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Residents ask judge to block repairs to Ivy Crossing apartments after fatal fire to protect “crucial evidence” of code violations

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

Residents of an Arapahoe County apartment complex that burned in a fatal arson last month say they’re being barred from the building and will lose the chance to potentially collect “crucial evidence of fire code violations” if repairs are allowed to proceed.Five people who live at the Ivy Crossing Apartments filed a motion Friday seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent “any changes to the building” and to stop anyone from entering their units.Tanya Larby, Rachel and Abigal Jones, Anthony Vargas and Gloriluz Lebron said they have “a reasonable fear that vital evidence will be lost if repairs to the building are conducted before they… have been able to enter the premises,” according to the motion filed in Denver District Court.“Denying plaintiffs the ability to retrieve belongings and document evidence of their property loss will make it exponentially harder to realize their claims for renters’ insurance and to prove...

Nuggets star Nikola Jokic fined $25K, won’t face suspension for contact with Suns owner Mat Ishbia

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

Nikola Jokic will not be suspended, the NBA announced Monday, as a result of his physical contact with Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia during the Nuggets’ Game 4 loss Sunday night in Phoenix. The Western Conference semifinals is tied 2-2.However, Jokic will be fined $25,000 for “making improper contact with a spectator sitting courtside,” according to a news release from the league.The contact in question took place with 2:36 to go until halftime of Phoenix’s 129-124 victory.With the Nuggets leading 55-54, Jokic blocked the shot of Phoenix center Deandre Ayton, sending the ball out of bounds toward the baseline corner left of the basket. The carom landed in the arms of Ishbia, who purchased the Suns earlier this year. When Jokic raced to Ishbia’s seat to demand the ball, the owner appeared to clutch it tighter in defiance of Jokic’s haste. The Nuggets center would say later that he had wanted to inbound the ball quickly to take advantage of a 5-on-4 opportunity.Instead, te...

ViewHouse owner pays $3M for RiNo property

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

Francois Safieddine has pushed into RiNo.The restaurateur behind ViewHouse and My Neighbor Felix paid $3 million last week for 3454-3458 Walnut St., according to public records.The 3458 parcel has a 5,100-square-foot brick single-story building on it that has been used as office space. The adjacent parcel is undeveloped. The combined site is 0.29 acres, and is on the same block as Paradigm, the eight-story office building being developed by Denver-based Jordon Perlmutter & Co. and New York-based Rockefeller Group.Safieddine and representatives of his company Lotus Concepts Management did not respond to requests for comment Friday.The property was sold by 3463 Walnut Street LLC, which purchased it in June 2011 for $890,000, records show. Michael Mayberry signed sales paperwork on behalf of the entity; his company Ronin Motorworks once operated at the site.The lots are zoned I-MX-5 and were touted in marketing materials as a “prime redevelopment opportunity,” with the potential fo...

Crested Butte firefighters say fraudster Steve Bachar impersonated them after rejection

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

On Jan. 19, 2022, a man applied to be a volunteer firefighter in Crested Butte.On his application, he provided character references but wrote “n/a” under employment and “n/a” again when asked about his first responder experience. Crucially, he checked the “yes” box beside the question, “May we check your criminal history report?”“We do our due diligence to make sure that we catch this before we invite folks into the fire district,” said Veronica Jarolimek, volunteer coordinator at the Crested Butte Fire Protection District. “Because it’s not my fire department, it’s the community’s fire department.”The applicant on that cold, dry winter day in the mountains was Steven Charles Bachar, a then-56-year-old former lawyer and businessman facing theft charges in Denver who has defied court orders to pay millions of dollars to companies that he took money from.The Crested Butte Fire Protection District runs background checks on volunteer applicants. In April 2022, that check came back showi...

1 dead in possible road rage shooting in Venice; suspect on the run

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

At least one person is dead following a shooting that happened at a busy intersection in Venice Monday afternoon.It happened around 12:15 p.m., near the intersection of the 90 Freeway and Lincoln Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.Video from Sky5 showed a dark-colored Volkswagen sedan parked in the roadway with a white investigation tent partially covering the vehicle. Those tents are often seen at the site of homicides. Several cars damaged in Woodland Hills road-rage incident (video) Details are limited at this time, but police confirmed that one person was killed.The suspect in the shooting was believed to be driving a black four-door Kia that was last seen driving northbound on Lincoln Boulevard. Although the motive for the shooting is under investigation, LAPD said road rage may have played a role.Lincoln Boulevard was closed as part of the investigation, with no estimated time for reopening.

