In Aurora, a percolating dispute between developers centers on the smallest of buildings.

If it is allowed to be built over a neighbor’s objection, 7 Brew Coffee will be a 575-square-foot drive-thru kiosk. No food, no indoor tables or chairs, no waitresses. Just drinks.

“As such, 7 Brew is not a restaurant,” its would-be landlord wrote to a judge last month.

Or is it?

The kiosk is being developed by ERC Hospitality, a Highlands Ranch company, on land it leases at 21925 E. Quincy Ave. from Alberta Development Partners, a Tech Center firm.

A few doors down, at 21805 E. Quincy, Goddard School day care leases space from Armstrong Capital Development, a Greenwood Village company opposed to the 7 Brew.

“This case is about a developer thumbing its nose at clear and unambiguous use restrictions … over the objections of the other lot owners,” it told a judge last month.

“(Alberta) has refused to change course and its actions … necessitate court involvement.”

The dispute between the developers dates to December 2023, when Armstrong got word of the proposed coffee kiosk. It made clear to Alberta that it believed the kiosk violates the subdivision’s governing documents. Both sides agree that restaurants are not allowed, the only exception being a carve-out for an existing eatery, known as the Taco Bell Exclusive.

In early 2024, Armstrong demanded that Alberta stop development of its 7 Brew kiosk. It also filed an objection with the City of Aurora, but the city opted not to weigh in on the controversy and approved the development plan. So, Armstrong and Alberta went to court.

As Alberta sees it, Armstrong previously tried to buy and develop 21925 E. Quincy. When those plans fell through, it became determined to stop Alberta from developing the parcel.

As Armstrong sees it, “there is simply no question that (Alberta)’s construction and intended operation of 7 Brew violates” the ban on restaurants not named Taco Bell.

Arapahoe District Judge Thomas Henderson IV will decide the dispute from his courtroom in Centennial. Henderson has not yet scheduled a hearing on the coffee conflict.

Alberta’s lawyer is Mikaela Rivera with Waas Campbell Rivera Johnson & Velasquez. Armstrong’s attorneys are Stephanie Kanan and Kate Krukowski with Snell & Wilmer. 7 Brew is represented by Krista Tushar and Uyen Dang at Fairfield & Woods.

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By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Most airports around the United States operated smoothly as new REAL ID requirements took effect Wednesday because travelers without the updated document were still allowed to move through security easily.

Those without the IDs were given pieces of paper informing them that going forward they would need to present REAL ID or other federally accepted ID for air travel within the U.S. It includes a QR code travelers can use to see a list of acceptable identifications.

“The ID you presented is NOT REAL ID-compliant,” the paper reads. “You will need a REAL ID or other acceptable form of identification for your next flight or you may expect delays.”

Suzy Roberts, a traveler who didn’t have a REAL ID, passed through security without a hitch at Oakland airport in Northern California. Officials gave her the TSA handout, advised her to call the DMV to make an appointment, and said she might have to go through extra screening.

“I’m going through — they’re just gonna do extra security and they’ll take my photo,” Roberts explained as she waited for her bag to be screened before her flight to Los Angeles.

The relative calm at airports was bolstered by the fact that 81% of travelers already have REAL IDs, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Nathan Carter was one of them.

“I feel pretty well prepared. I’ve had real ID for a while,” he said as he prepared to return home to Kansas City from Philadelphia.

The new requirement for domestic flights has been the subject of much discussion on social media in recent weeks, with people expressing confusion about whether they can travel without a REAL ID, sharing details about wait times and seeking advice on how to meet the requirements.

Airport security checkpoints also accepted passports and tribal identification as usual.

No lines at the airport, lines to get IDs

Many airports reported wait times of a few minutes at security checkpoints on their websites on Wednesday morning. LaGuardia Airport in New York City reported no wait at one TSA PreCheck checkpoint and wait times ranging from 2 to 11 minutes in the general lines. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport’s website showed wait times at its security checkpoints ranging from 5 to 16 minutes.

Nashville International Airport posted on social media that wait times were less than 20 minutes on Wednesday morning, but urged travels to help keep things running smoothly by brining a REAL ID.

The day ahead of the deadline, people lined up at government offices across the country to secure their compliant IDs. In Chicago, officials established a Real ID Supercenter for walk-in appointments, while officials in California and elsewhere planned to continue offering extended hours for the crush of appointments.

