FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Colorado State University President Tony Frank is telling students in a letter to take care of each other following the deaths of two first-year students whose bodies were found in their dorms this month. The Coloradoan reports Wednesday that 18-year-old Nikita Krasko died Oct. 12 by hanging in his room. […]

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DENVER (AP) — Colorado Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov surrendered to Denver police on an arrest warrant on charges of kidnapping and third-degree assault in what authorities are calling a domestic violence incident. Police released few details about the case Wednesday night during a brief news conference and declined to elaborate, other than to say it […]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says for the first time that it intends to use information gained from one of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance programs against an accused terrorist, setting the stage for a likely Supreme Court test of the Obama administration’s approach to national security.

The high court so far has turned aside challenges to the law on government surveillance on the grounds that people who bring such lawsuits have no evidence they are being targeted.

Jamshid Muhtorov was accused in 2012 of providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbek terrorist organization that, authorities say, was engaging NATO coalition and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

According to court papers in the case, the FBI investigated Muhtorov after his communications with an overseas website administrator for the IJU.

In a court filing Friday, the government said it intends to offer into evidence in Muhtorov’s case “information obtained or derived from acquisition of foreign intelligence information conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.”

Last February, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that a group of American lawyers, journalists and organizations could not sue to challenge the 2008 expansion of the law. The court those who sued could not show that the government would monitor their communications along with those of potential foreign terrorist and intelligence targets.

Last month, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had ruled with the majority in the earlier 5-4 decision, said the courts ultimately would have to determine the legality of the NSA surveillance program.

In the majority opinion last February, Justice Samuel Alito suggested a way for a challenge to be heard. He said if the government intends to use information from such surveillance in court, it must provide advance notice. In his argument before the court’s decision, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli had made similar comments to the justices on behalf of the administration.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon declined comment Saturday on the new development beyond the court filing.

The program at issue in the Muhtorov case is commonly called “702,” a reference to the numbered section of the surveillance law on Internet communication.

In the Muhtorov case, after his contact with the IJU’s website administrator, the FBI went to court and obtained email from two accounts that Muhtorov used, according to the court papers.

The FBI also went to court to obtain communications originating from Muhtorov’s phone lines. In one call, Muhtorov told an associate that the Islamic Jihad Union said it needed support, an FBI agent said in an affidavit filed in the case. The associate warned Muhtorov to be careful about talking about a founder of group, the affidavit stated.

The FBI also said Muhtorov communicated with a contact in the group by email using code words, telling a contact that he was “ready for any task, even with the risk of dying.”

Muhtorov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, resettled in Aurora, Colo., in 2007 with the help of the United Nations and the U.S. government. He was arrested Jan. 21, 2012, in Chicago with about $2,800 in cash, two shrink-wrapped iPhones and an iPad as well as a GPS device.

In March 2012, Muhtorov’s attorney, federal public defender Brian Leedy, said at a court hearing that Muhtorov denied the allegations and had been headed to the Uzbekistan region to visit family, including a sister who remains imprisoned in that country.

The IJU first conducted attacks in 2004, targeting a bazaar and police, and killing 47 people, according to court papers in the case. The organization subsequently carried out suicide bombings of the U.S. and Israeli embassies and the Uzbekistani prosecutor general’s office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the court papers stated.

Before the recent leak of U.S. documents showing widespread government surveillance, dozens of consumer suits were filed against the government and telecommunications companies over obtaining customer data without warrants. Nearly all the cases were tossed out when Congress in 2008 granted the telecommunication companies retroactive immunity from legal challenges.

WENATCHEE, Wash. (AP) — Fire officials say a dog reaching for treats turned on a stove and started a fire causing smoke damage to an apartment in the central Washington city of Wenatchee.

Wenatchee Fire Marshal Mark Yaple tells KPQ radio that it appears the black Labrador was reaching for a bag of dog food left on a stove top when it turned on the stove with its paw.

Yaple says the residents were not at home when fire crews arrived.

He says emergency crews were able to revive the dog with mouth-to-snout resuscitation. Damage was estimated at $10,000.

