Denver News

Firefighters have found one person dead from a wind-driven wildfire that has led to
evacuation orders for 900 homes in the foothills and canyons west of Denver, authorities said on Tuesday. More >

Demonstrators rallied Sunday in Denver’s City Park demanding justice for slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin.

The 17-year-old was unarmed when he was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer while walking home from the store, carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea. The gunman, George Zimmerman, has not been arrested and claims he acted in self-defense.

A law student who made headlines when radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh criticized her opinion on contraception health coverage is in Denver to speak at a health care panel. More >

A Denver woman is facing felony charges for allegedly faking post-traumatic stress disorder to dodge jury duty. More >

Free agent quarterback Peyton Manning will play for the Denver Broncos, the team announced Tuesday.

“This is truly a special football environment, and I’m glad to be a part of it,” Manning said at a news conference where the Broncos made the announcement. “I haven’t had a whole time to breathe. This happened Monday morning,” Manning said of his decision to join the Broncos.

Evacuated residents of the small Colorado town of Eckley and surrounding areas have been allowed to return home after a wildfire on the state’s northeastern plains that injured firefighters and filled the skies with thick smoke that hid the flames from response crews and closed a highway. More >

Leprechauns should be slathering on the sunscreen as unseasonably warm and sunny weather dominates Denver this afternoon and Saturday, which is St. Patrick’s Day.

The high temperature today in the city will climb to about 76 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, threatening to topple the record high in Denver for this date: 74 degrees, set in 1966 and tied last year.

Civil Service Commission hearing officers have upheld the firing of former Denver police officer Charles Porter for excessive force in the 2008 stomping of a 16-year-old. In 2010, then Denver Manager of Safety Al LaCabe fired Porter and two other officers in the incident that traumatically injured the teen, Juan Vasquez.

Porter was charged with assault. However, he was found not guilty by a jury in 2009. The two other officers were never charged.

Authorities all along had the DNA evidence to link a convicted triple-murderer to three additional murders from 1979, and they said he could have been responsible for as many as 20 slayings but the process of developing an identifying DNA `’ fingerprint” was still five years away when authorities said Vincent Groves killed a prostitute, a banker, and a store clerk.

By the time Groves had been let out of prison in 1987 and went on a suspected killing spree that left police discovering a body a month in and around Denver for about a year, authorities were still struggling with how to handle DNA. Colorado was the first state to require DNA but only from sex offenders in 1988 and the FBI’s national database was a decade away from becoming fully operational.

Testimony has wrapped up for the day in the trial of former Denver Broncos cornerback Perrish Cox, who is accused of sexually assaulting and impregnating a woman who visited his apartment in 2010. More >