killed after failing to follow orders. the suspect's name is not released. we don't know if he's a student. there's an emergency alert that went out to campus and got the rumor mill going and then came the bogus calls, three of them, two off campus threats and one for the umc, the student union. police did not find anything but cleared the be. it will stay closed for a more thorough search. the one real threat, the guy with the machete, and three instances of idiots making a calls. that scare is nothing compared to that along parts of the east coast now. there is a real threat there, hurricane matthew, which should hit florida tomorrow. this is while a lot of people are here for the biggest beer festival in the country. like the lady i talked to today. jen miller just got off a plane at dia this afternoon, but it is surprising, though, considering the massive storm headed in the general direction

coming, they're still kind of unsure where it's going. >> reporter: jen posted this photo yesterday on instagram about 24 hour before hopping on that flight. >> we decided we wanted to board up our house just in case the hurricane hit us. >> reporter: boarded up and boarded a plane. the good news, she says it appears that storm isn't going to directly hit miami-dade county where she lives and i suppose drinking beer in denver is better than drinking beer at home worrying. >> jb atlas is great to offer me storm. if the storm hits, it hits, there's nothing i can do, just board up the house and hope for the best and getting out of town is always a good option. that way i'm not strained on resources if there is a real emergency. >> jen says her family is getting out of there, too, in case that thing makes a turn. >> the caribbean now to escape the hurricane's path is not always an option.

haiti six years ago our reporter returned to help habitat for humanity rebuild homes there to better withstand disasters in part by using hurricane clips to keep the roof on in the storm. hearing cheryl talk about haiti really brings home the dire situation there. >> reporter: i lived in haiti a short time while i was little. my dad taught at a university in port-au-prince, so i went to a french speaking school there. it was amazing to go back as an adult, see the chans were dramatic because it was after the earthquake in 2010 when a 1/4 million people lost their homes and we're talking about homes that might have a tin roof, maybe a few concrete bricks as a foundation, not the home you and i are accustomed to. all these years later hundreds of thousands of haitians never had those houses rebuilt. i see the video of hurricane matthew and what it's done to haiti and it makes my heart sink because before hurricane

deep and so intense for so many haitians and their families. before the hurricane they might have had some plastic over their heads and to know that there was no place for them to take shelter when that kind of a storm comes through, something we really just can't understand. there's not a basement to go into. they're trying to find a building that is safe enough to house people, but where do you put hundreds of thousands of people? i have this memory of helping the habitat for humanity we were in there for our hammers and the one thing i did for an entire day was hurricane clips. we were hammering hurricane clips into every one of those habitat houses and there were so many of them. i watched that video today and i understand why and i think about those 100 homes and those might be some of the only homes in that area that might still be standing together because they were fully aware that a day like this could happen. i hope that a lot of help

they'll need it. >> striking perspective. when was the last time that we talked about the obama administration's stimulus plan? a whole lot of money got dumped into the economy five years ago. some people got greedy. one businessman from denver is just now being charged for the stimulus funding business. michael rafado has been charged with fraud in federal court. our investigators on our 9wants to know team explained several years ago how he used tax money to stimulate his bank account. that was supposed to create dozens of jobs. it didn't create a single job. he pocketed millions of dollars. he told a spokesperson he will pay back the money, not sure if that will be before or after his possible five year prison sentence. quick update on the beulah hill fire southwest of pueblo, significant developments today, the fire is now 50% contained and some evacuees went home.

impressively. a number -- buildings burned today impressively. a number of voters got calls to switch to a primary. for democrats it led to confusion, delay and some people leap. republicans had a big steaming pile of apathy because the state party decided not to release an official poll that would count nationwide. voters will decide in november whether to move to an open primary instead of our caucus. >> we've heard that and that's a very real problem with young families, with kids, with school, all that. some of the things that we could look at is how do we again reinvent the caucus? let's modify it so that it fits what works in today's society, but the key here is is to have us talking to one another to talk about what those issues are and what those mean directly and have that dialogue. >> reporter: so the point just there, it's not putting a man

