Democracy Is Failing

Less than two months after closing Cantina Loca, a Mexican restaurant at 2890 Zuni St., celebrated chef Dana Rodriguez is back at it. The owner of Super Mega Bien and Work & Class has plans to open a third concept in the former Il Posto space at 2601 Larimer St. in the River North Art District, according to documents filed with the city.

Coloradans will need eight hours of in-person training from a verified instructor to qualify for a concealed-carry permit under a new law. Gov. Jared Polis signed House Bill 1174 on Tuesday. It was part of a slew of bills dealing with firearm regulations passed by the legislature this year. The in-person training requirement includes passing a live-fire exercise and a written exam.

Colorado legal aid organizations will now have a new pot of money to draw from, thanks to a law signed Monday by Gov. Jared Polis. HB24-1286, dubbed the Equal Justice Fund Authority bill, will add roughly $2 million in funding for organizations that offer free civil legal services to low-income Coloradans.

A new report from the Colorado Department of Health and Human Services on the fatal beating of an 8-year-old boy blamed Denver Public Schools — not human services workers — for the child’s death. The department’s Child Fatality Review Team found no fault with human service workers in the death of 8-year-old Dametrious Wilson, pointing instead to “systemic gaps” and “deficiencies” within the school district, including a failure to report Wilson’s numerous absences to human services or as truancy. “DPS is not in agreement with CDHS concluding in their own report that the only system error they could identify lies solely with DPS and school attendance,” Denver Public Schools spokesperson Scott Pribble said in an emailed statement to the Denver Post. Pribble said the school district has been working on updating attendance guidelines and focusing on interventions for chronic absenteeism, which measures both unexcused and excused absences. “This work predates Dametrious’s murder,” Pribble said. State officials also criticized the school’s lack of communication with other family members when staff was unable to make contact with Susan Baffour — the boy’s great aunt and custodial guardian — to discuss Wilson’s absences, according to the report. On June 2, 2022, Baffour hit Wilson more than 40 times with a wooden back scrubber for tearing part of her couch.

By JAMES JORDAN and HARRIET MORRIS (Associated Press) ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets in response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory. Putin also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty. The recent actions by the West will further undermine international security and could lead to “very serious problems,” he said, taking questions from international journalists — something that has become extremely rare since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. “That would mark their direct involvement in the war against the Russian Federation, and we reserve the right to act the same way,” Putin added. The United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kyiv. On Wednesday, a Western official and a U.

The attacker who killed five people and injured 22 in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub in 2022 spent $9,000 on weapons-related purchases in the two years before the attack, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday. Anderson Aldrich, 24, patronized at least 56 different vendors between September 2020 and Nov.