DPS formed the 17-member committee in response to that requires all Colorado school districts to adopt a policy on student cellphone use by July 1. The law doesn’t require a ban; rather, it allows each district to come up with its own rules.

Cellphone bans are as schools try to reduce distractions in class and improve students’ mental health. Some educators are expanding technology prohibitions even further by .

While other Colorado districts , Denver, the state’s largest district with more than 89,000 students, does not. The committee of parents, educators, and community members was tasked by the district with coming up with recommendations, which the Denver school board heard for the first time Wednesday night.

that the DPS cellphone policy include:

• A ban on smartphones, smart watches, earbuds, and other technology not issued by schools from the start to the end of the school day for all students.
• A rule that phones must be inaccessible during school.
• Exceptions for students who need their phones for medical reasons or as part of a special education plan or disability accommodation.
• Training for parents on the district����ap emergency notification process.
• Revised student discipline rules that include consequences for violating the ban.
• That if educators don’t implement the policy consistently, “there is an intersectionality with their evaluations.” The recommendations don’t say how their evaluations could be affected.

The last point is in response to teachers who said bans are hard to enforce if the teacher next door is more lax, said Sarah Almy Moore, a parent and former DPS employee who was on the committee. That inconsistency is partly what inspired the idea of a bell-to-bell ban, she said.

“The policy of putting the phones away just for in-class doesn’t seem to be working effectively, even though the students themselves might like it,” Almy Moore said.

Abraham Lincoln High School principal Néstor Bravo was also on the committee. He said he supports a blanket ban because allowing students to have their phones at lunch or during bathroom breaks can become an opportunity for them to get “a quick hit of Instagram.”

“As we try to address the problem of cellphones as an addiction that compromises social interaction, we were thinking of a K-12 policy that is standard but it also prepares our children for when they become teenagers,” Bravo said.

School board members Marlene De La Rosa and Kimberlee Sia will take the lead on crafting a proposed policy based on the recommendations. The current timeline calls for them to introduce the policy next week, and for the board to take a final vote on June 11.

The district plans to survey families about the proposed policy in May. The board will also hear public comment about the proposal at its May and June meetings.

One teacher and three parents spoke at Wednesday’s public comment session. Two were in favor of a proposed ban and two were opposed.

Katie Sams, a teacher at one of the district����ap alternative high schools, said her students are often older and dealing with complicated factors in their lives. They may need phones to communicate with employers, child care providers, or even parole officers, she said.

But parent Jamie Chesser said she wants her children, ages 12 and 14, to build strong friendships with classmates and relationships with teachers at school, not be isolated on a screen.

“We need to remove cellphones from schools for the sake of our children’s futures,” she said. “This is not punishment. It is for their good health. This is about love for the kids.”

This story , a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

The store announced the closure Monday morning .

Store owner Dylah Ray said in an interview that the shop has always been both a community space and a bookstore.

“We’ve really achieved our mission-driven work in being a safe space for the queer community and to be a literary and artistic hub,” Ray said. “On the flip side, that community building doesn’t necessarily always equate to financial success. The business is not financially feasible, particularly with high rents in Denver. We are still looking forward to maintaining community presence and being involved in both the queer and literary scenes here in Denver.”

A medley of memories comes to mind when Ray thinks about her proudest achievement, running the store. Highlights include when the shop was an organizing hub for Amendment J, which passed in 2024 and repealed the definition of marriage in the Colorado Constitution as being only between a man and a woman. 

“It was what I love bookstores to be — a place of civic engagement, activism, community building,” Ray said.

The shop held monthly poetry slams and won numerous local awards for best bookstore in the city.

Seven people chose the shop for their engagement, Ray said.

“We helped plan them and hide the rings in a book, and we are happy to be part of those folks’ stories,” Ray said.

The store, located at 956 Santa Fe Drive, was founded in 2022. The shop often held community events and doubled as a writer’s workshop with a table dedicated to writers to practice their craft and learn from industry professionals.

Ray doesn’t know what’s next for her yet, but said she looks forward to writing her own book and continuing to be in the literary and activism scene.

Previously scheduled events at the shop will continue, but the last day of regular store hours —  open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday through Sunday — will be April 12.

The shop asked patrons to continue supporting the store through buying books on and and selecting Petals & Pages as the bookshop.

“Thank you for an incredible chapter,” the closure announcement said. “We will miss this little bookstore, but are so thankful that we have you all in our story.”

THORNTON — A Colorado woman whose son died from a fentanyl-laced pill he bought through social media celebrated a this week against Meta and YouTube that she said opened the door for companies to be held responsible for harms to children using their platforms.

“The truth is out, and it����ap time that they are held accountable for the design of the platforms,” said Kimberly Osterman, whose son Max died in 2021 at age 18. “They put profits over safety.”

Flipping through photo albums Thursday at her home in Colorado, Osterman reflected on “the days before social media. The days before the infinite scrolling lured him in.” Photos of him in frames with hearts and angel’s wings dotted the shelves.

