Valerie Richardson

Once again, everybody loves a Memorial parade

Memorial Day parades are staging a comeback.

May 21, 2009

Bush polar bear rule retained

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday that he will stick with the Bush administration's rule on polar bear protection, dealing a defeat to environmentalists by refusing to use the Endangered Species Act to enact sweeping policies on climate change.

May 9, 2009

Maine recognizes same-sex marriage

Maine became the fifth state to recognize same-sex marriage on Wednesday as Gov. John Baldacci signed a newly passed bill making such unions legal.

May 7, 2009

U.S. talk radio host banned

A British blacklist that includes four Americans among 16 named foreigners barred from the country is prompting outrage from free-speech activists and the best-known of the targets, popular talk-radio host Michael Savage.

May 6, 2009

Gay-marriage bills corner 2 governors

Two New England governors are facing a choice between their principles and their party as same-sex-marriage bills move nearer to landing on their desks.

May 4, 2009

Miss California finds her new cause

Miss California may have lost a pageant, but she's not sorry. She has won a cause.

April 29, 2009

Maine, N.H. new gay marriage front

Gay marriage advocates are looking to New Hampshire and Maine as the next states likely to approve same-sex marriage laws after this month's string of legislative and court victories in New England and the nation's heartland.

April 28, 2009

Internet-only news site falters

A coterie of former Rocky Mountain News reporters has gone back to the drawing board after breaking with its financial backers in an effort to launch an online newspaper.

April 24, 2009

Man gets life in transgender teen’s death

Colorado State District Judge Marcel Kopcow passed sentence less than two hours after Allen Ray Andrade, 32, was found guilty by a Weld County jury of first-degree murder and a hate crime. The jury deliberated for about two hours before handing down its verdict in the death of 18-year-old Angie Zapata, who was born Justin Zapata but lived as a female.

April 23, 2009

Tolerance waning for zero-tolerance rules

DENVER | Ten years after the Columbine massacre, some states are losing their tolerance for the zero-tolerance policies that proliferated in the aftermath of the nation's deadliest high-school shooting.

April 21, 2009

School to probe Tancredo protest

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has launched an investigation into a raucous student protest that prevented former Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo from delivering a speech Tuesday night on campus.

April 17, 2009

UNC probes Tancredo speech protest

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has launched an investigation into a rowdy student protest that prevented former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, from delivering a speech Tuesday night on campus.

April 16, 2009

Tax demonstrators teed off

Tens of thousands of protesters staged anti-tax "tea parties" to mark tax-filing day and attack the Obama administration's spending plans.

April 16, 2009

Iowa Democrats defy marriage vote pleas

Democrats in the Iowa legislature killed efforts Thursday to bring the gay marriage issue to the ballot, rejecting the pleas of hundreds of demonstrators who flooded the state Capitol in a bid to get legislators on the record for one battle in a same-sex marriage war brewing for the 2010 elections.

April 10, 2009

Tancredo takes cause to home turf

After wrapping up his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and stepping away from Congress, Tom Tancredo came home to Colorado this year with visions of semiretirement.

April 7, 2009

Group gains against Electoral College

A movement to bypass the Electoral College and elect the president based on the popular vote is gaining steam, racking up almost one-fifth of the support needed to trigger the plan.

April 6, 2009

Iowa court: Same-sex marriage legal

The Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage Friday, shifting the cultural debate on such unions toward the nation's heartland and away from the more liberal coasts.

April 4, 2009

Senator not surprised by illegals bill vote

Colorado state Sen. Ted Harvey said he wasn't surprised to learn that a key vote on a bill to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants had been rescheduled after he went out of town to care for an Alzheimer's-afflicted relative in deteriorating health.

April 3, 2009

Jury says professor wrongly booted

Former professor Ward Churchill won his wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against the University of Colorado on Thursday, but was awarded just $1 in damages though he may get his job back.