A walk can be a good time to reflect on a journey.

On a stroll through the Durango, Colorado, mobile home park she moved to when she was 13, Alejandra Chavez stops at the unit her parents owned.

“They bought it for $3,000,” she says.

Chavez moved to southern Colorado from Mexico to live with her parents, who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet.

“The American dream is hard,” she says.

Chavez says it can be hard to find affordable housing in Durango. The average home goes for more than $700,000, according to Zillow.

For many, a mobile home is one of the few affordable options when looking for a place to live.

“We work in restaurants, some of our neighbors are nurses we have dentists, we have housekeeping,” Chavez says, describing the importance of the workers who live in her park when it comes to the local economy.

In many mobile home parks, residents own the units they live in but still pay rent to a landlord for the land it sits on.

To investors, mobile home parks are a real estate opportunity.

Mobile Home University, which teaches investors how to buy and operate mobile home parks, says buying a mobile home park can create a return of more than 20%. That's higher than what the average annual return typically is on the stock market.

For those who live in mobile home parks, the purchase of land can mean a spike in rent. (https://www.denver7.com/news/national/investors-fueling-rise-in-mobile-home-rent)

“People here in West Side, they already have two jobs to support their family you know,” Chavez says.

In 2021, when West Side’s previous owner put the park up for sale, the residents who lived there found a way to buy it for more than $5.5 million. They got financial support from the nonprofit Elevation Community Land Trust.

West Side’s residents also took advantage of a law in Colorado that says when a park is going to be sold, the owner must give residents a set number of days to come up with an offer to buy it. In 2022, the law changed from 90 days to 120.

Twenty states have similar laws, according to the National Consumer Law Center.

“When we came here, we looked at the housing, and yikes,” says mobile home park resident Karen Pontius.

Pontius lives at the Animas View mobile home park about ten miles from West Side in Durango.

She and her neighbors banded together in 2021 and bought their park for roughly $15 million when it was up for sale.

They were helped by the non-profit ROC USA which has helped establish mobile home co-ops across the country. (https://rocusa.org/)

Instead of a landlord calling the shots on rent, a board of residents makes the call.

“We make decisions about our park ourselves instead of an investor in New York City making those decisions,” says Animas View resident John Egan who is now on the board of directors for ROC USA.

While laws that give residents a chance to buy their land exist, it’s still an uphill battle when a park is put up for sale.

Since 2020, residents in only five parks have been able to purchase their land while more than 100 have been sold in Colorado, according to state records.

Chavez leads the co-op in charge of West Side. She’s working to make sure the opportunity this park gave her will continue.

“Living in a mobile home park, I’m not ashamed to be living in a mobile home park,” Chavez says. "I’m proud even, I’m proud of living in a mobile home park.”

Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, a pioneer for women's and family rights in Congress, died Monday night. She was 82.

Schroeder's former press secretary, Andrea Camp, said Schroeder suffered a stroke recently and died at a hospital in Celebration, Florida, the city where she had been residing in recent years.

Schroeder took on the powerful elite with her rapier wit and antics for 24 years, shaking up stodgy government institutions by forcing them to acknowledge that women had a role in government.

Her unorthodox methods cost her important committee posts, but Schroeder said she wasn't willing to join what she called "the good old boys' club" just to score political points. Unafraid of embarrassing her congressional colleagues in public, she became an icon for the feminist movement.

Schroeder was elected to Congress in Colorado in 1972 and became one of its most influential Democrats as she won easy reelection 11 times from her safe district in Denver. Despite her seniority, she was never appointed to head a committee.

Schroeder helped forge several Democratic majorities before deciding in 1997 it was time to leave. Her parting shot in 1998 was a book titled "24 Years of Housework ... and the Place is Still a Mess. My Life in Politics," which chronicled her frustration with male domination and the slow pace of change in federal institutions.

In 1987, Schroeder tested the waters for the presidency, mounting a fundraising drive after fellow Coloradan Gary Hart pulled out of the race. She announced three months later that she would not run and said her "tears signify compassion, not weakness." Her heart was not in it, she said, and she thought fundraising was demeaning.

