Colorado

Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law. Holstrom's violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain. But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep.

Like many folks in this tranquil town, Patty Liberty has no problem living just down the road from some of the world's most notorious terrorists. Zacarias Moussaoui, known as "the 20th hijacker" for his attempts to join in the Sept. 11 attacks, resides at the supermax prison just outside the city limits. So do would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski lives there too.

A Colorado man who says he bludgeoned his date to death out of rage and shock after discovering she was biologically male was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder and a hate crime. Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding Allen Ray Andrade, 32, guilty of killing Angie Zapata, 18, of Greeley last July. District Judge Marcelo Kopcow swiftly sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole -- the state's mandatory sentence for first-degree murder.

Let's say you're playing poker and you need one more diamond for a flush. The dealer turns a card, reveals a diamond and you win the hand. Was it skill or luck? The answer is affecting the fates of people across the country accused of breaking anti-gambling laws -- people like Kevin Raley of Colorado. As an engineer, Raley finds that the mathematics of poker come easily, and he's pretty good at keeping a blank face. Reading other people, though, is something he's always working on. "It's something I'm better at today than I was five years ago," said Raley.

To her sister, Angie Zapata was a teenage girl in every sense but the biological one. She spent hours spraying her long hair into compliance with Aqua Net, painting her eyelashes with L'Oreal and her skin with Cover Girl. She combed discount stores for clothes that would emphasize her curves. The effect was stunning. When the 18-year-old visited the store where her older sister, Monica, worked, men would make excuses to hover.

It was a heck of a drive for a plate of pasta. Visiting friends in Colorado for the holidays, Mike Watts and his father decided on a whim to take a spin to the mountains for lunch. They made it to a Ruby Tuesday's about 60 miles west of Denver. Then the winds kicked up. Twenty-four hours later, they were still stranded.

Scott Anthony Gomez Jr. made his first break from the Pueblo County Jail two years ago. He pushed up a ceiling tile, hoisted himself into the ventilation system and climbed until he reached a roof. Then he shinnied down the wall on bedsheets fashioned into a rope. Caught two days later, he was back in his cell. The next time, Gomez again pried loose a ceiling tile and vanished into the guts of the building. But as he tried to rappel on bedsheets down the side of the 85-foot building, he fell.

Intent on dismantling affirmative action, activists in five states have launched a coordinated drive to cut off tax dollars for programs that offer preferential treatment based on race or gender. The campaign aims to put affirmative action bans on the November ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. The effort is being organized by California consultant Ward Connerly, who has successfully promoted similar measures in California, Michigan and Washington.

No one can agree on what exactly happened the day a Colorado man spotted Dick Cheney strolling the streets of a ski resort town and decided to give the vice president a piece of his mind. Steve Howards, 55, says he walked up to Cheney and delivered his message -- "Your policies in Iraq are disgusting" -- then lightly touched the vice president's shoulder. The White House photographer says he saw Howards slap Cheney on the back.

The logistics of escape is the main topic of conversation these days for the people who live near an old mining tunnel. How many cars could make it up the snow-crusted emergency road at a time? What if it's 3 a.m., and they're sound asleep? How would someone in a wheelchair outrun a flood? Overnight, these have become pressing questions for the people who live below the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel, just outside this mining town 85 miles southwest of Denver. The 2.