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Police in Boulder, Colorado, were reportedly successful last night in stopping yet another annual "nude pumpkin run" -- in which men and woman run down a pedestrian mall naked with carved out pumpkins over their heads. The local American Civil Liberties Union is outraged over what he claims is the denial of a constitutional right. Liberal Boulder residents and public officials in the ultraliberal city also are upset, according to a Wall Street Journal article on police efforts to stop the informal annual rite that the local police chief say has gotten totally out of hand. Last year, the event...

DENVER (AP) -- Police on a cold case hunt have finally identified a woman whose nude and battered body was found along a Boulder creek 55 years ago. But it's not over - they want to name the killer. She was buried under a headstone that read "Jane Doe" and remained anonymous until a DNA test revealed that she was Dorothy Gay Howard of Phoenix, officials announced Wednesday. Howard had been reported missing in March 1954 when she was 18. The ID was resolved by the Boulder County Sheriff's Department, Internet research and the persistence of local historian Silvia Pettem....

August 19, 2009, 4:00 a.m. When Boulder Starts Rolling AwayObamacare's in trouble in an Obama town. By Mark Hemingway Boulder, Colo., is known as one of the most politically liberal communities in America. And yet here’s a man named Steve standing in the parking lot of a strip mall, holding up a bright-orange sign that reads, “I’ll keep my freedom, you keep the change.� In 45 minutes, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis is scheduled to arrive at a restaurant nearby for a “Congress on Your Corner� event. Already a hundred or so people are waiting to make their voices heard....

Yikes. Shortly after 4 p.m., smack in the middle of Queen's "Bicycle Race," the voice of Erich "Mancow" Muller, host of The Mancow Show, a nationally syndicated repository of far-right loonbaggery, popped up on 101.5 FM, which has been known as The Pole, aka "Stripper Radio," since dumping the acclaimed Indie 101.5 format last week. (This blog from earlier today should get you up to speed.) Mancow's question: "Did you really think we were serious?" Errrr, no -- but Max Media, the owner of 101.5, is actually serious about FM-talk radio. Hence, the transition from The Pole to The Truth,...

Police Charge Campers With Trespassing, Illegal Camping. Seven people have been arrested after they were found sleeping on the roof of the Boulder Public Library. The Rainbow Family is also known as the Rainbow Family of Living Light...

Wildlife officials respond to several confrontations Tuesday night. Authorities responded to several reports of bears in homes or yards west of Boulder on Tuesday night, including one in which a bear walked into a house in Sunshine Canyon. Rice said it was the second time in recent weeks that a bear was in his house. He said in the previous break-in, the bear — he thinks it was the same one — got in through a doggie door. After officials left Rice’s house Tuesday night, a bear also walked under the porch at the home next door, belonging to Schindler....

A Niwot woman accused of stabbing two men in the back early Tuesday morning was engaged in a "sexual encounter" with both of them before they started fighting. According to a Boulder County sheriff's news release, Ruffin Griffin and Clint Cadigan, both 28, left a Niwot bar together and went to the house where Griffin lives with Serena M. Brooks and their 6-month-old son. "Upon arriving at the residence, the three adults engaged in a sexual encounter and a physical altercation ensued," . The men "fell to the floor" during the fight and that's when, sheriff's officials allege, Brooks used...

Like other green-leaning Colorado cities, Boulder finds good intentions aren't enough to meet greenhouse-gas goals. Even for Boulder, an icon of earthy urban planning, saving the planet doesn't come easy. Faced with a looming deadline and lagging results in its efforts to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, city leaders recently vowed to redouble their efforts. The City Council earlier this month voted to raise the city's "carbon tax" — a charge based on how much electricity one consumes — to the maximum $21 per year for residences and $94 per year for businesses. And Boulderites aren't pikers. Many of the 20 or...

A young mountain lion was trapped and relocated by the Colorado Division of Wildlife after eating a house cat Monday ... north Boulder. “He was just too close,” Churchill said. “We wanted to give him a spanking and move him out of town.” Wildlife officials previously tagged the same cougar in February when the kitten was stuck in a tree, Churchill said. He is part of the five-year Front Range Mountain Lion Study, which aims to track mountain lions between Lyons and Evergreen to better understand cougar movement trends and develop a way to mitigate aggressive behavior near human establishments,...

