Colorado

DENVER (AP) — The purpose of recent nighttime drone flights over northeast Colorado has remained a mystery to authorities who are trying to learn the identities of the operators.

The drones have flown over Phillips and Yuma counties for the last week, the Denver Post reported Monday.

The Phillips County Sheriff’s Office cannot explain where the drones are coming from or who is flying them.

DENVER (AP) — The Latest on the wintry weather in the U.S. (all times local):

9:20 p.m.

Stormy weather and a power outage have affected two Northern California airports as a storm hits the region.

KPIX-TV says the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a ground delay at San Francisco International Airport Tuesday because of the weather, cutting the number of arrivals in half.

The airport reported several hundred delayed flights and about two dozen cancellations.

AURORA, Colo. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke says he’s open to broadening his proposal to require owners of AK-47s and AR-15s to sell them to the government.

During an emotional town hall Thursday near the site of the Colorado theater shooting, a man who identified himself as a survivor of the 1999 Columbine massacre noted that the shooters there didn’t use the military-style weapons O’Rourke wants to take. They instead used regular semi-automatic weapons. He challenged O’Rourke to confiscate those arms as well.

DENVER, the United States, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Washington's trade policy has no direction and risks triggering the exact recession the U.S. administration fears most, said a renowned U.S. economist.

"Pure economic folly," said Vincent Smith, a visiting scholar at the esteemed conservative think tank of American Enterprise Institute, of the protracted trade war between the world's two largest economies.

"It is a trade policy with no direction, and a trade war that has no winners," the nationally renowned conservative economist told Xinhua.

DENVER (AP) — A black man was running from Colorado police officers when they shot him three times in the back and he collapsed on a street, according to footage from cameras worn by police and an autopsy report released Thursday.

The Colorado Springs Police Department released the video nearly two weeks after the death of 19-year-old De’Von Bailey, following calls from his family for the footage to be made public.

Attorneys for Bailey’s family separately released the autopsy report by the El Paso County coroner’s office.

DENVER (AP) — John Hickenlooper will drop out of the Democratic presidential primary on Thursday, according to a Democrat close to him.

The two-term former Colorado governor, who ran as a moderate warning of the perils of extreme partisanship, struggled with fundraising and low polling numbers. His planned departure from the 2020 race was confirmed Wednesday night by a Democrat who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly before the announcement and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — The disappearance of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews shortly after singing “Jingle Bells” with classmates at a 1984 Christmas concert stunned this rural town in northern Colorado. Her case attracted the attention of the White House, and came at a time when the faces of missing children across the nation were being placed on milk cartons.

DENVER (AP) — Republicans frustrated by losing their grip on political power in some Western states have begun deploying a new weapon: the recall.

Once reserved for targeting corrupt or inept elected officials, the recall has become part of the toolkit for Republicans seeking a do-over of election results. One GOP strategist in Colorado has put a name to it — “recall season.”

DENVER (AP) — A high school student charged in a classmate’s death during a Colorado school shooting told police that he planned the attack for weeks and intended to target classmates who repeatedly mocked his gender identity.

Written summaries of police interviews with the two suspected shooters portray 16-year-old Alec McKinney as the leader of the attack, enlisting 18-year-old Devon Erickson in the plan to kill the students who bullied McKinney, who identifies as male.

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado climber died shortly after getting to the top of Mount Everest and achieving his dream of scaling the highest peaks on each of the seven continents, his brother said Monday.

Christopher Kulish, a 62-year-old Boulder attorney, died Monday at a camp below the summit during his descent. The cause isn’t yet known, said his brother, Mark Kulish of Denver.

Christopher Kulish had just reached the top of Everest with a small group after crowds of hundreds of climbers congested the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak last week, his brother said.