I take a few weeks off and suddenly Colorado Rockies coaches are flying United Airlines jets, Denver Public Schools gets caught requiring employee non-disclosure agreements, and the Jokic brothers are brawling in the stands again. Here is this week’s list:

• The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) criticized Westword’s recent cover promoting an article on gun violence as “play(ing) into the worst stereotypes and innuendoes.” Westword had previously apologized for the cover art that depicted a young black boy carrying a gun, saying the image was “a major mistake that created harm and hurt.”
• “You’re gonna need a bigger number.” Some scientists are asking the National Hurricane Center to create a Category 6 rating to reflect the increase in mega-storms.
• Incidents of antisemitism in Colorado have increased by nearly 200% over the past year, forcing many synagogues to add security and take other precautions.
• The blades belonging to the famed Moulin Rouge windmill in Paris broke off and fell two stories to the ground. No one was hurt.
• The Production and Assignment Desk departments at Fox31/KWGN voted 17-3 to take the next step toward forming a union.
• Immersive arts company Meow Wolf is laying off 50 employees from its Denver location.
• Actress Emma Stone would like you to know her real name is Emily.
• It’s officially hail season in Colorado.
• It is not unusual for travertine tiles to contain fossils, but a couple in Europe got more than they bargained for when their beautiful new floor included what is clearly a cross section of an ancient human jawbone.
• A Utah couple accidentally mailed their cat that had climbed into an Amazon box they were returning. The cat survived.
• Chicago officials removed a sidewalk landmark known affectionately as the “rat hole” after engineers determined the section bearing the imprint of the animal was damaged and needed to be replaced.
• The CEO of Alterra, owner of ski resorts including Steamboat and Winter Park among others, acknowledged that “it is ungodly expensive and hard to bring a family of four skiing right now” and that customers are “really, really mad.”
• Actor Patrick Warburton comes from a conservative, religious family, so much so that his mom participated in a campaign to get Warburton’s show “Family Guy” cancelled despite that show helping the actor support his parents financially. Warburton’s mom even lobbied him to sign the online petition to cancel his own show, which he declined.

So, who won the week?

• Rockford Gray has added Anna Duggan, MA and Karen Mason as senior consultants.
• Olympic swimmer and Denver-native Missy Franklin had the Regis Jesuit High School pool named in her honor.
• The Federal Trade Commission has banned noncompete clauses, and no one may benefit more than local TV journalists.
• The Denver Nuggets took a 3-0 playoff series lead over the rival L.A. Lakers.
• The Denver Broncos selected Oregon QB Bo Nix with its first-round pick in the NFL draft. Will Nix be successful? History says to flip a coin.
• It took 97 years, but longtime New York Mets fan Seymour Weiner found his calling helping the team promote its $1 hot dog night.
• Fourteen years after losing his Heisman Trophy for receiving illegal benefits, former USC running back Reggie Bush had it returned. Heisman Trust officials said changes to rules allowing players to be paid informed their decision.

• 9News investigative reporter Jeremy Jojola had to jump out of an Uber mid-trip when the driver started on a #FakeNews rant directed at him.
• It is opening day for the Colorado Rockies, normally a time for celebration. However, the team’s 1-6 record – which projects out to a 23-139 season – has put a damper on things.
• Everyone in Japan could have the same last name – “Sato” – by the year 2531, according to calculations by university professors. Sato is currently the most common last name in Japan.
• About a quarter of the water in the Colorado River is used to grow feed for beef and dairy cows.
• Forecasts of rain and cloud cover are threatening views of Monday’s solar eclipse that will be visible along a path from Texas to Maine.
• British Airways is offering a $500 course to help you get over your fear of flying.
• Bill Maher refused a request from former “Jackass” star Steve-O that he not smoke marijuana during a podcast interview. Steve-O, who has been sober for 16 years, said he was surprised that Maher refused.
• How does the San Antonio Chiefs sound? Kansas City voters have rejected an extension to a sales tax that would have helped fund new stadiums for the Chiefs and the Royals.
• Denver finally hit the 70-degree mark this week, nearly a month after we typically do.
• The University of Mississippi apparently has no standards. One year after hiring a men’s basketball coach who was fired from the University of Texas following a felony domestic violence arrest, the school has now hired a women’s basketball assistant coach who was fired from Syracuse amid allegations of “bullying and threatening players and behaving improperly toward them.”
• Need a goat? You can legally keep as many as you can catch if you are willing to travel to the Italian island Alicudi. It has been overrun with goats and desperately wants people to take them.

Who won the week?

• The Iowa-LSU women’s “Elite Eight” basketball game set an all-time ratings record, averaging 12.3 million viewers.
• Aspen is poised to record its first $100 million+ home sale.
• University of Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders is expected to earn $4.7 million over the next 12 months, thanks to NIL.
• Penn State EVP and Provost Justin Schwartz is the sole finalist for the University of Colorado Boulder chancellor position.
• DIA has added a nonstop flight to Instanbul, which is now the longest non-stop flight from the airport.
• The rock band Kiss has sold it music and brand name to a Swedish entertainment company for $300 million.
• ESPN+ will air “Saving Sakic,” a documentary about the Colorado Avalanche‘s desperate attempt to raise $15 million to re-sign star player Joe Sakic and prevent him from leaving for the New York Rangers.

Note: “Who Had the Worst Week” will be taking a few weeks off while I am on vacation. It will return at the end of April.