Michael Aceto waited in line at a DMV in King of Prussia, in the Philadelphia suburbs, for about two and a half hours Tuesday before getting his REAL ID.

“It’s a pain in the butt. It’s really a lot of time. Everybody’s got to take off from work to be here,” he said. “It’s a big waste of time as far as I’m concerned.”

Travelers without REAL ID still will be able to fly

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told a congressional panel on Tuesday that those who still lack an identification that complies with the REAL ID law “may be diverted to a different line, have an extra step.”

There’s already an extra screening process in place for people who lose or forget their IDs while traveling.

It wasn’t clear Wednesday how many people without REAL IDs were facing extra screening beyond being handed the TSA flier.

REAL ID is a federally compliant state-issued license or identification card that Homeland Security says is a more secure form of identification. It was a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission and signed into law in 2005. It was supposed to be rolled out in 2008 but the implementation had been repeatedly delayed.

¨The whole idea here is to better validate those individuals that were encountering a checkpoint to ensure they are who exactly they say they are,” said Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director in New Jersey.

If people without REAL IDs give themselves extra time, he said, they likely shouldn’t miss their flights. “I do not have a belief that this will cause people to miss their flights if they take that additional time in.”

REAL ID also will be needed for certain federal facilities

Besides serving as a valid form of identification to fly domestically, people will also need a REAL ID to access certain federal buildings and facilities.

State government offices that issue driver’s licenses and state IDs have seen a significant increase in demand for REAL ID and some have extended their office hours to meet the demand. Some officials have recommended people delay getting REAL ID compliant licenses and cards if they don’t have flights planned in the next few months.

“Wait until after the current rush,” said Erin Johnson, a spokesperson with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

Associated Press writers Terry Chea in Oakland, California, and Tassanee Vejpongsa in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

In all the years of Nikola Jokic, Denver has not witnessed a Nuggets season capable of rivaling the internal tension and turmoil of this one.

Seemingly bursting at the seams with frustration at the low points, their usually stoic superstar turned 30 and turned animated; their head coach and general manager waged philosophical war until both were left behind in the rubble; and their supplementary pieces were subjected to increasingly believable speculation that a major change looms this summer.

The uncertainty of the future isn’t going anywhere, but amid that instability, the Nuggets are going to the second round of the NBA Playoffs for the sixth time in seven years.

Pushing back those existential questions for the time being and drowning out nightmarish memories of a 20-point Game 7 lead squandered, Denver laid a season-ending smackdown on the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday — a euphoric 120-101 Game 7 win at Ball Arena.

The reward is a 48-hour turnaround and a Game 1 in Oklahoma City on Monday night against the 68-win Thunder.

The Nuggets led by 11 at halftime and stretched it out to 25 with a deafening 17-0 run early in the third quarter. In that vicinity, the lead lingered for just enough time that fans could feel the beads of sweat dripping down their brows: Around the same point in the game last year, Denver led Minnesota by 20 only to suffer the largest blown lead in NBA Game 7 history.

Those same fans held their collective breath when Jokic picked up his third, fourth and fifth fouls in a two-minute span later in the third quarter. If a 27-point advantage could feel unsafe, this one did.

But the onslaught only continued. Maybe it was even fitting that Jokic wasn’t on the floor for the decisive blow — Denver had won his rest stint by five points in the first half.

Role players were the Nuggets’ heroes. Aaron Gordon was their leading scorer with 22 points. Christian Braun was a stone-cold sniper from the 3-point line against indifferent defense, scoring 21 and eliminating James Harden from the series with a seven-point, 2-for-8 performance. Braun also added five boards, four assists and no turnovers. Peyton Watson contributed a handful of vital stops and shots.

And Russell Westbrook spat in the collective face of his former team by posting 16 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals. He officially got the party started in the fourth quarter when he hung on the rim after a dunk for about 10 seconds, picked up a technical foul, mocked the “T” gesture, then mouthed to the crowd: “I don’t give a (redacted).”

Jokic and Jamal Murray needed only combine for 32 inefficient points, though interim coach David Adelman did feel pressed to check them back in when the Clippers’ deep bench made a run, white flag waved and all.