Osterman said Max arranged to meet a drug dealer he connected with on Snapchat and purchased what he thought was Percocet. The pill was laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl, and he was dead the next morning. Osterman is pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit that is separate from cases decided this week.

In Los Angeles on Wednesday, both YouTube and Meta, which owns and operates platforms including Instagram and Facebook, liable for harms to children for designing their platforms to hook young users. The companies said they disagreed with the verdicts and may appeal.

And in a jury determined that Meta knowingly and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Meta said it would appeal.

Snapchat����ap parent company, Snap Inc., in January just before the Los Angeles trial began. TikTok also agreed to settle, and details were not disclosed.

Osterman is part of Parents for Safe Online Spaces, or ParentsSOS, a group that includes parents who have lost children to online harm and advocate for more regulation. It has campaigned for the , pending federal legislation that would require social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent harm on platforms minors are likely to use.

She hopes to see social media companies enact strict guardrails, such as age verification technology, to prevent anyone under 18 from accessing the platforms.

“You think your kids are safe in their home, in their bedroom, but that����ap not the way it is with the current status of social media,” she said.

Osterman knew Max used Snapchat to communicate with friends but did not realize the danger he was in. She said he loved lacrosse and wrestling and was academically brilliant.

The man who sold the pill to him, Sergio Guerra-Carrillo, was sentenced to six years in prison on two distribution charges in 2023.

Snapchat did not immediately comment Thursday when asked about Osterman’s case. The company has said previously that it uses cutting-edge technology to proactively find and shut down drug dealers’ accounts and blocks search results for drug-related terms.

It is not yet clear whether the recent verdicts against the social platforms will . But the verdicts demonstrate a growing willingness to hold major social media companies responsible and demand meaningful change. Tech watchdogs expect they will open the door for more lawsuits and regulations.

The shock drubbing, delivered ahead of a formal assembly vote next week, was among signs that Democrats participating in the party’s caucuses and assemblies are dissatisfied with incumbent officials. Some other incumbents, including U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in his reelection race and Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s race, have been leaning on the petition route to the ballot rather than facing primary opponents at the March 28 state assembly.

At the Denver Democrats’ county assembly on Saturday, Kiros — a 28-year-old doctoral student and former lawyer — won 646 votes, or 63%, compared to DeGette’s 336 votes, or 32%. The result was the first time DeGette, 68, has lost a county assembly vote since she entered Congress in 1997, Kiros’ campaign said.

If that level of support holds at the party’s 1st Congressional District assembly on March 27, Kiros will cruise to a place on the June 30 primary ballot. DeGette, meanwhile, cannot afford to lose any more ground: If fewer than 30% of delegates support her at that virtual assembly, she won’t make the ballot at all. Time is rapidly running out to switch tactics and get on the ballot by submitting voter signatures, with petitions due to the state on Wednesday.

“I think it����ap a testament to the organizing we were doing and the lack of organizing (DeGette) was doing on her part — and her thinking she would coast through,” Kiros said in an interview. ” … It was just an incredible, incredible day, and I’m really proud of what our campaign was able to accomplish.”

DeGette campaign spokeswoman Jennie Peek-Dunstone said the congresswoman “received more than the required threshold and we are confident she will be on the primary ballot.”

The polling win does not, by itself, mean that Kiros is a front-runner to prevail in the June 30 primary election, and her campaign will still need to flip DeGette delegates if it wants to keep the congresswoman off the ballot. That’s far from a sure thing, especially for a candidate with the experience and name recognition of DeGette.

But it does speak to the Kiros’ campaign’s organizing capabilities, and the results also represent something of a wakeup call, said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver.

“DeGette and others know their party and the people associated with it are not terribly popular right now,” he said. “Democrats in general elections have the wind at their back right now, but incumbents in primaries — not so much. It����ap a harder environment.”

DeGette faces progressive challenge

A first-time candidate and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, Kiros previously worked as a lawyer in New York. She was fired after writing in late 2023 criticizing law firms — including her own — that had signed onto a letter opposing anti-Israel protests. She then moved back to Colorado and entered a Ph.D program at the University of Colorado Denver.

She’s run a progressive challenge to DeGette, backing “Medicare for All,” universal child care and an embargo on arms sales to Israel, a nation that she has accused of committing a genocide against Palestinians.

Kiros has also been endorsed by the Justice Democrats, a left-wing Democratic group that’s backed candidates like now-U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna and Ilhan Omar.

In her Denver assembly speech Saturday, DeGette accused Kiros of lying about her — a comment that drew boos from the audience.

Already a longtime supporter of Medicare for All, DeGette has backed more progressive causes in the past year. She for a halt to providing offensive arms to Israel, and she told assembly-goers Saturday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished and that she wouldn’t support any funding for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. Those pledges drew cheers.

