Colorado News & Views

FORT COLLINS, CO-NewMark Merrill Cos. of Woodland Hills, CA has entered the Colorado market with its $9.2 million acquisition of an Albertson’s based shopping center. The property, at College Avenue and Horsetooth Road, is called Cottonwood Corners.

The 80,276-sf shopping center was built in 1981 and sits on a parcel of slightly more than seven acres. The new owners plan several immediate improvements to the shopping center, including upgrading the common areas and adding new signage.

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Colorado State University researchers have been awarded a $2.6 million federal grant to study how interactions between birds and people may spread avian influenza.

The three-year study will be conducted in the Western United States and central Indonesia. It is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Indonesia, scientists will study how people infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus interacted with birds carrying the germ.

In the U.S., where the highly pathogenic H5N1 has not been detected, they will examine the various ways birds enter the Western states and come in contact with humans.

The goal of the U.S. part of the study is to strengthen H5N1 monitoring efforts and prevent an outbreak in poultry and people.

Small, noncommercial or semi- commercial "backyard flocks" of poultry are common in the Western U.S.

As Election 2006 comes down to the wire, Colorado voters are hearing claims by candidates of all stripes to be tough on illegal immigration. Democrats are taking credit for the new laws passed by the special session in July. Republicans are proposing tough new measures aimed at judges and employers. The Republican candidate for Governor, former Congressman Bob Beauprez, has an 8-point plan on his web page and is attacking the Democrat candidate, Bill Ritter, for his record, as Denver District Attorney, of plea bargaining hundreds of cases involving illegal aliens down to non-deportable offenses. Ritter is counterattacking with Beauprez's weak record as a U.S. congressman�for example in supporting the matricula consular card.