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In Colorado, a GOP rarity: An abortion rights candidate

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In Colorado, a GOP rarity: An abortion rights candidate


DENVER (AP) — Joe O’Dea stood earlier than a whole lot of social conservatives and uttered phrases they had been unaccustomed to listening to from a Republican U.S. Senate candidate: “I do know my place on abortion isn’t the identical as all of yours.”

O’Dea, a businessman who has spoken publicly about his assist for abortion rights, instructed the group that he backs a ban on late-term abortions and authorities funding of abortions. However, he mentioned, the choice to terminate a being pregnant within the preliminary months is “between an individual and their God.”

On different points, O’Dea seems like a typical conservative. He needs to chop again authorities regulation and broaden oil and fuel manufacturing, and he opposes gun restrictions. However his assist for abortion rights stands out in a Republican Occasion by which opposition to the process has grow to be a bedrock precept.

His high rival in Tuesday’s major is state Rep. Ron Hanks, who opposes abortion in all circumstances. The 2 are competing to tackle Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who gained his first Senate race in 2010 by hammering his GOP challenger over opposition to abortion rights.

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Republican voter Carla Davis, who describes herself as “100% pro-life,” thinks O’Dea shall be a stronger candidate within the normal election towards Bennet in a state that has voted down initiatives to restrict or ban abortion 4 instances since 2008.

“You’ve acquired to concede on small issues to make issues work,” mentioned Davis, a 60-year-old advertising and marketing government who attended a latest O’Dea occasion.

Nonetheless, if O’Dea does win the Republican major, it would partly be attributable to a monetary benefit slightly than a strategic selection by GOP voters. He has spent greater than $600,000 of his personal cash on his Senate run, whereas Hanks’ marketing campaign has raised lower than $60,000.

Hanks, who mentioned he marched to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 however didn’t enter the constructing throughout the rebellion, mentioned O’Dea’s views don’t align with these of most Republican major voters.

“His coverage positions would put him to the left of Mitt Romney,” Hanks mentioned in an interview. “The message isn’t Republican, it’s not conservative, it’s not pro-life.”

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Hanks has gotten some assist from a Democratic group that sees him as a neater opponent for Bennet. The group spent $800,000 on adverts designed to tout his candidacy within the GOP major, warning that he’s “too conservative” for backing an entire abortion ban and letting anybody carry firearms in public.

Conservatives concern one thing related would occur if Hanks is the nominee. “Reasonably than speaking in regards to the financial system, slightly than speaking about inflation, you’ll be speaking about abortion,” mentioned Mario Nicolais, a lawyer and activist who left the Republican Occasion partly over criticism he acquired after backing a poll measure to ban abortions at 22 weeks — the critics needed abortion banned utterly.

To Nicolais, that demonstrates how inflexible some Republicans are of their opposition to abortion rights, a part of what has marginalized them within the state. The 22-week ban failed on the polls in November 2020, simply as voters rejected different initiatives to restrict or ban abortion in 2008, 2010 and 2014.

Colorado in 1967 turned the primary state to loosen restrictions on abortion, six years earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket choice within the case of Roe v. Wade assured the fitting to an abortion nationally in 1973. This yr, the Democratic-controlled legislature handed a legislation guaranteeing full entry to abortion within the state even the Supreme Court docket overturns Roe. A leaked draft opinion from the excessive courtroom signifies that might occur by the point the courtroom’s time period ends this month, across the identical time as Colorado’s Tuesday major.

Bennet’s marketing campaign has cited that looming choice as a purpose for Colorado voters to be cautious of the GOP.

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“Each Republican candidates are too far proper for our state,” spokesperson Georgina Beven mentioned in a press release. “Coloradans have an excellent deeper sense of urgency now to elect pro-choice candidates this November, and Michael will all the time be dedicated to defending ladies’s reproductive rights within the US Senate.”

If O’Dea had been to be elected, he would be part of Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski as the one Republican senators who publicly assist Roe v. Wade.

Nonetheless, the state is house to a core group of robust opponents of abortion rights, together with many non secular teams alarmed on the prospect of not having a like-minded candidate on the Senate poll within the fall.

“The dignity of each particular person — born and pre-born — needs to be unassailable and non-negotiable,” mentioned Paul J. Batura, a spokesperson for the non secular group Give attention to the Household, which isn’t concerned within the major. “Come November, Coloradoans and voters in all places deserve the chance to precise their pro-life convictions on the poll field.”

The most important conservative occasion within the state is the Western Conservative Summit, sponsored by Colorado Christian College. It was there, in an unlimited resort close to Denver Worldwide Airport, that O’Dea acquired a well mannered reception from the group, which was largely quiet whereas he briefly mentioned abortion. Hanks, who preceded him, was greeted with roars when he outlined his unyielding stance on the problem.

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“After we combat for all times, we don’t combat for all times a few of the time, we combat for all of it,” Hanks mentioned. “As a result of all people deserves a birthday.”