Kiros’ preference poll win was fueled by pre-assembly organizing, her campaign and supporters said, particularly on the part of the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Deep Singh Badhesha, a DSA member who supported Kiros’ campaign, said organizers had group chats, stickers, food — they’d even set up a system to find babysitters for those who needed it. Such organization also helped the campaign sidestep technology problems that delayed the assembly, he said.

Those tech problems have contributed to lingering concerns among the DeGette campaign about assignment of delegates for the assembly next week, though her campaign said she was not disputing Kiros’ polling victory.

The assembly results come amid a broader surge of challenges to incumbent Democrats nationwide by often-younger and more progressive candidates. More than a dozen Democratic U.S. House members will face primary challenges this spring and summer, .

Some of the contests pit older incumbents against newcomers. Some feature moderates competing against liberals. Some of the matchups have resulted from the nationwide redistricting wars that redrew incumbents’ seats. Most of the races share a common ingredient: challengers seeking to move past the party’s losses in 2024 — and to bring more energy to the fight against President Donald Trump.

“Within the Democratic Party, it����ap this notion of how you best respond to a country that Trump is dominating when you’re all, as Democrats, unhappy with that,” Paul Teske, a professor at CU Denver and former longtime dean of its School of Public Affairs, told The Denver Post on Tuesday. (Kiros was a student of Teske’s last year.)

In addition to Kiros, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James is also running against DeGette in the primary. She did not participate in the assembly process Saturday and planned to file a petition to make the ballot.

‘Scared of the base’

Elsewhere, in the Democratic race for governor, Bennet’s campaign as he filed his primary ballot petition that he wouldn’t also seek a spot on the ballot through the caucus and assembly process. His rival, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, is relying on next week’s state assembly in Pueblo to make the primary ballot.

State Sen. Julie Gonzales has launched a progressive Senate primary campaign against Hickenlooper, who dropped out of the assembly process last week after initially participating. Hickenlooper’s campaign noted that he didn’t complete the assembly process during his first Senate campaign in 2020 and that he’s already submitted petitions for his place on the primary ballot.

In an interview, Gonzales countered that the senator was “scared of the base.”

Some left-wing-versus-moderate fights are set for state legislative races, too. In the Colorado attorney general’s race, two newcomer candidates, David Seligman and Hetal Doshi, are challenging Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic nomination.

In a news release Tuesday morning, Seligman’s campaign said he led Griswold by 2 percentage points in a straw poll of Democratic assembly delegates statewide.

Teske and Masket underscored that success in the Democrats’ assembly process, which often draws more progressive or active party members, does not necessarily translate to a high likelihood of victory in the June primaries.

Kiros’ campaign and organizing helped turn out motivated and informed delegates and supporters Saturday, and they seemed to catch DeGette flat-footed. But the June contest will feature tens of thousands of voters, including many who are unaffiliated, and will require campaign organizing on a vastly different scale.

It will also require money. DeGette had more than $535,000 on hand as of Dec. 31, compared to Kiros’ $64,000. After 30 years in office, which has included DeGette sweeping aside the occasional primary challenge, she can also boast strong name recognition.

“I was surprised,” Teske said of Saturday’s results. “I think Melat’s campaign organized well, got a lot of people out, got young people excited. … Whether it builds any momentum or changes anything is hard to say, because it����ap still hard to beat an incumbent.”

The New York Times contributed to this story.

David Ajiri, 25, turned himself in at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on Monday after a warrant was issued for his arrest more than two weeks earlier, on Feb. 20, according to court records.

Ajiri was arrested on suspicion of extortion, posting private images/harassment and posting private images for pecuniary gain, according to Jefferson County court records.

Investigators have identified one victim but believe there are many more who have not yet been identified or who have not yet come forward, according to a news release from the Arvada Police Department. The man targeted women and girls as young as 14 and had been active since at least 2018, police said.

“Evidence indicates Ajiri targeted women nationwide, not only in Arvada,” officials stated in the release.

Police believe Ajiri used dating apps and social media to contact women and convince them to send intimate photos and videos for money, according to the release. He frequently sent altered or fake transaction receipts to make it appear he had paid other women and allegedly posed as women who claimed to have been paid by him before to build trust with his victims, police said.

The victims were never paid, and investigators believe Ajiri threatened to send their intimate images or videos to friends and family unless they continued to provide sexual content, money or both, police said.

“In many cases, Ajiri reportedly sent victims a detailed bulleted list of specific image and video requests with explicit instructions,” officials stated. “Evidence also indicates that Ajiri sold some of the content online.”

“Detectives understand that these crimes are deeply personal and often traumatic, and they encourage victims to come forward so investigators can fully understand the scope of this case and pursue justice,” the statement continued.

