Winter could coat mountains, dry plains
A wetter-than-average winter could be in store for Colorado’s high country, said Klaus Wolter, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.
“Indications point to a winter storm track hitting Colorado from the Northwest, and when that happens, the mountains usually receive above-average moisture in the winter,” said Wolter, who studies weather at the Cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Science, a joint institute of the University Colorado and NOAA.
The Pacific Northwest storm track, however, tends to mean drier than normal conditions for the Front Range and Eastern Plains, Wolter said.
“That storm pattern creates a downslope situation for us, so we tend to get the dry Chinook- type winds sweeping down from the Continental Divide instead of the moisture-laden storms,” Wolter said. “You just don’t get that many wet storms along the Front Range out of that type of weather pattern.”
Research grants rise for CU health sciences
Research grants committed to the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center are up 15 percent for 2005 to a total of $363 million, outgoing chancellor Dr. James Shore announced Thursday.
The money will fund a total of 1,618 projects, up from 1,521 projects funded last year.
The bulk of the money – 63 percent – comes from the National Institutes of Health. Another 7 percent comes from private foundations.
The remainder is from industry and state and local governments.
Starting Dec. 12, the Health Sciences Center will have a new interim chancellor, Dr. Gregory V. Stiegmann, to oversee that research and other operations at the hospital, medical, dental and nursing schools.
Shore will retire Dec. 11. Stiegmann has been vice president for clinical affairs at CU Hospital since 1997
Cougar hunters to be required to take class
The Colorado Wildlife Commission on Thursday decided to require mountain lion hunters to take a hunter-education class.
The requirement probably will become effective sometime in 2007, said Randy Hampton, a Division of Wildlife spokesman.
The class probably will focus on issues such as how to distinguish male and female lions and will cover trespassing rules.
Several conservation groups had requested that the class be required in order to reduce the number of female lions killed each year. They argue that too many females are killed, orphaning kittens.
“I think the commission deserves some credit for taking this step,” said Wendy Keefover- Ring, director of the carnivore protection program for Sinapu, a Boulder-based wildlife advocacy group. “We think it could go a long way in preventing kittens from being orphaned.”
Murder trial for boy, 14, set for March 20
Glenwood Springs – A first-degree murder trial has been set for March 20 for a 14-year-old Battlement Mesa teen accused of killing a 9-year- old.
Ninth Judicial District Judge T. Peter Craven set aside 10 days in March for a jury trial for Eric Alan Stoneman, who will be tried as an adult in the shooting of Taylor DeMarco on July 20.
Stoneman admitted to authorities afterward that he had shot DeMarco but said it was an accident. The two boys and another friend, Eric Warde, 13, had been playing video games at Warde’s trailer the day of the shooting, and Stoneman had gone home and returned with a pistol his mother kept under her bed.
Stoneman has been held without bail at the Grand Mesa Youth Services Center in Grand Junction since his arrest the day of the shooting.
Fugitive shot, killed after wielding weapon
A fugitive wanted by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was shot to death by a Colorado Springs police officer Thursday night when he brandished a weapon, police Lt. Rafael Cintron said.
No names were released.
Cintron said police were helping deputies and federal agents watch a home where they believed the fugitive was.
About 8:45 p.m. the fugitive and two other men came out of the house and started to leave in a car. Colorado Springs police attempted to stop the car and a short chase ensued, ending at the Corona and Columbia streets.
The fugitive jumped from behind the wheel of the car and fled on foot with four police officers in chase, Cintron said. After about a block, the fugitive confronted the officers and brandished a weapon, and he was shot by one of the officers.
The injured man was taken to Memorial Hospital, where he died, Cintron said.
Five new abuse suits filed against diocese
A Florida law firm filed five additional sexual-abuse lawsuits Thursday against the Diocese of Pueblo and the Marianists Province of the United States in connection with allegations of abuse of Roncalli High School students by Brother William Mueller.
Each of the victims is seeking in excess of $10 million in compensatory damages.
The victims attended Roncalli, which has since been turned into a public middle school, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the time of the alleged assaults, the Diocese of Pueblo owned the high school, and the Society of Mary (the Marianists) administered the facility with its priests and brothers.
Now 67 and living in San Antonio, Mueller, who resigned in 1986, has declined to comment.
He taught music and theology in Pueblo and has been accused of several assaults on students in the late 1960s.
At least three other men have filed suit because of Mueller.
