One night when I was seven years old I saw a big fire in the house across the alley. My parents and I rushed over and saw a huge cross burning in the middle of south Broadway in front of our friend?s house. Men in sheets and white spiked headdress were marching around and shouting. Our neighbor was a popular doctor and he was also mayor of Englewood. His ?crime?? He was Jewish. Many years later, in high school, I finally understood what had happened that frightful night. The Ku Klux Klan was showing its power and its hatred.

Here?s how to make Manhattan restaurant food as bland as that of an institutional cafeteria: Prohibit restaurants from using salt in any of the food they serve. That?s the latest extreme effort to protect people from the perils of life, courtesy of a Brooklyn legislator who introduced a bill that would prohibit the use of salt in all restaurants in New York state.

Fruita is the only governmental entity in the valley that doesn?t have a marijuana dispensary. We must have done something right. Yes, the city of Fruita has a legal avenue for a marijuana dispensary to operate in Fruita, but to date not a single shop is open in Fruita. Why?

A little more than a year after Congress established the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area, state water officials and federal agencies are trying to reach agreement on how best to protect the waters of Big and Little Dominguez Creeks within the NCA boundaries. The BLM has proposed an unusal plan for resolving the issue, under which the state may file for instream water rights for the two streams that run through a wilderness area in the NCA. The concept is one the Colorado Water Conservation Board should accept when it takes up the question in May.

Christian zeal for love must exceed zeal to judge In answer to letter writer Andrew Linder, first and briefly, I would be pretty much in agreement with his assessment of the Bible as God?s word.

Grand Junction unemployment hit a current-recession high in January, climbing to 9.4 percent in the metropolitan area. The area was just beginning to experience sweeping job losses in January 2009, when the unemployment rate in Grand Junction was 5.5 percent.

State road crews had done some minor work inside the Hanging Lake Tunnels weeks before Monday?s rockslide on Interstate 70, but that work had nothing to do with the incident, Colorado Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday. The Daily Sentinel had received word that CDOT crews might have been blasting in Glenwood Canyon a few days before the slide occurred Monday, but department spokeswoman Mindy Crane said some people may be confusing that with routine rockfall mitigation that occurred last week in De Beque Canyon, which is more than 70 miles away.

Colorado?s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund has been broke for nearly two months, but those receiving unemployment checks need not worry their mailbox will be empty anytime soon. The fund officially ran out of state money Jan. 20, but the state has borrowed $122 million from the federal government as of Wednesday to keep benefits flowing to unemployment insurance recipients, according to Wayne Peel, chief financial officer of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. The state borrows the money from the federal government on a daily basis and does not exceed what the state needs to pay unemployment benefits.

An attorney for a man accused of killing his wife in western Colorado told a judge Wednesday that a life sentence would be ?inhuman? for his client, according to a British media report. Ben Cooper, who is fighting 46-year-old Marcus Bebb-Jones? extradition from England to Colorado, told a judge that life behind bars without the possibility of parole would be a ?grossly disproportionate? punishment if Bebb-Jones is convicted in the 1997 murder of his wife, Sabrina, according to a report from the British Broadcasting Corp.

Tom Barrett has always been involved in community events, but cancer had a way of dictating those events. The 53-year-old owner of Standard Tire & Service Center in Montrose now channels his focus toward raising money for the fight against cancer.

It?s too soon to tell how much it will cost to repair damage done to Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon because of a rockslide or how long it will take to fix it, Colorado Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday. But rest assured, despite the state?s revenue problems, CDOT will find the money needed to repair it, spokeswoman Mindy Crane said.

2 women sought in theft Crime Stoppers needs help finding two adult women who have been accused of stealing more than $2,000 worth of tools at 11:50 a.m. Feb. 28 from Murdoch?s Ranch & Home, 3217 Interstate 70 Business Loop.