together. so he's just proposed several alternatives. what's wrong with improving the caucus rather than throwing as he might put it the baby out with the bath water? >> if anyone was putting forth ideas and implementing them to expand participation in the caucuses, if there was any data or trend to support it, that could be a good idea, but that's not reality. reality is this tiny, tiny percentage the caucuses tend to be more conservative and liberal and not representative of all the people in the middle. >> you'll see two ballot questions on the primaries. if you want to nerd out on the details, you can see the entire debate with our political guy brandon rittiman on 9news.com. while we are politicking next question, when will the state of colorado mail out this year's election blue book? sharon cox who watched next

online, but some people don't like to touch democracy with their bare hands, get tactile. they are in the mail. all of them will be in the mail by friday. if you don't see yours by next week or so, call the colorado legislative council or county election office. sharon, you can call me personally at 9news. i'll send you mine and i'll use the online version. twitter blew up with the vice presidential debate last night especially for one poor woman in boulder who was lucky enough years ag twitter handle elaine. last night her timeline was filled with ticked off people who thought@elaine was the woman in their tv box. >> do your job. you're biased. what a loser. the really line at -- the real elaine at least for us from boulder said last night was

their candidates weren't treated fairly. it's a hard role from one elaine to another. denver police chief robert white faced off against a tough room of 6th graders. kids weren't messing around. they had some serious questions about police brutality, racism, gun violence, students at academy in far northeast denver. they have a podcast called voice of montbello and told us they were kind of surprised when the invitation to be grilled on the podcast. the chief said he wants to help young people see police officers for who they are instead of what you read in the headlines. >> mostly what they see is the controversial and negative stuff. what they don't get to see, the 99% of the police officers go to work every single day and do the right thing. >> they're planning a march to protest police violence. chief white said he just wanted the students to hear him out on the issues first and said he

and improve the community. if we're asking you to have an honest conversation about race, we ought to be having it ourselves. >> a win is when i know where you're coming from and you know where i'm coming from and we learn something. >> absolutely. you and i have had some lively conversations about race, but i learned from it and i hope you've learned from it. >> absolutely without question. you're off to a new adventure. >> i am. >> we'll tell you what's next for one of our own. >> they're here for beer. we'll america's largest beer festival of its kind. >> and she's still at it, a beautiful backdrop for a

the colorado convention center is being transformed today into america's biggest bar. the great american beer festival starts tomorrow. 60,000 people have tickets. it's put on by the brewer associatioin happens to employ a doctor. he has a doctorate, not in beer, not sure that's possible. he's bart watson, chief economist of the brewery 2nd. >> there are so many things that go -- section. >> there are so many things that go on behind the scenes. there's over 4 miles of beer lines here. we've got over 3,500 kegs of beer across the festival.

breweries and more than 7,000 beers. that competition has brewers from all 50 states. it's the largest professional beer competition in the world. if you took the production of all the beer here it, would be larger than the annual product of 77.5% of the breweries in the country. this has a $28.6 million impact on the city of denver. economic impact is not only the spending that we're making on the festival, but the room beer and food dinners that are happening. we're actually working with an economist from eastern oregon university in year to try to capture some of that other spending because brewers come to town and do a lot of other things than just the festival. so that has a big impact year- round on denver. the much advertised cool front is here. see the clouds? although the snow level stays above the city at 7,500 feet.

haze? it's nasty outside, part of a controlled burn at rocky mountain arsenal in commerce city. it ended at 5:00, but it's still nasty outside, poor air quality. our high today 66. we'll be 10 degrees cooler tomorrow with the front coming in. it will bring snow to the high country. winter weather and travel advisories are out for the northern and central mountains. we're up to 1/2 a foot of snow above 8,000 feet. denver will be cloudy and cooler tomorrow with a few light showers in the morning, a few rain showers in the afternoon. be mindfuon run into slush somewhere i roadways especially over some of the -- slushy roadways especially over some of the higher passes. in blue is where we expect the heaviest precipitation from steamboat to crested butte. denver slight chance of a shower after 11:00 with lows above freezing compliments of the cloud cover. tomorrow mid-50s, chance of showers and that's it. friday looks spectacular, sunny, warmer and the weekend even better, low to mid-70s. broncos take the field sunday afternoon with temperatures

winning forecast. later tonight on 9news we'll have an update on dangerous hurricane matthew. we're committed to a new kind of conversation about race and ethnicity around here. recently our jonathan gonzalez talked about his personal frustration with how that conversation seems stuck. he based it on the angry reaction to our hispanic heritage month coverage. jonathan said he wanted to really talk to people one on one. >> reporter: they called me and e-mailed me and i e- conversations and those are the people i wanted to talk to, right? so you're talking to these people and they don't' see to see with you. my goal was to like get them on my level, so to speak. eventually we did. the most interesting person i spoke with happened to be hispanic. i'll read about what he wrote. "although i'm set in my ways, i respect where you're coming from.