Wenatchee, a city of more than 30,000, is about 130 miles from Seattle.

ESTHERVILLE, Iowa (AP) — A squirrel roaming a community college in northern Iowa has become the No. 1 suspect in a vandalized bicycle incident.

Officials at Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville say the rodent chewed through two tires, a bicycle seat, a headlight and a taillight in the span of two days beginning Wednesday.

The Sioux City Journal reports the bicycle owner, an associate math professor, reported the incidents to Estherville police. Another professor later came forward with a photo that shows the squirrel attacking the bike.

A school spokeswoman says the photo helps solve the mystery of how the bicycle was vandalized without witnesses seeing a suspect.

The professor has since parked his bicycle indoors.

DENVER (AP) — Air Force Academy cadets are no longer required to say “so help me God” at the end of the Honor Oath, school officials said Friday.

The words were made optional after a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, that they violated the constitutional concept of religious freedom.

Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson said the change was made to respect cadets’ freedom of religion.

The oath states, “We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does. Furthermore, I resolve to do my duty and to live honorably, so help me God.”

Cadets are required to take the oath once a year, academy spokesman Maj. Brus Vidal said.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, welcomed the change but questioned how it will be applied.

If the person leading the oath includes the words, cadets who choose not to say them might feel vulnerable to criticism, he said.

“What does it mean, ‘optional’?” Weinstein said. “The best thing is to eliminate it.”

Vidal said the oath is led by the Cadet Wing honor chair, a student, and that person will also have the option to use or not use the words.

Academy officials did not immediately return a follow-up call seeking comment on Weinstein’s question.

The West Point equivalent oath does not include the words “so help me God,” said Frank DeMaro, a school spokesman. It states, “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.”

Officials at the U.S. Naval Academy did not immediately return a call. “The Honor Concept” on the Naval Academy website includes similar proscriptions against lying, cheating and stealing but includes no religious reference.

The Air Force Academy outside Colorado Springs has about 4,000 cadets. When they graduate, they are commissioned as second lieutenants.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A grand jury found enough evidence to indict the parents of JonBenet Ramsey for child abuse and accessory to first-degree murder in the 6-year-old’s death, newly unsealed documents revealed Friday, nearly a decade after DNA evidence cleared the couple.

But the 1999 documents shed no light on who was responsible for the child beauty queen’s death, and 14 years later, authorities are no closer to finding her killer.

The documents confirmed reports earlier this year that grand jurors had indeed recommended an indictment in the case, contrary to the long-held perception that the secret panel ended their work without deciding to charge anyone.

At the time, then-District Attorney Alex Hunter didn’t mention an indictment, saying only that there wasn’t enough evidence to warrant charges against the Ramseys, who had long maintained their innocence.

The grand jury met three years after JonBenet’s body was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, the day after Christmas in 1996. Lurid details of the crime and striking video footage of the child in adult makeup and suggestive pageant costumes propelled the case into one of the highest-profile mysteries in the U.S., unleashing a series of true-crime books and TV specials.

Many tabloid headlines later, tests in 2008 on newly discovered DNA left behind by someone who touched JonBenet’s long underwear pointed to the involvement of an “unexplained third party” in her slaying, and not the Ramseys or their son, Burke.

The tests led Hunter’s successor, Mary Lacy, to clear the Ramseys, two years after Patsy Ramsey died of cancer. In a letter to John Ramsey, she called the couple “victims of this crime.”

Finding a match in the nation’s growing DNA database could hold the best hope for someday solving the killing of JonBenet, who would now be 23. Her slaying is considered a cold case, open but not under active investigation.

One of John Ramsey’s attorneys, L. Lin Wood, said the documents released Friday are “nonsensical” and the grand jurors didn’t have the benefit of having the DNA results.

“They reveal nothing about the evidence reviewed by the grand jury and are clearly the result of a confused and compromised process,” he said.

While the killer’s identity is still unknown, Wood said there’s no mystery about the Ramseys’ role.

