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Short book reviews: A timely tale in “The Deluge,” by Stephen Markley

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. Sure, you could read advertising blurbs on Amazon, but wouldn’t you be more likely to believe a neighbor with no skin in the game over a corporation being fed words by publishers? So in this new series, we are sharing these mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email [email protected].“The Deluge,” by Stephen Markley (Simon & Schuster)This novel in turn frustrated me, held me spellbound, scared the bejeezus out of me and left me in awe. “The Deluge” is set in the very near future and the U.S. is embroiled in the effects of successive and worsening climate-change-caused weather disasters, political extremism, home-grown terrorism, private militias, more senseless mass shootings, government surveillance and overreach, economic swings and anything else you can imagine ...

Tossing an old license plate in the trash landed this Colorado lawyer in jail for a theft he didn’t commit

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

Manuel Diego Soza had no idea the trouble ahead when he tossed his old Texas license plate in the trash at an AutoZone store earlier this year.Months after throwing away the old plate and putting his new Colorado plates on his silver Subaru Forester, police officers showed up to Soza’s Denver apartment and took him to jail on theft charges.Their investigation hinged on the expired Texas license plate. A Hispanic man had walked out of a Walmart store with a stolen $199 speaker and climbed into a vehicle bearing that license plate. A Westminster police detective said Soza, who is also Hispanic, was “clearly” the thief.But the thief had a neck tattoo; Soza does not. And the thief’s vehicle was a different model and color than Soza’s Subaru.Westminster police botched the investigation and missed several red flags that should have alerted authorities that they were looking at the wrong suspect, Soza said. The criminal case against him was officially dropped ...

CAAMP’s Matt Vinson talks about why Denver streams the band more than any other city

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

CAAMP ended its two-night run at Red Rocks last October by passing out bunches of lavender to an amphitheater full of fans to celebrate the release of the band’s fourth LP, “Lavender Days.”A little over a year later, Ohio-born CAAMP is back in Denver for another sold-out, two-night Red Rocks run. But Denver isn’t just another city for the mountain-friendly folk-rock four-piece: according to Spotify, Denverites stream CAAMP more than any other city, and bassist Matt Vinson says the endlessly attentive and enthusiastic crowds here prove it.“Colorado was our first sold-out show outside of Ohio,” Vinson said. “[The fans] are there to have a good time, but also … pay attention and absorb the music.”That desire to pay attention blends well with the band’s yearning to highlight different aspects of its varied discography, which spans from slow, soulful acoustic to more upbeat, Lumineers-esque folk-rock. The first night at Red Rocks will be an acoustic set, a chance to spotlight...

Coloradans struggle with long waits for medical care as pandemic catch-up continues

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

When Meredith O’Harris broke out into painful hives, her doctors agreed she should see a dermatologist quickly, and she expected to get an appointment within days.Instead, O’Harris, of Arvada, was told it would be a year before she could see a doctor specializing in skin conditions — though if she were willing to meet with a physician assistant, the dermatology office could fit her in within a week.“The nature of the issue is that it’s emergent. I could wait about a day,” she said.Her doctor was concerned not only that the hives were painful, but that they could be a sign of lupus, a condition where the body attacks its own tissues, O’Harris said. Untreated lupus can cause damage to the kidneys, heart and other organs, meaning a quick diagnosis is important.By the time she saw the physician assistant in the dermatology office, she’d gotten some relief from a steroid injection her primary care doctor had given her, and while blood tests ruled...

Ten years in, the emerald ash borer breaches the Western Slope as it continues its steady — but slow — spread in Colorado

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

CARBONDALE — Carl Meinecke sidles up to an ash tree and wraps a tape measure around the trunk, gathering both circumference and diameter in one move.“Diameter is 17.9 inches,” Carbondale’s town arborist tells colleague and public landscape technician, Allison Uri. While Uri logs the number into her phone, Meinecke stands back, looks up and inspects the tree’s crown. No obvious signs of damage — no thinning, no dead spots, no noticeably small leaves.But all is not well in Carbondale.While this particular green ash on Crystal Bridge Drive may appear healthy, the emerald ash borer — an invasive wood-boring beetle native to East Asia that has decimated tens of millions of ash trees across 36 states over the last two decades — has come to this Roaring Fork Valley town of 6,500 situated between Glenwood Springs and Aspen. The discovery, confirmed this month by state officials, is the first sign that the borer has migrated to Colorado’s...