A nudist couple living in north Boulder is complaining about discrimination after being asked by their landlord to "dress appropriately" when outside of their unit. Neighbors complained to police last weekend after they saw Catharine Pierce, 51, and Robert Pierce, 58, gardening outside their Cherry Avenue rental home nearly naked. Catharine Pierce was wearing pasties, and both wore thongs. But the officers who responded confirmed what the Pierces already believed to be true: Their dress, though scanty, was legal. As long as a person's genitalia are covered, no law has been broken, Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said. But not...

Program could create door-to-door energy consultants. It’s time for an in-your-face approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Boulder City Council decided Thursday night. The council unanimously approved increasing the city’s voter-approved carbon tax from its minimum to its maximum level beginning Aug. 6, providing an additional $810,000 annually toward meeting the city’s carbon-cutting goals. The tax, built into utility bills, is expected to help the city reach 95 percent of the Kyoto Protocol — which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels — before the tax ends in 2013. Kara Mertz, an environmental affairs manager...

If Boulder is serious about meeting the goal it set in 2002 when city leaders agreed to meet the Kyoto Protocol -- reducing greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels -- it's time for city officials to play hardball in their negotiations with Xcel Energy. That's the message a group of business, community and environmental leaders hope to convey to the Boulder City Council on Monday when they meet at the Stazio Ballfields to listen to speakers rally the crowd from a pile of faux coal. With the slender towers of the Valmont Coal Plant as a backdrop, the...

A man caught puncturing the tire of a Boulder police car and who is accused of slashing tires on about 50 other vehicles through the city told police he blames "radiation" from Rocky Flats and his relationship with his mother for the vandalism spree... Kabelis has a lengthy criminal history, including arrests on suspicion of damaging property, assault and resisting arrest. Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said Kabelis gave several reasons for why he went on the alleged slashing rampage. "He said he was frustrated with the relationship with his mother," Huntley said. "He said he was angry with losing...

Boulder High rules! A student groups' campaign to rename one of Colorado's oldest high schools Barack Obama High after the new president fizzled today in the face of widespread opposition from students and residents of left-leaning Boulder. "It's become a lot more controversial than we wanted to. It's garnered a lot of negative reactions," said 16-year-old Ben Raderstorf, president of the school's Student Worker Club, which drew national publicity when it proposed the idea Wednesday. "We were somewhat naïve about it," Raderstorf said of the backlash. The goal was to use the attention to stir up support among fellow students....

A 16-year-old junior at Boulder High School is spearheading an effort to change the name of the school to Barack Obama High School in honor of the new president. Ben Raderstorf, who was the youth volunteer coordinator for Democrat Will Shafroth's bid to win the 2nd Congressional District, will hold a news conference today announcing his hope that the school will be renamed. "We think the election of Barack Obama is one of the most significant events in our country and shows the progress we've made in this country," Ben said Wednesday between classes. "We think he is deserving of...

Kirlins say they will only have to cede 15 percent of south Boulder lot. Two Boulder neighbors have settled an adverse-possession case that made national headlines last year and prompted changes to the state's law, according to a joint statement released Tuesday. Don and Susie Kirlin, who originally lost 34 percent of one of their vacant south Boulder lots to their neighbors Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, said they had settled a lawsuit and will only cede 15 percent of the lot. "This settlement allows the parties to put this longstanding and difficult dispute behind them," the couples wrote in...

Backers say citizenship shouldn’t be necessary to serve on city boards. If Boulder’s voters approve Ballot Question 2E this fall, city residents who aren’t eligible to vote — and who aren’t U.S. citizens — will be eligible to serve on the city’s 20 boards and commissions. The measure would remove the charter requirement that applicants to serve on those boards and commissions be “registered electors” — that is, registered to vote. Instead, applicants hoping for an appointment from the City Council to those boards would simply have to be 18 years old and have lived in the city for at...

Exactly as some legal experts predicted, Boulder's courts saw a spike in claims of "adverse possession" filed by people apparently trying to beat the clock on changes to the controversial land law. Of the 25 active adverse-possession lawsuits in Boulder County -- where a person or company claims someone else's land after trespassing on it for at least 18 years -- 15 of those cases were filed in June Some of those cases were filed just hours before changes to the law went into effect last Tuesday, court records show. The changes, drafted by a bipartisan group of state legislators...

Two commercials from Democratic congressional candidate Jared Polis paint him as a man of the people who will stand up to special interests. But ... the facts of Polis’ campaign do not exactly match up with the rhetoric in his commercials. "How can we reform health care when the politicians won't stand up to the lobbyists? ” However, Polis took at least $10,000 from members of large lobbying firms or people who identified themselves as lobbyists, Federal Election Commission records show. Another ad says: "Jared Polis will do things differently; he'll stand up to the oil companies ..." But Polis...