Arvada police said aliases used by Ajiri include:

• Anthony
• Anthony Matthews
• Adam Russell
• Brad Manning
• Brandon Cress
• Brandon Ali
• Christan Morris
• Cristian Ortiz
• Damon A
• Danny Rodriguez
• Dante
• Dave E
• Dave Jordan
• David Andrews
• David E
• David Jaeger
• DJay
• Dylan M
• Dylan Michaels
• Jay
• Jay A
• Kels
• Kelsi
• Kens
• Kensi
• Kensy
• Kenzie
• Lexi
• Mckenzie
• McKenzie Jensenn
• Mike Brandon
• Mike Green

Police also identified several social media accounts believed to belong to Ajiri, including:

• brandc428, on Instagram
• brandoncress87, on Instagram
• chris.morris98, on Snapchat
• crort786, on Instagram
• cro6788, on Instagram
• dajiri8535, on Snapchat davidandrews2054, on Instagram
• dmol678, on Instagram
• kenslove3, on Snapchat
• mikebrown867, on Snapchat
• mikegreen876, on Instagram
• mikegbrandon0, on Instagram
• nbalifer23, on Instagram
• oc65ks, on Instagram

Anyone who has communicated with Ajiri under the names or on the accounts listed above, or who believes they may have been a victim of sextortion connected to this investigation, is asked to contact the Arvada Police Department at 720-898-7171 and reference case AR25004692.

Ajiri is next scheduled to appear in court on March 19 for a hearing on bail, court records show.

Heck, yeah, Brock Nelson put family first this week.

And good for him. The Avalanche center’s got four young, adorable kids at home, Daddy’s spent the last three weeks in the Alps, grinding through Olympic mode. He deserves a day off to be with the people he loves.

Here’s what he doesn’t deserve: Becoming a political pawn that conveniently fits your worldview.

Nelson avoided President Donald Trump’s company on Tuesday, one of five members of USA Hockey’s gold-medal-winning men’s roster to do so. The Avs’ veteran forward took a pass on a visit to the White House and no-thanks to a seat during the State of the Union address. Social media reacted with its usual grace and thoughtful, nonpartisan restraint.

The Avs told The Post’s Corey Masisak that it was a family decision. Again: Three weeks abroad. Four young kids. Can’t we leave it at that? Shouldn’t we leave it at that?

“I would love to check out the White House. I think it’s an incredible honor,” Nelson told reporters early Wednesday evening. “Everyone who’s American, I think if you have that opportunity, it’s an incredible one. Kind of bummed that I missed it but for me, (it) just didn’t work out.”

Nelson’s got a family to feed. And a job to do. There’s nothing in the contract when you’ve got a Wednesday morning skate in Salt Lake City.

Buckle up, Captain America. Let’s freaking go. The Avs (37-9-9) open a compacted second half of the NHL slate late Wednesday in Utah, then host the Minnesota Wild the very next night. Colorado plays 10 games over the next 18 days. Six of those 10 are on the road.

The march to the Stanley Cup is officially underway. If Nelson wants to recharge his battery at home and not glad-hand with politicians in D.C., that’s his prerogative.

“It will present a little bit of a challenge for us, not having gone through some things as a team,” coach Jared Bednar said Tuesday before the team flew out to Utah. “I think we did everything we can do to get our guys that were here ready. And they looked really good again (Tuesday). And I think their attitudes are right. I think the guys coming from the Olympics are sharp and ready to go. They’ve just been playing some of the most intense hockey that they’ve ever played, so that we should be able to piece it together here for (Wednesday) night.”

The Avs are going for it, kids. As well they should. Colorado just flipped another piece of their ’21 Cup champs, defenseman Sam Girard ($5 million cap hit), for the bigger, cheaper Brett Kulak ($2.75 million). Tuesday’s Sammy G swap was the kind of trade that feels like the opening salvo of a series of Chris MacFarland moves that also address 3C (Kadri? O’Reilly? Coyle?); veteran depth; and bottom-six guys who can bang in the postseason.

“We like the team we have,” Bednar stressed. “I mean, any pieces that we can add just adds more depth, more options for the rigors that come ahead.”

Don’t focus on the politics. Focus on logistics. who did visit the White House Tuesday, only four — Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck, Utah’s Clayton Keller and Vegas’ Jack Eichel and Noah Hanfin — had games scheduled on Wednesday in either the Mountain or Pacific time zones.

Hellebuyck stuck around to the bitter end for his Presidential Medal of Freedom announcement, which was more than understandable. Keller reportedly skipped the State of the Union to head west for Avs-Mammoth. Eichel and Noah Hanifin, who stayed in Washington throughout, won’t play in Vegas’ Wednesday evening tilt in Vancouver.

Nelson, meanwhile, remains as ‘Merican as Chevrolet and apple pie, as long as the former’s got snow tires and the latter’s served cold.

The Avs forward hails from the tiny northern Minnesota town of Warroad, about 8 miles south of the Canadian border. He’s part of one of the coolest Olympic legacies in American hockey, too, a third-generation gold-medal winner. His grandfather, Bill Christian, won gold with the Stars & Stripes in 1960, scoring two goals in America’s first-ever victory over the Soviets. Nelson always believed in Miracles, because he grew up hearing about one of the biggest — his uncle, Dave Christian, was a defenseman for Team USA’s golden 1980 men’s hockey team.

