When a cow started running loose through Port Orange, Florida, Lewis Perry handled it the only way he knew how: he saddled up his horse and rode into town.Before the roundup came the routine.Perry prepared Tweety, his 8-year-old roping horse, for a job no one expected, capturing a stray cow wandering near homes and busy streets Thursday. “I called around to some buddies of mine, and nobody was really available,” Perry said. “So I told my wife, I said, ‘I think we’ve got to do something about this.’” Once he located the cow, he knew there was little room for error.“If you go to rope a cow that is loose like that, you generally only get one try at it,” Perry said. “If you rope it and miss, then she or he will bolt, and you have to race and chase them down. In suburbs like that, it can get really dangerous.” With homes, traffic, and onlookers nearby, a missed throw could have made the situation worse.But Perry made the catch.With assistance from officers and neighbors, he guided the cow safely into a trailer without injuries or damage.He credited Tweety for staying calm despite the unusual surroundings, including crowds gathering to watch.“It didn’t bother him at all,” Perry said. “It bothered me more than him, probably.”Where the cow came from remains unclear.“That one had no markings at all, which is weird,” Perry said. “We use ear tags on all of our cattle.”For now, Perry is keeping the cow while trying to identify its owner.In the meantime, he’s praising the horse that helped bring the situation under control.“He’s just a well-mannered horse that does a very good job for me,” Perry said. “I’m very, very lucky to own him.”
When a cow started running loose through Port Orange, Florida, Lewis Perry handled it the only way he knew how: he saddled up his horse and rode into town.
Before the roundup came the routine.
Perry prepared Tweety, his 8-year-old roping horse, for a job no one expected, capturing a stray cow wandering near homes and busy streets Thursday.
“I called around to some buddies of mine, and nobody was really available,” Perry said. “So I told my wife, I said, ‘I think we’ve got to do something about this.’”
Once he located the cow, he knew there was little room for error.
“If you go to rope a cow that is loose like that, you generally only get one try at it,” Perry said. “If you rope it and miss, then she or he will bolt, and you have to race and chase them down. In suburbs like that, it can get really dangerous.”
With homes, traffic, and onlookers nearby, a missed throw could have made the situation worse.
But Perry made the catch.
With assistance from officers and neighbors, he guided the cow safely into a trailer without injuries or damage.
He credited Tweety for staying calm despite the unusual surroundings, including crowds gathering to watch.
“It didn’t bother him at all,” Perry said. “It bothered me more than him, probably.”
Where the cow came from remains unclear.
“That one had no markings at all, which is weird,” Perry said. “We use ear tags on all of our cattle.”
For now, Perry is keeping the cow while trying to identify its owner.
In the meantime, he’s praising the horse that helped bring the situation under control.
“He’s just a well-mannered horse that does a very good job for me,” Perry said. “I’m very, very lucky to own him.”
Federal officials unveiled a slew of charges Tuesday against two Coloradans accused of ripping off a program that provides free rides to Medicaid patients, the first criminal charges filed in response to a sprawling fraud bonanza identified by state officials more than two years ago.
The indictments allege that Ashley Marie Stevens and Wesam Yassin separately participated in the transportation program and fraudulently collected seven-figure payouts — more than $3.3 million for Yassin alone, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado. The two drivers, who ran separate companies, allegedly fabricated rides for appointments that didn’t exist. Stevens is accused of billing for rides for her husband while he was incarcerated, and Yassin allegedly billed $165,000 for driving a patient who was dead.
Both Stevens, of Mesa County, and Yassin, of Douglas County, were charged with multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering and health care fraud for their participation in the driving service.
The program pays drivers to ferry Medicaid patients to and from doctor’s appointments, but it became a haven for fraud in 2022 and 2023, after state officials increased the service’s reimbursement rates. State officials told The Denver Post last month that an estimated $25 million was lost in the broader fraud.
Yassin’s indictment was still sealed Tuesday evening. In a statement, federal officials alleged that Yassin billed Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rides that never occurred between March 2022 and October 2023. She raked in $283,000 from rides for just one patient, most of which was paid to Yassin after the patient had already died.
Yassin allegedly used the proceeds to buy a home and furnishings, along with luxury vehicles, jewelry and cosmetic surgery. She was released on bond earlier this week, according to court records.
Stevens billed the state for more than $1 million between July 2022 and February 2023, according to the indictment. More than $400,000 came from rides she provided to herself or to her family members, for which there were “very few” actual medical appointments, federal authorities allege.
The trips included rides for her husband, who was incarcerated during some of the time when Stevens claimed she was driving him to the doctor. Another $150,000 was billed for rides that either never took place or were for trips that didn’t involve Medicaid services.
She was also paid more than $450,000 for rides that were at least 400 miles long, authorities allege. From east to west, Colorado is roughly 380 miles wide. Stevens allegedly used the proceeds from the scheme for travel and to buy a luxury car.
Stevens was already in Mesa County jail when she was indicted in December, according to court records. She remains in custody.
Yassin and Stevens are the first drivers to face any criminal repercussions for allegedly bilking the program. The fraud was in its heyday in 2023, state officials previously told The Post: A rash of new drivers entered the program then, shortly after the state increased the rate paid to transportation companies. Unscrupulous drivers, who were paid on a per member, per mile basis, allegedly packed their cars with patients and drove them across the state.
Some targeted homeless people in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, driving them to methadone clinics in metro Denver. Some patients were bribed with cash or drugs, state officials have said. Kim Bimestefer, the executive director of the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, told lawmakers last month that the fraud scheme was “international.”
Immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra is on the precipice of being released from an immigration detention facility after an immigration judge ruled Sunday that she can post bail.
Denver immigration judge Brea Burgie set Vizguerra’s bail at $5,000, but she included no other restrictions, like an ankle monitor. Her family intends to immediately post the bond, her legal team said in a statement. She likely won’t be released for at least 24 to 48 hours, said Jenn Piper, the program co-director for the American Friends Service Committee of Denver. Still, Burgie’s ruling means Vizguerra, a mother of four children, will be home by Christmas.
The order comes two days after Vizguerra’s legal team argued that the activist, who was born in Mexico and has spent most of the last 28 years in the United States, posed no flight risk and was not a danger to the community. She has been detained in the Aurora detention center since March, when she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at her work.
Vizguerra’s legal team said Sunday that Burgie found that Vizguerra “does not pose a danger to the community,” nor did she pose a flight risk, given her “strong family and community ties” and her previous compliance with court proceedings.
Vizguerra’s bail hearing took place Friday because of the order of a separate federal judge last week. When her family posts bail, Vizguerra will be released while her broader legal efforts to stay in the country — and fight her deportation — play out in both immigartion and federal court.
An activist who received national attention when she sheltered in a Denver church for years during President Donald Trump’s first term, Vizguerra was named one of TIME’s most influential people in 2017. Earlier this year and while in detention, she won a humanitarian award from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization.
Vizguerra’s supporters have held regular vigils for her outside of the detention center for months.
When Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy this weekend with another Latino finalist looking on from the crowd, the Cuban-American quarterback did more than just become the first Indiana Hoosier to win college football’s top prize, and only the third Latino to do so. He also subtly offered a radical statement: Latinos don’t just belong in this country, they’re essential.
At a time when questions swirl around this country‘s largest minority group that cast us in a demeaning, tokenized light — how could so many of us vote for Trump in 2024? Why don’t we assimilate faster? Why does Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh think it’s OK for immigration agents to racially profile us? — the fact that two of the best college football players in the country this year were Latino quarterbacks didn’t draw the headlines they would’ve a generation ago. That’s because we now live in an era where Latinos are part of the fabric of sports in the United States like never before.
That’s the untold thesis of four great books I read this year. Each is anchored in Latino pride but treat their subjects not just as sport curios and pioneers but great athletes who were and are fundamental not just to their professions and community but society at large.
Shea Serrano writing about anything is like a really great big burrito — you know it’s going to be great and it exceeds your expectations when you finally bite into it, you swear you’re not going to gorge the thing all at once but don’t regret anything when you inevitably do. He could write about concrete and this would be true, but his latest New York Times bestseller (four in total, which probably makes him the only Mexican American author with that distinction) thankfully is instead about his favorite sport.