• It turns out Rockies Fever may actually be the Black Plague. After losing a record 103 games last year and then spending the offseason promising that winning is its top priority, the team lost 16-1 in its Opening Day game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
• The Denver Auditor’s Office is accusing local teen shelter Urban Peak of violating Denver wage laws when it apparently inadvertently paid workers building its new facility according to residential pay scales instead of commercial ones. Urban Peak says the difference could be as much as a couple of million dollars.
• A 72-year-old Denver Nuggets superfan named Vicki Ray has been banned indefinitely from Ball Arena for violating the NBA‘s Code of Conduct. Known for giving players and refs bags of candy, holiday cards and notes of encouragement, she reportedly crossed the line and hit a player and grabbed a ref.
• Former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel was unceremoniously dumped two days after her hiring as an analyst at NBC News. Staffers at the network revolted, citing her history of election denial, her role in former President Donald Trump‘s fake elector plot and her previous criticism of media as “fake news.”
• It has been a year since Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovitz was arrested by Russia, and his newspaper has commemorated the grim anniversary with a mostly blank front page today.
• The String Cheese Incident brought its traveling musical circus normally reserved for Red Rocks to Dillon’s new amphitheater last year, and organizers apparently weren’t down with that. They are not on this year’s schedule.
• The NCAA provided a waiver allowing women’s basketball teams playing in the Spokane, Wash., regional to stay in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a city 30 miles from where the tournament was being played, due to a lack of hotel rooms in Spokane. If you’ve heard of Coeur d’Alene, it is a good bet it is in the context of the high number of Aryan Nation members who live there. So how did it turn out? As you would expect. The University of Utah team was forced to change hotels after being targeted by a group of white men screaming racial slurs at them and following them from a restaurant back to their original hotel.
• AI technology has allowed grifter marketers to take content primarily from videos on women’s social media profiles and deepfake them into ads or propoganda, and there is little the justice system can do. One deepfaked video showed “a Christian social media influencer who posts about travel, home decor and wedding planning — in her real bedroom, wearing her real clothes but describing a nonexistent partner with sexual health problems.”
• Colorado state legislators have been trying to change the composition of RTD‘s board of directors because they apparently have realized that electing board members to represent specific geographic districts – and those constituents’ interests – is a recipe for dysfunction. They are not wrong, but how is that different from how it works at the State Capitol?
• In a development everyone saw coming, Boeing CEO David Calhoun announced he will step down in the wake of a string of safety issues at the company. If you are concerned about Mr. Calhoun, fear not. Despite his alleged incompetence, he still stands to walk away with an exit package of about $24 million.
• Members of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team just seem intent on pissing off their fans (and now teammates). A month after star player Lindsey Horan apologized for saying that U.S. soccer fans just “aren’t smart” about the game, rising star Korbin Albert has apologized for social media posts that were anti-LGBTQ+.
• It’s been a bad week for law enforcement officers. Ones in Windsor and two in Denver were arrested this week on harassment and domestic violence charges.
• Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs is the TMZ gift that keeps on giving. Not only did he generate days worth of coverage from the federal raids on his residences seeking evidence in a human trafficking ring, but a corresponding lawsuit dropped A-List names such as Jennifer Lopez and Prince Harry.

Who won the week?

• Doyle Albee and his firm Comprise have acquired VisiTech PR. The move extends Comprise’s “expertise in technology for the global media and entertainment, telecom, cable, wireless, satellite, security and information technology industries.”
• Andrew Hudson, who may have contributed to more Denverites getting jobs than anyone in history, will speak on Strategic Career Development at PRSA Colorado‘s April event. Register here.
• Denverite editor Obed Manuel is joining NPR’s Morning Edition in Washington, D.C.
• Former Denver Broncos trainer Steve “Greek” Antonopulos is now part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was awarded the Award of Excellence, which recognizes the contributions of non-players to the the game.
• Rumors are that the Colorado Rockies are close to an over-the-air agreement that would see some of its games aired free on a station such as Channel 20. If true, they should announce it quickly – they will likely be eliminated from playoff contention in another month or two.

• Nearly 450,000 metallic Starbucks-branded holiday mugs have been recalled because they can overheat or break when microwaved or filled with extremely hot liquid.
• Organizers of the annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg awards have cancelled their gala event after a fierce backlash from the late Supreme Court justice’s family for honoring Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch. I’m not sure what the criteria for the awards are, but also scheduled to receive them were actor Sylvester Stallone and felons Martha Stewart and Michael Milken.
• L.A. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani said he is the victim of fraud by his interpreter who ran up millions of dollars in gambling debts and used Ohtani’s bank accounts to pay them off.
• DirecTV now offers a package that allows subscribers to cut their monthly price by opting out of local TV stations. That is not good for local TV news ratings.
• State Farm refuses to issue new policies in California due to continued costly disasters, and now the insurer has let 72,000 existing customers know their policies won’t be renewed. That should be concerning to all suburban and rural Coloradans.
• Prince Harry is gunning for News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, alleging that Murdoch was aware of illegal phone tapping that served as the basis of stories for some of the company’s British tabloids.
• Russia has added the “LGBT movement” to its list of terrorists and extremists.
• Elizabeth Hurley‘s 21-year-old son directed her in a new movie being billed as an “erotic thriller.”
• United Airlines and American Airlines led the industry in lost or late bags.
• March Madness started at 10 am MT on Thursday, and by 2 pm most people’s brackets were busted.
• Former Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson took a $3.5 million loss on the sale of his Cherry Hills mansion. Don’t worry – he can afford it. The Broncos are paying him about $38 million to not play for them this year.
• Bruce Springsteen returned to the stage, but fans noticed that he looked a little more like actress Tilda Swinton than himself.

Who won the week?

• Ryan Huff is the new Communications Director for Community Planning & Development at the City and County of Denver.
• Brad Bohlander has been named senior vice chancellor for university relations at the University of Denver.
• Texas-based gas station/convenience store Buc-ee’s opened a location in Johnstown and it has received breathless media coverage usually reserved for the likes of Casa Bonita or Meow Wolf. As Fox31 reported, “Aside from its fueling options, Buc-ee’s offers even more inside its convenience store. From a variety of snacks, meals and souvenir items, Buc-ee’s seemingly offers everything.” I smell a regional Emmy!
• Casa Bonita turns 50 this week.
• Actor Kevin Bacon will attend this year’s prom at the Utah school where his movie “Footloose” was filmed. That was the result of a years-long campaign by students at the school.