Big Brock already gave at the office. And gave plenty. Nelson’s two goals at the Olympics were tied for third on Team USA, and he finished the tourney with three points and a plus-1 rating over six games and 81 minutes of ice time.

Remember early December? When Denver dreamed of three championship parades in 2026? Yeah, well, Nikola Jokic got hurt. Christian Braun got hurt. Peyton Watson got hurt. Aaron Gordon got re-hurt. Sean Payton was too proud, too stubborn, to kick a short field goal and go up 10-0 with a Super Bowl on the line.

Fast forward two months, and the Avs are the best hope the Front Range has of partying with a trophy at Civic Center Park. When Nelson goes to the White House, it’ll be with Lord Stanley in tow.

But to get there, Bednar needs eyes clear, hearts full and legs fresh. Veteran legs, especially. Nelson’s 34 with hair that looks 15 years older, a silver fox who’s having one of the best seasons (49 points in 55 games) of an excellent NHL career.

He’s also running out of shots to win a ring before he hangs up the skates. If you’re not putting your family and the Avs ahead of a photo op in D.C., you’re doing it wrong.

That means ticket-holders will soon receive an email from seller Ticketmaster about the previously announced May 5 Denver show, which is now canceled. It’s disappearing from the schedule along with concerts in Charlotte, N.C. (on April 8, the tour kickoff), Atlanta (April 12), Nashville (April 14), and Las Vegas (May 8).

The 33-year-old said Tuesday they were postponing the It’s Not That Deep Tour to protect their health, according to . Lovato had originally been scheduled to start in Charlotte, but will now begin the tour in Orlando, Fla., on April 13.

“I need to build in more time to rest and rehearse and ultimately adjust to a schedule with some more time off that will allow me to handle the entire run of the tour,” Lovato wrote.

Tickets for the Denver show have been on sale since October, , “This is gonna be so much fun, I can’t even contain it… SEE YOU SO SOON.”

Ticket-holders of Ball Arena concerts, typically sold through Ticketmaster, will receive an email with refund or exchange details, according to promoters.

“I am so sorry to those who planned to be there,” Lovato wrote of the cancellations.

In social media accounts, Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and (expletive) guitar strummer from Colorado.” She said she was currently “experiencing Minneapolis,” displaying a pride flag emoji on her .

A profile picture posted to Pinterest shows her smiling and holding a young child against her cheek, along with posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.

Her ex-husband, who on the condition he not be named out of concern for the safety of their children, said Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school Wednesday and was driving home with her current partner when they encountered a group of ICE agents on a snowy street in Minneapolis.

“That����ap so stupid” that she was killed, her mother Donna Ganger said, after learning about some of the circumstances from a reporter, the . “She was probably terrified.”

Ganger told the newspaper that her daughter was “not part of anything like that at all,” referring to the protesters challenging ICE agents in Minneapolis.

Good and her partner had moved to the city last year from Kansas City, Missouri, her ex-husband said.

Video taken by bystanders posted to social media shows an officer approaching her car, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. When she begins to pull forward, a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range.

In another video taken after , a distraught woman is seen sitting near the vehicle, wailing, “That����ap my wife, I don’t know what to do!”

Calls and messages to Good’s current partner received no response.

Other relatives, including Good’s parents, could not be reached or did not return requests for comment from The Denver Post on Thursday.

Her parents live in Valley Falls, Kansas, northwest of Kansas City, and a man at the home told a reporter they weren’t ready to speak to the media, .

It’s not clear how long Good lived in Colorado, but she was registered as an unaffiliated voter beginning in 2008. She last voted in El Paso County in 2014. Her registration was inactive after that and was canceled in January 2025, state voter records show.

Her voter registration records list four different Colorado Springs addresses through 2014.

Trump administration officials painted Good as a domestic terrorist who had attempted to ram federal agents with her car. Her ex-husband said she was no activist and that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind.

Good appears to have never been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a 2012 traffic ticket in El Paso County.

Her ex-husband described her as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger. She loved to sing, participating in a chorus in high school and studying vocal performance in college.

“She was a lovely person, and it����ap tragic to me,” Jane Scharl, a childhood friend who met Good at their church in Colorado Springs, . “I wish people would stop politicizing it so badly right out of the gate and just let people mourn.”

Good studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia and won a prize in 2020 for one of her works, a poem titled according to a post on the school’s . Her poetry was published in Metrosphere and Coronado Literary Review, according to the university.

“When she is not writing, reading or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons,” the school’s English department wrote.

Good graduated from Old Dominion in December 2020 with an English degree, according to a statement from university president Brian O. Hemphill.

