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Nick Burkett’s family huddled together in the cold, passing a bouquet, candles and laminated sheet of photos between them as they created a makeshift memorial on Denver’s 16th Street Mall on Friday afternoon. It has been only a few days since a detective called Carol Cortez to tell her that her son had been killed in a stabbing during the weekend, and Cortez said she thinks she’s still in shock. Family members pray for stabbing victim Nick Burkett on Friday at the corner of Wazee Street and 16th Street Mall in Denver.

Niwot runner and 5A state champion Addison Ritzenhein has been named Gatorade Colorado Girls Cross Country Player of the Year for the second straight year, Gatorade announced this week. The junior put up a time of 16:54.7 to take home that individual state title — her third straight — and lead her team to a fifth-place finish.

The union that represents King Soopers employees said Friday that after months of negotiations, its contracts with the supermarket chain have expired and votes authorizing a strike could be announced as early as Monday. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents members in Wyoming and Colorado, agreed to extend the contracts, originally set to expire Jan.

As a culture, we’re hard on our beautiful blondes. We may automatically presume everything should be easy for a conventionally gorgeous, flaxen-haired performer with a visible-from-space smile. We may even assume that because she’s beautiful, she can’t be all that smart. Tell it to Marilyn Monroe, who felt pressured the whole of her all-too-short career to prove that she was a serious actor, something we can now see clearly in her body of work. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A comic actor is also, of course, a serious actor—there’s nothing more serious than the art of comedy.

Police are asking for the public’s help investigating a shooting at a south Aurora park that left two people dead in November. Ahmad Malachi Richardson, 18, and Isaiah Ray Chavez Seppelt, 20, died in the shooting that wounded a third person on the morning of Nov. 17. Officers responded to a hospital and spoke with the wounded person, who told them the shooting happened in the parking lot of Utah Park. Richardson’s and Seppelt’s bodies were found at the park, and police later said two Latino males fled the scene in a small, black car — possibly a four-door. “Numerous witnesses have been interviewed, but no viable leads have been developed,” police wrote in a Jan.

As a freshman last season, Colorado State’s 6-foot-7 forward Rashaan Mbemba showed glimpses of what he could do once he grew into an expanded role with the team. The Austria native played sparingly as the team’s No. 2 big man behind Patrick Cartier but made the most of his opportunities when he got on the court. He averaged 11 minutes per game off the bench, scoring 3.8 points and grabbing 2.2 rebounds per contest, reaching a then-career high in points (13) twice, against San Jose State and Creighton. CSU head coach Niko Medved and his teammates knew that Mbemba could be something special, and teammate Nique Clifford emphasized that during Mountain West Conference media days before the start of the season while providing some foreshadowing to what the big man would do this season. “The thing for Rashaan is, he’s been playing against grown men for what, since he was like 13 years old,” Clifford said.