“Expensive Basketball” finds Serrano at his best, a mix of humblebrag, rambles and hilarity (of Rasheed Wallace, the lifelong San Antonio Spurs fan wrote the all-star forward “would collect technical fouls with the same enthusiasm and determination little kids collect Pokémon cards with.”) The proud Tejano’s mix of styles — straight essays, listicles, repeated phrases or words trotted out like incantations, copious footnotes — ensures he always keeps the reader guessing.
But his genius is in noting things no one else possibly can. Who else would’ve crowned journeyman power forward Gordon Hayward the fall guy in Kobe Bryant’s final game, the one where he scored 60 points and led the Lakers to a thrilling fourth-quarter comeback? Tied a Carlos Williams poem that a friend mistakenly texted to him to WNBA Hall of Famer Sue Bird? Reminded us that the hapless Charlotte Hornets — who haven’t made it into the playoffs in nearly a decade — were once considered so cool that two of their stars were featured in the original “Space Jam?” “Essential Basketball” is so good that you’ll swear you’ll only read a couple of Serrano’s essays and not regret the afternoon that will pass as quickly as a Nikola Jokic assist.
“Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay”
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
I recommended “Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay” in my regular columna three years ago, so why am I plugging its second edition? For one, the audacity of its existence — how on earth can anyone justify turning a 450-page book on an unheralded section of Southern California into an 800-page one? But in an age when telling your story because no one else will or will do a terrible job at it is more important than ever, the contributors to this tome prove how true that is.
“Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay” is part of a long-running series about the history of Mexican American baseball in Southern California Latino communities. What’s so brilliant about this one is that it boldly asserts the history and stories of a community that too often get overlooked in Southern California Latino literature in favor of the Eastsides and Santa Anas of the region.
As series editor Richard A. Santillan noted, the reaction to the original South Bay book was so overwhelmingly positive that he and others in the Latino History Baseball Project decided to expand it. Well-written essays introduce each chapter; long captions for family and team photos function as yearbook entries. Especially valuable are newspaper clippings from La Opinión that showed the vibrancy of Southern Californians that never made it into the pages of the English-language press.
Maybe only people with ties to the South Bay will read this book cover to cover, and that’s understandable. But it’s also a challenge to all other Latino communities: if folks from Wilmington to Hermosa Beach to Compton can cover their sports history so thoroughly, why can’t the rest of us?
(University of Colorado Press)
One of the most surprising books I read this year was Jorge Iber’s “The Sanchez Family: Mexican American High School and Collegiate Wrestlers from Cheyenne, Wyoming,” a short read that addresses two topics rarely written about: Mexican American freestyle wrestlers and Mexican Americans in the Equality State. Despite its novelty, it’s the most imperfect of my four recommendations. Since it’s ostensibly an academic book, Iber loads the pages with citations and references to other academics to the point where it sometimes reads like a bibliography and one wonders why the author doesn’t focus more on his own work. And in one chapter, Iber refers to his own work in the first person — profe, you’re cool but you’re not Rickey Henderson.
“The Sanchez Family” overcomes these limitations by the force of its subject, whose protagonists descend from Guanajuato-born ancestors that arrived to Wyoming a century ago and established a multi-generational wrestling dynasty worthy of the far-more famous Guerrero clan. Iber documents how the success of multiple Sanchez men on the wrestling mat led to success in civic life and urges other scholars to examine how prep sports have long served as a springboard for Latinos to enter mainstream society — because nothing creates acceptance like winning.
“In our family, we have educators, engineers and other professions,” Iber quotes Gil Sanchez Sr. a member of the first generation of grapplers. “All because a 15-year-old boy [him]…decided to become a wrestler.”
Heard that boxing is a dying sport? The editors of “Rings of Dissent: Boxing and Performances of Rebellion” won’t have it. Rudy Mondragón, Gaye Theresa Johnson and David J. Leonard not only refuse to entertain that idea, they call such critiques “rooted in racist and classist mythology.”
(University of Illinois Press)
They then go on to offer an electric, eclectic collection of essays on the sweet science that showcases the sport as a metaphor for the struggles and triumphs of those that have practiced it for over 150 years in the United States. Unsurprisingly, California Latinos earn a starring role. Cal State Channel Islands professor José M. Alamillo digs up the case of two Mexican boxers denied entry in the United States during the 1930s, because of the racism of the times, digging up a letter to the Department of Labor that reads like a Stephen Miller rant: “California right now has a surplus of cheap boxers from Mexico, and something should be done to prevent the entry of others.”
Roberto José Andrade Franco retells the saga of Oscar De La Hoya versus Julio Cesar Chávez, landing less on the side of the former than pointing out the assimilationist façade of the Golden Boy. Mondragón talks about the political activism of Central Valley light welterweight José Carlos Ramírez both inside and outside the ring. Despite the verve and love each “Rings of Dissent” contributors have in their essays, they don’t romanticize it. No one is more clear-eyed about its beauty and sadness than Mondragón’s fellow Loyola Marymount Latino studies profe, Priscilla Leiva. She examines the role of boxing gyms in Los Angeles, focusing on three — Broadway Boxing Gym and City of Angels Boxing in South L.A, and the since-shuttered Barrio Boxing in El Sereno.
“Efforts to envision a different future for oneself, for one’s community, and for the city are not guaranteed unequivocal success,” she writes. “Rather, like the sport of boxing, dissent requires struggle.”
If those aren’t the wisest words for Latinos to embrace for the coming year, I’m not sure what is.
An immigration judge will decide in the coming days whether to temporarily release an immigrant rights activist after a Friday bail hearing that was delayed when authorities tried to block media access to the courtroom.
Attorneys representing Jeanette Vizguerra told the judge, Brea Burgie, that government lawyers had provided no evidence that Vizguerra posed a flight risk or a danger to the community.
Vizguerra, a nationally renowned activist, has been in the Aurora detention center since her March arrest, and her attorneys reiterated their allegations Friday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intentionally targeted Vizguerra because of her public profile and advocacy. They asked Burgie to release Vizguerra, who was born in Mexico and does not have proper legal status, on bail while the rest of her immigration case proceeds.
“Detention is not justified,” said Laura Lichter, one of Vizguerra’s lawyers.
Shana Martin, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, argued that Vizguerra should continue to be detained indefinitely because, Martin said, she was both dangerous and a flight risk. Martin pointed to Vizguerra’s criminal conviction for using a fake Social Security card so she could work, as well as to traffic violations, as evidence that she “shows a lack of respect for authority.”
One of Vizguerra’s daughters recently joined the Air Force, and Vizguerra applied for a form of legal status based on her daughter’s military service. Martin said that application has been denied — something Lichter said was news to Vizguerra and her lawyers.
Lichter said after the hearing that she’d never seen that type of application denied in a case like Vizguerra’s. She told Burgie that the denial was “fantastic evidence” of the government’s bias against her client.
CIting the extreme complexity of the case, Burgie said she would issue a written decision on whether to grant bail to Vizguerra at a later date. The Denver judge appeared remotely in the Aurora detention center’s hearing room.
As Vizguerra waited in a hallway outside the courtroom, she blew a kiss to family members and waved to supporters.
The hearing came two days after a U.S. District Court judge ordered federal officials to provide Vizguerra with a bail hearing before Christmas.
Proceedings were delayed Friday morning after personnel at the detention center, which is privately run by the Geo Group, told reporters and supporters that they couldn’t enter the courtroom. It’s typically open to observers, family members of detainees and journalists who provide photo ID and go through a security checkpoint.
Earlier Friday morning, a Denver Post reporter was waiting for an escort to the courtroom when a Geo Group lieutenant approached and asked what courtroom he was visiting. When the reporter said he was there to watch the Vizguerra hearing, the lieutenant told him the courtroom was full and escorted him back to the lobby.
Juan Baltazar, the facility’s warden, later told reporters that they wouldn’t be allowed into the courtroom “partially” because of space constraints, as well as because of unspecified “safety and security” concerns.
