A New York law firm that won a major settlement for World Trade Center rescue workers is representing residents of Colorado's Western Slope who say their health has been impacted by the boom in oil and gas operations in the region.

The law firm Napoli Bern Ripka & Associates, along...

Last week, Tim DeChristopher picked up a protest sign and stood with fellow activists in front of an energy company's Salt Lake City headquarters, part of a demonstration against the coal industry called by his group Peaceful Uprising.

This week, the protesters are on the street again, this...

Marcus Bebb-Jones, the gambler accused of murdering his wife and disposing of her body more than 13 years ago, appeared in Garfield County court on Tuesday in Glenwood Springs for the first time since being extradited from his native Britain on murder charges.

The father of victim Sabrina...

Seen from above, the mountains of central Colorado are a snow-covered mosaic of meadows, aspens and lodgepole pines. Some of those pines are green, their branches holding new-fallen snow. Others are red fading to brown - the telltale signs of trees killed by an epidemic of bark beetles that have...

When Aspen, Colo. resident John Bennett flew across Colorado after the devastating pine beetle infestation had taken effect, he was shocked by what he saw.

"I had a very strong sense of flying over a cemetery. A vast graveyard," he said.

Entire pine forests had turned brown and died as...

Most people probably have never heard of William Meriwether, although if they saw his photographs, they might swear they've seen them before. Maybe in an Ansel Adams book. Maybe in an Edward Weston exhibit.

Even in his hometown in Glenwood Springs, Meriwether wasn't well known. He never had a retrospective...

It was the end of the school day, and Alex Alvarado was hunching over his Spanish test. Although he grew up speaking Spanish at home, he never learned formal grammar. Besides, he needs language classes for college, and college is definitely in his plans.

Exactly how he'll get there, though,...

When state Rep. Kathleen Curry left the Democratic Party to run as an independent write-in candidate, naysayers said she didn't have a chance to regain her seat. Curry lost, but by fewer than 300 votes. The lesson, she says, is that a write-in candidate can win, and an unaffiliated candidate...

Born without legs, Montana author and photographer Kevin Michael Connolly is used to all eyes being on him. In his latest project, though, Connolly turns the focus on others around the world who have invented ingenious contraptions to get around.

Kevin Michael Connolly resists being called disabled. Born without legs,...

In a repurposed garage in Denver's trendy Lower Downtown neighborhood, the artist Christo stepped up onto the makeshift stage. Across the street in the museum of contemporary art hung sketches from his latest proposed project, Over the River, an ambitious - and highly controversial - work that, if approved, would...

In the last weeks before the election, Sen. Michael Bennet was crisscrossing his home state of Colorado, stumping in big cities and small towns, trying to extract every vote he could from any corner he could find it.

The race between he and his challenger Ken Buck, a Republican and...

Last week, thousands of voters in state Sen. Gail Schwartz's Senate district found a disturbing political attack flyer in their mailboxes. The face of Gail Schwartz, a Democrat from Snowmass Village, was superimposed on the body (and hair) of Donald Trump, telling them by name, "YOU'RE FIRED." The...

When state Rep. Kathleen Curry left the Democrats to seek re-election as an independent, she knew she'd have to fight to get her seat back. But Curry isn't just fighting against her opponents. She's also fighting against state election laws.

In her latest move, Curry has filed a lawsuit in...

Leaf-peepers from across Colorado swarm to the Western Slope each fall to catch the golden swaths of aspen forests. In recent years, though, aspen groves in Colorado and elsewhere in the West have been in trouble. Massive stands have been dying off, part of a phenomenon called sudden aspen decline.

If the supporters of the three government-gouging issues on the November ballot succeed at nothing else, they have already done the impossible. At a time when Americans seem utterly unable to get along with each other, they have brought the union left and the Tea Party right together.

Unfortunately...

As the president's health reform legislation kicks in today, I'm thinking about Justin.

When the package was passed, it came just in time for his 11th birthday, a day he survived to see thanks to our country's great health care system that saved his life. He can hope to live...

Dan Maes seems to be changing his thinking a little bit about the red menace - make that the red bicycle menace - posed by Denver's bike-sharing pedalers.

It's not so much the threat of United Nations domination that worries Maes now. Instead, the Colorado Republican candidate for governor told...

During a recent campaign speech on the Western Slope, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper paused and asked for a glass of water. Even in this group of supporters, it was the wrong question to ask.

"We gave it all to Denver," a man in the crowd quipped.

Hickenlooper laughed and spun...

When Scott McInnis announced his plans to run as a Republican for governor here in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, he got a hero's welcome. He looked unstoppable, beaming beside his wife Lori as he called out names of old friends who had turned out to see him in a...

Arizona's new immigration law has caught a lot of flak from critics who say it amounts to nothing more than racial profiling.

OK. They have a point. But let's not rush to judgment. It's a problem that easily can be overcome if the authorities in Arizona simply use the proper...