BOULDER — A cyclist in Boulder County was injured after a run-in, literally, with a bear. Tim Egan, 53, was riding on Old Stage Road Tuesday afternoon when suddenly a bear appeared in front of him. Egan hit the bear and ended up skidding across the road. "This bear looked at me with a look of terror on his face and sort of made a noise," said Egan. "I looked at him with a look of terror and we went, 'aaaahhhhh.'"

Internet entrepreneur Jared Polis changed the dynamics of his Democratic congressional primary race in March when he wrote his campaign another $50,000 check. That donation took his self-financing bid beyond the $350,000 mark, triggering the aptly named but little known federal "millionaires' amendment." Polis has contributed nearly $3.7 million of his money to his campaign. He now ranks among the top 10 self-funded House candidates in the 2008 election cycle nationally and will likely become Colorado's largest-ever self-donor. That puts pressure on his 2nd Congressional District primary competitors - former state Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, of Coal Creek Canyon, and...

As Tim Egan flew down Old Stage Road in Boulder County on Tuesday afternoon on his bike, he saw a large, unusual obstacle in the way. Before he could squeeze the brakes, the 53-year-old former Colorado College hockey player was in the midst of a bike-vs.-bear accident. A black bear crossing the road from west to east collided with Egan, who estimated he was going 45 mph. Egan, of Boulder, was tossed into the air and skidded across the asphalt, suffering a nasty case of road rash, cracked ribs and lacerations to his head, he said. “If it wasn’t me...

Ward Churchill is baaaaack! by: Deborah Lambert, June 05, 2008 Although Ward Churchill was finally fired by the University of Colorado, Boulder for plagiarism and dishonest scholarship rather than his 9-11 remarks, you'd never know it from his website at www.wardchurchill.net, aka the “Ward Churchill Solidarity Network,” dedicated to “Defending Academic Freedom and Political Dissent.” The site includes a petition to reinstate Ward Churchill, and a statement of support from Noam Chomsky....

Now members of the Hispanic community are concerned that the sole Mexican teacher, whom they see as a positive role model for their children, was singled out unfairly because she speaks little English.

BOULDER — It wasn't exactly pistols at 30 paces, but police say a security company supervisor and a restaurateur shot each other with Tasers in a confrontation over parking. Officers said neither man needed medical attention after the confrontation Saturday, but Harvey Epstein, a co-owner of Mamacitas restaurant in Boulder, was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing and using a stun gun. A police report said Epstein and Casey M. Dane, a supervisor for Colorado Security Services Inc., were arguing over a metal boot that one of Dane's guards had clamped on a wheel of a van parked behind Mamacitas....

A Boulder salon owner ticketed in March for dyeing her poodle pink has made a deal with the city attorney's office that could dismiss the charge against her in six months if she doesn't commit a similar violation in that time. Wednesday morning, Joy Douglas' famous formerly pink poodle, Cici, was seen outside the Zing Salon at 1100 Spruce St. -- and the pooch was white. Douglas only commented to say her case has been dropped and she needs to have an attorney present before saying more. Officials with the city's municipal court said the case isn't dropped yet, and...

Kelly Anderson and Leonard Sun Voted Cutest Vegetarians Alive! For our third annual Cutest Vegetarian Alive contest, peta2 received more than 3,500 entries from adorable vegetarians and vegans around the world. And we asked all of you to help choose the winners. The response was overwhelming this year, with more than 50,000 votes cast. It was a mighty close race, but big congrats go out to Leonard Sun and Kelly Anderson for taking home the top honors.

Adverse possession law set to change. Beginning July 1, people hoping to use "adverse possession" to take control of another person's land had better be prepared to pay for it... The bill, which garnered wide bipartisan support among state lawmakers, requires that an adverse possessor believe in "good faith" that the land is actually his or her own. It also raises the burden of proof in an adverse-possession case and gives judges the power to make plaintiffs payfor any land they are awarded. Witwer on Friday said the bill is a victory for property owners. "This will make it harder...

In what has become an annual rite of passage, University of Colorado students are being subjected this month to a round of diversity workshops preaching that all whites are racist. The latest round, hosted by the university's women's resource center last Friday, was titled "White on White Taskforce: Acting to Dismantle Racism." According to organizers, it was "designed to give White people tools to dismantle racism on campus." At the workshop, students received a handout espousing the "underlying assumptions" of its leaders. Most notably, it read "reverse racism is impossible," meaning that non-whites cannot be racist. And also of interest,...