O’Dea jabbed at Hanks, a former Military intelligence officer who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in California in 2010. Hanks mentioned he opposed abortion, however his marketing campaign literature mentioned he held “a measured and slender window for medical consultants.” That caveat led O’Dea to accuse Hanks of “having his finger within the wind.” Hanks, in an interview, mentioned he modified place as a result of enhancements in medical know-how make it simpler to avoid wasting a mom’s life in case of problems.

However most of O’Dea’s speech didn’t contain abortion, a problem that he says he by no means hears about from voters. Most voters, O’Dea mentioned in an interview, are fearful about inflation and crime, two points he’s hit relentlessly on the marketing campaign path.

A political novice, O’Dea has donated to each Democrats and Republicans up to now. He gave $500 to Bennet in 2010. O’Dea mentioned that he made most of his donations to Democrats when he chaired a development business group that paid to attend marketing campaign fundraisers and that he’ll ask for his a reimbursement on the controversy stage.

O’Dea says he voted twice for Donald Trump however that he has no opinion on whether or not the previous president ought to run once more and volunteered that he appreciated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible Trump rival in 2024′s GOP major. O’Dea mentioned he supported Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court docket, who’re among the many justices who seem to again overturning Roe, and noticed no contradiction between that and his views on abortion.

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“I’m not operating on social points,” O’Dea mentioned, “and other people aren’t speaking about social points, besides reporters and Ron Hanks.”



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Two injured in shooting outside Walgreens in Old Colorado City

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Two injured in shooting outside Walgreens in Old Colorado City


Two people were injured in a shooting outside a Walgreens in Old Colorado City, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.

The shooting, initially reported as an active shooter situation, occurred after an argument between the two people, according to an X post by the department.

At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, the Colorado Springs Police Department received a call about an active shooter at a Walgreens in the 3100 block of West Colorado Avenue, according to the department.

When officers arrived, they found one person with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound in front of the Walgreens. Several people reported that a possible suspect was still in the store. Officers requested people in nearby businesses to shelter in place and called for the tactical unit. Officers then entered the store and escorted a woman, who was sheltering in place, to safety, according to the post.

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The Tactical Enforcement Unit and police officers searched the store and did not find the suspect. Around the same time, a second person with a gunshot wound arrived at a local hospital, the post states.

The CSPD later determined that the shooting occurred after an argument between the two injured individuals and was not an active shooter situation, according to the department.

The incident is under investigation by the CSPD assault unit.

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Small plane attempts emergency landing on highway, lands in creek bed near Larkspur; 2 injured

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Small plane attempts emergency landing on highway, lands in creek bed near Larkspur; 2 injured


Two people aboard a small plane were injured Sunday morning when their aircraft made an emergency landing near Interstate 25 and the town of Larkspur.

The pilot apparently attempted to land on the interstate, per preliminary information gathered at the scene. But the plane struck a traffic sign in the center median, “causing the plane to veer off to the east and crash,” the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office explained in a social media post. 

Copter4 found the damaged sign and a likely piece of plane debris several hundred yards north of where the plane stopped.

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CBS


A photo from the scene shows the underside of the plane, indicating it came to rest on its roof. The landing gear are protruding from thick brush. 

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Douglas County Sheriff’s Office/X

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According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane is a twin-engine Tecnam P2006T.    

A spokesperson with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Dep. Cocha Heyden, said the plane came down just east of the highway at mile marker 173. Radio traffic from the scene, plus live images from Colorado Department of Transportation’s highway cameras, suggests the right two lanes of I-25 are closed where Spruce Mountain Road’s on-ramp joins northbound highway traffic. Vehicles are slowly moving past the plane crash scene using only one lane, the express lane. Other cameras to the south of the scene show extensive northbound backup on the highway.  

The plane evidently landed in the East Plum Creek drainage immediately east of I-25. It’s not known yet if the plane itself landed in water, but fire department personnel waded through waist-deep water to get to the two injured people.

The crash was reported just before 8 a.m., according to DCSO’s Heyden.

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Two patients from the plane were transported by ambulance from the location. There has been no report from the scene about the extent of their injuries. 

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CBS


The Colorado State Patrol’s hazardous materials (HAZMAT) unit is handling cleanup of fuel that has leaked from the plane. Unconfirmed radio traffic from the scene indicates 30-40 gallons of unleaded fuel have leaked from the plane; CSP’s HAZMAT crew is attempting to contain the fuel with booms on the water’s surface.

The Perry Park Airport, a small private landing strip, is located immediately west of I-25 at the crash location. It is not known at this time if the crashed plane departed or was attempting to land there.

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Local authorities say federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration will later announce their conclusions about the cause of the accident. 





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Keeler: Sorry, Olivia Dunne. MLB ace Paul Skenes’ heart belongs to Air Force, Colorado, wild blue yonder. “I owe them that much”

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Keeler: Sorry, Olivia Dunne. MLB ace Paul Skenes’ heart belongs to Air Force, Colorado, wild blue yonder. “I owe them that much”


Don’t flip out, Livvy Dunne. Apologies, bayou moms. Paul Skenes may have an LSU girlfriend and an LSU baseball card. He’s still, deep down, a Zoomie at heart.

