Colorado

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.

University of Colorado at Boulder geologist Jason Neff measured 5,000 years' worth of dust that settled in the floors of alpine lakes in Colorado, and found the West wasn't always so dusty. The layers became much thicker after railroads broke through the West, prompting an increase in ranching, farming and mining in the second half of the 19th century. Neff estimated that it's four to five times dustier today than it was 200 years ago. The findings were published Sunday in Nature Geoscience.

. -- This is a sight no self-respecting hairstylist wants to see: an inch of white roots showing, the remaining color dulling to a lackluster shade. "It is faded, isn't it?" sighed Joy Douglas, owner of Zing Salon, running her fingers through her toy poodle Cici's tight, once-pink curls. Nearly a month has passed since Cici has had her bimonthly treatment of pureed organic beets and egg whites massaged into her white coat while she basks under a heat lamp.

When it starts at 10,000 feet and slices through the mountains in the canyon that bears its name, the Cache la Poudre River is a shock of water in this dry land. But by the time it winds its way out to this laid-back college city of 120,000 people, most of its water has been grabbed by farmers and other cities that control the maze of canals and diversion dams that turn the river into a trickle.

Miranda Meza's biggest fear about going to the police was that the man she says molested her would lie. If he said he never touched her, how could she prove he did? But he'd made that part easy. He admitted to police that he had. Now they were both here, in the courthouse. She watched her grandfather across the lobby. He was nearly 80 years old, his hair white and sparse. He wore an oxygen tank strapped across his skinny chest. It had taken more than 16 years to get to this point.