• To political progressives, it must feel like mommy and daddy are fighting. Former Colorado Public Radio host Vic Vela has lawyered up and accused CPR of “belittling and mocking his mental health concerns” related to his ongoing struggles with addiction. Meanwhile, CPR contends that Vela was fired because he “demonstrated behaviors that are not in alignment with the values, culture and environment we have at CPR.”
• The Monfort family announced plans to tear down the historic El Chapultepec jazz club. Historic Denver, however, has stepped up and will attempt to secure historic landmark status for the club that opened in 1933 after the fall of prohibition.
• Can someone move Denver’s official weather recording station back downtown from DIA? With as much snow as I have shoveled in the past two days, it is insulting that this storm will go down in history as having produced a few inches of snow.
• Have your car insurance rates increased significantly? It could be because of a secretive program GM has to sell customer driving information to data brokers who then share it with insurance companies. If you drive a Chevy, Buick, GMC or Cadillac, check your mailbox for information about what will no doubt be a class-action lawsuit.
• Two time Masters champion Bernard Langer will miss this year’s tournament due to a pickle ball injury.
• Jennifer Lopez has canceled seven of her concerts for this summer’s tour amid weak ticket sales.
• Norway may not be the quaint, idyllic country we see pictured every four years during the Winter Olympics. A women’s cross-country ski race resulted in about 130 fans who had to be treated for excessive alcohol use or injuries sustained in fights.
• The sports news website Deadspin is the latest media company to lay off journalists. The site was sold to a European digital media company and its entire staff was told they no longer have jobs.
• The city of Golden now has the metro area’s highest median rent at $1,900 per month.
• The L.A. Lakers have promised to fix several embarrasing misspellings on a statue of the late Kobe Bryant the team unveiled outside its arena.
• Princess Kate poured gasoline on rumors about her health following recent abominable surgery. A crudely edited photo of her with her children intended to calm suspicions that she was sicker than the Monarch let on actually amplified those questions. And now Piers Morgan is fanning the conspiracy flames.
• The Pittsburgh Penguins had thousands of Jaromir Jagr bobbleheads stolen en route from the manufacturer, forcing the team to cancel its giveaway promotion.
• A Minnesota state senator referred to a female Delta pilot as a “stewardess“ during a hearing.

Who won the week?

• Maverick Public Relations, headquartered in Denver, has added an office in New York City.
• Sean McNamara has been named the news director at Fox31/KWGN. He formerly was at the Fox affiliate in Kansas City.
• Fox31 investigative reporter Rob Low has been named communications director for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Karma would be if Brian Maass, David Migoya, Tony Kovaleski, Jeremy Jojola and Denver‘s other investigative reporters sink their teeth into a good CBI story in the coming months.
• Former Denver Broncos QB Peyton Manning will serve as co-host of the Opening Ceremonies for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
• Give actor Ed Begley, Jr. credit. He walks the walk. Literally.

• A Delta pilot has sued after his foot was “swallowed” by a moving walkway at DIA. The complaint alleges that the pilot suffered “inflamed joints, a strained left Achilles tendon and bone contusions.” The chef’s kiss: the complaint also claims that the pilot’s shoe and sock were “severely damaged” in the incident.
• Denver Public Schools is facing a racial bias investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.
• Slip-and-fall attorney Frank Azar is fighting other lawyers over his “Strong Arm” nickname yet again.
• Retailer Target has pulled an activity kit for kids from its shelves that misidentified American author and historian Carter G. Woodson, sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois and educator Booker T. Washington. Happy Black History Month!
• Snoop Dogg is suing Walmart, alleging that the retailer is conspiring to keep his Snoop Cereal hidden from customers to hinder its success.
• A sign that your esteemed career as an actor is wrapping up: being cast as the Andy Griffith character in a reboot of “Matlock.”
• Hong Kongians, or maybe Hong Kongers, I’m not sure, are furious with soccer superstar Lionel Messi. He did not appear in an exhibition match in Hong Kong due to injury, but then played several days later in Japan. Frustrated fans caused the sarcastic hashtag #MedicalMiracle to begin trending.
• PETA has demanded that carousel manufacturer Chance Rides stop using fiberglass horses on its rides because they celebrate “the exploitation of sentient beings.”
• Despite everything we have seen over the past decade, some Denverites still insist on trying to name buildings after people.
• If you are serious enough about someone that you know you need to do something for Valentine’s Day, but you aren’t really sure the relationship is going anywhere, good news! Waffle House is offering reservations for Valentine’s Day.
• A Pennsylvania man who briefly stopped the AFC Championship game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs by illegally flying a drone over the stadium is now facing felony charges.
• Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who won gold at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, was stripped of her medal after anti-doping investigators rejected her claim that a strawberry dessert inadvertently caused her to test positive for a banned medication.
• An Oklahoma judge who sent more than 500 messages to her bailiff during a murder trial has agreed to step down and never seek a judicial office in the state again.

So, who won the week?

• GBSM added Holly Shrewsbury as a senior associate. Shrewsbury formerly led HMS Communications and held leadership roles under Gov. John Hickenlooper and Gov. Bill Ritter.
• Visit Denver‘s Director of PR & Communications, Jesse Davis, is headed to Saudi Arabia after accepting a position leading destination PR and Communications for AlUla, the country’s flagship tourism initiative.
• Backbone Media is funding an annual scholarship for students in Colorado Mountain College‘s new integrated media program.
• Ronda Haskins has retired after 45 years in various roles with the Boulder Daily Camera and Longmont Times-Call.
• Randy Gradishar, a member of the Denver Broncos “Orange Crush” defense in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• Organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games unveiled the design of its medals, and they will each feature a piece of metal taken from the iconic Eiffel Tower. The metal was removed during a previous renovation, so no need to worry about the tower falling over.
• “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost will be the featured entertainer at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
• The Super Bowl is Sunday, and in its honor Entertainment Weekly has released its list of the 20 best Super Bowl commercials of all time.