She was the first woman on the House Armed Services Committee but was forced to share a chair with U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., the first African American, when committee chairman F. Edward Hebert, D-La., organized the panel. Schroeder said Hebert thought the committee was no place for a woman or an African American and they were each worth only half a seat.

Republicans were livid after Schroeder and others filed an ethics complaint over House Speaker Newt Gingrich's televised college lecture series, charging that free cable time he received amounted to an illegal gift under House rules. Gingrich became the first speaker reprimanded by Congress. Gingrich said later he regretted not taking Schroeder and her colleagues more seriously.

Earlier, she had blasted Gingrich for suggesting women shouldn't serve in combat because they could get infections from being in a ditch for 30 days. According to her official House biography, she once told Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be pregnant because they never said "no."

Asked by one congressman how she could be a mother of two small children and a member of Congress at the same time, she replied, "I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both."

It was Schroeder who branded President Ronald Reagan the "Teflon" president for his ability to avoid blame for major policy decisions, and the name stuck.

One of Schroeder's biggest victories was the signing of a family-leave bill in 1993, providing job protection for care of a newborn, a sick child or a parent.

"Pat Schroeder blazed the trail. Every woman in this house is walking in her footsteps," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who took over from Schroeder as Democratic chair of the bipartisan congressional caucus on women's issues.

Schroeder said legislators spent too much attention on contributors and special interests. When House Republicans gathered on the U.S. Capitol steps to celebrate their first 100 days in power in 1994, she and several aides clambered to the building's dome and hung a 15-foot red banner reading, "Sold."

A pilot, Schroeder earned her way through Harvard Law School with her own flying service. Schroeder became a professor at Princeton University after leaving Congress, but said politics was in her blood and she would continue working for candidates she supported.

For a while, she taught a graduate-level course titled "The Politics of Poverty." She also headed the Association of American Publishers.

Schroeder continued working in politics after moving to Florida, going door to door, speaking to groups and mentoring candidates. She was politically active for issues and candidates across the country and campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Among other activities, she served on the board of the Marguerite Casey Foundation.

Schroeder was born in Portland, Oregon, on July 30, 1940. She was a pilot who paid for college tuition with her own flying service. She graduated from the University of Minnesota before earning her law degree in 1964. From 1964 to 1966, she was a field attorney for the National Labor Relations Board.

She is survived by her husband, James W. Schroeder, whom she married in 1962. Also surviving are their two children, Scott and Jamie, and her brother, Mike Scott, as well as four grandchildren.

___

Former Associated Press writer Steven K. Paulson contributed to this report.

A federal judge ruled Friday that a rural Colorado school district can bar a high school student from wearing a Mexican and American flag sash at her graduation this weekend after the student sued the school district.

Judge Nina Y. Wang wrote that wearing a sash during a graduation ceremony falls under school-sponsored speech, not the student's private speech. Therefore, "the School District is permitted to restrict that speech as it sees fit in the interest of the kind of graduation it would like to hold," Wang wrote.

The ruling was over the student's request for a temporary restraining order, which would have allowed her to wear the sash on Saturday for graduation because the case wouldn't have been resolved in time. Wang found that the student and her attorneys failed to sufficiently show they were likely to succeed, but a final ruling is still to come.

It's the latest dispute in the U.S. about what kind of cultural graduation attire is allowed at commencement ceremonies, with many focusing on tribal regalia.

Attorneys for Naomi Peña Villasano argued in a hearing Friday in Denver that the school district decision violates her free speech rights. They also said that it's inconsistent for the district to allow Native American attire but not Peña Villasano's sash representing her heritage. The sash has the Mexican flag on one side and the United States flag on the other.

"I'm a 200 percenter — 100% American and 100% Mexican," she said at a recent school board meeting in Colorado's rural Western Slope.

"The district is discriminating against the expression of different cultural heritages," said her attorney Kenneth Parreno, from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, at Friday's hearing.