“Anything that I can do, or any of us can do, to bring eyes to the Air Force Academy is good,” Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates pitching phenom and former AFA baseball star told a crowded circle of reporters earlier this weekend at Coors Field, where he was supposed to pitch against the Rockies, but won’t.

“Especially with how much it affected me. But I owe them that much.

“So I want to keep that going as long as I can because the tough part is, for me, I get labeled as ‘The LSU Guy,’ because obviously I got drafted out of there. But I’m just as much an Air Force guy as I am an LSU guy.”

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Skenes found out last week that his scheduled spot in the rotation, Father’s Day at Coors Field, some 90 minutes — if traffic’s kind — up the road from the Academy, was being shifted from Sunday to Monday.

So he went back to his old AFA haunts on Friday morning. He took some Bucs teammates with him, including rotation mate Jared Jones, to see the old stomping grounds. They caught up with AFA baseball coach Mike Kazlausky. They saw his cousin, who’s now a glider instructor at the Academy. (Jones tried the virtual reality glider and landed successfully, Coach Kaz told me.) They walked around the Terrazzo. Mitchell Hall. The War Memorial.

It was like dancing with as long lost love. While the cameras circled Skenes, who’s sporting a 3-0 record, a 2.43 ERA, drawing comparisons to Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg along the way, the 6-foot-6 man-mountain with the rocket right arm almost got misty-eyed while talking about his Colorado Springs days. And what could’ve been.

“Definitely, as soon as you drive down there, there were some memories that popped up,” said Skenes, who played at Air Force as a freshman and sophomore (’21 and ’22) before transferring to LSU, the way station to becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2023 MLB Draft.

“Pretty cool, though, to get to go back now as a major-league player and think, ‘Wow, this is where it all started for me.’ Yeah, I was thinking about how I could’ve just graduated from there.’”

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He might’ve, if the wingtips in Washington could ever figure out a consistent strike zone when it comes to service academies and pro sports. Last fall, the national defense bill that eventually passed a divided Congress included a provision that said any “agreement by a cadet or midshipman to play professional sport(s) constitutes a breach of service obligation.” In layman’s terms, that translates to two years of active duty, minimum, before the clock starts on a potential athletic career. Although the whole two-years-of-service-first thing has shifted back and forth at least a half-dozen times — required, then not required, then required again — over the last eight years or so.

Knowing that a junior year could be a mess, Kazlausky planned ahead. After Skenes hit .410, posted a 1.183 OPS and recorded 11 saves as a freshman catcher-closer with the Falcons, Coach Kaz pleaded to then-AFA superintendent Richard Clark to defer the required service time.

“I said, General Clark, this is the David Robinson of Air Force,” Kazlausky recalled. “‘This is the greatest athlete to ever come through our school … And unfortunately, the answer was going to be, ‘No.’”

Skenes, whose uncles served in the Coast Guard and Navy, didn’t ever want to flee the Wild Blue Yonder. Coach Kaz told him to go with his head on this one. Not his heart.

“He’s an old soul,” Kazlausky said. “He’s been put on God’s green earth to make a difference. And I’m not just talking about baseball.”

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The big righty wound up with the Tigers, where he won the Dick Howser Award, was named the Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series and landed a $9.2-million signing bonus from Pittsburgh, the largest in MLB draft history.

“It shows you the type of coach that Coach Kaz is, to encourage him to pursue that journey and that experience,” Aerik Joe, his old AFA roommate, told me by phone from Japan on Saturday. “As well as what it says about Paul.”

Skenes stories are the stuff of legend now. When big Paul saw an opposing Mountain West women’s soccer player kneeling during the national anthem, he allegedly ran into the baseball locker room, grabbed the Stars & Stripes and brought it out to the field, waving it proudly during the match.

In 2021, after an attack in Afghanistan had taken the lives of 13 U.S. service members, at 4:45 p.m. the national anthem was played and the flag brought down. Skenes and his baseball teammates stood at attention. Meanwhile, up a nearby hill, Skenes could see two football managers in a video booth slightly slouched, distracted, eyes off the flag. When the anthem was finished, Skene went over and berated the managers for slacking.

“The kid’s an American patriot,” offered Ryan Rutter, Skenes’ commanding officer back in the day. “I don’t know any other way to say it. At a young age, he showed his colors to be red, white and blue.”

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Things came so easy for a young Skenes, even at one of the most rigorous undergraduate environments in the country, that Rutter once asked the future No. 1 pick if he had any weaknesses that bothered him. This from a guy who hit .367 at Air Force and batted leadoff while throwing in the high-90s.

“I’m not that fast,” Skenes replied. “I wish I was faster.”

Rutter still chuckles at that one.

“Paul was ready to be a second lieutenant when he showed up here,” Rutter recalled. “He was ready to be an officer in the Air Force.”

Old classmates at AFA sent him photos from graduation last month. His mom still talks to their parents. He’s a patriot first, but pitching pays the bills.

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“A big part of me wishes that I could graduate from there and be doing what I’m doing right now,” Skenes said. “But that’s not super compatible in a lot of ways. But (I) kind of got the best of both worlds.”

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