• U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team captain and Colorado native Lindsey Horan made headlines this week for claiming, “American soccer fans, most of them aren’t smart.” She may be right, but she’s not going to win many fans by saying it.
• Less than a year ago, the high-profile news site The Messenger launched with $50 million in funding and ambitions to hire 550 journalists. This week, the site folded, putting 300 people out of work with no notice and no severance. It is the latest round of layoffs in what is starting as a brutal year for the journalism industry. If you can, subscribe to the sites you read.
• A Phish concert in Mexico created considerable collateral damage in Colorado. It involved a naked man rushing the stage, a medical tent, and an expletive-filled demand letter from a Colorado attorney that the state’s Office of Attorney Regulation deemed “threatening” and worthy of a censure.
• About 3,000 DNA samples will need to be retested – at a cost of about $7.5 million – after problems were discovered in one longtime Colorado Bureau of Investigation employee’s lab work.
• Alaska is getting crushed by snow, more than six feet in January alone and more than 100 inches so far this season – the earliest it has ever hit that mark.
• TikTok and Universal Music Group are at an impasse, meaning that videos featuring songs by stars such as Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Drake and Ariana Grande “have gone silent.”
• Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning, meaning an early spring could be on the way. Unfortunately, the rodent is only correct about 39% of the time.
• Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears just can’t seem to move on.
• The annual NFL head coaching game of musical chairs has ended, and former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick wound up without a seat despite a record six Super Bowl wins. He’ll likely try again next year.
• The Colorado construction company Vertix is suing the California construction company Vertex, and you may not be surprised the suit focuses on trademark infringement.
• Elmo asked how America is doing, and, well, apparently we aren’t doing too well. And Elmo himself had a tough week when actor Larry David smacked him around live on the set of the “Today” show.

So, who won the week?

• GBSM is celebrating its 40th anniversary this week.
• 9NEWS News Director Tim Ryan announced he is leaving the station.
• Denver Broncos Manager of Football Communications Jordan Beasley has taken a position with the Los Angeles Lakers.
• Denver digital agency Room 214 has merged with Unicorn Agency and Ambit Design.
• DIA served 77.8 million passengers in 2023, a new record for DIA and a 12% increase over 2022. Despite the growth, DIA is expected to remain the third-busiest airport in the country and the fifth-busiest in the world.

• The Ouray County Plaindealer published a story this week about an alleged rape that took place at the home of the police chief, and mysteriously nearly all the copies of the paper were stolen from its newspaper racks throughout town. You don’t get to do that, and it was heartening to see media from across the state step up and report on the theft and the possible motivation behind it. The result was media coverage 50 times bigger than it would have been had the theft not occurred.
• Apparently there has been an epidemic of people crashing into funny road signs that we haven’t heard about. The U.S. Federal Highway Administration issued new guidelines that ban clever or funny signs because they can be “distracting.” Among those that will be going away: Massachussets’ “Use Yah Blinkah” and Ohio’s “Visiting in-laws? Slow down, get there late.”
• Former Denver Nugget Carmelo Anthony, who left Denver by forcing a trade to the New York Knicks, has accused the Nuggets of being “petty” by allowing Nikola Jokic to wear the No. 15 jersey number that belonged to Anthony when he was here. Ever humble, Anthony did concede that perhaps Jokic requested the number to “pay homage” to him.
• Regulators denied JetBlue‘s attempt to acquire Spirit Airlines, a move that many on Wall Street expect to result in Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy. It shouldn’t affect air travel in Denver, however. Spirit announced last fall that it was pulling out of DIA completely.
• Sinclair CEO David Smith acquired the Baltimore Sun this week, and his introductory meeting with staff wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. He started by sharing, “Full disclosure, I haven’t read the newspaper in 40 years. Literally have not read the newspaper. … I read the paper maybe four times since I started working on trying to buy this place.” He then suggested to the Pulitzer Prize-winning staff that they should follow the journalistic lead of the local Fox TV affiliate that Sinclair owns.
• Bobi, the 31-year-old dog who has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the “oldest dog ever,” has been provisionally stripped of his title pending an investigation.
• Drake has once again rescheduled his concert dates in Denver at the last minute. Last time it happened, his team apparently miscalculated how long it would take to drive the equipment trucks to our city. No word this time on what the issue is.
• Elon Musk pulled a “You have a nice company here … it’d be a shame if anything happened to it” move with the board of Tesla. Musk threatened to work outside the company on Tesla-relevant technology unless it increases his ownership stake from 13% to 25%, an increase valued at $80 billion.
• If your pastor is promoting cryptocurrency, you might want to think twice about your church.
• The Australian Open tennis tournament is underway, and Coco Gauff is not a fan of the way the United States Tennis Association is promoting the American participants. A social media graphic portrayed them like they were members of the TV show “Rugrats.”
• Fitness guru Richard Simmons and actor Pauly Shore are feuding, which seems like a story straight out of 1990 but is actually taking place in 2024. Simmons is not happy about an unauthorized biopic that will feature Shore as Simmons.

So, who won the week?

• Fox31 reporter Evan Kruegel is heading to 9News.
• Former Fox31 reporter Michael Konopasek has been named external communications manager at DIA. He most recently was the corporate communications manager at Frontier Airlines.
• Longtime Denver Post sports columnist Mark Kiszla has joined the Denver Gazette.
• Former KNUS task show host Steffan Tubbs has been named public affairs officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration‘s Rocky Mountain Field Division.
• Miss Colorado, U.S. Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Madison Marsh, was crowned Miss America. She is the first active duty service member to win the title.
• Elton John won an Emmy for his televised farewell performance at Dodger Stadium, giving him the final piece of the rare and coveted “EGOT“ – Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. Fun fact – the term “EGOT” was coined in 1984 by “Miami Vice” actor Philip Michael Thomas, who said his goal was to win all four. Sad fact – Thomas has never even been nominated for any of them.
• Today is “Sam’s Day of Stoke,” a fundraiser benefitting the Sam Aden Kindness Fund. Sam was a wonderful and loved kid, and those of us who are part of the Love/Aden family’s community are thinking about him, Laura and their entire family today.

Writer and philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That, apparently, is a lesson that many of our biggest PR disaster repeat offenders – Uber, Facebook and Kanye West, among others – took to heart. They have avoided this year’s list, and instead we have a group of first-time contenders for the year’s biggest PR disasters.