“The Ramsey family is innocent,” he said. “That part of the case, based on the DNA evidence, is a done deal.”

Boulder police, who were criticized for their handling of the investigation, issued a statement saying the documents show the grand jury agreed with investigators that probable cause existed to file charges. However, the statement acknowledged that the evidence would have to meet a higher standard than probable cause for prosecutors to take the case to trial.

The current district attorney, Stan Garnett, declined to comment but will publish an op-ed piece on Sunday, given the complexity of the case, a spokeswoman said.

David Lane, a defense attorney not involved in the case, said prosecutors may have handed it over to grand jurors because problems in the investigation could have made it difficult to prosecute. But he said that could have backfired with a “runaway grand jury” that reached its own conclusions.

He said the indictments could have been an attempt to force the parents to turn against each other, which he said was unlikely because both were protected by laws that limit testimony of one spouse against another.

“Somebody killed JonBenet Ramsey,” Lane said. “It sounds like they were accused of aiding and abetting each other, with the hope someone would crack and break. That didn’t happen, and prosecutors may have decided not to go forward.”

Although the grand jury foreman signed the 1999 indictments, prosecutors decided not to bring charges.

Christina Habas, a retired judge who oversaw grand juries in Denver, said it’s at the discretion of the district attorney whether to file charges because prosecutors have to consider whether they can convince a trial jury of someone’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The indictments might have been a compromise among jurors who were divided on what counts should be approved, said Nancy Leong, an assistant law professor at the University of Denver. The release of only four of 18 charging pages, and the numbering of the charges, suggest other possible charges were passed over. The charge of accessory to a crime might have been an attempt to “meet in the middle,” Leong said.

“And that would also explain why the prosecutor didn’t want to continue with the prosecution of the crime, because there might not have been enough evidence to prove the parents helped someone else cover up the crime,” she said.

Whatever the motivation behind them, the documents add little or nothing to the public understanding of what happened to JonBenet, Leong said.

“We don’t know much more factually, if anything, than we did in 1996,” she said.

The Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder reported earlier this year that the grand jury had issued indictments, and the documents were released in response to a lawsuit filed by its reporter, Charlie Brennan, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — Colorado officials are asking the U.S. Forest Service to expedite efforts to get timber sales and forest stewardship contracts back up and running following the government shutdown.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said timber products and biomass energy are essential to forest management and to reduce wildfire risks throughout Colorado.

“Jobs are at stake,” Udall said in a statement.

The U.S. Forest Service did not return a phone call seeking comment.

About 25 logging and trucking contractors for Montrose Forest Products were unable to work during the shutdown because the Forest Service prevented work on timber sale contracts on area forests.

Sawmill resource forester Norm Birtcher said the shutdown cut the amount of materials coming into the mill for two weeks just as the mill is trying to stockpile inventory for the spring thaw, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported Tuesday.

“The mill is in jeopardy of shutting down this spring a couple of weeks because of the logs we were unable to bring in,” Birtcher said.

About 90 people work at the mill, with another 60 or so doing trucking, logging and road-building contract work, he said. Some contractor crews were able to shift to private-land timber to keep working and supplying the mill.

The shutdown also affected Hotchkiss-based West Range Reclamation, which does forest health and fuels-reduction treatment work, including under federal forest stewardship contracts.

As of early August, West Range had about 60 employees working around the state, including around 10 at its Hotchkiss office.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — Three FBI experts say they found four types of explosives and other chemicals when they tested items found in Colorado theater shooting defendant James Holmes’ apartment.

The experts testified Tuesday at a pretrial hearing to determine whether they will testify at Holmes’ trial. They shed little new light on the case and mostly answered questions about testing methods.

Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of killing 12 people and injuring 70 in the July 2012 attack.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers are arguing over evidence that could be used to weaken his insanity claim, including homemade bombs found in his apartment.

Police have said the bombs were intricately planned and were meant to divert officers from the theater. Prosecutors could cite that as evidence Holmes was sane.

NEW YORK (AP) — It can be tough to get a conversation going if you want to talk about the late stages of dementia, your last will and testament or the recent passing of your mother.

