@Denverheadlines Wednesday

Wednesday
	Highs	Lows	Wednesday Mainly sunny. Near record high temperatures. High 93F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Wednesday night A mostly clear sky. Low 62F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
	93° F	62° F
	34 C	17 C
			Sunrise: 6:23 am    Sunset: 7:36 pm    Moonrise: 11:59 pm    Moonset: 2:15 pm

• The recall elections for two Democratic lawmakers has become a political soap opera — with subplots, new characters and daily developments — that Tuesday included a $350,000 donation from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court.Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo face separate recall elections in their districts on Sept. 10 for supporting gun-control legislation in the 2013 session.

• A Denver judge overseeing the death-penalty case against Dexter Lewis, who is accused of stabbing five to death in October, on Tuesday denied a request by defense attorneys to withdraw Lewis' plea of not guilty.

• Department of Interior officials said Tuesday they won't withhold oil and gas royalty payments next year from 34 states, including Colorado, as part of the federal budget sequestration and will pay back funds captured in 2013.  Colorado is owed $5.7 million as of July, Attorney General John Suthers said in a prepared statement.

• A group of strippers at a Grand Junction club are seeking to force its owner to keep his hands off their tips and pay them wages, according to a class-action lawsuit. Their lawyer is encouraging more dancers to join the fight.

• A dedicated bike lane will open along 15th Street in downtown Denver on Thursday, pushing all non-motorized two-wheeled traffic to the left side of the busy cross-town route.  It's part of the 15th Street Bikeway pilot plan, designed to keep bicycles out of fast-moving vehicle traffic headed northwest across downtown Denver.

• Colorado police officers stop tens of thousands of people for suspicious behavior each year and often frisk them for weapons during street interrogations.  Yet their departments provide little information about who is being stopped, or why.  Some are not even collecting the type of information that led a judge to rule this month that New York's stop-and-frisk practices unconstitutionally targeted minorities.  In a survey of police departments in Colorado's five largest cities, The Denver Post found just two — Colorado Springs and Aurora — that provided demographic information about what they call field-interview reports on everything from disturbances to suspicious persons and suspicious vehicles.

• A company that sued the city over a window-washing contract issue at Denver International Airport on Tuesday received a $98,431 settlement.  Carnation Building Services sued Denver after its contract to wash windows at DIA was rescinded and eventually canceled.  Denver District Court Judge Kenneth Laff said "the way in which Denver pulled the rug out from under Carnation is unprecedented. Whatever caused Denver's about-face on the bid, it was undisputedly not the fault of Carnation."

• In a tight vote last week, the Denver City Council defied Mayor Michael Hancock's request to ask voters to approve a sales tax rate for retail marijuana that begins at 5 percent.  The council, in a 7-6 vote, chose 3.5 percent, siding with Auditor Dennis Gallagher. The auditor sent each council member two letters within a few weeks of each other, pleading with them to pick 3.5 percent over 5 percent.

@Denverheadlines Tuesday

Tuesday
	Highs	Lows	Tuesday A mainly sunny sky. Hot. High 91F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Tuesday night Partly cloudy skies. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
	91° F	65° F
	33 C	18 C
			Sunrise: 6:22 am    Sunset: 7:37 pm    Moonrise: 11:33 pm    Moonset: 1:22 pm

• The Royal Gorge Bridge took 6 months to build in 1929.  The Royal Gorge Company that runs the attraction believes it will only take around seven months to rebuild the structures destroyed in the Royal Gorge fire.   48 of the 52 buildings at the park were destroyed.

• Denver City Council on Monday made several big decisions about the nascent marijuana industry, including allowing stores to sell both medical and nonmedical pot without requiring physical barriers in the shops and setting a proposed 3.5 percent tax rate.

• Deep in Colorado's agricultural heart, Republican Rep. Cory Gardner and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet agreed Monday that immigration reform needs to be tackled now. But the two were deeply divided in a batch of town hall meetings about how to get that accomplished.

• An officer on patrol early Monday morning in Longmont saw a man sitting with his legs crossed in the middle of the 300 block of Main Street, according to reports. The man appeared to be intoxicated, and he told the officer he was sitting in the street because it was "a new experience."

• The St. Vrain Valley School District Board of Education is expected to cancel November's election because no seats will be challenged.

• Contractors will be spraying for mosquitoes between 8 p.m. Wednesday and 12:30 a.m. Thursday at Erie Community Park, Erie Parkway and East County Line Road, and along Vista Point Trail between Taylor and Columbine Court.

• The founder of the 211 Crew protected Evan Ebel after a rival prison gang targeted the white supremacist soldier for violence at Sterling Correctional Facility. That left the young gang member with a debt authorities suspect he repaid by killing prisons chief Tom Clements.

• A man who spent nearly an hour and a half pinned by a 2-ton boulder will survive. The 63-year-old man had been digging beneath the rock to fix a water line in the front yard of a home In Broadmoor Bluffs in Colorado Springs.  Firefighters and paramedics worked for 80-minutes to lift the larger boulder off his feet and legs. He's in the hospital with a broken leg.
• Two men have been arrested after allegedly taking two Grand Junction teenagers to an apartment against their will and demanding everything they had, including the clothes on their backs. Grand Junction police took 18-year-old Enyinna Chiaka Irechukwu and Donte Levaris Barnett, 22, into custody on Thursday for their alleged involvement in the crime. According to the arrest affidavit, Irechukwu and Barnett approached the teenagers while they were in a parked car near Blockbuster off of 12th Street and Patterson Road on Wednesday, August, 21. The teenagers apparently knew the suspects.

• A Boulder County District Court judge has ruled that Dillard's must turn the title to its property over to the Longmont Urban Renewal Authority.

@denverheadlines Monday

HighsLows

Monday

Sun and clouds mixed. Hot. High 91F. Winds light and variable.

Monday night

Some passing clouds. Low 64F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.

91° F64° F33 C18 C

Sunrise: 6:21 am    Sunset: 7:39 pm    Moonrise: 10:52 pm    Moonset: 12:25 pm

• A Fort Collins man gained attention earlier this month when he refused to be taken into police custody and instead filmed a YouTube video of himself improvising rap lyrics as a flash bang grenade went off outside his room.

• A former Fort Carson soldier is getting the Medal of Honor for bravery he showed during a firefight in Afghanistan. Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter is being honored Monday by President Barack Obama.

• Authorities are investigating after a woman told police three huskies attacked and killed her service dog.

• Canon City leaders want to hear about a plan to rebuild the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. The city council will meet Monday with the owner of the 360-acre tourist attraction and the company that was selected to rebuild the park following a wildfire.

• For Erie, the burgeoning secession movement in northeast Colorado is doubly troublesome as half the town lies in Boulder County while the other half is in Weld County, which last week referred to the November ballot a measure that will ask voters whether they want to break away from Colorado and form a new state, dubbed North Colorado

• A middle school in Wheat Ridge has been shut down by a water main break. Everitt Middle School, 3900 Kipling St., is closed Monday, according to Jeffco Public Schools.

• Colorado Customware Inc., a Fort Collins software company that filed for Chapter 11 in July, could be getting a new owner, according to the Northern Colorado Business Report. Lori Burge, president and CEO, testified in U.S. Bankruptcy Court the company is in talks with a potential buyer, and the goal is to keep Colorado Customware in Fort Collins.