“This is yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation,” Hemphill said in the statement. “…May Renée’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love and peace. My hope is for compassion, healing and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”

Good also hosted a podcast with her second husband, , a U.S. Air Force veteran and stand-up comedian who died in 2023.

She had a daughter and her son from her first marriage, who are now ages 15 and 12. Her 6-year-old son was from her marriage to Macklin.

Her ex-husband said she had primarily been a stay-at-home mom in recent years but had previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union.

“Renée was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger, her mother, told the Star Tribune. “She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

Good, her partner and her son moved away from Kansas City in December 2024, .

Joan Rose told the Kansas City news station that she was shocked to learn her former neighbor was the person killed by ICE in Minneapolis: “I know that we’re all affected by the ICE raids going on right now. I didn’t think it would hit this hard, this close to home.”

Good petitioned a Missouri court to change her name from Renée Nicole Macklin to Renée Nicole Macklin Good in 2023 because, she said, “I want to share a name with my partner,” the .

At the time of the petition, which was granted, Good’s two older children lived in Colorado and the youngest lived in Kansas City, according to the newspaper.

A set up to raise money for Good’s partner and son had raised more than $1 million by Thursday evening.

Denver Post staff writers Shelly Bradbury, Sam Tabachnik, Elizabeth Hernandez and Katie Langford, and Greeley Tribune staff writer Andrea Grajeda, contributed to this report.

The second result — — is the legitimate news site run by dozens of CU Boulder student journalists who take photographs and write articles about local sports, student government, arts and culture, and campus goings-on.

Their website warns that the news organization is “not affiliated with cuindependent.com,” the web address the CU Independent had used since 2009.

The imposter site is confusing readers with articles that appear to be generated by artificial intelligence and is siphoning pageviews from real student reporting, the CUI’s journalists say. They’ve spent hundreds of dollars of their own money to try to fix the problem, enlisted lawyers and even tried to get the Colorado Bureau of Investigation involved.

Students built an entirely new website — the version now found at cuindependent.org — over the summer in hopes of disentangling themselves from the old one.

“In my time as editor-in-chief, I would love to spend more time working on our reporting than trying to fix this website that’s impersonating us,” said Greta Kerkhoff, who is serving as the CUI’s editor-in-chief this academic year.

The CUI has no official connection to the university’s journalism program, but department chair Patrick Ferrucci said the faculty wishes the student publication’s editorial staff success as it works to resolve this “unfortunate situation.”

“Online AI-generated content can be inauthentic and misleading and should not be confused with high-quality community journalism, professional ethics and editorial standards, and the skills of dedicated student journalists honing their craft at CU Boulder and at other colleges and universities,” Ferrucci said in a statement.

When a reporter from The Denver Post messaged the imposter site asking who was behind it, the emailed response ignored the question entirely, instead offering prices from $149 to $299 that could be paid for articles with “quick link integration into content that����ap already resonating with our audience.”

‘It feels incredibly malicious’

Nobody knows who is running the knock-off site, which claims to be an evolution of CU Boulder’s student-run campus news outlet with roots dating back to 1978. The site purports to still be the CUI, but “a little bit different.”

“Our team believes in the freedom to speak, feel and explore who we are,” the imposter website says on its “about” page. “We still honor what CU Independent stood for: strong voices, independent thought and stories that matter. You’ll see new faces and new sections, but the heart stays the same.”

The website lists seemingly fictitious writers and advisers alongside what appear to be AI-generated photos and author biographies. Some of those bios claim the site’s journalists — who are supposed to be college students gaining experience — are “seasoned reporters” with more than a dozen years of experience in the journalism industry. A Google search of those reporters’ names did not turn up results elsewhere.

In at least one case, the image of a real journalist is used. The imposter CUI website features a bio of a writer named that includes a photo of , an

As the site located at their longtime web address keeps posting new AI-generated articles that have nothing to do with CU, the student journalists say they are at their wits’ end. Above all, they worry about their journalistic reputation being tarnished.

“It is clearly being done by someone who knows every legal loophole,” said Jessica Sachs, the CUI’s editor-in-chief during the 2024-2025 academic year and a current CU Boulder journalism student. “It feels incredibly malicious.”

How did a rogue website become the bane of these students’ existence?

The answer isn’t entirely clear, but years of unorganized cybersecurity management likely contributed to the situation, Sachs said.

‘Kind of a security nightmare’

Since the CUI website’s inception — the publication, then still named the Campus Press, became online-only in 2006 — a revolving door of college students had access to the various passwords and permissions for the publication’s WordPress content-management system without much organization or documentation.

“It was kind of a security nightmare,” Sachs said. “I made it my mission to fix everything as much as I could.”

Last year, during Sachs’ tenure as editor-in-chief, she said the cuindependent.com domain registration was about to expire, but nobody knew who the original account-holder was or had the password needed to renew the account. Sachs said she went back five or six generations of editors-in-chief, but could not find the keeper of the domain.