An attorney representing the Garfield County School District 16 countered that Native American regalia is required to be allowed in Colorado and is categorically different from wearing a country's flags. Permitting Peña Villasano to sport the U.S. and Mexican flags as a sash, said Holly Ortiz, could open "the door to offensive material."

Ortiz further stated that the district doesn't want to prevent Peña Villasano from expressing herself and that the graduate could adorn her cap with the flags or wear the sash before or after the ceremony.

But "she doesn't have a right to express it in any way that she wants," Ortiz said.

Wang sided with the district, finding that "the School District could freely permit one sash and prohibit another."

Similar disputes have played out across the U.S. this graduation season.

A transgender girl lodged a lawsuit against a Mississippi school district for banning her from wearing a dress to graduation. In Oklahoma, a Native American former student brought legal action against a school district for removing a feather, a sacred religious object, from her cap before the graduation ceremony in 2022.

What qualifies as proper graduation attire has been a source of conflict for Native American students around the country. Both Nevada and Oklahoma on Thursday passed laws allowing Native American students to wear religious and cultural regalia at graduation ceremonies.

This year, Colorado passed a law making it illegal to keep Native American students from donning such regalia. Nearly a dozen states have similar laws.

The legal arguments often come down to whether the First Amendment protects personal expression, in this case the sash, or if it would be considered school-sponsored speech, and could be limited for educational purposes.

Three teenagers have been arrested on first-degree murder charges in connection to the death of a 20-year-old Colorado woman, who was struck by a rock that investigators say was thrown through her windshield while she was driving.

Alexa Bartell, of Arvada, was talking on the phone with a friend when she was hit by the rock northwest of Denver on April 19. After the call went silent, the friend tracked Bartell's location with a phone app and found the woman dead in her car, which had crashed into a field, said Karlyn Tilley, a spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

Bartell was killed by the rock and not the crash, according to Tilley.

Joseph Koenig, Nicholas "Mitch" Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak, all 18, were arrested at their homes in Arvada, Colorado, overnight Tuesday and Wednesday. Online jail records did not indicate if they have attorneys who can speak on their behalf.

Investigators believe the attack is linked to several other similar incidents in which rocks between 4 and 6 inches in diameter and weighing 3 to 5 pounds were thrown at cars in the area the night of Bartell's death.

Jefferson County Sheriff's Office

The attacks started just after 10 p.m. and involved at least seven vehicles. In addition to Bartell's death, two drivers suffered minor injuries.

It's unclear which of the teens was driving during the attacks, but all three are suspected of throwing rocks at vehicles.

Investigators say mobile device forensics and tips from the public helped lead them to the suspects, who could face additional charges.

It was the kind of jaw-dropping performance the crowd had never seen.

Zeb Powell stole the show at the 2020 X Games in Aspen, Colorado, jumping and flipping his way right into fans' hearts and a first-place win.

But here's the thing, the rookie clutching the gold medal didn't even like snowboarding the first time he tried it.

"My teacher was mean, and she set me up backward. None of it was appealing to me," Powell tells Newsy. 

For a while, he turned to skateboard, but his raw talent on the snow could not be ignored.

"He's always been flipping and turning, and he's always been on a board or something that will let him fly through the air," Valerie Powell, Zeb's mother, said. 

His parents, who adopted him at five weeks old, started sending him from his North Carolina home to a snowboarding camp in Colorado. Powell stood out in a sport that traditionally is as white as snow.

Newsy's Clayton Sandell: How many people were there doing this that looks like you?

Powell: There might have been one other black person on the mountain.

Sandell: You ever feel unwelcome in this sport?

Powell: Luckily, like, no. I don't really have anything bad to say about anyone.

But it isn't just that Zeb Powell is one of the few black faces on the slopes. Sports commentator Selema Masekela has watched generations of snowboarders over three decades. He says the 22-year-old has game-changing skills he's never seen before.

