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Day of the Dead: What to know about the holiday and how to celebrate

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

MCALLEN, Texas (KSEE/KGPE) — If you've ever seen the movie Coco you may have an idea about the significance of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. While the movie does a good job of depicting the colors and sentiment behind the celebration, Día de los Muertos has a deeper cultural and spiritual tie to many Hispanic families. Día de los Muertos is a week-long celebration where families honor their ancestors and dead loved ones. It is a celebration of life and death. The significance of the week-long ritual is centered around prayer and remembering friends' and family members' lives before they died. Photo by: Diana Maldonado/ValleyCentralJoe Garza, marketing and special event supervisor for the McAllen Convention Center, said Día de los Muertos is a way for people to remember those who have passed over to the afterlife. During the holiday it is believed ancestors and loved ones who have crossed to the other side come to visit their families. It is tradition for families to leave...

Don't trash it, smash it, at the Amsterdam Pumpkin Smash

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

AMSTERDAM, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- "Don't trash it, smash it." Grow Amsterdam's fifth annual pumpkin smash will be held Saturday at Veteran's Park from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Get the latest news, weather, sports and entertainment delivered right to your inbox! The event has collected over 8,000 pounds of pumpkins, corn stalks, and straw bales in its four years of operation. The "smashing" event will have four stations with several tools, including wooden mauls and handheld dead blow hammers for younger participants. Residents with pumpkins they'd like to dispose of but not smash can drop them off at 9 a.m. in the parking lot at the upper end of Locust Avenue. Attendees will have the chance to not only smash pumpkins or impale them but also get their face painted, enjoy cider and donuts, try pumpkin bowling and other pumpkin games, and more.

3 people attacked in Central West End Sunday

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

ST. LOUIS - A shocking attack occurred in the Central West End on Sunday morning. This happened just before 9:00 a.m. near Euclid and West Pine.Police said a man approached a family and hit one person over the head with a glass bottle. The attacker then tried to grab an infant, then choked an elderly woman and broke her arm. St. Louis County woman receives unpaid unemployment benefits after FOX 2 highlights case Police revealed that the man accused of the attack was arrested. All three victims needed medical treatment but are expected to be okay. It's unclear right now what led up to this attack.FOX 2 will update this story with more information as it becomes available.

Colorado case seeking to disqualify Donald Trump from ballot goes to trial, putting insurrection arguments to test

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

Over the next five days, a Denver judge is set to hear arguments for why former President Trump should not be allowed on the state’s 2024 ballot — along with his lawyers’ case for why she should reject the unusual challenge.The ballot disqualification trial, set to begin Monday, will be the first time testimony and evidence are presented in a case that invokes the 14th Amendment to bar the Republican front-runner from a state’s ballot. It puts Colorado at the forefront of a novel legal fight that has united liberal critics and current and former Republicans who contend that Trump’s alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the nation’s Capitol disqualified him from being eligible to run for national office again.A provision in the Civil War-era federal constitutional amendment bars people who engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.But there are key unresolved questions: Which actions meet that threshold? Who can enforce it? And ...

Denver Film Festival 2023 preview: Films to watch in-person before the winter awards season

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

The buzz, by now, has become deafening for certain titles that began their year on the festival circuit and have now wound their way to Denver theaters — think “Past Lives,” “Asteroid City,” and “The Barbie Movie” — in advance of expected Academy Award nominations.Related: A chilling Colorado tale of buffalo slaughter jumps from page to screen in Nicholas Cage’s latest movieBut while there’s been plenty to see, there’s nothing quite like the Denver Film Festival, arguably the largest and most audience-friendly film event in the region. There are competitive one-offs and world premieres at this year’s 46th installment, but cinephiles will also have the chance to check out features and documentaries they’ve been hearing about since debuting at Sundance and other industry-standard events in Telluride and Toronto earlier this year.Here’s what you need to know going into this year’s Denver Film Fest, prod...

