Renowned University of Colorado at Boulder physics professor and Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman has been tapped by President Barack Obama to serve as associate director for science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. The nomination of Wieman was announced today along with three other administration appointments.

It all started with the smell. About five years ago, just after Elvis Licul and his wife moved into their farmhouse northwest of Longmont, they detected the odor. It was coming from a field across the road to the west, where a farmer was using biosolids, or treated human sewage, to fertilize his land for growing hay.Turns out, the stuff is free, provided to farmers by municipal wastewater facilities that are happy to 'recycle' the highly diluted liquid (no more than 5 percent is sewer solids).

One of the ads on Andrew Romanoff ’s website shows three guys in a bar — representing the triumvirate of oil, banks and insurance companies — talking about how they have Sen. Michael Bennet in their pockets because of all the money they’ve thrown at him. One asks who is supporting Romanoff, and another replies scoffingly, “Just the people.” It is the latest attempt to paint Romanoff as David and Bennet as Goliath in the U.S. Senate primary.

Add one of Boulder County’s local financial institutions, Elevations Credit Union, to the ever-growing list of financial institutions that are refusing to do business with Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries. Elevations started sending letters to its commercial account holders in January saying that its “Member Due Diligence Program” requires identifying the nature of each of its business accounts.

The local chapter of the Audubon Society has jumped into the fray over the Heaven Fest music festival that is to be held on July 31 next to Union Reservoir in Longmont. Detractors, including those who live close to the Christian concert’s former site near I-25 and Hwy. 7, say the event created unbearable traffic and dust in the past, and now the Boulder County Audubon Society has echoed concerns of local activists worried about the impact that the event will have on the habitat around the reservoir.

Bart’s CD Cellar in Boulder will permanently close its doors on Valentine’s Day. The store announced in mid-December that its parent company, Value Music Concepts, Inc., was shutting it down in early 2010.

The Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services (DHHS) announced Thursday that it is facing a budget shortfall of about $4.5 million and is planning a host of staffing and service reductions, many of which will hurt the county’s neediest families.

On the evening of Jan. 12, the heat in Taylor Lindstrom’s Boulder home went out without warning. She called Xcel Energy, and was told that, indeed, Xcel had turned off the electricity because the bill had not been paid. Lindstrom, who thought she had been paying her Xcel bills, asked why she had not been notified of any overdue amount — or the pending disconnection, for that matter.

The Town of Nederland’s Board of Trustees voted Tuesday night to send a marijuana legalization measure to the April 6 ballot. The proposal would remove all criminal penalties in Nederland municipal code related to marijuana, its concentrates and paraphernalia for anyone who is at least 21 years old.

Jason Lauve’s life began changing dramatically for the worse after winning a court case last summer that allowed him to possess more medical marijuana than state law allows. He believes it was his highly publicized connection to marijuana that has led to him being fired from his job, being evicted from his Louisville home and receiving a visit from Social Services.