Free Republic

DENVER — Mayor Mike Johnston announced furloughs and a hiring freeze during a Thursday morning news conference, as the city faces a $250 million budget deficit. This comes as the State of Colorado had to manage a more than $1 billion budget shortfall this year. In 2025, Denver is experiencing a $50 million revenue gap due to revenue flattening and increasing costs, according to Johnston. Heading into 2026, the mayor is projecting a $202 million deficit to manage. He puts part of the blame on declining sales tax revenue that he says was caused by economic uncertainty created by President...

The man accused of staging a hate crime to garner support for Yemi Mobolade during his 2023 mayoral campaign shared shocking testimony during a federal trial on Thursday, claiming Mobolade not only knew of the plan but that a state representative was also in on it. Derrick Bernard and his partner Ashley Blackcloud have been on trial this week at the federal courthouse in downtown Denver. They are accused of burning a wooden cross in front of a Yemi Mobolade campaign sign, defaced with the N-word slur, in order to gain sympathy for the man trying to become the first-elected...

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a radio failure at the Denver Air Traffic Control Center, which covers approximately 285,000 square miles of airspace covering parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. The outage temporarily affected communications Monday. According to the FAA, both transmitters that cover a segment of airspace went down around 1:50 p.m., causing a loss of communications to part of the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center for about 90 seconds. The FAA said the outage affected some flights approaching Denver International Airport. They said the controllers used another frequency...

In a startling coincidence, murder rates have plummeted in Denver and Aurora, Colorado, in the first quarter of 2025. I'm sure that correlation doesn't equal causation here, but some bigots who clearly hate brown people have made the insane suggestion that deporting gang members who terrorized residents in these cities might have had something to do with it. Homicides Drop Sharply in Colorado Cities Following ICE Deportations of Tren de Aragua Gang Members https://t.co/8AouPWDQQQ— Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) May 15, 2025Surely deporting these future doctors, lawyers, and people destined to cure cancer must have nothing to do with this. Right?📉...

Denver airport’s air traffic control was reportedly struck by a staggering six-minute outage earlier this week after several radio transmitters suddenly went dark. The frequency outage meant that as many as 20 pilots were unable to reach air traffic controllers as they descended into Denver International Airport on Monday afternoon, ABC7 reported, citing sources. A controller eventually made contact with one aircraft on a “guard line,” which is typically only used when a pilot is in distress. That pilot was then able to contact other nearby planes and tell them to switch radio frequencies, the sources said. At the time...

Denver airport’s air traffic control was reportedly struck by a staggering six-minute outage earlier this week after several radio transmitters suddenly went dark. The frequency outage meant that as many as 20 pilots were unable to reach air traffic controllers as they descended into Denver International Airport on Monday afternoon, ABC7 reported, citing sources. A controller eventually made contact with one aircraft on a “guard line,” which is typically only used when a pilot is in distress. That pilot was then able to contact other nearby planes and tell them to switch radio frequencies, the sources said. At the time...

NEW: A teenage illegal alien who was driving without a license at over 90 mph when he crashed into a woman & killed her in Aurora, CO last year has been given only community service & probation by the Arapahoe District Attorney’s Office. Zero prison time.

A Colorado single mom who managed to beat cancer four times was killed when a stranger who claimed he was just cleaning his gun fired bullets into her home, cops said. Jennifer James, 49, was fatally shot when 20-year-old Ebenezer Worku allegedly opened fire from his car while parked outside the victim’s house in Berthoud, north of Denver, on April 28. The gunman told police that he accidentally shot at the home with his Glock 22 handgun — and then fired again when he was trying to clear the chamber, KDVR reported, citing a police affidavit.

Between 2022 and 2024, the U.S. saw a record 43 percent rise in “sheltered homelessness”—staying in some sort of emergency shelter, as opposed to living on the street. That is shocking enough on its own, but according to a new study, a contemporaneous spike in asylum seekers accounted for a stunning 60% of that increase. “Asylum seekers”—as referenced in the study—are all recent immigrants seeking residence in the U.S., regardless of their legal status. Unsheltered homelessness has been on the rise since 2015, but sheltered homelessness had declined by 12% from 2007 to 2022 before its sudden 43% spike between...

The terrifying face of an alleged Tren de Aragua gangster was revealed on Friday after he was arrested by ICE officers in Denver, Colorado - a sanctuary city. Joel Matos-Nieto, a 23-year-old illegal Venezuelan migrant with a face full of tattoos, has been accused by ICE of being a member of TdA, a gang whose members often have very specific ink. According to pictures shared by ICE's Denver Field Office, Matos-Nieto was arrested on a street in Denver and was seen handcuffed next to an agent with the DEA, which often participates in ICE raids. Since its founding in a...

