Matthew Brown, Associated Press
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Federal authorities have indicted the owners of a Colorado funeral home on criminal charges for fraudulently obtaining pandemic relief funds from the U.S. government. The husband and wife already face state charges of corpse abuse after 190 decaying bodies were discovered in their funeral home's storage building last year. The new charges Monday against Jon and Carie Hallford underscore their alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years that devastated grieving family members.
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A federal judge is set to consider a request by Colorado's cattle industry to block the impending reintroduction of gray wolves to the state under a voter-approved ballot initiative.
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Federal officials say their investigation into a Colorado coal train derailment that killed a truck driver and shut down a major highway is focused on whether inspection and maintenance practices at BNSF Railway contributed to the accident.
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The steel bridge built in 1958 collapsed Sunday when 30 cars from a BNSF train hauling coal derailed while crossing over Interstate 25 north of Pueblo. The 60-year-old driver of a semitrailer truck that was passing beneath the bridge was killed.
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The Biden administration has identified more than 175,000 square miles of old growth and mature forests on U.S. government lands. Those older forests cover an area larger than California but are under threat by fires, insects, disease and other side-effects of climate change. Administration officials say they plan a new rule to help protect the nation's woodlands. Environmentalists hope that will mean new restrictions on logging. Skeptics from the timber industry and in Congress want more focus on fighting wildfires by thinning forests.