Colorado

Though people sometimes complained about the Carbondale Valley Journal, its demise came as a blow after 34 years as the mountain town's only newspaper. Residents felt its loss in the dearth of information about local life: births, deaths, proposed developments, high school sports scores. A friend of Rebecca Young's died and there was no obituary. "I didn't hear of his death for a couple of weeks," she said. "I was so sad I wasn't at his service."

In rural Chaffee County, Colo., one of the world's largest beverage companies has discovered water it deems fit for a bottle: clean and crisp, with the mountain spring flavor people are willing to pay for. Nestle Waters North America wants to tap an aquifer feeding a pair of springs near Salida, southwest of Colorado Springs, and draw 65 million gallons of water per year to bottle and sell under its Arrowhead brand. But many mountain residents say Nestle should go bottle someone else's water.

All Kelley Coffman-Lee wanted to do was broadcast her love of tofu to the driving public. So the Colorado vegan applied to the state's Department of Revenue for a vanity license plate for her Suzuki SL7 carrying the message: ILVTOFU. Clerks at her local motor vehicle office approved the plate -- but it did not escape the discerning eyes of state revenue officials, who detected another way that Coffman-Lee's penchant for tofu could be read.

In Colorado, judges don't simply have the power to send people to prison. In rare circumstances, they can also decide whether a person should be charged as a criminal -- a rarely invoked authority upon which two cases now hinge. Under a 19th century state law, obscure until recently, two judges have been asked to decide whether four men should be tried in rape and murder cases.

at Philadelphia 3, Colorado 1: Cliff Lee allowed one run and six hits and struck out nine in seven impressive innings in his home debut, and Paul Bako hit a tiebreaking homer. at Washington 12, Florida 8: Ryan Zimmerman finished a double short of the cycle, and Ronnie Belliard's tiebreaking single in the eighth inning helped the Nationals rally from a six-run deficit. at San Diego 8, New York 3: Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-run homer in a four-run third inning and drove in three runs for the Padres, who extended Manager Bud Black's contract through the 2010 season.

Donna Munson, 74, considered the black bears that swarmed across her land in southwestern Colorado to be her pets. She fed them dog food and scraps -- poking the food through a metal fence she'd built around her porch -- attracting so many bruins that neighbors sometimes counted as many as 14 on her property at a time. On Friday, one of them killed and ate Munson, slashing her head through the fence and dragging her body underneath it to consume her. "She was dead-set on continuing to feed the bears, and unfortunately, she paid the ultimate price," said Ouray County Sheriff's Investigator Joel Burk, who had to shoot a bear that tried to approach Munson's remains as he interviewed witnesses at the scene.

By her own admission, Kristen Diane Parker cruised for empty operating rooms at the Denver hospital where she worked. The surgical technician would slip into the rooms and steal syringes of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, replacing them with syringes she'd filled with saline, she later confessed to investigators. Parker, who has hepatitis C, had allegedly used those decoy syringes -- the source of transmission, authorities believe, for at least 23 Coloradans now infected with the liver-damaging disease.

The songwriters attending Mary Gauthier's class pulled up a folding chair or found a patch of lawn, to hear her inveigh against the forces that block writers' best effort. "Let's talk about obstacles, the crap we tell ourselves. 'I'm not worthy. I'm fat, I'm gay, I'm old. My mama said I couldn't sing. My fourth-grade teacher said I couldn't write,' " Gauthier said. "Help me out here." A student jumped in: "Someone's already said it better than I could." "You're a privileged white chick.

Noel Devine ran for a career-high 220 yards and a touchdown, leading West Virginia to a 35-24 victory over Colorado on Thursday night at Morgantown, W.Va. Jarrett Brown threw two touchdown passes and redshirt freshman fullback Ryan Clarke ran for two fourth-quarter scores for West Virginia (3-1). Both offenses played sloppily despite having an extra week to prepare. West Virginia lost four fumbles and intercepted three of Cody Hawkins ' passes. Hawkins threw two touchdown passes, but Colorado (1-3)

Game 1 : Today, 11:30 a.m. Colorado (Ubaldo Jimenez, 15-12, 3.47) at Philadelphia (Cliff Lee, 14-13, 3.22) Game 2 : Thursday, 11:30 a.m. Colorado (Aaron Cook, 11-6, 4.16) at Philadelphia (Cole Hamels, 10-11, 4.32) Game 3 : Saturday, 6:30 p.m. Philadelphia (TBA) at Colorado (TBA) Game 4 : Sunday, TBA Philadelphia (TBA) at Colorado (TBA) Game 5 : Tuesday, TBA Philadelphia (TBA) at Colorado (TBA) Best-of-five series, all times Pacific if necessary Projected lineups P PHILLIES AVG HR RBI SS Jimmy Rollins .250 21 77 CF Shane Victorino .292 10 62 2B Chase Utley .282 31 93 1B Ryan Howard .279 45 141 RF Jayson Werth .268 36 99 LF Raul Ibanez .272 34 93 3B Pedro Feliz .266 12 82 C Carlos Ruiz .255 9 43 P Cliff Lee .212 0 1 P ROCKIES AVG HR RBI LF Carlos Gonzalez .284 13 29 CF Dexter Fowler .266 4 34 1B Todd Helton .325 15 86 SS Troy Tulowitzki .297 32 92 3B Garrett Atkins .226 9 48 C Yorvit Torrealba .291 2 31 RF Brad Hawpe .285 23 86 2B Clint Barmes .245 23 76 P Jimenez .220 0 2...