“Weyward,” by Emilia Hart, and more short reviews from readers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

“Weyward,” by Emilia Hart (St. Martin’s Press, 2024)“Weyward,” by Emilia Hart (St. Martin’s Press, 2023)Three women of the Weyward family inhabit this novel, starting with Altha (“healer”) in 1619. She relays her story in first person, and that was the most compelling for me. Violet’s story (1942) effectively bridges that of her ancestor and her great-niece. Extraordinarily sheltered, virtually imprisoned, Violet has the most arduous journey to realize her true self. Kate, in 2019, was the character I initially found most unappealing, due to her apparent weaknesses. By the book’s denouement, though, I liked Kate much more.Their relationships with their mothers are varied. Altha was exceptionally close to hers, and their connection was loving and supportive. Violet hardly remembers her mother (and doesn’t recall her grandmother at all), but as the novel advances she learns more about her heritage. Kate’s relationship with her mother starts tenuously, then stre...

Colorado musician takes on one of the most difficult pieces ever written for the clarinet

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

Composer John Corigliano was composer-in-residence at last summer’s Colorado Music Festival in Boulder. He offered advice to Jason Shafer on how to play his challenging clarinet concerto. Photo provided by Colorado Music Festival.Composer John Corigliano’s Clarinet Concerto is one of contemporary classical music’s most important — and notoriously difficult — pieces to play. Taking center stage to perform the work with a symphony orchestra is a major moment in any musician’s career.Jason Shafer, the Colorado Symphony’s principal clarinet, wanted to be sure he made the most of it. He spent a year preparing for this unique challenge, which he will take on this weekend at Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall.He also took the highly unusual approach of reaching out to the composer himself for some guidance on how best to interpret the work, which was written in 1977, for a live audience in 2023.“I had this realization that this guy is a legend. He’s still alive, still teaching at ...

Denver police release body camera video of shootings in Elyria-Swansea, Union Station Whole Foods

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

The Denver Police Department on Friday released body camera footage of two shootings that occurred within a four-hour span on Oct. 19 in Elyria-Swansea and at a Whole Foods near Union Station.One man was shot multiple times by officers after pointing what appeared to be a gun at them at the intersection of East 46th Avenue and York Street. The man is still hospitalized but is in stable condition and expected to survive, said Major Crimes Division Cmdr. Matt Clark. Police later determined the man was brandishing an airsoft gun.In the second incident, no one was injured when an officer fired their gun during an encounter with a man brandishing a knife in a Whole Foods near Union Station.Clark and Police Chief Ron Thomas provided new details about the shootings during a news conference Friday afternoon at Denver Police Department headquarters on Cherokee Street.During the first incident, officers responded to reports of a man pointing a gun at multiple people near a Burger King in the ...

Despite surprise billing laws, unexpected ambulance bills remain common in Colorado

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

More than a year after their daughter was treated for an eating disorder in Denver, a family is still trying to sort out thousands of dollars in bills from when she had to be taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals.Ann Sassano, of Chicago, said her daughter was taken by ambulance repeatedly while being treated in Denver last fall, with about eight round trips to three different hospitals for emergencies. Their insurance, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, said there were no in-network ambulance providers, meaning the family faced a $15,000 deductible for out-of-network care before the plan would start paying, she said.Altogether, her daughter received about $20,000 in bills, which would have wiped out her savings, Sassano said. Though their insurance ultimately agreed to pay some of the bills, her daughter is paying about $30 a month to stay out of collections while appealing the remaining ones, she said.“It’s just a very frustrating situation,” she said.Blue C...

People who call 911 in Denver can now stream live video to emergency dispatchers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:30:28 GMT

People who call 911 in Denver can now stream live video from their cellphones straight to emergency call takers — part of a suite of new technology the city is testing.Denver started the free pilot in June and since then has handled about 450 emergency calls in which the caller sent live video to the 911 center, said Matt Fuller, training manager at the city’s 911 Communications Center. That’s out of about 5,000 calls that were routed through the pilot system.The pilot software also includes more precise location data, the ability to forward live video to police, paramedics and firefighters as they head to the scene, and potentially the ability to use GPS location data to streamline 911 calls during major incidents, though officials aren’t yet using the latter two functions.Now, every time someone calls 911 in Denver, the software, created by the private company Carbyne, automatically sends a text to the caller. If the user clicks the link in the text, it giv...