MATAMOROS, Mexico – The first Atlantic hurricane of the year plowed ahead toward a collision with the Mexican Gulf coast and south Texas on Wednesday, whipping up high waves that frustrated oil-spill cleanup efforts and delivering tar balls and globs of crude onto already soiled beaches.

Hurricane Alex flooded roads and forced thousands of people to evacuate fishing villages as it bore down on the northeastern Mexican coast.

Braving horizontal sheets of rain, Mexican marines went door-to-door in the small fishing community of Playa Bagdad, trying to evacuate villagers from rickety wooden shacks.

At least 50 people were easily persuaded to get aboard buses to shelters, but holdouts could be seen peeking through windows. One man rebuffed the navy’s offer and quickly shut his plywood door.

“We’re worried it’s going to come hard,” said Macedonia Villegas as she and her son readied their house before leaving with the marines. Surf pounded the nearby shore, and a lagoon swe

A Larimer District Court Grand Jury handed down an indictment today against a Fort Collins police officer accused of lying to secure a conviction of a man police believed killed a Fort Collins woman in 1987.
Weld District Attorney Ken Buck presented his case against Lt. Jim Broderick to the grand jury Tuesday. He was an investigator in the case against Timothy Masters, who in 1999 was convicted in the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick. Masters spent almost a decade in prison before a judge overturned his conviction in January 2008 when DNA evidence pointed to another suspect.
Attorneys focused their attention on Fort Collins police mishandling the case, eventually securing a $5.9 million settlement for Masters with the city of Fort Collins and a $4.1 million settlement with Larimer County for the wrongful conviction.
The indictments against Broderick were announced today by the Weld DA’s office. Each charge carries a possible sentence of two to six years in prison and a maximum fine of

Two Weld County Council positions will be up for election in November and anyone interested in seeking one of the seats is being encouraged to pick up petitions which may be circulated through Aug. 19.

The two positions include one at-large four-year term and one four-year term in District 3, which is in the southern part of Weld.

Petitions are available at the Weld County Election Department, 1401 N. 17th Ave., Greeley.

Anyone petitioning onto the ballot for District 3 must gather 100 signatures of registered voters in that district. Petitioning onto the ballot for the at-large positions require 100 signatures of registered voters living in Weld.

For more information about the council, go to www.co.weld.co.us, e-mail countycouncil@co.weld.co.us or call (970) 356-4000, Ext. 4780.

Game: Lucky Duck
Cost to play: One duck for $2 or $5 to guarantee a prize.
Objective: To find a duck marked small, medium or large to win an associated prize.
What you can win: Stuffed animal.
What I won: A medium stuffed animal.
How much it costs to win a big prize: $45 to guarantee an extra large animal. If you “guaranteed” a medium prize, you need three mediums to get a large and three larges to get an extra large. However, if you’re a “lucky duck” and you pick a “large” prize, buying the ducks only one duck at a time, you could get out of there for $6 – you decide.
Difficulty level: Easier than easy. There is no skill involved, this is a game of pure chance – no matter what the carnival worker tells you about games of chance being illegal at carnivals. It doesn’t take much to pick up a duck and hope the right letter is on the bottom.
Rating on a scale of 1-5: 3 1/2. Everyone wins a prize no matter what and the p

A Windsor man will likely spend the rest of his life in prison after being deemed a habitual criminal in Colorado.
Gregory Rivas, 45, was sentenced Tuesday to 64 years in prison, after prosecutors showed that he had at least three prior felony convictions.
A Weld District Court jury convicted him on June 16 of 11 criminal counts relating to a spate of fast-food robberies through 2008: four felony counts of aggravated robbery; two felony counts of attempted robbery; one felony count of at-risk robbery; and four misdemeanor counts of theft.
Greeley police arrested Rivas on May 29, 2008, after noticing at an earlier disturbance call that he matched the description of a suspect in several robberies of local restaurants.
Co-defendant Gust Nystrom, 45, of Lucerne, also was arrested in connection with the robberies and pleaded guilty to one count of attempted aggravated robbery on Nov. 4, 2008. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
When a defendant is deemed a habitual criminal, an