"He's a jazz musician on a snowboard. He improvises.  It's like, oh, this is a type of snowboarding, an ability and an interpretation of the thing that is crazy, and so artistic and spontaneous, but highly athletic. And also, in the body of a young black kid who grew up in North Carolina?" sports commentator Selema Masekela tells Newsy. 

Powell's first appearance at the X Games changed everything. He gained a ton of new followers and support on social media. Fans who maybe, for the first time, saw themselves.

"I heard a lot of them say they didn't even know that black people snowboarded, which is crazy. I mean, just coming from me, like I never even thought about it like that," Powell explained.  

Powell is still getting used to all the attention and all the selfies.

Sandell: What's it like being recognized like that? 

Powel: That's always crazy. I just kind of fully embrace it try to talk to everyone.

But one thing he's sure of, he's using his new visibility to help make snowboarding much more diverse.

"I think the culture is just it's so fun to be around. I love it. I think a lot of people will love it," Powell says. 

Inviting as many as he can to a sport that historically hasn't been very inviting.

"Recreating and luxuriating in the outdoors was sort of one of the last safe spaces that were built mostly specifically for white people on the back end of segregation in this country.  And so, it's going to take a very long time for those things to change," Masekela explains further. 

Powell didn't place at this year's X Games, but his mom says what's important is that her son knows he has a gift.

"And you got to use it right and stay humble and give back, and so far, that's what he's done, which makes me extremely proud. Prouder than any medal he could ever win," Valerie Powell says of her son. 

"It's exciting because he really does have an opportunity to be so much bigger than then snowboarding and to be like an icon for the sport in opening up accessibility and possibility to what the slopes can look like. It's like, you know, growing up watching Jordan or Kobe or Serena, and then to see it come along, in in a young Black man in America is just it just wildly powerful," Masekela says. 

For now, Powell says he'll be spreading the word through the type of videos he makes with his friends, hot-dogging down the slopes and dropping into concrete canyons, making sure that even though he's one of the few Black pro snowboarders, Zeb Powell is not going to be the last.

Clayton Sandell at Newsy first reported this story.

SHERIDAN, Colo. — Fewer than 1% of small businesses in America are certified LGBT business enterprises.

One new Colorado business is working to break the stigma around what types of businesses the LGBTQ+ community owns and operates.

For many, cars are a necessity, which creates a need for proper repair and care.

It’s something often thought of as a man’s job and that stigma instilled a fear in CC Haug for years.

“I just really enjoy seeing things come together and then being able to take care of people," said CC Haug.

“Throughout my entire life that’s been one of those things, knowing inside that I would prefer to transition and sort of live this way I always had that fear that within that industry, to sort of be pushed out of it. To no have a comfortable safe place to work or even a place that I enjoy.”

They are a transgender person who has always had a passion for vehicles.

“My whole life has been around cars. My dad growing up owned a couple different car dealerships over the years, my brothers owned a couple different shops over the years," said CC Haug.

Being their true self while also working in the repair space is what led to the opening of Good Judy Garage.

CC and Faith Haug, the co-owners, wanted their business to be a place where customers can be comfortable.

“One of us said wouldn’t it be really nice if there was like a queer auto shop here in town and there isn’t and we were like oh well let’s make one," said Faith Haug.

“But it’s more about giving them a place that they know they can go for something that had given them anxiety in the past. Right so it’s kind of one more place you know you can go that’s safe because you still have a long list of places you have to go that’s not.”

Good Judy Garage opened in December 2021 and the co-owners say their quick success is a testament to the need their business is filling.

“I think in the first month we had 215 individual customers, not repeat, like individual people, use us in the first month," said Faith Haug.

“There’s 10 auto shops down this street, you can find an auto shop on any block right. So to just be another auto shop but to get that many customers in our first month really says something to us.”

The Haug's have also become role models within the community, making an impact much bigger than themselves.

“I’ve had a few people say that and it strikes me so strangely I don’t even know how to react to that most of the time," said CC Haug.

“I hope what were doing is making a positive difference in the world or even just on some level changing the way people look at things or think about things.”