For years, she said, the entire website went down — sometimes for just 24 to 48 hours — whenever the registration lapsed, only to come back online after the unknown account holder paid the bill.

“That was way too stressful,” Sachs said.

To avoid that drama, Sachs enlisted the help of a computer science freshman who spent last summer building a replica of the CUI website, along with its archives, at the cuindependent.org address.

The students thought they had solved their problems. The new website was up and running. The old site vanished for about nine months.

But when Kerkhoff took over as CUI editor-in-chief this academic year, the old .com address came roaring back. Someone had apparently bought up the expired web address. (The current site, like many webpages, is registered anonymously through GoDaddy.)

The old domain featured what appeared to be AI-generated content on a website posting as the student news outlet. Articles on the impersonator site range from “How many albums does Drake have?” to “Why does my hair hurt when I move it another direction?” to “Is Freddie Highmore actually autistic?”

The fake site initially used the real CUI’s trademarked logo and linked to the news organization’s social media pages, but whoever was behind it eventually made their own logo and created fake CUI Instagram and Facebook pages, rendering Kerkhoff’s attempt to report trademark abuse moot.

“Whoever is doing this seems to have a good understanding of media law because they narrowly scrape by with what they can get away with,” Kerkhoff said.

Kerkhoff said she spent her own money hiring a domain broker to try to buy back the .com site to no avail. Out of options, she contacted the , which connected her with a lawyer.

Protecting students’ intellectual property

Attorney Alexandra Bass, who is representing the student newsroom, said copycat websites are becoming increasingly common and the rise of AI further contributes to “the chaos.”

“This can be particularly harmful to student newsrooms whose staff often changes from year to year,” Bass said in a statement. “…Student newsrooms should consider designating a person responsible for domain maintenance and implementing a documented process to manage their domains amid transitions.”

Copycat news sites use AI to mass-produce content quickly, generating revenue from ads and affiliate links, Bass said. It’s not easy to prove the imposter site is generating money, which is why Kerkhoff said the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s business fraud unit couldn’t take on the case.

Bass advised the student journalists to document instances of public confusion and file a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy complaint to have the copycat site taken down and, ideally, get the domain transferred back to them.

The CUI is in the process of filing such a complaint (), the student editors said, and they’ve reported the fraudulent website to nearly every entity they can imagine.

The fight, though, has even impacted the CUI’s new .org site. The student reporters’ new site has experienced intermittent problems with security pop-ups and blocked access for some visitors. When Kerkhoff brought the issue to WordPress, she said employees with the content management system told her the CUI’s site was secure.

She believes the repeated reports made by CUI staff against the imposter website are being misattributed to the .org address, triggering those error messages.

Jonathan Gaston-Falk, an attorney with the Student Press Law Center, said the CU Boulder students’ case and others involving AI are difficult to pursue because it’s hard to find an actual human or legal entity against whom to lodge grievances like copyright infringement.

“That����ap increasingly difficult when the lines are blurred as to who is actually running or managing some of these websites,” Gaston-Falk said. “We’re very proud of these student journalists who are stepping up not only to report it but to protect their intellectual property. This student leader (Kerkhoff ) has been absolutely dogged in trying to protect her and her newsroom’s rights here, so we’re very happy about that.”

“Just Under Armour,” the former CU Buffs offensive lineman texted me from his vacation in Nashville.

While on the road with his fiancée, Fenske’s also been keeping an eye on an old CU teammate, Oregon’s starting right tackle?

Harkey, a 6-foot-6, 327-pound redshirt senior, is prepping for a Friday night showdown with Indiana — and another former CU player, the Hoosiers’ Kahlil Benson — in one College Football Playoff semifinal. The Ducks’ bruiser helped Oregon put up 245 passing yards and convert four fourth-down conversions on The Best Defense Money Can Buy, blanking Texas Tech 23-0 in the Orange Bowl.

He’d transferred into CU as a 305-pounder out of Tyler (Texas) Junior College, a 3-star who was weighing offers from Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion. After appearing in 12 games, largely as a reserve guard, Harkey was one of the kids from swept out in the great Deion Sanders roster purge during the spring of 2023.

Fenske, who played in seven games with the Buffs in ’22, was Harkey’s roommate at CU. He got swept away, too. Under Armour was out, Louis Vuitton luggage was in.

“(Harkey has) done incredible, man,” Fenske gushed. “Because when he first came in (to CU), he wasn’t what he is now. And just seeing his transformation from being a (backup) guard on a 1-11 team to being a first-round or second-round (NFL) draft pick …”

Big Alex could play. So could wideout Jordyn Tyson (Arizona State). And And quarterback Owen McCown, once he’d had some more brisket. McCown, who threw for 30 touchdowns at UTSA this past fall — including three in a 57-20 win over Florida International in the First Responder Bowl.

“We just stay connected, support each other’s success,” Harris, who still belongs to a group chat of former Buffs, told me over the weekend. “You’ve got to expect the unexpected. That (purge) hit us all in the mouth.”