“When you’re at a cocktail party and you lead off by saying, ‘What do you think about death?’ it’ll be, ‘C’mon, man, it’s a party! Chill out!’ says Len Belzer, a retired radio host from Manhattan.

Belzer is among a growing number of people around the world who are interested enough in death to gather in small groups in homes, restaurants and churches to talk about it.

The gatherings, known as Death Cafes, provide places where death can be discussed comfortably, without fear of violating taboos or being mocked for bringing up the subject.

Organizers say that there’s no agenda other than getting a conversation started — and that talking about death can help people become more comfortable with it and thereby enrich their lives.

“Most people walking down the street, they’re terrified of death,” said Jane Hughes Gignoux, 83, an author who leads Death Cafe gatherings at her Manhattan apartment. “But if you think of death as part of life and let go of the fear, you think more about living your life well.”

Jon Underwood, who organized the first Death Cafe in London two years ago, said he was inspired by death discussions pioneered by Bernard Crettaz, a Swiss sociologist. The first Death Cafe in the U.S. was held in Columbus, Ohio, last year, and “It’s just kind of snowballed,” he said, estimating nearly 300 Death Cafes have been held in the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Portugal, Brazil and Singapore.

One was held at a Georgia cemetery. Sessions are scheduled this week alone in California, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

At a recent two-hour Death Cafe shepherded by Gignoux, six participants, most in their 60s, talked easily over tea and biscotti.

Kathryn Janus, 66, noted that death involves “a lot of ‘why?’ Why did a 12-year-old with leukemia die? Why did a cat get run over?”

Marjorie Lipari, 68, talked about the death of her twin brother 16 years ago.

“What does one do with that kind of hole?” she asked. “It never occurred to me he wouldn’t be with me for my whole life.”

Robb Kushner, 62, discussed the differences between Christian and Jewish funerals he’d been to, noting the open casket at a Methodist wake. Alicia Evans, in her 40s, then told the tale of a man known to be a bit “scruffy” in life who was nicely tidied up by the embalmer.

“He looked so good in the coffin I wanted to give him my number,” she said, cracking up the group.

Janus said afterward, “I like that we laugh.” But Lipari said she wasn’t sure she would ever be entirely at ease about death.

“My ego is going to be opposed to death because that’s ego’s job,” she said. “My goal is to become comfortable with being uncomfortable about death.”

Other subjects commonly brought up at Death Cafes range from financial planning to suicide. They include cremation, memorial services, loved ones’ last moments and the possibility of an afterlife.

Underwood and other organizers emphasize that the discussions are not meant to be counseling. “There’s no guest speaker, no materials, because we’re not guiding people to any conclusions.”

And while the sessions attract a wide range of religions, races and ages, organizers note there are more people 50 and above than in their 20s.

Jane Bissler, incoming president of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, a professionals’ group, said she approves of the Death Cafe concept because people can speak freely about a subject that has become increasingly taboo.

“We’ve tried to shield our children. Some of them don’t know what to do at a funeral home or how to support a friend who’s lost someone,” she said. “We’ve raised a whole generation of folks that may not be talking about death.”

Audrey Pellicano, 60, a Death Cafe facilitator, said it’s not surprising baby boomers have avoided talking about death because their generation has been resisting aging for decades.

“We don’t deal with loss,” she said. “We know how to acquire things, not how to give them up. We have no idea how to leave this life and everything we’ve got.”

Gignoux said participants often bring up supernatural aspects such as communications from the dead. “Some people have very rich experiences,” she said.

The Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones, who arranged for Death Cafes to be held at Manhattan’s famous Trinity Church, said the discussion should be open to all views, regardless of whether they conform to religious teachings.

“I suspect every person probably has a different understanding of death, the afterlife, no afterlife,” Bozzuti-Jones said. “The different views may provide some form of healing.”

Kushner said he doesn’t need any firm answers to benefit from Death Cafes.

“I like the idea that we live with this great mystery,” he said. “Wouldn’t life be boring without it?”