At just a week old, Addalyn Clarken already has quite the story to tell."Not to be graphic, but she was coming," Jill Clarken, Addalyn's mother, said. "There was no waiting."It was last Saturday when Jill Clarken and her husband, John, called 911 after realizing Addalyn was ready to come out sooner than they expected."There was a pretty urgent need to get some help because we weren't going anywhere," Jill said.On the other line was Megan Biberos, a Fort Collins, Colorado, 911 dispatcher. "I honestly didn't think we'd get all the way through it," Biberos said. "Because again, that doesn't usually happen."In most cases, the fire department arrives in minutes and helps with the delivery. But the engine closest to the Clarkens was tied up and Biberos had to step in using her years of knowledge."I wasn't too nervous until the dad kind of was like, 'Oh, boy, it's, you know, it's—she's coming," Biberos said. "It was just a very calming voice, which I think in turn made me calm," John Clarken said. "I mean, if she would have been freaking out, I think I would have been freaking out."Watch the video above for more on this story.

ALTA, Utah — When an avalanche happens, one invaluable tool is avalanche dogs.

Many teams from around the West coast bring their dogs to Utah to get trained at Wasatch Backcountry Rescue’s Avalanche Dog Training school.

“These dogs are a great tool for us,” Andy Van Houten, President of the Wasatch Backcountry Rescue said.

“They've proven themselves valuable over the last several years as we've seen an increase in backcountry users.”

The school brings in students from all over the west coast including teams from Colorado, Idaho and California.

One of the 16 teams are Maia and Zak from Keystone ski resort in Colorado.

“Maia's a year and a half old she's a golden retriever,” Zak bloom, Maia’s dog handler said.

“She's done very well this week.”

The one-year-old is a friendly camera-loving star in the school but while it's fun in the snow for her, saving lives is no laughing matter.

“We've spent all week burying each other in the snow and letting these dogs find us,” Brown said.

“Just hoping everybody progresses with the idea that we can hopefully save somebody.”

Golden retrievers like Maia are among a variety of dog breeds building their resumes.

“What we generally look for is kind of the hunting breed,” Van Houten said.

“We want a dog that's pretty resilient out in the harsh weather and then we also want a dog that's gonna work hard that's trainable.”

Being friendly is also a part of the mission.

“We do a lot of interactions around the guests here at the resort and we do a lot of outreach education so we want dogs that are friendly” Van Houten explained.

“If you're at the resorts come up to say hi talk to the handlers we're happy to explain what we do how it.”

While training on the ground is one thing, training in the air is the mission of the final day of training.

“What we do is we hot load teams down here in the lower mountain,” Van Houten said.

“We fly them up to a site on the hill to simulate getting flown into a live rescue.”

As the week of training comes to a close and the dogs are mastering their air rescue skills, dogs like these will be ready to save lives in an emergency.

Spencer Joseph at KSTU in Salt Lake City, Utah first reported this story.

At least two people are missing after a horrific wildfire tore through Boulder, County, Colorado, Thursday, leveling whole subdivisions and charring more than 6,000 acres.

"We have two missing people still," Boulder Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Jennifer Churchill said Saturday. The office "will continue to investigate," Churchill said. No additional information was provided about the missing persons.

The news came a day after officials said there had been no deaths as a result of blaze, which was miraculous given the Marshall Fire's speed and ferocity, they said. At the time, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said one person who had been missing Thursday night had been accounted for.

Officials flew over the affected area Friday morning to assess the damage shortly before the weather swung to the other extreme, with a cold front that dumped several inches of snow.

Subdivisions on the west side of Superior and in Old Town Superior were "totally gone," Pelle said in the news conference later that day, adding the south side of Louisville suffered "catastrophic losses" as well.

"I would estimate it's going to be at least 500 homes (destroyed)," Pelle said. "I would not be surprised if it's 1,000."

Judy Delaware's family lost their Louisville home in the blaze, escaping the fast-moving fires with not much more than their dogs and the clothes on their backs, she told CNN Saturday, as she stood with her family in the snow that's blanketed the region over the last couple days. Now the home is a "pile of rubble," she said.

