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Letters: Denver voters send a clear message with “no” on Park Hill development

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

Voters made land-use opinions clearRe: “Foes of Park Hill redevelopment declare victory,” April 5 news storyDenver voters did not buy into Mayor Michael Hancock’s hope to merge tall buildings into the Park Hill neighborhood’s landscape. Gov. Jared Polis’ “path forward” to reform land use throughout our state now knows public sentiment favors municipal voters deciding important land-use decisions.The governor recently told us, “It’s clear that the actions of one jurisdiction impact others.” Denver voters just informed our state leadership and municipal government private developer coalition there is strong public sentiment to leave what is in place alone.Forrest Monroe, AuroraBeer sales need to keep pace with faster baseball gamesRe: “You’ll never guess who has the cheapest beer in the Major Leagues,” March 30 online storyThe bigger question is how concession stands can make any money with shorter games – considering the Rockies’ opening weekend games cl...

Colorado utilities consider regional market to buy, sell wholesale power

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

Xcel Energy, Blacks Hills Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission are among the utilities in Colorado participating in the initial phase of building a regional marketplace for wholesale electricity.The Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization, said Tuesday that 31 utilities and organizations have signed agreements supporting the development of the marketplace in the West. Companies could buy or sell power a day before it’s used.Antoine Lucas, SPP’s vice president of markets, said in a statement that the diverse group of participants will benefit the process as utilities look to improve reliability and to cut energy costs.A so-called “day-ahead” energy market is considered a step toward a regional transmission organization, or RTO, whose goal is to make electricity available where and when it’s needed at the cheapest cost possible. About 60% of the nation’s electric power supply is managed by RTOs, according to the U.S. E...

Pickleball fans in this Colorado city give officials the smackdown over limits placed on popular sport

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

Centennial’s half-year ban on new outdoor pickleball courts hasn’t been in effect for even a month and already there’s pushback from folks crazy about a sport that’s been growing like mad in Colorado.Jane Robbins, who serves as the pickleball manager at the Homestead in the Willows neighborhood in Centennial, said she is “disappointed and frustrated” by the city’s decision to temporarily halt the establishment of new outdoor courts within 500 feet of homes so that it can study noise impacts associated with the game.The city’s emergency moratorium, passed during a well-attended March 21 city council meeting and scheduled to expire at the end of September, scuttled plans this spring that Robbins and her pickleball-playing compatriots had to paint permanent lines for two courts on the hardtop of an existing tennis court in their neighborhood.A contractor had been lined up to do the work.They’ve been using painter’s tape to tem...

Chubby’s heir accused of skimming $324K from Northside restaurant

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

The majority owner of Chubby’s, a restaurant and cultural institution in north Denver, is being sued for allegedly pilfering hundreds of thousands of dollars in company funds.The lawsuit, filed by minority owners Friday in Denver District Court, suggests the 56-year-old Mexican-American restaurant could be in financial trouble as a result of the alleged skimming. It is the most recent of several public family feuds to emerge from Chubby’s.In the 1960s, a 59-year-old mother of 10 named Stella Cordova took an 85-cents-per-hour job at a burger joint in Sunnyside. When the owner sold the failing business in 1967, Cordova bought it, kept the name Chubby’s and changed the menu to Mexican-American.Cordova worked at Chubby’s until shortly before her death in 2009 at age 100. By then, the massive Cordova family — Westword estimates it had grown to at least 170 people — included factions who were benefiting from, and at odds over, the Chubby’s name.Because Stella Cordova did not t...

Colorado’s TikTok creators worry about losing income, online communities with a potential U.S. ban

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

TikTok creators living and working in Colorado fear their incomes – and online communities – are at risk if a potential U.S. ban on the social media app moves forward.The popular Chinese-owned app, which features a seemingly never-ending stream of short videos, means more to creators than captured moments with adorable pets or trending dances for Generation Z, also known as zoomers. Owner ByteDance Ltd. committed to pouring around $285 million over three years to pay high-performing influencers through its Creator Fund – but the real money for content creators comes from partnerships with brands.“This is a serious source of income for me, which sounds silly,” said 32-year-old Amanda Bittner. “But, when I look at my bank account at the end of the month, that is real money that I earned.”“I consider it a job.”The Denver resident posts her adventures around Colorado’s capital city and beyond to her account, @theamandabittner, cultivating a foll...