way of thinking. >> do you think you understand where the critics are coming from more so than before? >> absolutely. i think there's a fair argument about how we have to look at ourselves as a nation as one to unite, but at the same time i don't think there's a harm in celebrating certain people's culture. >> you and i love mixing it up off the air in the newsroom talking about cultural issues, talking about race the stuff that in many workplaces is taboo. >> i think we're genuinely interested and there's a lack of understanding initially of us. so i think we want to learn to understand each other better, where are we coming from. >> mutual curiosity. >> absolutely. so i think that -- >> it's not about agreeing. >> no. it's about having the conversation and learning a little bit more. it's about learning about other people and not being ignorant and not being afraid to learn,

whatever or have a misskeps and just talk about it. -- misconception and just talk about it. it's productive, right? >> it is productive and illuminating. it's why we'll miss jonathan in the 9news room. he's moving back to be with his family moving to knbc. he's going places, humble, hard working and unafraid to tackle the tough issues of jonathan, best of luck! us, we aren't goin amazing more than 30 hours in the water, the nation behind sarah thomas.

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swimming. she's the woman from conifer who is swimming 81.8 miles nonstop on lake powell along the utah/arizona border. we checked. sarah is still at it, has not stopped since yesterday morning. her family sent us this striking photo, her incredible effort in the water framed by an equally incredible sunset reflected on the rocks. her mother-in-law tells us sarah had a tougher time swelling through the pitch darkness in the canyons last night navigating back and forth along this route. today e' strong headwinds. sarah is a little over 2/3 the way there. it's a little tough to picture. think about it like this. she's swimming nearly 82 miles in open water. that's longer than a trip from denver to copper mountain. she's not wearing a wetsuit, only a regular swimsuit, earplugs and goggle. the water temperature is about 71 degrees right now. usa swimming says ideal temperature for lap swimming is 78 to 82.

ideally she'll be done tomorrow afternoon or evening. talking fish aren't just for your uncle's cabin anymore. scientists are studying the language of cod. the cod species is highly vocal making different sounds in different areas just like birds, bears and other animals. scientists use underwater microphones and bug the ocean to find out. turns out cod uses language for the same reason college students do, to fi mating partners about. you get all wang -- partners. before you get all angry your tax dollars are paying for this study, it's about a british study on noise under the sea. >> fish can't see very far and at nighttime basically sound travels very long distances. a lot of our own noises in competing with these natural

really thinking of ways we can manage noise pollution to give fish more chance to be able to live out their lives as they're used to doing. >> that british researcher was so confused to get a call from a show named next in denver, colorado. the researchers found cod in u.s. waters have this deep thumping sound when they talk, you know, american cod. norwegian cod higher pitched sounding, very interesting. watch out, white stuff is coming. do drive if you're playing local tv snow bingo, you just filled in a couple of spots.

first snow tv news bingo is underway. you can watch local newscasts and win. every time someone unleashes a cringe worthy cliche of the season, you talk about the white stuff, offer some inane driving tip like you don't know how to drive in snow or leave on your spring hers and create

play along and viewers have come up with great suggestions to expand our card. david talked about the run to the grocery storm. a number of viewers said oh, add wintery mix. a few people talked about patio furniture. we'll be filling a second card soon. bird on a bird on twitter. kyle clark just said caucus block on tv.

[ cheering ] [ applause and cheering ]

welcome to the broncos huddle. and emmanuel sanders -- mr. show biz is here. >> nbc, nbc. >> i don't know if you're familiar with this but these are tv cameras. [ overlapping speakers ] >> what did you say about this show? >> people ask me highlight of the off season. was it the white house? was it this guy or this guy? i don't have an answer. but the emmanuel sanders show is the low light. [ laughter ] >> thank you for coming on. [ laughter ] >> i'm honored. >> oh, man, all right. so we're going to start by talking a little bit of football and the season you've