Geo personnel also closed and locked a gate leading into the facility, with an armed guard later controlling access. The gate was not closed on several earlier visits by The Post earlier this fall. Guards on Friday were dressed entirely in black, a change from their standard blue shirts.
Baltazar said ICE officials had called and verbally ordered Geo personnel to allow in only lawyers, family and witnesses. He said the limitations were put into place “because of the attention (this case) is getting.”
When Lichter pressed him about what safety or security risk was posed by reporters, Baltazar said questions would have to be directed to ICE.
“Everybody has a boss,” he said.
After continued prodding by Lichter, facility personnel eventually relented and allowed in several reporters, along with a handful of Vizguerra’s supporters.
Messages sent to Steve Kotecki, Denver’s ICE spokesman, and to a regional ICE representative were not immediately returned.
Immigration authorities must provide detained activist Jeanette Vizguerra with a bail hearing in the next week, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in Denver.
The order offers an avenue for potential temporary release for Vizguerra, an immigrant without proper legal status who has spent nine months in federal immigration detention.
The activist was arrested in March and has been fighting efforts by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport her ever since. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Wang requires that authorities give Vizguerra the opportunity to seek a temporary release before an immigration judge in Aurora’s detention center by Christmas Eve.
Her hearing is currently set for Friday morning, according to one of her attorneys, Laura Lichter.
If granted bail, Vizguerra would be released from detention while her immigration case continues to wind its way through the courts. Because Vizguerra is fighting her deportation both in federal court and in immigration court, it will likely be “many months or even years” before her case is fully resolved, Wang said.
The Mexico-born activist has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and has repeatedly fought attempts to deport her, though she accepted a voluntary departure in 2011. During the first Trump administration, she sought shelter in a Denver church and was named by TIME as one of the most influential people of 2017. She left the church’s sanctuary and was given reprieves by ICE.
But early in Trump’s second term, she was arrested in March in what her attorneys have argued was an intentional effort to detain and deport her because of advocacy that’s protected by the First Amendment. Her detention was celebrated by ICE on social media, and one agent allegedly told her, “We finally got you.”
In Wednesday’s order, Wang said Vizguerra’s allegations that she was targeted specifically because of her speech raised “serious due process concerns.”
The Powerball jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.25 billion after no one matched all six numbers for the 43rd drawing in a row Monday night, game officials announced.
Wednesday’s jackpot will be the second-largest Powerball prize this year, behind the $1.787-billion prize won in Missouri and Texas on Sept. 6, according to a Powerball news release. Wednesday’s jackpot has an estimated cash value of $572.1 million.
This is also the second time the game has produced back-to-back billion-dollar jackpots.
“Powerball has only seen back-to-back to billion-dollar jackpots twice, and this one has arrived just in time for the holidays,” Matt Strawn, Iowa Lottery chief executive and Powerball Product Group chair, said in the release.
Two tickets were last sold in Missouri and Texas a few months ago that split the previous $1.787-billion prize.
On Monday, two tickets were sold in Arizona and California that matched all five white balls to win $1-million prizes, according to the release. Neither, however, matched the red Powerball number. There were also 43 tickets that won $50,000 prizes and 14 tickets that won $200,000 prizes.
If someone wins Wednesday’s jackpot, they can choose between an annuitized prize of about $1.25 billion or a lump sum payment estimated at $572.1 million before taxes, according to the release. If the winner picks the annuity option, they will get one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that go up by 5% every year.
A unique suspect was taken into custody after showing off impressive speed on Interstate 40.On Tuesday, Nov. 11, officers were called to the area of I-40 and the Louisiana offramp in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a pig on the loose.”It was odd, but most of the time, we get stuff like that, and we get there and there’s nothing there,” said Lt. Ramon Candelaria with the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department. “I didn’t think much of it until I was getting there and I seen the traffic start backing up.”As Candelaria showed up, ready to lasso the pig, he spotted Albuquerque police officers chasing him.”I seen the pig running and then I seen officers right behind it,” Candelaria said.After a short foot pursuit, the culprit was in custody.”Pretty soon, I seen them all start high-fiving each other,” Candelaria said. “They had the pig in the back of a unit. I give it to the APD officers. They were hustling to catch this little guy and they were moving.”APD shared this video on its social media pages.Albuquerque Animal Welfare believes the pig is about a year old and roughly 50 pounds. They suspect he’s domesticated and that he fell out of someone’s truck.”He grabbed it, handled it and put it in the back of a unit. If that would have been any kind of a wild animal, it would have definitely bit him,” Candelaria said. “Then his colors. His colors were not normal for a pig if it was wild.”Staff did scan him for a microchip, but didn’t find one. The pig is at the Westside Shelter waiting for its owners to claim him. Hearst sister station KOAT visited the shelter Thursday and learned the pig loved attention and being pet.It’s not uncommon for Albuquerque Animal Welfare to rescue animals on the interstate.”We’ve gotten porcupines on the freeway. I’ve gotten a badger on the freeway, you name it. We’re in New Mexico, so it’s expected. But I didn’t expect a pig,” Candelaria said. But Candelaria does ask drivers to slow down when flashing lights are present. Video shows the pig almost being clipped by a car driving by.”We’re out there trying to save the animal and watch out for ourselves. It gets dangerous out there, and some people just do not respect the lights,” Candelaria said.The pig is being held at the Westside Shelter. For details on adopting him, click here.
A unique suspect was taken into custody after showing off impressive speed on Interstate 40.
On Tuesday, Nov. 11, officers were called to the area of I-40 and the Louisiana offramp in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a pig on the loose.
“It was odd, but most of the time, we get stuff like that, and we get there and there’s nothing there,” said Lt. Ramon Candelaria with the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department. “I didn’t think much of it until I was getting there and I seen the traffic start backing up.”
As Candelaria showed up, ready to lasso the pig, he spotted Albuquerque police officers chasing him.
“I seen the pig running and then I seen officers right behind it,” Candelaria said.
After a short foot pursuit, the culprit was in custody.
“Pretty soon, I seen them all start high-fiving each other,” Candelaria said. “They had the pig in the back of a unit. I give it to the APD officers. They were hustling to catch this little guy and they were moving.”
Albuquerque Animal Welfare believes the pig is about a year old and roughly 50 pounds. They suspect he’s domesticated and that he fell out of someone’s truck.
“He grabbed it, handled it and put it in the back of a unit. If that would have been any kind of a wild animal, it would have definitely bit him,” Candelaria said. “Then his colors. His colors were not normal for a pig if it was wild.”
Staff did scan him for a microchip, but didn’t find one. The pig is at the Westside Shelter waiting for its owners to claim him. Hearst sister station KOAT visited the shelter Thursday and learned the pig loved attention and being pet.
It’s not uncommon for Albuquerque Animal Welfare to rescue animals on the interstate.
“We’ve gotten porcupines on the freeway. I’ve gotten a badger on the freeway, you name it. We’re in New Mexico, so it’s expected. But I didn’t expect a pig,” Candelaria said.
But Candelaria does ask drivers to slow down when flashing lights are present. Video shows the pig almost being clipped by a car driving by.
“We’re out there trying to save the animal and watch out for ourselves. It gets dangerous out there, and some people just do not respect the lights,” Candelaria said.
The pig is being held at the Westside Shelter. For details on adopting him, click here.