OCEANGATE SUBMERSIBLE
OceanGate was a boot-strapped submersible tour company, and that should have been enough to scare off most people. Somehow, however, the company developed credibility-building partnerships over the past decade with NASA and the University of Washington. It wasn’t until June, though, that most people heard of the company, when the world watched as rescuers frantically attempted to locate and save five people aboard an OceanGate submersible bound for the wreckage of the Titanic. Unfortunately, the sub had imploded before it even made it to the ocean floor. The debris field was finally discovered five days after it launched, and the rescue mission was changed to a recovery effort.

---

FORMER UPENN PRESIDENT ELIZABETH MAGILL
University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill prepared for a congressional hearing about the university’s response to antisemitism on campus with the help of $1,500 per hour attorneys instead of $500 per hour PR professionals, and the result was a debacle so bad that she was forced to resign. Responses that work in a court of law don’t always translate to the court of public opinion.

---

SCOTT ADAMS/”DILBERT”
No one captured the spirit of Corporate America better than Scott Adams and his comic strip, “Dilbert.” At its peak, the strip appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers and it even spawned a short-lived “Dilbert” TV show in 1999. Around, oh, I don’t know, maybe 2016, Adams began going down the rabbit holes of conspiracy theories. 

In February, Adams set the “Dilbert” industrial complex completely ablaze with racist comments on his YouTube channel. He said, in part, “… I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the (expletive) away …” In response, The Denver Post joined hundreds of other newspapers in dropping “Dilbert” – a move Adams said would mean that “most of my income will be gone by next week” and “my reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed.”

---

BUD LIGHT
Do you remember in 2015 when Bud Light had to apologize for printing “rapey” slogans on its bottles as part of its #UpForWhatever marketing campaign? Bud Light executives probably recall those as the good old days. 

In April, Bud Light cannonballed into the culture wars when it included transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a marketing campaign. Cultural conservatives lost their minds, and they accomplished something that is very rare – a boycott that actually worked. Bud Light parent company AB InBev’s stock was downgraded from “Buy” to “Hold,” CNBC reported that the company’s sales dropped 18%, and it laid off 400 employees several months after the campaign.

---

PAC-12
The PAC-12 was one of the most storied athletic conferences in the country that included legendary schools such as UCLA, USC, Stanford and Oregon. It billed itself as the “Conference of Champions” and then lived up to it by winning the most NCAA titles of any conference for the past 18 consecutive seasons.

You would think it would be positioned to thrive in this eat-or-be-eaten environment of conference realignment, but it bet its existence on a game of chicken and lost. Poor strategic decisions and an ill-fated PAC-12 cable network didn’t help, but the death knell was rejecting what turned out to be a very reasonable proposal from ESPN for a new television deal. And in a flash, its seat at the Major Conference table evaporated when most of its teams fled to the Big 10, Big 12 and the ACC.

---

ELON MUSK/X (FORMERLY TWITTER)
There is an old joke – “How do you become a millionaire in (insert industry here)? Start with a billion dollars.” That is especially relevant for Elon Musk. He bought X, nee Twitter, for $44 billion last year, and by the second half of this year had managed to devalue it to about $19 billion thanks to erratic decisions and poor management. Most recently, it was his embrace of antisemites, and trolls like Alex Jones, that caused most mainstream advertisers – Warner Bros. Discovery, Apple, Sony and IBM, to name just a few – to finally walk away.

---

THREADS
With all of Twitter’s problems, it seemed the perfect time for a well-designed alternative to step up, and Meta – owner of Facebook and Instagram – did exactly that with Threads in July. It became the fastest-growing app in social media history and seemed poised to replace Twitter as the go-to news and information app. By mid-August, however, it became clear that the early momentum had faded, and usage dropped by nearly 80%. 

---

AUON’TAI ANDERSON
Former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson is like a toddler who thinks he is playing chess but actually just throws the pieces at you. He was the most-visible DPS board member, and yet in April a poll found that just 9% of likely Denver voters supported his re-election. To put that in context, 13% of expelled N.Y. Rep. George Santos’ constituents still supported him.

Anderson read the political winds and quickly announced that he would not run for re-election … and instead that he would run for a Colorado House of Representatives seat. That at least postponed the embarrassment of being crushed in an election by a year.

---

SPAIN’S SOCCER FEDERATION
Spain won the FIFA Women’s World Cup in August, but the president of the country’s soccer federation, Luis Rubiales, stole the spotlight from the team when he forcibly kissed one of its players during the post-game celebration. He was widely condemned even by members of his own country’s government, but he refused to step down even after FIFA suspended him for 90 days. Players on the Spanish national team refused to play until Rubiales was fired, and Rubiales’ mother went on a hunger strike to protest what she said was the unfair treatment of her son. The pressure finally overwhelmed Rubiales and he resigned in September.

---

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
Once-revered magazines like Sports Illustrated and Newsweek have become shells of their former selves, milked for whatever revenue can be extracted from their legacy brands. In Sports Illustrated’s case, that was especially painful this year. Earlier this fall, the magazine that was once the pinnacle of sports journalism was accused of publishing AI-generated stories that used fictitious names alleged to be reporters. Sports Illustrated’s publisher declined to comment on the allegations, but this month it fired its CEO and three other high-level executives.  

---

HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC
Hawaiian Electric expects to face as many as 1,000 lawsuits over the devastating Maui wildfires that killed more than 100 people and caused somewhere between $3 billion and $5 billion in damages. Meanwhile, the company’s stock is down 65% from its pre-fire trading level, and its market cap is sitting at about $3.9 billion. What’s the Hawaiian word for “bankruptcy?”

---

CASA BONITA
In June, it was reported that new Casa Bonita owners Trey Parker and Matt Stone spent $40 million renovating the iconic restaurant. If Casa Bonita maintains standard restaurant profit margins, Parker and Stone only need to generate somewhere between $400 million and $650 million in revenue to make back their investment. 