Snnaaake! South African pilot finds deadly cobra under his seat while inflight

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

A pilot in South Africa made a hasty emergency landing after discovering a highly venomous cobra hiding under his seat.Rudolf Erasmus had four passengers on board the light aircraft during Monday's flight when he felt “something cold” slide across his lower back. He glanced down to see the head of a fairly large Cape cobra “receding back under the seat,” he said.“It was as if my brain didn't know what was going on,” he told The Associated Press.After taking a moment to compose himself, he informed his passengers of the slippery stowaway.“There was a moment of stunned silence,” he said. Everyone stayed cool, especially the pilot.Erasmus called air traffic control for permission to make an emergency landing in the town of Welkom in central South Africa. He still had to fly for another 10 to 15 minutes and land the plane with the snake by his feet.“I kept looking down to see where it was. It was happy under the seat," Erasmus said. “I don't have a big fear of snakes, but I normally don...

Pittsburg: Third suspect in fatal shooting arrested after standoff in Modesto

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

PITTSBURG — A 37-year-old man was in county jail after a search warrant served at a Modesto apartment led to an hours-long standoff that ended in his surrender and arrest Wednesday in connection with a fatal shooting earlier this month, authorities said.Shortly after 9 p.m. March 22, police responded to a home after a possible gunshot report in the 100 block of Bruno Avenue. About forty minutes after officers arrived, they heard gunshots about a half-mile away in the 1000 block of Power Avenue, and learned of a dispatcher’s call about a clerk shot at a store.Other officers responded to the store, and found a clerk suffering from at least one gunshot wound. Despite officers’ life-saving efforts, the man was pronounced dead at the scene. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/03/23/male-slain-in-pittsburg-shooting/ Police identified him as Abdul Raouf, 44, and said the shooting was the city’s first homicide of the year.Police learned that two Pittsburg residents, a ...

Missing Northern California man found dead on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

MEXICO CITY –  The body of a U.S. man who had been missing since Feb. 11 has been found in a clandestine burial pit on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, prosecutors in the state of Baja California Sur said Wednesday.State prosecutor Daniel de la Rosa said a local man and his sister had been arrested in connection with the killing, which he said apparently stemmed from a dispute over a traffic accident.The body of Wilmer Trivett was found by a specially trained dog near the quiet Pacific coast town of Todos Santos.Trivett had been camping in the area in his camper truck, which was found burned Feb. 23.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | 4 people found dead near a hotel in Cancun Crime and Public Safety | FBI offering $40,000 reward for help finding San Mateo woman kidnapped in Mexico Crime and Public Safety | Tech art with a Mexican twist arrives in San Francisco’s Mission District Crime and Public Safety | ...

Editorial: Tech must craft AI safety protocols, forget naive call for pause

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

The tech industry has known for the past decade that artificial intelligence carries significant risks. Three years before his 2018 death, Stephen Hawking went so far as to warn that, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”So why hasn’t Big Tech acted to quell those fears? An industry that had public trust as a primary concern would have taken steps to develop safety protocols to offset the potential dangers.But today’s tech leaders instinctively recoil from establishing any regulations or industry standards that hinder their ability to maximize profits, which explains why the United States still doesn’t have an internet Bill of Rights to protect consumers. And, sadly, Congress has proven itself incapable of regulating technology to protect the public.Yet, last week, hundreds of technology leaders and researchers, including Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, signed on to a letter calling for a six-month pause o...

Opinion: Stanford graduate students should back unionization effort

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:27 GMT

The unionization of graduate students: Which side are you on, and why?In recent decades, universities throughout the country have increasingly relied on graduate and sometimes undergraduate student assistants for the purpose of teaching, grading and research. These students perform a variety of functions, many of which were previously done by tenure track academics. It is much cheaper to employ the former rather than the latter group.For a little more than a century, the public policy of the United States has been the promotion of freedom of association of workers to band together so that they can bargain collectively with their employer. But because of the law’s weaknesses and frequent inadequate union resources and energy, these promises have been rarely realized, with less than 6% of workers in the private sector represented by unions. Growing American inequality is, in part, attributable to the absence of organized labor.Now, Stanford University graduate students, assistants and...