CU fans talk a lot — a lot — about 1-11 in 2022. About rock bottom. About Coach Prime lighting the candle for the climb out of obscurity.

All of it true. But what we won’t talk as much about is just how young that 2022 team actually was. Heading into the opener, 33 of the 81 dudes on that CU depth chart were freshmen. Twenty-three were sophomores. It showed.

“I get that it’s a multimillion-dollar business,” Fenske said. “But what’s missing in college football is the developmental piece to it. For Philip Rivers to come back (to the NFL) after five years (retired) and be better than half the QBs in the NFL, that’s not a talent issue. That’s a development issue …

“I want (the Buffs) to do well, but man, they missed out. They really missed out on (Harkey). Even when he wasn’t a starter, he always kind of carried himself with a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to get better. He knows ball. He was a great person to be around.”

Hindsight is a fickle mistress. You don’t have 2023’s sugar rush and 2024’s Big 12 title chase without Coach Prime. Or without Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, if we’re being frank about it.

Yet you also could field a pretty darned good college football lineup out of players who left CU’s program following the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons. Check out tthese Post-Prime All-Stars, all ex-Buffs, and their 2025 stat lines:

OFFENSE

QB — Owen McCown, UTSA, 30 TD passes, 7 interceptions

RB — Anthony Hankerson, Oregon State, 1,086 rushing yards

LT — Isaiah Jatta, BYU, 64.1 Pro Football Focus grade

LG — Zack Owens, Mississippi State, 56.0 PFF grade

C — Van Wells, Oregon State, 63.6 PFF grade

RG/RT — Kahlil Benson, Indiana, 72.5 PFF grade

RT — Alex Harkey, Oregon, 64.2 PFF grade

TE — Seydou Traore, Mississippi State, five TD catches

TE — Chamon Metayer, Arizona State, four TD catches

WR — Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State, eight TD catches

WR — Chase Sowell, Iowa State, 500 receiving yards

DEFENSE

DL — Dayon Hayes, Texas A&M, four sacks

DL — Chazz Wallace, NC State, 70.9 PFF grade

DL — Shakaun Bowser, UTEP, 62.3 PFF grade

LB — Nikhai Hill-Green, Alabama, two forced fumbles

LB — Jeremy Mack Jr., Old Dominion, six sacks

LB — Johnny Chaney Jr., FIU, three sacks

CB — Colton Hood, Tennessee, eight pass break-ups

CB — Simeon Harris, Fresno State, five interceptions

CB — Kyndrich Breedlove, Arizona State, five pass break-ups

S — Trevor Woods, Jacksonville State, three forced fumbles

S — Myles Slusher, Purdue, three pass break-ups

It’s a little light up front defensively, granted. But that’s not a bad offensive bunch. It’s probably a better starting 11, McCown included, than what Pencil Pat Shurmur trotted out this past fall.

“I’m not the only one that’s thought that,” Fenske chuckled.

“It’s funny how we all panned out,” Harris added. “But we all (had) wanted to be at CU.”

Meanwhile, the Buffs’ door keeps revolving. According to the 247Sports.com database, That group included key cogs such as cornerback DJ McKinney, safety Tawfiq Byard, defensive end London Merritt, defensive end Brandon Davis-Swain, wideout Omarion Miller, wideout/all-purpose back Dre’Lon Miller — all of whom could make a future Post-Prime starting 11.

Meanwhile, the Buffs are going to need to import at least 30, and maybe 35-45 transfers, just to fill out a roster whose depth was frequently tested last autumn.

History says they’ll find some dawgs. And recent history says they’ll need twice as many as a year ago.

“I think (CU) is about to go through another rebuild situation,” Harris noted.

Still, the Bulldogs’ defensive back doesn’t harbor any grudges toward Sanders, nor CU. Neither does Fenske, really, despite his exit.

“If I didn’t have the portal, I’m not in the spot I am today,” Fenske said. “The grass isn’t always greener for some. And I would advise people who are going into that position to really think about what they’re doing and to really take a chance on themselves and see if they can develop …

“Maybe the best thing for me was to go down (a level) and be humbled, to re-learn the game of football in a way and re-learn what life is about.”

The Big Guy works in mysterious ways, sometimes. Fenske just wrapped up his eligibility at Southern Illinois, having been named to the Missouri Valley Conference’s second-team offense and to the first team of the league’s Scholar-Athlete squad, thanks to a 4.0 GPA.

Noah also got engaged. He became a foster parent. He . Just because you’re traveling with Under Armour bags doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the journey. However winding.

“I want those guys (at CU) to do well,” the lineman said. “Boulder was really good to me, and I’m glad that Boulder is doing a little better than it was before I got there. It would be foolish for me to be super cynical about that. I want to see (CU) do well. I want to see that area flourish because it was very welcoming to me.”

Let’s hope so.