"It just felt like a punch to the stomach," she said of the moment she realized her home was gone. "And this can't be real, it's just so surreal to be able to even fathom, everything you own is just gone. Gone."

Authorities announced evacuation orders Thursday as the fire quickly made its way to suburban neighborhoods. Many of those areas remain blocked off because it's "still too dangerous" for residents to return just yet, the sheriff said Friday.

"We saw still active fire in many places this morning, we saw downed power lines, we saw a lot of risk that we're still trying to mitigate," he said. "As soon as residents are able to get back, we're going to let them back. That's our goal."

Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via AP

The Marshall Fire was one of two blazes that started Thursday morning. Fueled by historic winds, its flames sped across drought-parched land, traveling "down a football field in a matter of seconds," Gov. Jared Polis described in a Thursday news conference.

The other fire, known as the Middle Fork Fire, was attacked quickly and "laid down," the sheriff said.

Containment of the Marshall Fire remained at 0% Friday because fighting this blaze is different, the fire's incident commander, Michael Smith, told reporters.

"This is about working around the perimeters of homes and working our way through the process," he said. "We're having to kind of change our thought process on what containment looks like," he said.

But fire officials did not expect much more fire growth as the winds died down and more snow fell. The area has seen between 5 and 8 inches of snow in the last 24 hours, CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford said Saturday afternoon: Louisville has seen 8 inches, and Boulder had seen 8.2 inches, he said.

'A hurricane of smoke and fire'

Many of the residents in the fire's path were caught off-guard by the evacuation orders, and the rush to leave was a chaotic one, as they scrambled to grab belongings and pets before fleeing.

"They were given immediate orders to evacuate," Denver Fire Department spokesperson Capt. Greg Pixley told CNN on Friday. "People aren't prepared for that."

The Delaware family was together the day of the blaze, chatting with a friend on FaceTime when their son alerted them to the fire nearby. When they went out to take a look, they could tell things were moving swiftly.

Prescott Delaware, Judy's son, estimated the flames were about 600 yards away. "But with, like, 100 mile per hour winds," he added.

His partner, Tayler Sustello, described seeing a red and orange sky and blackening smoke, and the wind was strong enough to knock her over, she said.

"Things were moving quickly," she said. "And the sound of the wind -- it honestly just sounded like a hurricane of smoke and fire."

The family took just a few minutes to grab a handful of essentials: phone chargers, their dogs' leashes and medicine. Judy Delaware grabbed some slippers and pajamas, but she had to leave behind other belongings, like photographs of her parents.

It was overwhelming to drive away and think about all the people she knew who were affected by the fire, her daughter, Elise Delaware, said.

"Just seeing the home that you love and you are so proud of just going up in smoke is just horrible. It's horrible," she said. But she's just grateful her loved ones are safe.

Resident Hunt Frye said he was shopping for soup for his wife at a Costco in Superior when a worker suddenly told customers to evacuate, sending them running. As he drove home, Frye watched a frenzied evacuation around him, describing it as "apocalyptic-feeling."

"People were running from their houses with their pet cats and, you know, everybody was very panic-stricken," he said. "The thing that really struck me was the fear in the police officers' face(s) who were trying to kind of get traffic going. They were legitimately scared."

Several people were being treated for injuries as of Friday, authorities said.

"In this kind of situation you'd expect, honestly, dozens of fatalities," Polis told CNN Friday evening. "These are thousands of people, many had five minutes to flee. It would be remarkable if there aren't any (deaths)."

Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Cause of blaze is under investigation

The origin of the blaze is still under investigation, the sheriff said there were power lines down where the Marshall Fire started.

"The origin of the fire hasn't been confirmed. It's suspected to be power lines but we are investigating that today and we have folks on the ground as we speak trying to pinpoint that cause," Pelle said.

But the Boulder Office of Emergency Management (OEM) said power company Xcel Energy "found no downed power lines."

