By Mike Soraghan and John Aloysius Farrell

Washington - Sen. Ken Salazar backed a Senate bill Thursday that provides an 11-year path to citizenship for illegal immigrants as the immigration debate moved to the Senate floor.

But Colorado Republican Reps. Tom Tancredo and Bob Beauprez criticized the bill, saying it will increase illegal immigration.

The Senate legislation “would be like a dinner bell” for illegal immigrants, said Beauprez, who is running for governor. “We will have created the biggest magnet ever.” >> MORE

By John Aloysius Farrell

Washington - Florida Republicans are complicating the West’s hopes to have a major impact in the 2008 presidential primaries.

State Rep. Marco Rubio, a Miami Republican in line to become the next Speaker of the Florida House, says he has the necessary, bipartisan political backing to move the state’s presidential primary to a date one week after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. >> MORE

By Karen E. Crummy

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado and members of her committee that oversees the Environmental Protection Agency are investigating whether the EPA chief’s attendance at a Denver political fundraiser was ethical, she said Thursday.

The Denver Democrat said that Stephen Johnson, who headlined a fundraiser for 7th Congressional District candidate Rick O’Donnell three weeks ago, was engaging in “secret, behind-closed-doors influence- peddling” that was inappropriate at any time but especially during a congressional race considered the most competitive in the country. >> MORE

The number made such a good headline: Illegal immigrants cost Colorado a billion dollars a year. But maybe not for long.

The figure came from Defend Colorado Now. The anti-illegal-immigration group paid a management and financial consultant from Evergreen to produce it. Defend Colorado Now wanted the number to make its case for a constitutional amendment that denies government benefits to undocumented state residents. >> MORE

By Alicia Caldwell

The White House has ordered deep background checks on Troy Eid, a lawyer and former counsel to Gov. Bill Owens, in preparation for nominating him as Colorado’s U.S. attorney.

Sean Conway, chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, confirmed Wednesday that Eid, who had dropped out of the nomination process, is in serious contention for the job and is being vetted before his name is submitted to the U.S. Senate for consideration.

“Sen. Allard has been informed that Troy Eid is an active candidate for U.S. attorney,” Conway said. >> MORE

On a Mountain Near Estes Park - This land is your land. This land is my land.

But maybe not for long.

Overcast skies and the haze of an approaching snowstorm knocked the views down to nearly nothing on the walk up Noel’s Draw. It didn’t matter. Whether you can see for 20 miles or 2, you know when you’re looking at irreplaceable pristine scenes.

That’s what Denver Post reporter Dave Olinger and I saw recently. We hiked on hundreds of acres of national forest that the Bush administration might auction to the highest private bidder to raise $800 million for rural schools.

Click here: Columnist Jim Spencer shows you some of the public land the government is threatening to sell. >> MORE

By Mike Soraghan

By Washington and the West

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar met with President Bush today, urging him to recruit more assistance from other counties to help stabilize Iraq.

“I told the president it is important to internationalize the effort,� Salazar told reporters after the White House meeting. >> MORE

By Anne C. Mulkern

Washington - The Senate Judiciary Committee approved an immigration-reform package Monday that would allow an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to stay in the country and seek citizenship.

On a day filled with protests by immigrant-rights activists across the country, senators by a 12-6 vote approved the bill, which also would create a guest- worker program for immigrants.

On the enforcement side, the legislation calls for doubling the Border Patrol in five years and adding surveillance measures at the U.S.-Mexico line. >> MORE

By Washington and the West

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is scheduled to be the guest speaker at this year’s graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy, officials announced Monday. >> MORE

By Anne C. Mulkern

Washington � Hit by turnover and the loss of several high-profile lawmakers, Colorado’s congressional delegation lacks the clout and cachet it had in previous decades.

Numerous yardsticks show the state’s power in Washington has diminished. Compared with delegations of the last 30 years, Colorado now has fewer lawmakers who’ve been in Congress for long stretches and fewer who are seen as national leaders on key issues.

“Colorado, very frankly, as a delegation does not have much clout,� said former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Republican who retired in January 2005. >> MORE

Lech Walesa speaks truth to power. He started doing that on Aug. 14, 1980. That was the day a 30- something electrician climbed a barricade at a Polish shipyard and gave a speech to striking workers that eventually fueled a peaceful national revolution.

Walesa’s accomplishment is the stuff of legend. For a decade, he battled Communist Party bosses in behalf of trade unionists. He went to jail. He got out. He kept right on talking until he tore a huge hole in the Iron Curtain. Now 62, the guy not only has a Nobel Peace Prize, he spent five years as the first democratically elected president of Poland.

So when Walesa talks - as he did in Denver on Friday - it’s worth paying close attention. >> MORE

By Kirk Mitchell and Annette Espinoza

An estimated 50,000 people marched in front of the state Capitol on Saturday and packed Civic Center, waving Mexican flags and signs urging Congress to defeat a bill that would make illegal immigration a federal felony.

With prompting from speakers using microphones, the crowd chanted “Sí, se puede,” or “Yes, we can,” a saying popularized by César Chávez, the late human-rights activist and farm labor leader.

“It’s just incredible,” yelled rally participant Polly Baca, a former state legislator, as a large Mexican band played music at “The Time Is Now Rally.”

“You can see that a day without these people working would be devastating for Colorado’s economy,” she said. >> MORE

By Bruce Finley

U.S. agents along the southwestern border increasingly catch illegal immigrants from throughout the world � not just from Mexico � as they try to slip into the country.

Some come from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and other countries U.S. officials regard as hotbeds of terrorism. Many more may enter undetected.

New data obtained by The Denver Post show that Border Patrol agents over the past five months caught 46,058 non-Mexican migrants along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, up 12 percent from the 40,953 caught during the same period last year.

Annual apprehensions have increased fivefold since 2002, with 155,000 non-Mexican migrants caught last year, according to government data from congressional and other sources.

The widening flood of illegal immigration raises security concerns as Congress debates how to fix an immigration system all sides see as broken. >> MORE

By Mike Soraghan

Washington � Gale Norton is heading out of Washington, but she might not be heading home to Colorado.

As she prepares to end her five-year tenure as secretary of the interior this week, she says she’s not certain she’ll settle down in the state where she was raised and elected attorney general.

“Not necessarily,� Norton said in an interview Friday. “We do plan to go home to Colorado at some point. It might be now, or it might be a few years from now.� >> MORE

For economist Richard Freeman, the “Eureka!� moment came at an academic conference, when a Chinese colleague gave him a chart of the engineering and science doctorates being awarded by China’s universities.

“Oh, my God!� Freeman said to himself, startled at how that total was soaring. “How could China be doing this?�

And so Freeman, an agreeably disheveled Harvard professor, assigned himself a paper. For most of the last two years, he has been combing the data, making adjustments to ensure he’s comparing oranges with oranges, and sounding an alarm.

“This country has been very lucky,� Freeman says. “From the end of World War II through 1990 we were by far the dominant scientific power.� >> MORE