The last of three friends accused of killing a driver in Colorado by throwing a rock through the windshield of her car was convicted of first-degree murder Friday. The teens were driving around suburban Denver in 2023, throwing rocks at passing cars, when one struck and killed 20-year-old Alexa Bartell in a crime prosecutors classified as murder. ... On April 19, 2023, after seeing Bartell’s car leave the road after being hit, the three friends circled back a few times to look again, according to testimony and investigators. One of them, Kwak, took a photo as a memento, but no...

Two Mexican nationals were arrested in Colorado last month after authorities found them transporting 180,000 rounds of ammunition during a traffic stop, federal officials have announced. Caesar Ramon Martinez Solis, 41, and Humberto Ivan Amador Gavira, 24, were pulled over on March 26th in Cañon City, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado. Detectives from Fremont County stopped their white Chevrolet van after it failed to dim its headlights, didn’t signal a turn, and had a broken license plate light, according to an arrest affidavit.

The FAA says there are about 20,000 wildlife strikes on planes every year, but Flight UA2325 from Denver to Edmonton was taken down by a RABBIT.

The 2nd Amendment died in Colorado on a sunny spring afternoon in Denver, and Democrats murdered it. Yesterday, so-called "moderate" Democrat Gov. Jared Polis put his signature on SB 25-003 — perhaps the most convoluted and restrictive gun control law anywhere in the nation. But don't you worry — Democrats are gunning next for the 1st Amendment. Polis said at the signing, "This legislation builds on our commitment to improve public safety, reduce gun violence, uphold our freedom." I say, "Oh fer cryin' out loud, it will do none of those things and everybody knows it." Polis spent months putting...

Law enforcement in Colorado and other states could soon have an easier time coordinating with federal authorities on immigration issues, especially when it comes to busting gangs and drug traffickers. Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., introduced the "Unhandcuffing Police to Locate and Interdict Foreign Transgressors (UPLIFT) Act" in Congress earlier this week to prompt public officials in Colorado and nationwide to communicate with feds about illegal immigrants who are believed to have committed other crimes, even though certain state laws limit their ability to do so. "State laws have a national impact, because if federal law enforcement uses information from a...

A federal judge issued an order Friday that allows the sale of four newspapers, including the Times, to MediaNews Group Inc., pending a separate decision by the U.S. Department of Justice. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston clears a major obstacle that could have stalled the sale of the Times, San Jose Mercury News, Monterey County Herald and St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press. San Francisco businessman Clinton Reilly had filed a lawsuit aimed at halting the deal in which Sacramento-based McClatchy Co. would sell the papers to Denver-based MediaNews. The judge denied a request by Reilly for a...

A block in downtown Denver is converting from offices into apartment spaces after a real estate company bought two towers on 17th Street. The Luzzatto Company, a national real estate firm, purchased 621 and 633 17th St. at the start of April for $3.2 million, hoping to revitalize downtown with the over 973,000 square feet of space in the heart of Denver. Right now, it’s a handful of offices and a grassy area just outside the 16th Street Mall, but company owner Asher Luzzatto said it’s going through a complete renovation that will cost between $150 and $200 million. Within...

Judge Boasberg’s Brother, a former associate at Covington & Burling, Hired Illegal Aliens to Teach American Students, Now He Runs A School In Singapore Promoted By The US State Department ... another shocking conflict of interest involving Judge James Boasberg, who recently threatened to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for failing to provide flight information related to the deportation of illegal Venezuelan gang members belonging to the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. The judge's brother, Tom Boasberg, a fluent Chinese speaker and former superintendent of Denver Public Schools (DPS) for a decade, hired illegal aliens on DACA to teach...

A DHS official was placed on leave and may have their security clearance revoked for ‘accidentally’ adding a reporter to an email chain about an upcoming ICE raids in greater Denver area. According to NBC News, a DHS worker included a Washington-based reporter in an email chain detailing an upcoming ICE raids back in January. The email did not include classified material, however, the information was still considered sensitive because it detailed time, location and target of raids. The DHS worker called the reporter and told them that they were ‘accidentally’ added to the email. The reporter promised to disclose...

Sara Haines, co-host of The View, has warned that the Democratic Party’s unhinged screaming and volatile behavior at rallies is not fixing the country and is making things worse for them. Whoopi Goldberg noted that progressive leaders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are engaging at rallies “at a moment when leadership roles on the left are wide open.” Goldberg also recalled how Sanders showed in his recent interview that he was “not ready to talk about future party planning yet.” Sanders recently accused ABC “This Week” host Jonathan Karl of asking a “nonsense” question about...