Illinois inmate shot and killed at federal prison in Sumter County
WESH TWO NEWS. ALL RIGHT, HALEY, THANK YOU. MEANTIME, A FAMILY SAYS THEY HAVE QUESTIONS AFTER THEY SAY ONE OF THEIR OWN WAS SHOT AND KILLED IN PRISON. THIS MAN, 33 YEAR OLD DWAYNE TOTTLEBEN, DIED ON OCTOBER 10TH. WESH TWO. TONI ATKINS IS LIVE AT FCC COLEMAN IN SUMTER COUNTY, WHERE TOTTLEBEN WAS SERVING TIME AND TONY. HIS FAMILY JUST WANTS TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. WELL, IT’S BEEN 12 DAYS SINCE THE INCIDENT HERE AT THE PRISON RIGHT BEHIND ME. THIS FAMILY, HOPING TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING SOON. 33 YEAR OLD DWAYNE TOTTLEBEN OF ILLINOIS WAS SHOT AND KILLED WHILE INSIDE U.S. PENITENTIARY COLEMAN IN SUMTER COUNTY. LOVED ONES POSTING ON GOFUNDME SAYING THEY’RE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION. NBC NEWS REPORTS. TOTTLEBEN WAS SERVING 15 YEARS AT THE FEDERAL PRISON FOR POSSESSION OF METHAMPHETAMINE WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE. THE CHARGES, RELATED TO A 2020 TRAFFIC STOP IN SAINT LOUIS. THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, WHICH ALSO SHARES INFORMATION ON INMATES DEATHS, HAS NOT RELEASED INFORMATION ABOUT TOTTLEBEN. IN THE MEANTIME, LOVED ONES SPOKE WITH NBC NEWS DWAYNE TOTTLEBEN SENIOR SAYS OFFICIALS INFORMED HIM HIS SON WAS SHOT. HE SAID, QUOTE, I WAS DISTRAUGHT. I DIDN’T KNOW IF SOMEONE STABBED HIM. I DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING. THE PRISON SENT THIS STATEMENT TO NBC NEWS SAYING THE FACILITY WAS PLACED ON ENHANCED MODIFIED OPERATIONS ON OCTOBER 10TH, AND THAT WARDENS MAY ESTABLISH CONTROLS OR IMPLEMENT TEMPORARY SECURITY MEASURES TO ENSURE THE GOOD ORDER AND SAFETY OF THE EMPLOYEES AND THE INDIVIDUALS IN OUR CUSTODY. END QUOTE. TOTTLEBEN SENIOR TOLD NBC NEWS, QUOTE, WHEN PEOPLE GET INTO FIGHTS IN PRISON, THEY LOSE TIME, CREDIT. THEY DON’T LOSE THEIR LIVES. AND I ALSO REACHED OUT TO THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS TO SEE IF THEY HAD A STATEMENT ABOUT HIS DEATH. THEY I DID RECEIVE AN AUTO REPLY, AND IT SAID THAT THEY WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO RESPOND DUE TO A LAPSE IN APPROPRIATIONS, WHICH IS RELATED TO THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. FOR NOW, I’
Illinois inmate shot and killed at federal prison in Sumter County
Dwayne Tottleben, a 33-year-old inmate from Illinois, was shot and killed while inside U.S. Penitentiary Coleman in Sumter County, according to loved ones who are trying to understand the situation.Tottleben was serving a 15-year sentence at the federal prison for possession of methamphetamines with intent to distribute, stemming from a 2020 traffic stop in St. Louis.The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which often shares information about inmate deaths, has not released details about Tottleben’s death.Meanwhile, loved ones spoke with NBC News, with Dwayne Tottleben Sr. saying officials informed him his son was shot.”I was distraught. I didn’t know if somebody stabbed him. I didn’t know anything,” Tottleben Sr. said.The prison sent a statement to NBC News, indicating that the facility was placed on enhanced modified operations on Oct. 10.It stated that wardens may establish controls or implement temporary security measures to ensure the good order and safety of employees and individuals in custody.”When people get into fight in prison, they lose good time credit… they don’t lose their life,” Tottleben Sr. said.
Tottleben was serving a 15-year sentence at the federal prison for possession of methamphetamines with intent to distribute, stemming from a 2020 traffic stop in St. Louis.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which often shares information about inmate deaths, has not released details about Tottleben’s death.
Meanwhile, loved ones spoke with NBC News, with Dwayne Tottleben Sr. saying officials informed him his son was shot.
“I was distraught. I didn’t know if somebody stabbed him. I didn’t know anything,” Tottleben Sr. said.
The prison sent a statement to NBC News, indicating that the facility was placed on enhanced modified operations on Oct. 10.
It stated that wardens may establish controls or implement temporary security measures to ensure the good order and safety of employees and individuals in custody.
“When people get into fight in prison, they lose good time credit… they don’t lose their life,” Tottleben Sr. said.
Gov. Jared Polis is still trying to find a way to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, four months after a Denver judge ruled that doing so would violate Colorado law.
In repeated court filings, including one submitted Friday, Polis’ private attorneys have said they intend to turn over records on 10 businesses that employed several sponsors of unaccompanied children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They’ve asked a Denver judge, who previously prohibited some state employees from complying with ICE’s subpoena, to dismiss the case and clear the way for them to turn over a more limited batch of records.
The recent filings represent the second attempt by Polis to comply with the April immigration enforcement subpoena. The governor’s first attempt was blocked by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones in June, after Jones sided with a senior state employee who’d sued Polis earlier that month to stop the state from fulfilling the subpoena.
The employee, Scott Moss, argued that providing the requested records would violate state laws that limit what information can be shared with federal immigration authorities.
But though Jones preliminarily sided with Moss, his ruling is complicated. He prohibited Polis from directing a specific division of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to comply with the subpoena. But he said he couldn’t prevent Polis from directing others to comply with the subpoena, even though Jones said doing so would still likely violate the law.
The records that Polis now says he intends to turn over to ICE are in the custody of another labor department division not covered in Jones’ order.
In an email Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined to comment on the case or why Polis is still seeking to provide records to ICE. She pointed to the administration’s recent legal filings.
The administration has previously said it wanted to support ICE’s efforts to check on unaccompanied minors without legal status, though the governor’s office has not provided any evidence that it has sought assurances that ICE wasn’t seeking the information purely for immigration enforcement efforts.
David Seligman, whose law firm has supported the case, criticized the governor’s decision to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal while indicating his intention to turn over records to ICE. While ICE wrote that it wanted detailed employment records so it could check on the well-being of unaccompanied children, Seligman and Moss, the employee who brought the lawsuit, have argued that the agency only wants the information so it can arrest and deport the children’s sponsors.
“It is absolutely absurd that this governor would be going out of his way to comply with and cooperate with ICE in light of everything that we’re seeing right now,” Seligman said.
Moss has since left the department, and Polis’ lawyers now argue that no one associated with the case has a legal standing to challenge compliance with the subpoena. They’ve also argued that they can turn over the records because the employers’ addresses and contact information can be found online.
The records are only part of the broader swath of personal details that ICE initially requested, and they cover only six of the 35 sponsors for which ICE first sought records. The sponsors are typically family members of children without legal status, who care for the minors while their immigration cases proceed.
The administration has similarly told ICE officials that it intends to comply with part of the subpoena once the lawsuit is concluded. In a July 11 email, Joe Barela, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment, wrote to a special agent in ICE’s investigative branch that the agency planned to “provide your office with the names and contact information for those 10 employers.”
Jones must now rule on whether to dismiss the lawsuit or let it proceed. Between June and early September, Recht Kornfeld, the private law firm Polis hired to represent him in the lawsuit, has billed the state for more than $104,000, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has said it was unable to represent Polis because of legal advice it provided to the governor related to complying with the subpoena. The office has declined to characterize the nature of that advice.
The subpoena was sent to the state labor department in April as part of what ICE described as essentially a welfare check of unaccompanied minors in the state. The subpoena sought employment and personal records for the children’s sponsors.
Initially, administration officials decided not to comply with the subpoena because of the state’s laws limiting such contact. But Polis abruptly changed course and decided to turn over the records, prompting Moss to sue.
Polis’ office has claimed that the governor wanted to comply with the subpoena because it was part of a “targeted” criminal investigation into human trafficking. The state’s immigration laws — including one signed by Polis in late May — allow state officials to comply with federal subpoenas if they’re part of criminal probes, rather than immigration enforcement operations.
But the governor’s office has not released any evidence that the criminal investigation actually exists or that it made any effort to ensure that it did.
Jones wrote that “the subpoena — on its face — was not issued as part of a criminal investigation,” and he said that no one in Polis’ office or the labor department, “with the potential exception of the governor himself,” actually believed that the subpoena was part of a criminal investigation.