---

THE PGA TOUR
Where to begin? Convincing golfers such as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to reject literally hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi-funded LIV Golf, only to then turn around and merge with the rival league? Spending two years making moral arguments (9/11, Jamal Khashoggi, women’s rights, etc.) against the Saudi league, only to, again, turn around and merge with it? Blindsiding its own golfers and having them learn about the merger on social media? No wonder PGA Tour players said they felt “betrayed and humiliated.”

• The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and M.I.T. appeared before Congress to discuss their responses to antisemitism, and it could not have gone much worse. So bad, in fact, that I predict Penn President Elizabeth Magill will be forced to resign as early as this weekend.
• It may be incredibly difficult to get into Yale, but staying there is a breeze, apparently. Researchers found that 80 percent of grades given at Yale are A’s or A minuses, and the mean GPA is 3.7 out of 4.0.
• Meta can’t let Twitter, I mean X, have all the headlines. The New Mexico Attorney General has sued Facebook and Instagram for allegedly employing algorithms that steer predators to kids.
• Music streamer Spotify is laying off 17 percent of its workforce – about 1,500 employees – in its latest round of job cuts.
• Actor Kelsey Grammer is giving Paramount+ PR representatives headaches as he keeps sharing his support for former President Donald Trump during his promotional media tour for the reboot of his TV show “Frasier.” Paramount+ is likely aware that there aren’t many people at the intersection of the Venn diagram of “Frasier viewers” and “Donald Trump supporters.”
• Speaking of actors, Elijah Wood, Priscilla Presley, Mike Tyson, John C. McGinley and Kate Flannery were among actors (and one actor/boxer) who were tricked by Russian propagandists into making Cameo videos that were deceptively edited to attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
• The Saudi Pro (Soccer) League may have spent billions of dollars signing global superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Neymar, but not everyone is impressed. A recent match between two of the worst teams in the league attracted just 264 fans in a stadium that seats more than 22,000.
• Washington Post journalists went on a one-day strike this week to protest stalled union negotiations.
• The Lynchburg City (Va.) School Board rejected a $5,000 grant from Dick’s Sporting Goods to pay for middle school volleyball equipment because the board doesn’t like that the company stopped selling assault weapons in 2018 after the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla.
• Colorado has seen a nearly 60% rise in tuberculosis cases, which experts attribute to people not accessing healthcare.
• A bighorn sheep became stuck on the roof and deck of a Boulder County home for more than 24 hours. A Colorado Parks & Wildlife spokeswoman said, “Rams just act strange” during mating season.
• Dr Pepper had to award two $100,000 scholarships when its representatives failed to accurately count how many footballs contestants threw into an oversized Dr Pepper can at halftime of the Big 12 championship game.
• Speaking of football, a former Jacksonville Jaguars front office employee has been arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $22 million. If you think that is bad, Russell Wilson is in the process of stealing nearly $300 million from the Denver Broncos.
• An Ohio woman was sentenced to six months working at a fast food restaurant after she threw a chicken burrito bowl at the face of a Chipotle employee. She apparently was angry that her order was wrong.

So, who won the week?

• Longtime CBS4 reporter Rick Sallinger announced his retirement.
• Linhart PR promoted intern Sarah Marconi to account associate. She will continue to work with clients such as Black Hills Energy, Cemex, Chocolove, Eagle Rock Ranch and Graebel Companies, Inc.
• Colorado has turned into a basketball state. The Denver Nuggets are the reigning NBA champions, while the University of Colorado women are ranked #8 in the nation and the Colorado State men are ranked #13.
• Former Colorado Rapids and U.S. Men’s National Team goalie Tim Howard has been elected to the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame.
• The Viceroy Snowmass was named the best ski hotel in the nation by USA Today.
• Break out the acid-washed jeans … Journey, Def Leppard and Cheap Trick will play a concert at Coors Field next summer.
• Taylor Swift‘s Eras concert tour is the first tour to gross more than $1 billion.
• “Rizz” – short for “charisma” – beat out “Swiftie,” “beige flag” and “situationship” for Word of the Year. The Color of the Year? Peach fuzz. As a native Georgian, I approve.

• Denver-based VF Corporation announced it is eliminating 500 jobs “amid flagging consumer demand and activist investor pressure to trim costs.”
• If you are looking for a Christmas gift for Elon Musk, you might pick up a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” He clearly doesn’t own a copy.
• Dallas police issued an arrest warrant for former Denver Broncos and current Buffalo Bills player Von Miller for allegedly assaulting a pregnant woman.
• A 61-year-old doctor who was born in Washington, D.C. and lives in Virginia tried to renew his passport only to learn that he is not, in fact, a U.S. citizen.
• Red Lobster’s all-you-can-eat “Ultimate Endless Shrimp” offer was a little too popular, and it cost the company $11 million in Q3 losses.
• Colorado‘s local newspapers are disappearing faster than experts predicted. The state has lost 32 local newspapers since 2005.
• International soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo is facing a class-action lawsuit seeking $1 billion in damages for his role in promoting the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
• Denver Mayor Mike Johnston had his car stolen.
• An elephant herd in Malaysia trampled a car that struck a baby elephant in their group. The baby was okay and walked away.
• A Roomba vacuum cleaner escaped out the front door of a home and was found two days later under a bunch of leaves in the owners’ front yard.
• Grasslands PR‘s Ricardo Baca is no fan of the Denver Archdiocese‘s perspective that alcohol is fine but that cannabis is “disastrous.”
• Is Sports Illustrated adding fake bylines to AI-generated articles? Some think so.
• The FTC is watching social media influencers closely. It has issued a warning to trade associations and influencers about their work promoting aspartame, the artificial sweetener that was recently categorized as “possibly carcinogenic.”
• Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, passed away at age 93.
• The Denver PR community lost our friend Larry Holdren. A celebration of life is planned for Sunday.

So, who won the week?

• Johanna Erickson was named senior director of Marketing at Special Olympics of Colorado. She previously was senior partner at Barokas PR.
• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis promoted Conor Cahill to communications director from press secretary. He replaces Maria De Cambra, who was appointed executive director of the Department of Local Affairs.
• Meanwhile, Shelby Wieman, Gov. Polis’ speechwriter and a former spokeswoman for then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, is taking over as the governor’s press secretary. 
• Sports Illustrated named University of Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders as its “Sportsperson of the Year.”
• Taylor Swift, Drake, Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and $uicideboy$ were the most-played artists on Spotify among Denver listeners in 2023.
• The AARP didn’t become one of the largest membership organizations in the country by missing out on no-brainer marketing opportunities. The latest: it is the official sponsor of the Rolling Stones tour that will play Denver next summer.

