The automobile business is great. Just ask someone who's in it. "People want to buy cars," says Rod Buscher, CEO of Summit Automotive Partners in Denver, which owns 30 assorted dealerships nationwide. And he really wants to sell cars. The problem is that would-be buyers lack either the income or the access to credit that would allow them to drive a new Malibu or Lincoln or Camry off the lot. That won't last forever; in fact, the automobile business figures ...

Larry Jukes said he remembers when he could buy 10 cigarette packs for $2.50. But he'd now take the days when -- just last month -- he could buy his carton of choice for $49. Thanks in part to the largest-ever federal cigarette tax increase -- a nearly 62-cents-a-pack hike that starts Wednesday but was reflected in many prices earlier -- Jukes on Tuesday paid more than $58 for a 10-pack carton at the Cigarette Store in Denver, Colorado. That ...

A New York City hospital will lay off 240 employees, including doctors, nurses and management positions, because of the difficult economic times, the hospital announced in a statement Monday. The paper published its final print edition Tuesday as the P-I makes a transformation into an online-only news outlet. A skeleton crew of 20 to 25 staffers will remain at the new Seattle PI.com while more than 140 staffers will lose their jobs. "Its been an opportunity to experience your ...

San Francisco Chronicle has reached a tentative agreement with its largest union on contract concessions, a key step in keeping the newspaper from being sold or closed, officials announced Monday. The Chronicle told employees last month that the paper was at risk if it did not stop bleeding millions. Its closing would leave San Francisco as the first U.S. metropolis without a major daily paper. Members of the California Media Workers Guild, Local 39521, will vote as early as Thursday ...

Seven tourists in Thailand were missing Monday after a ferry sank about 12 miles from shore, authorities reported. Of those evacuated, at least 35 adults and children were taken to other hospitals to be treated for respiratory irritation, said Lt. Phil Champagne of the Denver Fire Department. The spill happened at an indoor pool of the Kunsberg School, a learning facility for children with breathing problems who cannot attend a regular school, according to school spokesman William Allstetter. The Kunsberg ...

"We are just deeply sorry." That's all E.W. Scripps Co.'s Cincinnati, Ohio–based executives could mumble last week in closing Colorado's oldest company, the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News. In shuttering an operation sprung in 1859 from a gold-mining camp just blocks from its downtown Denver home, Scripps directly or obliquely blamed everything — the economy, the Internet, demographics — and everybody — Denver Post panjandrum William Dean Singleton, ignorant consumers, bloggers — for the diminished tabloid's demise. They certainly were ...

After nearly 150 years in business, the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition Friday, the victim of a bad economy and the Internet generation. The final front-page headline simply says: "Goodbye, Colorado." "It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to you today. Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world, is over." The Rocky Mountain News' owner, E.W. Scripps Co., made the announcement to the newsroom at noon Thursday, ending three ...

The deaths of a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter Tuesday in Mosul were carried out by a terrorist dressed as a policeman, according to Iraqi officials, disputing U.S. military accounts. Of the 20 alleged MS-13 members named in two indictments, eight were arrested Tuesday morning in Denver and in Los Angeles, California, authorities said. Another eight were already in custody, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado. Four remain at ...

Twenty alleged members of a Hispanic gang believed to be one of the nation's largest and most violent have been indicted in Colorado on drug and firearm charges, authorities said Tuesday. Of the 20 alleged MS-13 members named in two indictments, eight were arrested Tuesday morning in Denver and in Los Angeles, California, authorities said. Another eight were already in custody, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado. Four remain at ...

Hours after the lowest point of his boss's first two weeks in office, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs ended the first chapter of the Obama presidency and launched the second. At the end of his morning staff meeting — where his team had gathered to discuss the handling of issues from the first fortnight, including Tom Daschle's unexpected failure to join the Cabinet because of tax-compliance problems — Gibbs reminded members of his team what they had come to Washington ...