LONGMONT — When Longmont’s coaches threw together their girls’ 4×200-meter relay team at their own track and field invitational on Friday, they did so hoping that they could qualify the event for the state meet next month. What came to pass shocked them and got them rethinking their strategy for Colorado’s biggest meet at JeffCo Stadium on May 16. The quartet of Jordan Johnson, Lea Irvin, Ella Pears and Terra Brubaker not only won the event, but their collective time of 1 minute, 42.96 seconds rocketed them to the top of the statewide leaderboard in Class 4A. They even beat the meet record by ..read more

Boulder Valley is updating its attendance practices and policies as the district tackles an increase in chronic absenteeism following the pandemic. “We’ve done a really good job in putting some structures and things together to do our best to invite students back to some normalcy,” said Elton Davis, Boulder Valley student support services director. “It’s putting us on a good track to get where we want to be.” Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of the school days in a school year, including both excused and unexcused absences. Attendance Works, a national nonprofit group, fou ..read more

The Weld County District Michael Rourke said Thursday that Officer Christopher Glenn was justified in discharging his firearm during a shooting after an armed robbery at a Circle K on March 18, according to a press release from his office. The 19th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team investigated the officer-involved shooting and gave its results to the district attorney’s office, according to the release. Because of pending litigation against Kovacs, the district attorney’s office is not releasing additional information about the incident, according to the release. Longmont poli ..read more

Students from a local robotics club — Team BroomBots — dove headfirst into the learning opportunity of a lifetime earlier this month while attending the international high school robotics competition in Houston, Texas. Members of Team BroomBots robotics team work on a project while at the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international challenge, in Houston, Texas, in April. (Jamie Rumsey and Julian McCoy — Courtesy photo) In February, the team punched its ticket to the world competition in Texas after winning the top spot at the Colorado State Championship. The FIRST Robotics Competition — For I ..read more

Choosing a bottle of wine can be a stressful task. Especially when that wine is meant for someone else. If you’re daunted by trying to decide what wine to bring to a party, the perfect bottle for a hard-to-please mother-in-law or something to entice a prospective paramour, consider some tried-and-tested tips from Chicago wine experts. Surefire party hits When selecting a wine to bring to a party, Chasity Cooper, a communications strategist and wine and culture writer, turns to trusted favorites. “Pinot noir from Oregon always delivers,” says Cooper, who recently published the “Wine Convo Gener ..read more

John T. Bennett | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call WASHINGTON — Joe Biden’s aviator sunglasses likely won’t be far away Saturday night when the president cracks some jokes at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. But not everyone will be laughing during Washington’s yearly spectacle — even if “Dark Brandon” makes another appearance. That’s Biden’s political alter ego, his team’s attempt to flip the conservative slogan “Let’s Go Brandon” on his foes. Biden ended his comedy set last year by slipping on his signature shades and pretending to morph into his edgier persona. Official Washingt ..read more

By Noah Bierman, Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s tough week showed as well as any to date why he is facing a new and unprecedented reality as a presidential candidate — as he ping-ponged among a dizzying array of court appearances, judicial rulings, competing allegations and subsequent grievances. By Thursday, he was complaining about the overlap in his busy legal schedule, railing that Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over his hush-money case in New York, wouldn’t let him leave that trial to attend a Supreme Court hearing in Washington, D.C ..read more

By Shalina Chatlani, Stateline.org In Humphreys County, Mississippi — about 70 miles north of the state capital, in the heart of the fertile Delta region — a third of the residents live in poverty. In Belzoni, the county seat, there are just a handful of health care clinics. The town’s only major hospital closed more than a decade ago, around the same time its catfish industry collapsed. Jobs in the area are scarce, said Wardell Walton, who was mayor of Belzoni from 2005 to 2013. But even if there were jobs, he said, a lot of Belzoni residents wouldn’t be able to get to them — they don’t own c ..read more

Kate Wells, Michigan Public | (TNS) KFF Health News For the past year, police Detective Tim Lillard has spent most of his waking hours unofficially investigating his wife’s death. The question has never been exactly how Ann Picha-Lillard died on Nov. 19, 2022: She succumbed to respiratory failure after an infection put too much strain on her weakened lungs. She was 65. For Tim Lillard, the question has been why. Lillard had been in the hospital with his wife every day for a month. Nurses in the intensive care unit had told him they were short-staffed, and were constantly rushing from one patie ..read more

By Lillian Mongeau Hughes, KFF Health News MANTI, Utah — Garrett Clark estimates he has spent about six years in the Sanpete County Jail, a plain concrete building perched on a dusty hill just outside this small, rural town where he grew up. He blames his addiction. He started using in middle school, and by the time he was an adult he was addicted to meth and heroin. At various points, he’s done time alongside his mom, his dad, his sister, and his younger brother. “That’s all I’ve known my whole life,” said Clark, 31, in December. On the day of her release from Sanpete County Jail in rural Uta ..read more