A Colorado district court judge who awarded part of a million-dollar residential land parcel to a retired judge and his wife under the state's little-used "adverse possession" law will have an opportunity to review his original decision. The Colorado Court of Appeals has agreed to send the controversial case that benefited retired judge Richard McLean and his wife, Edith Stevens, back to Boulder County District Judge James Klein, who made the original decision, according to a report in the Boulder Daily Camera. The couple who lost the property, Don and Susie Kirlin, had asked the appellate court to return the...

A war of words continues in a high-profile Boulder land case, with each side accusing the other of lying. In January, Don and Susie Kirlin appealed an October ruling by Boulder County District Court Judge James C. Klein that awarded a third of their million-dollar lot to neighbors Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, based on the squatter's-rights law of "adverse possession." The Kirlins at the same time filed a request with the Colorado Court of Appeals to send the case back to the district court level to hear additional evidence, alleging their neighbors fabricated evidence to win their case. After...

Woman Faces $1,000 Fine For Pink Poodle Dog Dyed To Help Raise Awareness For Breast CancerThomas Hendrick, News Editor POSTED: 8:11 am EDT March 11, 2008 BOULDER, Colo. -- A Boulder woman said she will fight a $1,000 fine she was given for dyeing her miniature poodle pink. Joy Douglas she dyed Cici pink to help raise awareness for breast cancer. The salon owner said she has used beet juice -- and occasionally Kool-Aid -- for four years now to "stain" her dog. Officials at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley told the Daily Camera Douglas was warned several times...

A witness has surfaced in the Boulder, Colo., case in which a former judge and his wife used a little-known state law concerning "adverse possession" to gain ownership of a significant portion of their neighbor's valuable building lot in a pricy subdivision. It seems one of the neighbors now reports seeing a woman who looked like Edie Stevens, the judge's wife, "tromping, stomping and kicking the ground, causing vegetation and dirt to rise from the ground in the area where the dirt path … later appeared." That statement comes from neighbor Josephine Touchton, whose affidavit, along with other photographic and...

A move to draft a Boulder City Council resolution supporting the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney likely won't get enough support to get off the ground Tuesday. A canvass of the City Council shows there aren't likely to be the five votes required to draft, debate and eventually hold a vote on the measure as activists have requested. Snip

The Boulder couple who successfully sued for part of their neighbors' land mailed a letter this week to "those who have supported us," saying they hoped to restore peace in their neighborhood. Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, plaintiffs in the controversial adverse-possession case against Don and Susie Kirlin, spelled out their side of the story in the four-page letter -- obtained by the Camera from a recipient who wished to remain anonymous. "We still hope that we can reconcile our differences with the Kirlins and restore peace in our neighborhood and community," McLean and Stevens wrote. Contacted at her home...

Galen Foster's home and business of 23 years is supposed to make way for parking for the Wadsworth Boulevard light-rail station in Lakewood. But what chaps Foster's hide is that there already are conceptual plans showing his property being used not for transit parking, but for a five-story commercial office building. While government's right of condemnation, more politely called eminent domain, has been recognized for centuries, the Regional Transportation District is entering an untested area that includes economic development in its efforts to build the FasTracks West Corridor line. While there is little room to challenge RTD's acquisition of land...

The land-dispute case on Hardscrabble Drive isn't the first time a former Boulder judge has used the legal concept of "adverse possession" to win land from a neighbor. Earlier this year, the secretary of the Indian Peaks chapter of the Sierra Club and his wife lost about 100 square feet of their property to Marsha Yeager, a former judge, and her husband, John Yeager. The issue of adverse possession hit the spotlight earlier this month when Don and Susie Kirlin lost about a third of their property to their neighbors — former judge Richard McLean and his wife, Edith Stevens...

A judge who granted a couple part of their neighbors' property in an adverse-possession lawsuit has denied their request to add on a strip of land 9 inches wide. Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, of Boulder, had asked for the full width of a disputed path on land purchased by their neighbors Don and Susie Kirlin. In October, McLean and Stevens were awarded about a third of the Kirlins' lot, or more than 1,400 square feet... A judge said last week he could only consider evidence presented at trial ...

Don and Susie Kirlin of Boulder, Colordao. How many times have we heard about government abuses of the right to own property going on in neighborhoods across America, in the form of the invoking of the right of ‘eminent domain’, and the corruption of other legal concepts? Kelo vs. New London is probably the most publicized of such unconstitutional atrocities, but similar atrocities occur daily across this country. How many of us have attempted to help the victims of such abuses of power? I myself have done so no more than once or twice. I ask any FReeper who...