Larry Holdren’s career in Denver began with positions at Children’s Hospital Colorado, Centura Health and GBSM, but I think a lot of us associate him most with his time as a partner at Pure Brand. He was an entrepreneur through and through, and he had reinvented himself as one of the leading communications experts on renewable energy and water. He was funny, thoughtful and charismatic, and he would have been hard to miss in any room even if he wasn’t a head taller than everyone else there. Larry passed away from a heart-related issue on the day after Thanksgiving. He was 52.

This holiday week offers a condensed version of “Who Had the Worst Week.” I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. While there are a lot of challenges in the world, there are also many reasons to be thankful. Now, the list:

• Branding matters. It turns out ladybugs are just “vicious” insects that have benefitted from a cute name.
• Her hips may not lie, but apparently her accountant does. Singer Shakira agreed to a plea deal with Spanish prosecutors that included a suspended three-year prison sentence and a $7 million fine to settle charges that she failed to pay millions in taxes.
• Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay says his 2014 arrest for DUI only occurred because of police prejudice against him for being “a rich, white billionaire.” Those poor guys can never catch a break, amiright?
• United Airlines’ Hallmark Channel-inspired movie short about two strangers who cross paths in a busy airport made several Washington Post reviewers “reach for the airsick bag.”
• The transfer portal and now NIL deals have revolutionized collegiate sports, but they are also slowly killing competitive athletics at the military academies.
• Fears about a mystery illness affecting dogs are sweeping through Denver. Researchers think the respiratory illness could be caused by a new type of bacterial infection that may be very good at evading the canine immune system.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The BBC announced it will halt production of its highly popular and highly profitable TV show “Top Gear” after one of its stars was seriously injured in a crash.
•  A judge ruled that rapper A$AP Rocky must stand trial for allegedly firing a gun at a former friend and collaborator outside a Hollywood hotel in 2021.
• If you were waiting for a Hall & Oates reunion tour, bad news. Daryl Hall has filed a lawsuit against John Oates, claiming breach of contract. I don’t know about you, but I can’t go for that, noooo, no can do.
• In his first game back from a three-game suspension for a pattern of dangerous and illegal hits, Denver Broncos safety Kareem Jackson lasted three plays before hitting Minnesota Vikings QB Josh Dobbs in the head with his helmet. The NFL has now suspended Jackson another four games.
• It is chaos in Silicon Valley right now:
  • The CEO of autonomous vehicle start-up Cruise resigned abruptly amid serious safety concerns.
  • Apple, Disney, Comcast/NBCUniversal and Paramount are among the companies that followed IBM’s lead in pausing their ads on Elon Musk’s Twitter (“X”) after antisemitic and other hate speech allegedly appeared adjacent to their ads.
  • Speaking of Musk, he also saw the launch of his SpaceX’s Starship mega rocket explode (a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” in SpaceX-speak) during a test launch.
  • OpenAI’s board quickly and without warning fired CEO Sam Altman, who then announced he was joining Microsoft (Microsoft is an OpenAI investor). An overwhelming majority of OpenAI employees then signed a letter saying they would also leave to join Microsoft unless Altman was reinstated and a new board was seated. This morning, Altman was, in fact, reinstated and the company is in the process of seating a new board.
• Inflation is real – Gov. Jared Polis had to pardon four turkeys this year. They now head to the Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary in Weld County.
• Three hundred rabbits, guinea pigs and rats given to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona to be adopted may have instead been sold as reptile food.

So, who won the week?

• They will be in their 80s, but Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the other members of the Rolling Stones plan to play Empower Field in Denver in June 2024.
• Oldies station KOOL-105 FM topped the list of highest-rated radio stations in Denver.
• A California groom secretly learned Korean so he could surprise his new wife and her family on their wedding day.
• Warren Buffett donated more than $870 million to four charitable foundations in what is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition. He has previously pledged to give away most of his wealth to philanthropy.  
• The Denver Broncos have improbably won four games in a row and will try for win number five against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

• Volkswagen refused to provide GPS coordinates for a vehicle that had been carjacked with a toddler inside unless the frantic family paid $150 for a subscription to its Car-Net service.
• An Iowa teen who killed his high school Spanish teacher over a bad grade was sentenced to life in prison.
• Apparently Mattel used some of the hundreds of millions of dollars it made on the recent “Barbie” movie on lawyers. The toy company is in court trying to get out of a $49 million pledge it made to the UCLA children’s hospital.
• Las Vegas promised to make this weekend’s F1 race the glitziest in the world. Nine minutes into the first practice session, a loose drain cover on the track damaged a Ferrari, forced the cancellation of the session, and had the world chuckling. Take that, Monaco!
• Speaking of Ferrari … colorful details are the enemy of crisis communications, a fact that actor Adam Driver hasn’t learned. At a press event, he was asked what he thought about the “harsh, drastic and, I must say, cheesy” crash scenes in the new movie he made about legendary car maker Enzo Ferrari. If he ignores the question or responds vaguely, no one outside of that room knows about it. Instead, he answered colorfully: “I don’t know. Fuck you? Next question.” And it became an international story.
• At least a half dozen analyses and reports that advocates and elected officials had planned to use to guide legislative policy are delayed due to the ongoing impact of a data breach at the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
• Texas A&M fired its head football coach Jimbo Fisher and will now pay him the balance of his guaranteed contract – $76 million … let me repeat that, $76 MILLION – to not coach at the school. His firing means that Power 5 conference schools now owe a collective $146 million to coaches who no longer work for them.
• IBM is the latest advertiser to flee Twitter (“X”) after Elon Musk promoted an antisemitic post this week.
• You think you hate the end of Daylight Savings Time and the shorter days that coincide with it? Starting this week, the town of Utqiagvik, Alaska won’t see the sun again for two months.
• Fox Sports and Amazon NFL broadcast reporter Charissa Thompson admitted she used to make up fake sideline reports when she was a sideline reporter.

