galligan was charged in con...
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Denver Firms Charged With Selling Chinese Forklifts as “Made in USA”
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kdvr.com, Approved, Local

Denver Firms Charged With Selling Chinese Forklifts as “Made in USA”

By Heather Willard | KDVR Fox31 DENVER (KDVR) — Two Denver-area companies and three of the businesses’ top executives are facing federal charges for allegedly defrauding the government on sales of forklifts and trying to dodge tariffs on equipment imported to the U.S. According to a federal grand jury indictment and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs, the two companies involved were Endless Sales Inc. and Octane Forklifts, Inc., which both appear to have addresses on Lima Street in Denver. The indictment alleges that current company executives Brian Firkins and Jeffrey Blasdel, as well as former executive J.R. Antczak, conspired to import forklifts from China and then conceal the trucks’ foreign origin. Once disguised, the group would sell the fork...
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“They don’t care”: Unleashed podcast spotlights Durango parents’ loss of trust
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

“They don’t care”: Unleashed podcast spotlights Durango parents’ loss of trust

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Hunter Opilla didn’t expect to speak at a school board meeting when his family moved to Durango two years ago. But after learning about the district’s gender bathroom policy—and the board’s decision to reverse a superintendent directive—he says he felt he had no choice. “Just blank stares,” Opilla recalled on a recent episode of Heidi Ganahl’s Unleashed podcast. “The board never responded to my emails.” Ganahl’s latest podcast brings together a concerned father and a charter school founder to unpack what they call a pattern of political overreach and parental exclusion in Durango Schools. The conversation echoes issues previously covered by Rocky Mountain Voice in its Dirty Dozen series and recent reporting on board transparency and trust. Th...
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