A Bonners Ferry woman says she was humiliated when security guards at the federal courthouse in Coeur d'Alene told her she'd have to remove her underwire bra to get inside. Lori Plato said she was going into the courthouse for a court hearing Sept. 20 when the metal detector went off as she passed through security. "When I walked through, the gentleman said, "'Do you have an underwire bra on?'." Plato said. "I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'You have to remove it.' " But there was nowhere private to remove her bra, she said. The guards suggested she go out...

Waving signs and American flags, Boulder High School students this morning will stage the first of what could become many Pledge of Allegiance protests in the school courtyard. Members of the activist Student Worker club are inviting their peers to leave class every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. — when the pledge is recited over the intercom — and meet in the courtyard to say a revised version of the pledge that doesn't reference God. Club President Emma Martens, a Boulder High senior who's leading the protest, wrote this new version: "I pledge allegiance to the flag and my constitutional rights...

Boulder High School students are planning a protest against the Pledge of Allegiance in the courtyard of their school tomorrow morning. Students with the activist club "Student Worker" organized the protest for 8:30 a.m., when the pledge is recited over the intercom. They're concerned that it takes away from school time and that the phrase "one nation, under God" violates the separation of church and state, club President Emma Martens wrote in an e-mail. "Boulder High has a highly diverse population, not all of whom believe in God, or One God," she wrote. She said the group would rather the...

Boulder High School students are planning a protest against the Pledge of Allegiance in the courtyard of their school Thursday morning.

The Muslim Student Association at CU finds itself in a progressive state with a woman as president. Kelly Brewer, MSA's president, stands out not only in her leadership role, but also as a convert to Islam. Raised in a Catholic-Christian household, Brewer began learning about Islam as a 9th grader. The Sept. 11 media coverage at the time portrayed Muslims in Islam's "malpracticed" state, and Brewer became interested in Islam's "true form." While delving into Islamic culture, Brewer was "impressed by the conduct of Muslims" in their kindness. Brewer, who converted after Sept. 11, said that "now a lot of...

This morning we had our Fight for Victory Tour Pro Troop Rally in Downtown Boulder Colorado! ...PS When and IF the main stream media ever admits that they SHOULD have covered the Fight for Victory Tour/Gathering of Eagles III and they happen to say, at least in Denver...."WE HAD NO IDEA ANYTHING LIKE THIS WAS GOING ON".... Please, everyone remember, THEY ARE TELLING A BALD FACED LIE.

The Camera newspaper of Boulder announced Thursday it will lay off 19 production and pressroom employees and move the bulk of its printing operations to Denver. On Oct. 22, the Camera plans to start printing at Denver facilities operated by the Denver Newspaper Agency (DNA), where The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News are printed. The DNA is a joint venture of the owners of the Post and News: MediaNews Group and E.W. Scripps Co. It prints, distributes and sells ads for the two Denver dailies under a "joint operating agreement," an exemption from antitrust laws aimed at saving failing...

A University of Colorado freshman, identified by family members as Michael George Knorps, is hospitalized with a knife wound after being cut outside of the student center this morning, the first day of classes on the Boulder campus. Knorps, who is from Illinois, was coherent and able to talk after the incident, campus spokesman Bronson Hilliard said. He is undergoing surgery, and his parents have been notified. “We’re very glad this young man didn’t appear to be seriously injured,” Hilliard said. -snip- The suspect, whom 7NEWS has named as Kenton Astin, 39, of Boulder, stabbed himself several times in the...

The Gathering of Eagles will be holding a Rally in Boulder time: 7:00am -8:00am date: Sunday 9/9/2007 location: 1048 Pearl Street (in front of the Daily Camera Building) at 8:00am we leave to join Move America Forward in Wichita KS. Everyone is invited to also go all the way with us to Washington DC for Gathering of Eagles III on 9/15. Fight for Victory trip details on our webpage.

University of Colorado regents voted 8-1 to fire controversial professor Ward Churchill this afternoon. Regent Cindy Carlisle, D-Boulder, cast the lone dissenting vote. There was no discussion. After the quick vote, dissenters in the crowd at the Glenn Miller Ballroom shouled "bullshit" and "cowards." Regent Steve Bosley, R-Louisville, introduced the motion for dismissal shortly after the regents convened, and it was seconded by Regent Kyle Hybl, R-Colorado Springs. Churchill supporters converged in the back of the ballroom after the vote, playing drums and chanting. The dismissal of the controversial professor is the first of its kind in CU’s 131-year history...