The subpoena is not signed by a judge, and the federal statute that it cites is related to immigration enforcement.
In her email Tuesday, Wieman, Polis’ spokeswoman, did not address questions about whether the state had pursued or received any additional information confirming the existence of the investigation allegedly underpinning the subpoena. Nor did she address questions about whether Polis had directed any state resources to check on the children.
The government shutdown is entering a fourth week as Democrats and Republicans blame each other for holding the country “hostage.” Caught in the middle, federal workers, government services, and the economy are all feeling the impact. Previous shutdowns have seen reduced overall economic growth, disproportionately affecting certain industries. National parks and museums remain closed, flight delays are mounting, and backlogs for new small business loans and flood insurance renewals are growing.Republicans continue to accuse Democrats of blocking paychecks by refusing to reopen the government, while Democrats argue that Republicans are unwilling to negotiate over the core issue of health care funding. “Congressional Democrats seem to want to keep the government shut down even though it would mean that a lot of you would not get your paycheck,” Vice President JD Vance said in remarks to an audience of Marines celebrating the 250th anniversary Saturday.Democrats pushed back in “No Kings” protests across the country.”They’re the ones acting like children refusing to negotiate with Democrats in the Senate who they know have to vote for a budget in order for it to become law,” Sen. Chris Murphy said in an interview Saturday.The shutdown has had a sizable impact as uncertainty weighs on the federal workforce. Under the Trump administration’s direction, federal agencies have been planning not just furloughs but also permanent layoffs. However, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the firings, deeming them potentially illegal.Public perception of who is to blame has been roughly evenly split. A new Associated Press poll finds that a majority, about 6 in 10 Americans, blame President Donald Trump and Republicans for the shutdown. An even larger majority, three-quarters of Americans, believe both sides deserve at least a “moderate” share of the blame, suggesting that no one has truly escaped responsibility for the shutdown.Watch the latest coverage on the federal government shutdown:
WASHINGTON —
The government shutdown is entering a fourth week as Democrats and Republicans blame each other for holding the country “hostage.” Caught in the middle, federal workers, government services, and the economy are all feeling the impact.
Previous shutdowns have seen reduced overall economic growth, disproportionately affecting certain industries.
National parks and museums remain closed, flight delays are mounting, and backlogs for new small business loans and flood insurance renewals are growing.
Republicans continue to accuse Democrats of blocking paychecks by refusing to reopen the government, while Democrats argue that Republicans are unwilling to negotiate over the core issue of health care funding.
“Congressional Democrats seem to want to keep the government shut down even though it would mean that a lot of you would not get your paycheck,” Vice President JD Vance said in remarks to an audience of Marines celebrating the 250th anniversary Saturday.
Democrats pushed back in “No Kings” protests across the country.
“They’re the ones acting like children refusing to negotiate with Democrats in the Senate who they know have to vote for a budget in order for it to become law,” Sen. Chris Murphy said in an interview Saturday.
The shutdown has had a sizable impact as uncertainty weighs on the federal workforce. Under the Trump administration’s direction, federal agencies have been planning not just furloughs but also permanent layoffs. However, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the firings, deeming them potentially illegal.
Public perception of who is to blame has been roughly evenly split. A new Associated Press poll finds that a majority, about 6 in 10 Americans, blame President Donald Trump and Republicans for the shutdown. An even larger majority, three-quarters of Americans, believe both sides deserve at least a “moderate” share of the blame, suggesting that no one has truly escaped responsibility for the shutdown.
Watch the latest coverage on the federal government shutdown:
7:00. REMEMBERING SIX PEOPLE KILLED IN A DEADLY CRASH WITH AN ALLEGEDLY DRUNK DRIVER AT THE WHEEL. THAT CRASH WAS OVER THE WEEKEND IN RURAL NAPA COUNTY. ALL BUT TWO OF THE PEOPLE IN THAT MINIVAN WERE KILLED WHEN THAT VEHICLE HIT A TREE. NOW THE DRIVER IS FACING MURDER CHARGES. THOSE VICTIMS ARE FROM THE STOCKTON AREA AND KCRA 3’S MARICELA DE LA CRUZ SPOKE WITH THREE OF THOSE FAMILIES. SUNDAY’S DEADLY CRASH IN NAPA COUNTY CLAIMED THE LIVES OF SIX FARM WORKERS FROM THE STOCKTON AREA. AUTHORITIES SAY 53 YEAR OLD NORBERTO CELERINO WAS INTOXICATED WHEN HE DROVE A MINIVAN CARRYING SEVEN PASSENGERS INTO A TREE. FOR GABRIEL LOPEZ, THE NEXT THREE DAYS WERE AGONIZING. LOPEZ AND HIS COUSINS SEARCHED FOR THEIR UNCLE, PEDRO LOPEZ GOMEZ, AND HIS BROTHER IN LAW, MARVIN SANTOS RUIZ, WHO HAD JUST STARTED HIS FIRST DAY ON THE JOB. WHILE THEY GOT CONFIRMATION THAT THEIR UNCLE DID NOT SURVIVE THE CRASH, SOME RELIEF CAME WHEN MARVIN CALLED FROM THE HOSPITAL. LOPEZ SAYS HE HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO VISIT MARVIN YET. BUT WHILE THE FAMILY CELEBRATES THE LIFE OF THEIR LOVED ONE. OTHERS ARE MOURNING. TODAY WE HEARD FROM THE FAMILY OF 42 YEAR OLD LORETO RICARDO HERNANDEZ. HIS DAUGHTER JASMINE TOLD US THAT HER FATHER WAS HER FIRST LOVE. HER HERO AND CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND, SAYING HE WILL BE REMEMBERED BY MANY. THE FAMILY IS NOW RAISING FUNDS TO COVER FUNERAL COSTS. RELATIVES OF 32 YEAR OLD BAY MARIPOSA RODRIGUEZ, WHO LIVE IN MEXICO, SAY THEY’RE DEVASTATED BY HIS DEATH. NORBERTO CELERINO, NOW FACING SIX COUNTS OF MURDER, IS STILL RECOVERING FROM HIS INJURIES. HE’LL BE FORMALLY CHARGED ONCE HE RECEIVES MEDICAL CLEARANCE. MARICELA DE LA CRUZ KCRA THREE NEWS. CELERINO HAS AT LEAST TWO DUI CONVICTIONS IN SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY. AND IN FACT, A JUDGE HAD ALREADY WARNED HIM THAT HE COULD FACE
Stockton families mourn loved ones lost in Napa crash that claimed six lives
Six farm workers from the Stockton area were killed in a crash in Napa County over the weekend, allegedly caused by an intoxicated driver who now faces murder charges.Authorities said 53-year-old Norberto Celerino was driving a minivan with seven passengers when it collided with a tree, resulting in the deaths of all but two occupants.Gabriel López, a family member of two victims, described the agonizing days following the crash. “We found out that my uncle was dead, but we couldn’t find Marvin,” López said. López and his cousins searched for their uncle, Pedro López Gomez, and his brother-in-law, Marvin Santiz Ruiz, who had just started his first day on the job. While they received confirmation that Pedro did not survive, relief came when Marvin called from the hospital.”He cried and said ‘I’m alive’ and he’s at the hospital,” López said. Marvin remains hospitalized, and López has not been able to visit him yet.While López’s family celebrates Marvin’s survival, others are mourning. The family of 42-year-old Loreto Ricardo Hernández shared their grief, with his daughter Jasmin describing him as her first love, hero, and childhood best friend, saying he will be remembered by many. The family is raising funds to cover funeral costs. Relatives of 32-year-old Beymar Reynosa Rodríguez, who live in Mexico, expressed their devastation over his death.Norberto Celerino, who is recovering from his injuries, will be formally charged once he receives medical clearance to appear in court. He has at least two DUI convictions in San Joaquin County, and a judge had previously warned him that he could face murder charges if he killed someone while driving under the influence.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
Authorities said 53-year-old Norberto Celerino was driving a minivan with seven passengers when it collided with a tree, resulting in the deaths of all but two occupants.
Gabriel López, a family member of two victims, described the agonizing days following the crash.