“I thought last year, the Minnesota game, we did, we ran out of gas after putting everything out there in the first half,” Adelman said before opening tip. “And so I have to help them with that. We have to balance that as best as we can, understand how long this game is.”

Coaching in an unprecedented situation, Adelman was up against one of the most daunting possible counterparts in the sport. Ty Lue celebrated 48 on Saturday, but he was so focused on game prep that he claimed to forget the occasion when wished a happy birthday during his pregame news conference. One would suppose that’s how a coach gets to be 4-0 in Game 7s — Lue’s record as he arrived in Denver.

After replacing Kris Dunn’s minutes with Nicolas Batum in the second half of Game 6, Lue threw another off-speed pitch by starting neither. Instead, Derrick Jones Jr. took the spot and led the Clippers with seven first-quarter points as Denver dared him to shoot.

When Lue tried to implement Dunn as a sub, Adelman challenged his floor-spacing with a zone defense. Dunn wasn’t able to make Denver pay from the perimeter or from the middle of the zone, missing all three shots in the first half — including a layup. That was the last Denver saw of him until garbage time.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets did their best to prove the old adage that role players perform better at home. The Clippers took a 6-0 lead. Jokic appeared frustrated by their defense early, stumbling to an 0-for-5 start. But Braun and Westbrook restored confidence to the arena with shot-making.

Westbrook finished the series 41.9% from the 3-point line, even as Lue refused to give up on the ex-Clipper’s jumper being a liability.

Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and one of the most prominent conspiracy theorists about the 2020 presidential election, defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems executive when he called him “treasonous,” a federal jury in Denver concluded Monday.

The jury ruled that Lindell and his media company, Frankspeech, must pay $2.3 million in damages for his attacks on Eric Coomer, the former director of security for Denver-based Dominion. The jury found that three of the 10 cited attacks leveled by Lindell or published on his platform amounted to defamation.

Coomer sued Lindell in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in April 2022. He alleged the MyPillow CEO, a prominent backer of President Donald Trump and the president’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, defamed him when he called him a traitor, and claimed to have proof — in effect, directly accusing Coomer of committing a crime.

Coomer said Lindell’s attacks led to severe emotional and physical distress, death threats and the loss of his career in election security. Coomer had asked for more than $2 million in economic damages and another $60 million in non-economic and punitive damages.

Charles J. Cain, one of Coomer’s attorneys, said after the verdict that there were “mixed emotions in the sense that he’s been through a lot, and he’s still going to be looking over his shoulder even after this one.”

He added that he hopes the jury’s findings serve as a deterrent against election workers being targeted, but acknowledged, “We don’t believe this will stop the conspiracy theories.”

Lindell, in a scrum with media after the verdict, called the lawsuit “lawfare” and pledged to appeal. He emphasized that the jury found several of the statements in the case were not defamatory and that his most prominent company, MyPillow, was found not guilty of defamation.

“It’s a huge breakthrough about free speech and my First Amendment right,” Lindell said.

He also said he didn’t plan to stop commenting on election security.

“I will not stop talking until we don’t have voting machines in this country,” Lindell said.

During closing arguments last week, Lindell’s attorneys rebutted the defamation claim by saying Lindell believed the allegations he was making, and that it was protected speech under the First Amendment. Defense attorney Jennifer DeMaster accused Coomer and his attorneys of acting as a “ministry of truth” that sought to police criticism.

“The only thing that matters is if Mr. Lindell believes these things are true,” DeMaster said during closing arguments. “That is the crux. That is the only thing that matters when it comes to our beloved First Amendment.”

Cain countered that Lindell stepped further than criticism of the government with his specific claims that Coomer committed treason and that he had evidence of such crimes.

“(Coomer) was accused of a crime — not an alleged crime, as you see on the TV news broadcast, an actual crime. And (with the suggestion) that there was evidence for that crime,” Cain told the jury in closing remarks Friday. “That is defamation.”

Lindell has pleaded poverty during the trial and claimed he spent his fortune hunting for evidence of election fraud and defending legal cases related to his accusations. After the verdict, he said he is “millions in the hole.”

False claims of election rigging led to several high-profile lawsuits and big-dollar settlements. Fox News settled a lawsuit from Dominion for $800 million. The right-wing media organizations Newsmax and One America News each settled separate defamation lawsuits filed by Coomer.

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