Family loses toy elephant with son's ashes during Walt Disney World vacation

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

A family from Iowa says they are in desperate need of help after losing a precious toy elephant while visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida last week.On Saturday, Liz Atkinson made an impassioned post on Facebook asking for help after losing a stuffed elephant that once belonged to her late son Gabryel.Pictured here: Sebastyan Atkinson carries the stuffed elephant that once belonged to his late brother Gabryel. His mother, Liz Atkinson, says they lost the toy while on a trip to Disney World. (Liz Atkinson)Atkinson said the elephant, named Bruce, was given to her son when he was in the NICU and was with him for over 50 surgical procedures that were done to save his life. Unfortunately, Gabryel did not survive."He slept with it every night and since his passing my husband and I have had it in our bed with us," Atkinson said.To honor their son's memory, the Atkinson family took their surviving son, Sebastyan, to Disney World on Gabryel's birthday. Active field search ends fo...

Oakland A’s send top pitching prospect home to get ailing elbow examined

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

Rookie right-hander Mason Miller, a rare bright spot for the A’s this season and the franchise’s potential future ace, is headed back to Oakland after experiencing tightness in his throwing elbow.The 24-year-old Miller held the Seattle Mariners hitless for seven innings on May 2, his third big league start, and then followed that up Sunday by allowing five hits and two runs with five strikeouts in six innings at Kansas City on Sunday. Miller felt tightness in his elbow during his outing against the Royals, manager Mark Kotsay told reporters on Monday before the A’s opened a three-game series against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.“Rather than wait, he’s not scheduled to pitch for four days, we’re going to send him back to Oakland and have him get evaluated tomorrow,” Kotsay said. “From our end, and just the trainers doing the evaluation, it looks more to be like a flexor muscle as opposed to anything else. But we’re going to go th...

Is ChatGPT a sommelier in the making?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

By Peg Melnik, The Press Democrat (TNS)Mar. 24—Are wine professionals intimidated by ChatGPT, that upstart chatbot that recently passed three Master Sommelier theory exams?Chatbots are software designed to interact conversationally with humans. Think of the customer service pop-ups you see when you log onto your cell phone account.Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is trained to respond to questions with a detailed answer or offer a solution.“GPT-4 is a large multimodal model (accepting image and text inputs, emitting text outputs) that, while less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios, exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks,” according to OpenAI, which developed the software and launched it in partnership with Microsoft.The rigorous Master Sommelier exam is split into theory and practical sections. Wine professionals study for months to pass it.The questions are detailed, covering alternative methods of production for...

Cinco de Mayo traffic diversions were ‘strategic’ and ‘not new,’ San Jose police say

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

San Jose officials on Monday defended their choice to cut off freeway access to the city’s downtown for much of Cinco de Mayo weekend, saying the move was necessary to preserve safety, even while others criticized it as “racist” and “blatantly unconstitutional.”Speaking to the Bay Area News Group, San Jose police spokesman Ofc. Steven Aponte said that police leaders reached out to Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol to make requests for freeway off-ramp closures over Cinco de Mayo weekend.  The list of closures included northbound and southbound off-ramps from U.S. 101 at four different exits, as well as four exits from northbound Highway 87 and one exit in each direction from Interstate 280.The closures were in effect for huge stretches of the weekend, starting at 7 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and lasting until 2 a.m. the following morning on each day.In a statement last week, CalTrans cited public safety and an “organized ...

After release on bail in harrowing family abduction case, Las Vegas man allegedly sought hitman to kidnap family from Oakland or Fresno

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:33:57 GMT

FRESNO — Last October, Las Vegas resident Justin Junius Carter was arrested and charged with kidnapping his entire family at knifepoint and moving them to another city in Nevada, an alleged crime that authorities say was only thwarted because his estranged wife was able to sneak a 911 call in the moving vehicle without Carter noticing.But according to federal prosecutors, Carter’s arrest wasn’t enough to deter him. After posting $500,000 bail to secure his release on an ankle monitor with pending charges in Clark County, Nevada, Carter allegedly got online and offered a hitman $29,000 to once again abduct his wife and children.Now, Carter is facing federal charges of attempted kidnapping, to go with the ongoing kidnapping, burglary, and dissuading a witness state charges in Nevada. According to the federal criminal complaint, Homeland Security Investigations received a tip back in November from an unnamed “foreign law enforcement agency” stating Carter ...