“We found out that my uncle was dead, but we couldn’t find Marvin,” López said.
López and his cousins searched for their uncle, Pedro López Gomez, and his brother-in-law, Marvin Santiz Ruiz, who had just started his first day on the job. While they received confirmation that Pedro did not survive, relief came when Marvin called from the hospital.
“He cried and said ‘I’m alive’ and he’s at the hospital,” López said. Marvin remains hospitalized, and López has not been able to visit him yet.
While López’s family celebrates Marvin’s survival, others are mourning. The family of 42-year-old Loreto Ricardo Hernández shared their grief, with his daughter Jasmin describing him as her first love, hero, and childhood best friend, saying he will be remembered by many. The family is raising funds to cover funeral costs.
Relatives of 32-year-old Beymar Reynosa Rodríguez, who live in Mexico, expressed their devastation over his death.
Norberto Celerino, who is recovering from his injuries, will be formally charged once he receives medical clearance to appear in court. He has at least two DUI convictions in San Joaquin County, and a judge had previously warned him that he could face murder charges if he killed someone while driving under the influence.
Federal immigration arrests in Colorado surged this summer as the Trump administration charged ahead with its plans to mass-deport undocumented immigrants.
But as arrests have spiked, law enforcement agencies increasingly have detained people without any prior criminal convictions or charges, internal data show.
Between June 11 and July 28, ICE arrested 828 people in Colorado, according to a Denver Post analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley. That amounted to more than 17 arrests per day, a more than 50% increase from the first five months of the Trump administration, through June 10, a period covered in a previous Post story. The rate from this summer was also more than five times higher than the daily arrest average from the same time period in 2024.
Of those detained over the summer, only a third had prior criminal convictions noted in the records. Another 18% had pending charges, indicating that nearly half had been neither convicted nor charged with a crime and that their only violation was immigration-related.
That, too, is a shift: In the earlier months of President Donald Trump’s second term, two-thirds of the 1,639 people arrested in Colorado had either been convicted of a crime (38%) or charged with one (29%).
“That tracks with what we would have expected (and) what we’ve been hearing from community sources,” said Henry Sandman, the co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “The data and the reality disproves ICE’s talking points that they’re going after criminals. We’re seeing tactics increase. They’re trying to increase arrest numbers as high as possible, whatever the reason may be for detaining folks.”
Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for Denver’s ICE field office, did not respond to a request for comment late last week.
The data, obtained directly from ICE by the UC Berkeley researchers through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, offers the clearest look at immigration enforcement activities available, as ICE doesn’t post recent information online. For this analysis, The Post examined arrests that occurred in Colorado; arrests that were listed in the dataset as occurring in Wyoming but which took place in a Colorado city; and arrests lacking a listed state but which occurred in a Colorado town or county.
The Post removed several apparent duplicate arrests and a similarly small number of arrests in the region that did not have a specific location listed. The analysis also included a handful of people who appeared to have been arrested twice in the span of several months.
When listing a detainee’s criminal background, the data provides no details about the criminal charges or prior crimes. Illegally entering the country is typically treated as a civil matter upon first offense, but a subsequent entry is a felony criminal offense.
More info about July operation
The newly released data includes the same nine-day period in July during which ICE has said it arrested 243 immigrants without proper legal status “who are currently charged with or have been convicted of criminal offenses after illegally entering the United States.” The arrests, the agency said, all occurred in metro Denver.
But the data published by the UC-Berkeley researchers does not fully match ICE’s public representations.
During the same time frame, the agency arrested 232 people, according to the data. Most of those arrested during that time had never been convicted or charged with a crime, at least according to what’s in the records. Sixty-six people had a previous criminal conviction, and 34 more had pending charges.
Kotecki did not respond to questions about the July operation.
The Post previously reported that ICE falsely claimed that it had arrested a convicted murderer in Denver as part of the July operation. The man had actually been arrested at a state prison facility shortly after his scheduled release, state prison officials said last month.
While ICE claimed the man had found “sanctuary” in the capital city — a shot taken at Denver’s immigration ordinances — The Post found that state prison officials had coordinated his transfer directly to ICE. He was then deported to Mexico, and information matching his description is reflected in the UC Berkeley data.
It’s unclear if all of ICE’s arrests are fully reflected in the data, making it difficult to verify ICE’s claims. The researchers’ data is imperfect, experts have told The Post. The records likely represent the merging of separate datasets before they were provided by the government, increasing the likelihood of mistakes or missing data.
Some arrests in Colorado were listed as occurring in other states or had no state listed at all. Other arrests were duplicated entirely, and researchers have cautioned that ICE’s data at times has had inaccurate or missing information.
The anonymized nature of the data, which lacks arrestees’ names but lists some biographical information, also can make it difficult to verify. When ICE announced the results of the July operation, it named eight of the people it had arrested. Court records and the UC Berkeley data appear to match up with as many as seven of them.
The eighth, Blanca Ochoa Tello, was arrested on July 14 by ICE’s investigative branch in a drug-trafficking investigation, court filings show. But it’s unclear if she appears in the ICE data, as she was arrested in La Plata County and no woman arrested in that county was listed in the data.
To verify ICE’s July operation claims, The Post examined arrest data in Colorado and Wyoming, which jointly form the Denver area of operations for the agency. The Post also searched for arrests in every other state to identify any arrests that may have occurred in a Colorado area but were errantly listed under other states.
Federal agents detain a man as he exits a court hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on July 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Nationally, immigration authorities had their most arrest-heavy months this summer, according to data published by researchers at Syracuse University. Immigration officials arrested more than 36,700 people in June, its highest single-month total since June 2019, during Trump’s first term. More than 31,200 were arrested across the country in July.
The Trump administration has also set out to increase its detention capacity to accommodate the mass-deportation plans.
As of late July, ICE planned to triple its detention capacity in Colorado, according to documents obtained last month by the Washington Post. That plan includes opening as many as three new facilities and the expansion of Colorado’s sole existing facility in Aurora.
DHS officers watch from the parking lot as protesters gather at the entrance to the ICE Colorado Field Office on Aug. 30, 2025, in Centennial. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)
Over the course of this year, ICE arrested people in Colorado who were originally from more than 60 countries, according to the data. That included 10 Iranians arrested in late June or early July. Six of those people were arrested on June 22, the day after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Three more were arrested over the next 48 hours.
The vast majority of the undocumented immigrants who were arrested and deported were returned to their home countries, though roughly 50 were sent somewhere else, the data show. Nine Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador in the first two weeks of the Trump administration, when alleged gang members were dispatched to a notorious prison there.
ProPublica identified roughly a dozen Coloradans who were sent to that prison. It reported that several were arrested in late January, which matches information listed in the ICE data published by UC Berkeley.
Advocates’ fears of continued arrests have escalated as ICE’s funding has surged. On Aug. 30, several immigration advocates picketed outside an ICE field office in Centennial after a number of immigrants received abrupt notices to check in at the facility.
Four people were detained, said Jordan Garcia, the program director for the American Friends Service Committee’s immigrant-rights program in Colorado.
Among them, he said, was an older Cuban man with dementia. Garcia and other advocates spoke with the man and his son before they entered the facility. The son later came out, Garcia said, and said that his father had been detained.
The Powerball jackpot continued its climb over the holiday weekend, reaching an estimated $1.1 billion, the game’s fifth-largest prize, organizers said.
No one drew all six winning numbers Saturday. The winning numbers were white balls 3, 18, 22, 27 and 33 and red Powerball 17, according to a Powerball news release.
Nine tickets across the U.S. matched all five white balls, four of which were sold in California. Those locations included two in Southern California — a 7-Eleven in Duarte and Ontario Liquor in Ontario — as well as a 7-Eleven in Milpitas and a Mobil station in Pleasant Hill.
Each of those winners will receive $1,165,399, the lottery says. In California, prize payouts are “pari-mutuel,” with the amount changing depending on how many tickets are sold for that draw and how many winners are at the same level.
If a player wins Monday’s jackpot, they would have a choice between periodic payments totaling an estimated $1.1 billion or a lump sum estimated at $498.4 million, the Powerball bulletin said.
