Lederhosen and Tyrolean Hats Forging Community with Brands Just as army surplus stores began to pop up nationwide, a different trend emerged: mountaineering and climbing shops flourished in cities that recreationists considered gateways to the mountains. Many of the new stores were family affairs, with women designing, sewing, packaging, and mailing the equipment and clothing. Because women participated as gearmakers, these companies were more attuned to selling to women and children, and expanded their product offerings as a result (although outdoor companies in general still conveyed the ide ..read more

Optimos Travel just went through an enormous amount of trouble to determine something that most Coloradans already knew: Aspen is the nation’s most expensive tourist spot, with an average cost of $761.37 a day, per insanely rich visitor. You drive south past Woody Creek on Colorado 82 at your own peril, people. Determined to have an elite getaway, anyway? That’s the spirit. Here are some of the most popular picks for recreation where money is no object. For the very best in lodging (Peter Moore, Special to The Colorado Sun) For the fiscally fit (Peter Moore, Special to The Colorado Sun) For p ..read more

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Explore Booksellers in Aspen recommends a novel of fate and free will, an Irish bestseller and a devastating book of poetry. The Other Valley By Scott Alexander Howard Simon & Schuster $26.03 February 2024 Purchase From the publisher: Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it ..read more

In the few minutes that longtime political activist Angela Davis spoke to student protesters in Denver under a gray sky Saturday afternoon, she raised up their efforts as those that will be responsible for the change the world has long needed, branding it “the moment we have all been waiting for.” Davis, a renowned professor and author who was part of the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party, stopped by the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver where students, faculty and community members have been demonstrating since Thursday, calling for the University of Colorado — located on the campu ..read more

Tracy Ross | Reporter People claim Americans, including Coloradans, have no real idea where their food comes from or what goes into producing it. They probably know even less about the role agriculture plays in Colorado’s economy, because somehow food isn’t as flashy as oil and gas, aerospace or skiing, even though without it those other industries wouldn’t exist. Now, as happens few years, Coloradans can become better acquainted with the industry that gives them hoppy beer, juicy melons, sweeter-than-average carrots and tender sirloin. It’s through the USDA National Agricultural Statis ..read more

Colorado on Friday became the ninth state to confirm bird flu in dairy cattle, increasing evidence of a nationwide epidemic among dairy herds of the highly contagious — but still not yet threatening to humans — H5N1 avian influenza virus. The state Department of Agriculture said in a news release that the outbreak involves a dairy herd in northeastern Colorado, but provided no more specific information on the herd’s location or how many animals were believed to be infected. The state veterinarian’s office was notified Monday of a dairy herd “demonstrating clinical signs consistent with (avian ..read more

Colorado’s property tax picture was muddied Friday afternoon when members of a bipartisan state commission tasked with overhauling the tax code called for big changes to a draft proposal created by Democrats in the legislature, saying parts were either totally unworkable or needed major reworking.  The disconnect, with less than two weeks left in Colorado’s 2024 legislative session, will heap pressure onto state lawmakers as they race to come up with a bill to head off measures cutting property taxes placed or being pursued for the November ballot by a conservative group.  The legi ..read more

A jury on Friday found a former sheriff’s deputy guilty of reckless endangerment after he shot and killed Christian Glass, who called 911 for help when his car became stranded on a mountain road. But the jury deadlocked on the more serious charge of second-degree murder, as well as another charge of official misconduct. The verdict, handed down in a Georgetown courtroom, came on the third day of deliberation following a nearly two-week trial. Prosecutors argued former Clear Creek County deputy Andrew Buen was not justified in forcing Glass out of his car and that the decision directly led to ..read more

By Colleen Slevin and Matthew Brown, The Associated Press A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with ketamine avoided prison and was sentenced to probation Friday after his homicide conviction in the Black man’s death, which helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests. Jeremy Cooper faced up to three years in prison. He administered a dose of the sedative ketamine to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after police stopped him as he was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019. The sentencing caps a series of trials that stretched over seven months and ..read more

GYPSUM — A ninth grader from Eagle Valley High School died Wednesday after being stabbed multiple times in a Gypsum park, officials from the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office said.  Jackson Davis died of injuries sustained in the stabbing. Officials said a suspect was taken into custody shortly after the attack, which is being investigated as a homicide. Deputies responded around 10 p.m. Wednesday to a disturbance at Second Street Park in Gypsum, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.  There they learned multiple teenagers had been involved in an altercation and that during the in ..read more