"Xcel Energy has been a very responsive and invaluable partner. At this point, they have inspected all of their lines within the ignition area and found no downed power lines," Boulder OEM said in a news release.

"They did find some compromised communication lines that may have been misidentified as power lines. Typically, communications lines (telephone, cable, internet, etc.) would not be the cause of a fire," the release added.

A full investigation is ongoing, it said.

DENVER, Colo. (KMGH) — The Colorado First Judicial District Attorney's Office will ask the court to reduce a truck driver's 110-year sentence to 20-30 years at an upcoming sentence reconsideration hearing, the district attorney announced in a statement Thursday.

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was sentenced to 110 years in prison after he was convicted in the deadly crash on I-70 in April 2019.

In the statement, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King said the decision to request a sentence reconsideration was made "based on the facts of the case and input from the victims and their families."

Millions expressed disappointment in the lengthy sentence.

More than 4.8 million people have signed a Change.org petition calling for Aguilera-Mederos to have his sentence commuted or to be pardoned, saying the crash was a tragedy but the sentencing is unfair. On social media, posts are also petitioning for truck drivers to boycott Colorado until Aguilera-Mederos is released or a mandatory minimum sentencing law is changed.

During the sentencing, Judge A. Bruce Jones said his hands were tied when it came to sentencing because of mandatory minimum laws in the state. On Oct. 15, a jury convicted Aguilera-Mederos, 26, on most of the 42 counts he faced, including vehicular homicide, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, reckless driving and careless driving.

The sentence reconsideration hearing has been scheduled for Monday, Dec. 27 at 11 a.m.

This story was originally reported by Sydney Isenberg on thedenverchannel.com.

A brother and sister are connecting for the first time after finding out they are related.

Days after a tornado took out most of Mayfield, Kentucky, Sean Lynch, and Judy Saxton finally met after ancestry.com DNA tests led them to one another.

In October, they discovered they shared the same father. Lynch says he never met his biological father, who started another family with Saxton's mother years later.

"I thought I was an only child after my biological brother was killed in 1994 in a car accident," Lynch said.

Saxton's daughter discovered the relation through an online DNA test after tracing their family tree.

"She got ahold of him and told him. He thought I was her grandmother," Saxton said. "But then she told him, 'That's my mom, so that's your sister. You're my uncle."

Between COVID-19 concerns and their distance — one in Colorado and the other in Kentucky — the slight chance of meeting in person. Then the tornado hit.

Lynch says he drove 14.5 hours from Littleton, Colorado, just to see his sister and deliver essentials like generators, a space heater, food, water, and love that only family can provide.

"I told my wife when I found out about her, the only thing I want for Christmas is to hug my sister," he said.

Judy is 67 years old, and Sean is 74, so the siblings have a lot to catch up on now that they've been reunited.

Stephanie Sandoval at Newsy first reported this story.

Denver finally got its first snowfall of the season, shattering an 87-year-old record for the latest first snow.

It wasn't much: The official measurement on Friday at Denver International Airport was just three-tenths of an inch.

Jim Kalina, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder, says the Denver metro region is experiencing an extended La Nina weather pattern. That tends to produce drier weather conditions.

The conditions also come as much of Western U.S. is experiencing a megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change.

Before Friday, the Mile High City's latest measurable snowfall was on Nov. 21, 1934.

While Denver received less than an inch of snow, the surrounding mountains saw their first major snowfall of the season.

Aspen, Silverton, Telluride and Crested Butte all reported more than a foot of snow. On top of the snow, much of Colorado is under wind warnings that will stretch into Saturday.

Snowless in Colorado? No, this is not a follow-up to the Tom Hanks movie "Sleepless in Seattle," but rather a real-life drama unfolding across the state with very real-life consequences.

It's been 224 consecutive days (and counting) since it snowed a measurable amount in Denver, and it has just broken the record for the latest date for a first snowfall — a record that has held since snowfall records began in 1882. In that time, Denver has never entered December without measurable snow.

This extended dry period has implications for the state's long-standing drought, a dwindling water supply and a population that wants to hit the slopes.