A winner who selects the annuity option would receive one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that increase 5% each year.
More than $250 million down, another $530 million to go.
That’s how much of a projected $783 million state budget hole the Colorado legislature filled by the time a special session called to address the impact of the federal tax bill ended Tuesday afternoon — and the larger amount that still remains. Erasing the rest of the red ink will fall to Gov. Jared Polis, who plans to rebalance this year’s budget in the coming days through a mix of cuts to state funding and a big dip into the rainy-day fund.
Over six days, the legislature’s majority Democrats fulfilled their part of a plan worked out with the governor’s office: to pass legislation that is expected to generate enough revenue to close about a third of the shortfall projected for the state’s budget in the current fiscal year, which began July 1. They ended tax breaks and found other ways to offset declining state income tax revenue, while leaving spending cuts largely for Polis to decide.
“What we did here in this special session is soften the blow,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who chairs the legislature’s budget committee. “But when the federal government cuts $1.2 billion in revenue from the state with a stroke of a pen, after we’ve already cut $1.2 billion (from the budget) in the regular session, that’s a tough deficit to come back from in a way that doesn’t impact the people of Colorado.”
The special session ended with 11 bills going to Polis for final approval. Five sought to fill the budget gap, largely by ending tax incentives for businesses and high-income earners.
The single largest revenue-raising measure, House Bill 1004, will auction off tax credits that can be claimed in future tax years for a discount. Backers expected that bill to bring in an additional $100 million to state coffers this year, at the expense of about $125 million in future years.
Together, those measures add up to $253 million in revenue to reduce the projected deficit — money that Democrats say represents averted cuts to Medicaid, schools and hospitals.
“Colorado legislators stepped up and helped protect children’s food access and minimized the devastating cost increases to health insurance premiums across the state, to the best of our ability,” Polis, who signed two of the new bills earlier Tuesday, said in a statement.
The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee expects to meet Thursday to hear Polis’ plan to address the remaining $500 million or so, including mid-year spending cuts.
As part of his call for a special session on Aug. 6, Polis announced a statewide hiring freeze. He said in an interview before the session started that he hoped to avoid cuts to K-12 education, but he has left all other options on the table, including Medicaid program spending.
The plan also factors in a significant use of reserves to offset some of the remaining gap.
Partisan debates
Over the past week, Republicans fought the Democrats’ bills, but strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers all but preordained the outcome.
“Not only did we increase taxes, we’re balancing the budget on the back of small businesses,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the budget committee.
One of the bills heading to Polis would erase a fee paid by the state to businesses for collecting sales taxes — an outdated subsidy, according to Democrats, and an unnecessary new burden now put on businesses, according to Republicans.
Republicans said before the session that they’d likely challenge several bills in court over allegations that they violate provisions in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that require voter approval for tax increases. Kirkmeyer and Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who’s also on the budget committee, said bills going to the governor that would eliminate some tax credits and allow the sale of tax credits against future collections seemed particularly vulnerable to a challenge under TABOR.
Debate throughout the special session took a distinctly partisan edge. Democrats laid the cuts on congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump and called the federal tax bill a de facto theft of benefits from the poorest Coloradans to benefit the wealthiest.
Republicans countered that the federal bill delivered much-needed tax cuts, and they said Democrats sought to yank those away instead of cutting partisan priorities.
Legislators begin to gather in the Senate Chambers before the start of another day of the special legislative session at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Bills on wolves, artificial intelligence
Other bills passed sought to respond to different aspects of the federal bill, formerly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as other priorities.
Lawmakers stripped general fund money away from the voter-approved program to reintroduce wolves in the state, though releases are expected to continue this winter. They tweaked ballot language for a measure about taxes for universal school meals to allow that money to go to general food assistance, as well, if voters approve it in November.
The legislature also approved a bill allowing state Medicaid program to pay Planned Parenthood for services provided, after the federal government specifically barred federal money from going to the organization.
Polis included in his call of the session that lawmakers address concerns swirling around the state’s first-in-the-nation regulations of artificial intelligence after a similar effort in the spring blew up. The rules now in law go into effect in February.
After days of bruising negotiations, lawmakers punted on any new changes and delayed the existing rules from going into effect until the end of June — giving them time to resume the debate during the next regular legislative session in January.
Check your tickets! Powerball numbers drawn for $700 million jackpot
THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY? TONIGHT’S POWERBALL JACKPOT IS UP TO A WHOPPING $526 MILLION. THAT’S A CASH VALUE OF 241 MILLION. HERE TO ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS IS DOCTOR VARSHA RADHAKRISHNAN FROM TUFTS MEDICAL CENTER. GOOD TO SEE YOU, DOCTOR. GOOD TO SEE IT. YOU KNOW, THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY ON THE LINE, RIGHT? BUT THE ODDS OF WINNING IF WE’RE BEING REAL OF THE GRAND PRIZE IS 1 IN 292,000,000. SO, IN YOUR VIEW, WHAT DRAWS PEOPLE TO GAMES LIKE THIS? WELL, PEOPLE ARE DRAWN TO GAMES LIKE THIS, ESPECIALLY WITH THAT ANTICIPATION, THE EXCITEMENT THAT WHAT IF FEELING WHAT IF I’M THAT ONE PERSON WHO WINS? EVEN IF THE ODDS OF WINNING ARE ASTRONOMICALLY LOW. BUT GAMES LIKE POWERBALL, THEY ACTUALLY ACTIVATE OUR BRAIN’S REWARD PATHWAY THROUGH THROUGH ACTIVATION OF A NEUROTRANSMITTER CALLED DOPAMINE. SO THAT’S ACTUALLY PART OF OUR PLEASURE AND REWARD SYSTEM. AND SO I THINK IT REINFORCES THINGS LIKE GAMBLING THAT THAT ADDICTION THAT CAN COME UP SOMETIMES. YOU KNOW, A LOT OF PEOPLE CAN GAMBLE FROM TIME TO TIME WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS. BUT SOME PEOPLE DO STRUGGLE. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SIGNS THAT CERTAIN BEHAVIOR MAYBE HAS CROSSED INTO A PROBLEM TERRITORY? YEAH, AND I KIND OF ALLUDED TO IT, BUT WHEN DOES IT BECOME MORE OF AN ENJOYABLE ACTIVITY VERSUS ADDICTION? AND SO WARNING SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS REALLY ARE, ARE MORE RELATED TO THAT NEED OR DESIRE TO INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT YOU’RE EXPENDING. THAT FEELING OF IRRITABILITY OR RESTLESSNESS WHEN CUTTING BACK, BEING UNABLE TO STOP DESPITE WANTING TO CONSTANTLY THINKING ABOUT GAMBLING, CHASING LOSSES, OR EVEN LYING ABOUT GAMBLING SO THAT WHEN THEY’RE STARTING TO, YOU KNOW, HAVE IMPACTS ON RELATIONSHIPS OR WORK, THAT’S WHEN WHEN THOSE BEHAVIORS BECOME VERY CONCERNING. YEAH, THAT’S THE SIGNS THERE. OKAY. SO THERE ARE SOME BENEFITS THOUGH TO THROWING YOUR HAT IN THE RING FROM TIME TO TIME. OH YEAH. THERE’S THERE’S ALWAYS THAT THAT THOUGHT IN THE BACK OF OUR MIND. IT’S IT’S ALSO FUN. OF COURSE IT CAN BE A THRILLING FEELING. PARTICIPATION. AND IN SOME OF THESE THESE TYPES OF GAMES CAN BRING THAT SENSE OF EXCITEMENT AND HOPE. ALSO JOINING SOMETHING THAT INVOLVES OTHER FOLKS AT WORK, FOR EXAMPLE, OR FRIENDS, FAMILY, IT CAN BE A SOCIAL ACTIVITY TOO. YEAH, I KNOW THERE’S A POOL GOING AROUND HERE IN THE NEWSROOM, SO IT CAN BE, BUT YOU DEFINITELY NEED TO BE MINDFUL OF THOSE SIGNS YOU MENTIONED. DOCTOR RADHAKRISHNAN, WE
Check your tickets! Powerball numbers drawn for $700 million jackpot
Feeling lucky? Here are the winning Powerball numbers for Saturday night: 11-14-34-47-51 Powerball 18The Powerplay Multiplier was 2xVideo above: Odds of winning Powerball slim, but why do we play?After no one won the big prize on Wednesday night, the jackpot grew to $700 million (estimated cash value of $316.3 million), according to the Powerball website.Preliminary data from the Multi-State Lottery Association, which helps facilitate the Powerball lottery, shows Powerball sales are 40% higher than they were at this point last year.”As the jackpot increases, we expect ticket sales to increase,” the association said.While the size of the jackpot and the ticket sales have risen, the odds of winning the top prize have not. The chances of winning the jackpot stand at about 1 in 292 million.
