The Home Front: Diet soda back in schools, SWAT team hits wrong house, and chemical weapons under the prairie

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Darryl Glenn explained to The Durango Herald why he’s blacklisting The Denver Post, while shrugging off national support and his lag in the polls. “In yet another sign of the bizarre nature of this election season, The Denver Post and its political reporters have personally been dragged into the race,” The Herald reports. “Republican Donald Trump has made the strategy popular by tapping into public frustration with the media, calling reporters and the outlets they work for “dishonest.” Glenn said his decision to no longer speak with the Post is not a strategy. He said it has to do with a sensitivity issue stemming from the paper’s investigation into whether he had a past criminal history.”

“New U.S. Census Bureau data couples highlights of Colorado Springs’ recent gains with a firm reality check: the city remains near the bottom of the rankings in two key economic measures when compared to other large state municipalities,” The Gazette reports today.

Colorado’s state board of education is “putting diet soda back in schools,” reports The Greeley Tribune, bringing Colorado in line with federal guidelines. “For the larger point, we’ll have to go back eight years. That’s when the Colorado Legislature enacted restrictions on what kinds of beverages can be sold in school, and even that legislation seemingly went back decades, with its old-school reference to seltzer. Colorado pioneered this type of restriction, but two years later, the federal Healthy Hungry Free Kids Act of 2010 was passed and Colorado school districts were left juggling 10 federal regulations and 11 state regulations — all on the sale of beverages in schools.”

The Denver Post reports how robots are destroying chemical weapons buried under the Colorado prairie.

A bad tip lead a SWAT team to the wrong house in Mesa County, according to The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “The heads of the two largest law enforcement agencies in the Grand Valley are apologizing after SWAT officers early Wednesday morning raided a Clifton home they believed contained methamphetamine and guns, only to find an innocent family with five children.” The local sheriff’s office and police chief said they couldn’t recall that happening in the area before and blamed it on receiving “outdated information from an informant.” The two agencies are “are investigating the mistakes that were made and how they can be avoided in the future.”

“A Boulder County resident filed a state ethics complaint Wednesday alleging County Commissioner Elise Jones violated Colorado’s conflict-of-interest laws in a number of votes that could financially benefit Eco-Cycle, the recycling agency headed by her twin sister, Boulder Mayor Suzanne Jones,” according to The Longmont Times-Call. “Chuck Wibby, who’s been battling Boulder County over subdivision road repaving, filed the complaint with the Independent Ethics Commission, accusing Elise Jones of active participation in several county board meetings — or at least the pertinent portions of those meetings — involving items affecting Eco-Cycle.”

Steamboat Today reports local officials talked about water needs in the area, getting “a crash course on the city’s water infrastructure and how much money it might take to water a westward expansion.”

Is Northern Colorado too hip for discounts? The Coloradoan in Fort Collins tackles how the region struggles to keep shoppers amid online sales.

“The Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled that a Boulder judge was right to allow a video deposition of an deceased fraud victim to be played at trial, a precedent-setting decision that prosecutors say will help protect the rights of elderly or ill victims,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera today

A development project in Basalt could add 60 affordable homes, according to The Aspen Times.