"Everywhere across the state is experiencing some kind of drought conditions," Ayesha Wilkinson, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told CNN. For example, "Denver has just recorded their second-least snowiest November," with no measurable snow observed — meaning they had some flurries, but nothing accumulated. This November is behind only 1949 when literally "no flakes fell from the sky."

Colorado looks representative of the rest of the country, too, at the start of meteorological winter on December 1, and only 11.1% of the United States is covered in snow.

Ski resorts push pause on opening day

While the state endures one of the driest and warmest periods in modern record-keeping, the effect it's having on ski resorts can't be overlooked.

Like Telluride, some ski resorts were forced to delay their opening day until after Thanksgiving, foregoing revenue from the extended holiday weekend.

Ski resorts have had to make artificial snow to cover the deficit and make it possible for skiers to return safely to the mountains. Even so, the weather hasn't exactly played ball.

"Normally we have about 300 hours of snowmaking under our belts by this time of year, but we've been able to run our guns about 200 hours" Loryn Duke, director of communications at Steamboat Ski Resort, explained. "Our snowmakers are literally filling in for Mother Nature."

Optimal snowmaking conditions involve a "combination of low temperatures and low humidity," also known as the wet bulb. Conditions within the mountains must remain at or below freezing both at night and during the day to help maximize the base snowpack.

"We have all the tools in our kit to assist Mother Nature and then once Mother Nature shows up, we are ready to welcome her," said Duke.

Snow in Colorado is not only crucial for the nearly $5 billion ski industry, but it's also imperative for the state's access to fresh water.

Drought conditions worsen across Colorado

Over two-thirds of Colorado's water supply comes from the snowpack, according to the Environmental Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Less snow means less water, which is bad news for everyone, considering the long-standing drought plaguing the western United States.

The Colorado River Basin, whose headwaters originate in the western part of the state, supplies more than 40 million Americans with their drinking water. A water shortage has been declared for the first time, fueled in part by climate change.

Colorado's specific drought situation has once again taken a turn for the worse. After some brief improvement over the spring and summer, the statewide percentage under moderate drought was 88% last week and now sits at 95% with no precipitation in the forecast until next week.

Denver just recorded its "3rd warmest November on record," Wilkinson told CNN. The heat continues into December as record highs are challenged once again, along with below-average rainfall, consistent with the ongoing drought. "To date, Denver has only received 12.37 inches of liquid precipitation while normally we would have 14.14 inches," explained Wilkinson.

Winter conditions can make a comeback

Just because it's been a slow start to the winter season, it doesn't mean the rest of the winter will follow suit. December has historically been known to produce some healthy snowfall totals in Denver, with an average of 8 inches for the month. This often equates to feet of snow in the mountains, where skiers welcome it with open arms.

Joel Gratz, who forecasts snow for ski resorts and is founding meteorologist of OpenSnow, told CNN Weather, "A couple of feet of snow can help many mountains open a lot of terrain. One to three storms can deliver this much snow, so things can change quickly."

Colorado ski enthusiasts look for storms that come in from the southwest, because they carry abundant moisture from the Pacific Ocean that can equate to several feet of snow in the mountains. Another favorable track for snowstorms comes from the northwest, which favors lighter and fluffier snow trademarked by Steamboat Ski Resort as Champagne Powder.

WATCH: Santa Claus gets creative with technology, hits the airwaves

Updated: 5:26 AM EST Dec 2, 2021

It's been harder to visit face-to-face with Santa Claus over the past few years due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But Santa is always coming up with new ways to stay in touch. Colorado's Longmont Amateur Radio Club, which has helped put Saint Nick on the airwaves and connect him with children across the state.Santa is using the technology to check his list, make sure children are ready for the holidays and answer their questions."She always says, 'Santa, how many cookies did you eat last night?" Santa told KUSA of one caller. "I don't know, I was too busy to count them." No radio? No problem. Santa said he's also available on Zoom. "If I can make someone laugh for 10 seconds somewhere in their day, that's worth any foolishness that I might do," Santa said.