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AP) DENVER Waving U.S. and Mexican flags and clogging busy streets, about 1,000 high school students and adults descended on the state Capitol Wednesday for a rally to support immigrant rights, police said. Marchers jammed inbound lanes of Speer Boulevard, a major route to downtown, and temporarily blocked other intersections as they crossed, but no problems were reported, police spokeswoman Virginia Quinones said. "We are not trying to hurt your country," said Jorge Macias, a high school sophomore who said he is a U.S. citizen. "It is big enough for everyone." Other students carried Puerto Rican and Cuban flags. Many...

DENVER - State lawmakers are looking to make it a crime for an adult to lie in order to remove a child from a Colorado school or day care. The measure is being introduced after 25-year-old Adan Garcia-Cruz allegedly stated he was the uncle of a Lakewood 14-year-old when he signed her out from her middle school. She had stated he was her uncle as well. Police had located the two in his apartment and while they were able to take her away, they were not able to detain him on any charges. She subsequently ran away again, going to...

(FORTUNE Magazine) - It had to happen: Globalization's pressure is turning the screws on even the best U.S. companies, making it tougher than ever for them to treat employees well. The good news is that some companies are doing it anyway. Extraordinary by definition, America's 100 Best Companies to Work for have pushed their employee-pleasing ways further than ever in the past year, blazing a trail for all organizations wanting to thrive in today's economic world. It's obvious why being a great employer is getting so hard. Globalizing everything creates merciless cost pressures no one can avoid. So, yes, Delta...

Would you trade one year of high school for two years of college? Lawmakers are proposing a plan that would grant students an associate's degree after completing a 13th grade in high school. A charter school known as Southwest Early College started a similar program last year. Working in conjunction with the Community College of Denver, SEC will give its students a diploma and associate's degree when they are done. An associate's degree is usually earned after two years at junior college or community college. "This school and schools like us are literally turning lives around," said SEC Principal Chris...

JEFFERSON COUNTY - A woman accused of forcing her son to drown the family cats will be in court Friday. Dalene Madison Hart, 38, was charged this week with animal cruelty, child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She will be formally advised of those charges in court. Police say Hart instructed her 14-year-old son and his 19-year-old friend to kill the cats because she couldn't afford to feed them. Her 10-year-old son witnessed the cats' deaths. Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge the teens with animal cruelty.

WASHINGTON - A group of religious leaders is pushing Congress to increase the federal minimum wage. The wage is currently $5.15 an hour That works out to $10,700 a year for those who earn the minimum. Last month, the chief of Wal-Mart -- H .Lee Scott -- surprised many by urging lawmakers to raise the minimum, saying it would help shoppers who need the money. Supporters say raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do for everyone. But critics say it could crush small businesses. "They don't have the ability, like some of the larger employers who just,...

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington state Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a woman who raised a child from birth to age 6 while in a relationship with the girl's biological mother can seek parental rights as a "de facto parent (search)," essentially creating a new class of parent in the state. "Today we hold that our common law recognizes the status of de facto parents and places them in parity with biological and adoptive parents in our state," the court, led by Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, wrote in the 7-2 decision. "Neither the United States Supreme Court nor this...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As Hurricane Katrina ripped into the Gulf Coast, the government's emergency management chief was making flippant remarks about his responsibilities, e-mails show. "Can I quit now? Can I come home?" former Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane. A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, "I'm trapped now, please rescue me." As employees looked for direction and support on the ravaged Gulf Coast, Brown offered to "tweak" the federal response. Brown resigned on September 12, 10 days after President Bush told...

BERTHOUD - The Thompson School Board will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on one of its ex-students -- an 11-year-old autistic boy. Luke Perkins went to Berthoud Elementary School, but his parents felt he wasn't receiving the proper education for his needs. "He wasn't learning even the basic things he was going to need in life," says his father, Jeff Perkins. The Perkins decided to enroll their son in the Boston Higashi School in January 2004. The school specializes in teaching children with special needs. The tuition is over $130,000 a year, and its students live at the...

NEPTUNE BEACH, Fla. - Officials say information gathered at the scene of a police-involved shooting tipped them off to a plot to kidnap and kill a Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleader. Officers say one of the suspects, 21-year-old Jamie Williams, was the same man police shot to death on the beach Tuesday morning. He was one of a group of suspects involved in a scheme to kidnap the cheerleader, according to police. Police say the group's plan fell apart when the woman fought back. The woman was home when she heard a noise and saw a hand prying her air conditioner from...

NEW YORK -- Christmas came early to Maurice Clarett and Mike Shanahan played the part of Santa Claus. Shanahan ended Clarett's year and a half of self-inflicted torture by making him the final choice in the third round of Saturday's NFL draft. The joke going around the scouting combine in Indianapolis in February was that Clarett's move to quit a workout early made him a compensatory pick in the sixth or seventh round. Instead, the Broncos rescued him from his purgatory by drafting him as a third-round compensatory pick. For months Clarett worried whether he would be drafted. Thanks to...

DENVER (AP) - A United Airlines passenger is facing charges today for his alleged fight with a traveling companion and subsequent shoving of a pregnant flight attendant. The disturbance forced the pilot to land at Denver International Airport late last night. Thirty-seven-year-old Montgomery Joe Carter of West Virginia is charged with assault and interfering with a flight crew. The federal felonies carry up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000. According to an arrest affidavit, Carter and a man described as his boyfriend, Chad Bender, were traveling from Washington to Las Vegas to celebrate their six month anniversary.

DENVER - Three Coloradoans who wanted to see the President were denied because a White House volunteer thought they might disrupt the event. They were told a bumper sticker on the car they came in was the problem. Karen Bauer, Leslie Weise and Alex Young had tickets to attend President Bush's town hall meeting held last week at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum. The focus of the forum was Bush's social security reform plan. Once inside, Bauer, Weise and Young say they were singled out and removed by someone they thought was a Secret Service agent. They say the...

Durango - Herb Young turned the telephone off again Tuesday after it rang at 12:40 a.m. One recent caller had told him that "you should be found dead in a ditch." Nine out of 10 calls to his house are from "crackpots," he said, ever since a plate of cookies and a case in La Plata County Small Claims Court turned life upside down.

More than a year after Sarah Nome was deemed healthy and given her discharge papers, the 82-year-old woman stubbornly refuses to leave her hospital bed. Nome admits there is no reason she should be racking up unpaid medical bills — which have now topped $1 million - but says she has nowhere else to turn. Now Kaiser Permanente’s San Rafael Medical Center in California is suing her for the cost of her stay and trying to show her the door.

High School Students Camp Out To Protest Bush Boulder High Students Say They're Acting Out Lessons Learned In Civics Class BOULDER, Colo. -- About 70 high school students who say they are upset about the direction the nation is heading camped out in the school library Thursday night, demanding a visit from Republican Party leaders. Students began their protest Thursday night and stayed through Friday morning, when Democratic congressman, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, visited with them for more than an hour.

I need help finding objective information on the Catholic faith in comparison to Christianity. My boyfriend, a devout Catholic, and I, a Christian, are in the beginnings of a discussion on our faiths and how we can continue in our relationship. I'm having a difficult time finding resources that don't try to sell you on one or the other. Any help would be appreciated!