Feeling lucky? Here are the winning Powerball numbers for Saturday night:
11-14-34-47-51 Powerball 18
The Powerplay Multiplier was 2x
Video above: Odds of winning Powerball slim, but why do we play?
After no one won the big prize on Wednesday night, the jackpot grew to $700 million (estimated cash value of $316.3 million), according to the Powerball website.
Preliminary data from the Multi-State Lottery Association, which helps facilitate the Powerball lottery, shows Powerball sales are 40% higher than they were at this point last year.
“As the jackpot increases, we expect ticket sales to increase,” the association said.
While the size of the jackpot and the ticket sales have risen, the odds of winning the top prize have not. The chances of winning the jackpot stand at about 1 in 292 million.
I know probably not many will see this but I’ve got no one else to share this with so I’m sharing it with all of you instead. After writing for what feels like a really long time, I’ve finally reached 100,000 words, so close to the end now. I’ve gone from doing pretty much nothing when I wake up, to writing nearly every day and actually having some fun.
Autobots, roll out! Jomi and Steve are back to discuss Transformers One and how it stacks up in the Transformers movie franchise rankings. For those who haven’t seen the movie, don’t worry! We kick things off with a spoiler-free review.
Hosts: Jomi Adeniran and Steve Ahlman Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ―Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
Ti West’s Maxxxine, the third movie in the horror trilogy West started with 2022’s X and Pearl, features an early scene where a man’s naked scrotum is graphically popped under a stiletto heel, then crushed underfoot. It’s a close-up shot, handled with presumably practical effects and squirm-inducing anatomical specificity. There is, obviously, a lot of screaming. It’s the kind of shot designed to make audiences squirm, flinch, cross their legs protectively — and possibly also laugh, because it’s so grotesquely over the top. And it’s the kind of moment that makes thoughtful genre fans wonder exactly where the line is between exploitation-film homage and just plain exploitation.
Maxxxine is a reference-packed movie, like X and Pearl before it. All three movies pay homage to previous eras of cinema: X, set in 1979, is a visual and narrative throwback to ’70s slashers, particularly The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Pearl, set in 1918, is patterned after classic ’50s musicals and Disney movies. And Maxxxine, set in 1985, takes a lot of its visual and narrative cues from ’80s horror-thrillers — particularly Brian De Palma’s Body Double, though sex-soaked revenge dramas like Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 get their nods, too.
Photo: Justin Lubin/A24
But where X is more interested in characters and the philosophies of fame, sex, and pornography than movies like Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Pearl isn’t a musical or family-friendly movie, there’s no significant distance between Maxxxine and the kind of sleazy, slobbery, violence-savoring films it’s referencing. (Though there’s a world of difference between it and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which West repeatedly quotes in his shots and sets throughout the whole trilogy.) The film doesn’t come across as ironic, satirical, or like a thoughtful analysis or commentary. It’s the first of the three that could actually be considered a new entry in the genre it’s referencing.
That shift isn’t a positive step. Maxxxine is sharper, slicker, faster-paced, and more direct than the other two films in the series, and it’s certainly entertaining, for those who can stomach its purposefully challenging, envelope-pushing gore. But this time around, it feels like West has, as Kurt Vonnegut would put it, become what he was formerly just pretending to be. That isn’t just a matter of taxonomy, irrelevant to everyone but nitpickers and librarians trying to figure out which shelf Maxxxine goes on. It winds up affecting the story in some frustrating ways.
This chapter of the story finds X survivor Maxine Minx (Mia Goth, the trilogy’s anchor) living in Hollywood, working in adult films and at a strip club while auditioning for studio movies and trying to break into the mainstream. She gets that break from director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki, looking more like a Robert Palmer Girl than ever), an iconoclastic director whose horror movie The Puritan has earned her a breakout shot at a bigger-budgeted Puritan II. Maxine gets cast as the lead, but her big moment is threatened by a series of distractions, some of which could end her life as well as her career.
Photo: Dons Lens/A24
There’s a local serial killer at work, dubbed the Night Stalker, who’s targeting young, attractive women like Maxine. Avuncular, slimy detective John Labat (Kevin Bacon, devouring all scenery within reach, and making it look delicious) is trying to blackmail her on behalf of a hidden client, threatening to out her to Texas law enforcement as the one person who knows what happened during the events of X. As cold and self-possessed as Maxine seems, she has PTSD in the wake of those events, and she’s having shattering flashbacks. And a couple of L.A. cops (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) are also chasing her, suspecting she knows something about how two of her co-workers ended up tortured, branded with pentacles, murdered, and dumped in a local pond.
The Night Stalker plot thread was inspired by a real-life notorious rapist and murderer, and the torture-victims-dumped-in-public detail similarly echoes one of Los Angeles’ most horrifying and memorable crimes, the Black Dahlia murder. But the visual and narrative treatment of all of these threads is pure exploitation movie. The story certainly features a fair bit of violence enacted on men, from that rape-revenge-movie moment with the punctured scrotum to a couple of memorably ghastly deaths. But Maxxxine spends much more time on women being threatened, victimized, and commoditized, stalked and leered over and judged by male predators, tied up and tortured and dropped naked in public.
It’s all familiar enough material that it runs together, no matter how abruptly and aggressively West cuts between his close-ups of agonized female corpses. What makes it a story is Maxine’s response to living in this kind of oversexed, raw environment — and Maxxxine frequently lets her down. West writes her as a ruthless, ferocious survivor willing to do anything for fame, then repeatedly takes her fate out of her hands and gives it to other people instead. He gives her a touch of vulnerability with those flashbacks to her past traumas, but he casually drops that part of the narrative once it’s been useful for injecting a few sudden shocks into the film.
Photo: Justin Lubin/A24
Above all, Maxxxine never really fills in the blanks that would make Maxine more than a focal point for different kinds of lurid violence. She doesn’t escape her problems via particularly clever or surprising choices. She confronts the film’s ultimate predator, but in a way that only brings out more information about him, not about her. The film’s climax sidelines her. And the buildup to that climax is full of sequences meant to feel cool, edgy, horrifying, or thrilling on their own, but without a sense that they’re part of an evolution or progression. Stuff happens to and around Maxine — horrifying, gross, exploitative things — but the screenplay seems more interested in those in those things than it is in her.
X and Pearl both have their flaws, but they also both let Goth’s characters (Maxine in the first case, earlier obsessive fame-seeker Pearl in the second) speak at length about who they are and what they want. In both cases, those sequences are queasy, fascinating, and memorable. And they’re part of what sells this trilogy, besides the memorable splashes of graphic violence and the weird, dark humor that permeates all three movies. Maxxxine literally gags Goth at a crucial moment so West can focus more on bloody mayhem than on anything she has to say for herself.
And that leaves Maxxxine feeling unbalanced compared to the other two films, like it isn’t really about the central character so much as it is about how much sordid grotesquerie West can pile up on the screen. It’s more tuned into fulfilling its audience’s presumed hunger for sex, blood, and violation than fulfilling any particular plot arc for Maxine herself. That kind of focus on transgression and titillation defined the films West is channeling this time out. But until now, this series has just felt like West is nodding to his influences, while still fulfilling his own discrete goals. With Maxxxine, it’s more like he’s trying to supplant them, without putting anything new on the table except better effects and a bigger budget.
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