1 dead in apparent music studio shooting in downtown Los Angeles

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

Police are searching for a gunman who shot and killed a person in downtown Los Angeles Monday morning.This shooting occurred shortly after midnight in the 900 block of South San Pedro Street. The location of the incident appeared to be that of a recording studio but police have not confirmed that information. Police respond to a deadly shooting in downtown Los Angeles on July 17, 2023. (ANG)Officers arrived at the scene to find an unconscious man with multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to a local hospital in an unknown condition. Gardener loses hand after discarded firework explodes in Torrance Police later said that one person had died from the shooting.Video showed several people were detained at the scene but no arrests have been made, the Los Angeles Police Department said. No suspect description or motive for the shooting was provided.

Travel Troubleshooter: Budget charges fees after returning rental clean with a full tank

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: I rented a car from Budget at Los Angeles International Airport recently. I returned the vehicle with a full tank of gas after stopping at a station a few blocks away.Christopher Elliott, the Travel Troubleshooter After I dropped off the car, I received a receipt that indicated they would charge me a $90 fuel service fee. I immediately called Budget, and they agreed to reverse the charge.Today I received a letter from Budget stating that they will charge me $125 for a cleaning fee. I absolutely dispute this.I contacted Budget again and asked them to remove the cleaning fee. Budget refused. Supposedly, they had to send the car to a detailer for cleaning. They sent pictures of the car, but I am still disputing the charge. I feel as though I am being scammed. Can you help me get rid of this $125 cleaning fee?— William Houck, Prince Frederick, MarylandANSWER: If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Budget was trying to make a little extra money...

From Silicon Valley to Muskogee, Oklahoma: Can exchange program help bridge the ideological divide among teens from opposite ends of the country?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

At first glance, Madelyn Castro and Paul Zeferino seem to be worlds apart.While 18-year-old Castro grew up in Palo Alto, home of Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley, 19-year-old Zeferino hails from Muskogee, home of the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in a region rich with Native American tribal history. Muskogee’s average household income is just one-fifth of Palo Alto’s, and has triple the poverty rate. Castro is headed to Northeastern University come fall, while Zeferino will start his post-high school journey at Oklahoma City Community College.But a week after meeting one another, the teens realized their differences didn’t really matter.“Paul and I got really close,” said Castro. “And I feel that’s because we were able to put our politics aside to get to know each other.”Paul Zeferino, 19, of Oklahoma, and John Miller, 17, of Palo Alto, visit the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco, Calif., Tuesday, July 11, 2023, as part of the American Exchange Project. The prog...

New record lows for California COVID hospitalizations. Will it stick?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

When Dr. Errol Ozdalga finished a recent 14-day stretch of working on the general medicine floor at Stanford Hospital, he realized what was no longer plaguing California’s hospitals.“I can’t remember the last time I saw someone purely admitted for COVID,” said Ozdalga, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford, who had only one patient in those two weeks with the virus that once overwhelmed every facet of the health care system.It’s not just Ozdalga seeing less COVID. The number of patients with the virus at California hospitals reached a new low this month since the start of the pandemic, with just 611 reported on July 2.“We’re at the lowest point, but the lowest point doesn’t mean zero,” cautioned Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases. He said UCSF had 11 COVID patients on Thursday, about one-tenth of its peak, but not insignificant.Statewide, before th...

Massive job cuts start to ease at Bay Area tech companies as sector stabilizes

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:39 GMT

SAN JOSE — The wobbly Bay Area tech sector may be starting to stabilize after 18 brutal months of layoff announcements that revealed plans to chop more than 25,000 tech jobs in the nine-county region.Tech companies continue to disclose plans for layoffs as the industry proceeds with a wrenching restructuring, even as the economic blows wrought by the coronavirus fade away and remote work ebbs.Case in point: At the end of May, Facebook owner Meta Platforms revealed it would jettison slightly over 1,100 jobs in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Fremont. Other layoffs were announced in June and July.Yet the layoff numbers from the April-through-June second quarter, when compared with the first three months of 2023, show a distinctly improving trend in the Bay Area, according to this news organization’s analysis of official layoff notices tech companies have filed with the state Employment Development Department (EDD).“These numbers confirm what our instincts have bee...