So, who won the week?

• I’m proud to say that my firm GFM|CenterTable was named #3 on the annual Outside magazine list of the Top 50 Best Places to Work. Joining us on the list were Turner (#5), TDA_Boulder (#7), Fortnight Collective (#8), Cactus (#45), Karsh Hagan (#46) and Backbone (#50).
• Anne Trujillo signed off as an anchor at Denver7 this week after a 40-year career with the station.
• Denver Gazette reporter Jessica Gibbs has joined the  Denver Business Journal as its transportation and government reporter.
• The Colorado Department of Natural Resources has named Colorado Public Radio journalist Michael Elizabeth Sakas as Colorado River communications specialist.
• After ongoing employee strife and walkouts, Walgreens said it will close on Thanksgiving to give all of its employees the day off.
• Thousands of fans at the CU Buffaloes’ men’s basketball game sang “Happy Birthday” to superfan Peggy Coppom, who is turning 99.
• Finally, a plug for a great site that covers the media industry in Colorado: Corey Hutchins’ “Inside the News in Colorado.” You can sign up to receive his weekly emails for free, which makes its value-to-cost ratio literally infinity.

• DISH Network‘s stock has been a death spiral, and the company announced that it is laying off 500 Denver-area employees.
• Hill + Knowlton Strategies has rebranded to … its original name Hill & Knowlton. Hardly seems worth the cost of the new letterhead. In a quote that belongs in the PR Hall of Fame, the company’s CEO said the new old name “really embraces … the spirit of today and the aspiration and vision we have for the future.”
• Speaking of PR Hall of Fame quotes, WeWork announced that it “took strategic action to significantly strengthen (its) balance sheet and further streamline (its) real estate footprint.” That sounds great, until you read a paragraph later to understand that it did that by filing for bankruptcy.
• With two months still to go, Denver County Court has handled more eviction case filings than in any other year since at least 2008.
• An Australian police officer allegedly pointed his pistol at a colleague to stop him from sharing spoilers to the plot of “Top Gun: Maverick.”
• If you see a 9News reporter today, give them a hug. Tegna reported Q3 earnings that were down 11% year over year.
• If you see a Denver7 anchor, give them a hug. Parent company Scripps has developed “Scrippscast,” a new technology that creates news programming that does not require conventional anchors.
• A $6 million, 18-carat-gold toilet was stolen from Winston Churchill’s childhood home. I checked – former President Donald Trump has an alibi (he was in court).
• There is nothing worse than a judge deciding to make an example of you. That’s what happened to disbarred Denver attorney Steve Bachar, who received a prison sentence 50% longer than prosecutors requested. The Denver Post reported that “the judge said he wanted to push back against the criminal justice system’s tendency to be more lenient on wealthy, well-connected and well-educated defendants.”
• The Justice Department is investigating politicians, military officers and government contractors for utilizing the services of a high-end brothel network operating in Massachusetts and Washington D.C. Has anyone seen former Mayor Hancock?

So, who won the week?

• After nine years, Dana Smith is leaving her role as Chief Communications Officer at the Colorado Department of Education.
• The Denver Zoo has become the Nick Cannon of elephant sperm.
• The University of Colorado women’s basketball team opened their season by defeating the #1 ranked LSU Tigers.
• Tracy Chapman won song of the year at the Country Music Awards for “Fast Car,” a song that topped the country charts more than three decades after she first released it thanks to a cover by country singer Luke Combs. Chapman is the first Black songwriter to win that award.
• The New York Times surpassed 10 million subscribers. The company has a goal of 15 million by the end of 2027.
• The SAG–AFTRA actors’ union and Hollywood studios have ended their 118-day strike. How happy are the actors? Kevin Bacon celebrated by doing the “Footloose” dance.
• The National Women’s Soccer League negotiated a new four-year, $240 million TV deal that includes ESPN. That is 40 times the value of its previous deal on an annual basis.

• Novitas Communications and Aiello PR have settled their lawsuit just weeks before it was scheduled to go to trial. Novitas sued alleging that Aiello PR had reneged on their 2020 agreement to shut down and sell its clients to Novitas for $180,000. Aiello has agreed to pay Novitas $140,000 to settle the matter. 
• Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency company FTX, was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy and now faces up to 110 years in jail.
• Magazine publisher Condé Nast will cut 5% of its workforce due to “digital advertising pressures, a decline in social media traffic and shifting audience behaviors.”
• Spirit Airlines is leaving DIA. Over the past three years, its marketshare at the airport has dropped from 2.1% to 0.8%, reflecting tough competition with other low-cost carriers Frontier and Southwest.
• Andrew Garson, a senior PR executive at Catalyst Public Relations and MWW in New York City, pled guilty to defrauding his employers of more than $3 million. He created false invoices and used his corporate credit cards for personal expenses.
• Former Denver TV sportscaster Todd Romero filed a lawsuit alleging that Altitude Sports discriminated against him because because of race, age and his decision to seek treatment for a prescription-drug addiction.
• HBO/Max CEO and Chairman Casey Bloys apologized to TV critics for attacking them anonymously for bad reviews via a burner Twitter account. His apology read in part, “I have progressed over the past couple of years to using DMs.” I guess that’s growth.
• The vacancy rate among downtown Denver office space has now topped 30% for the first time since the early 1990s.
• A U.S. District Court judge dismissed former Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre’s defamation lawsuit against former Denver Broncos Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe. Sharpe had criticized Favre after the State of Mississippi sued Favre alleging he misappropriated funds intended to help welfare families.
• Meanwhile, former Denver Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels was fired this week by the Las Vegas Raiders. He made history by being the first NFL head coach fired by two teams before he completed his second season with either.
• The social media platform Twitter (“X”) says its value is now $19 billion, less than half of the $44 billion Elon Musk paid for it a year ago. Users and advertisers have left the platform in droves since he took over.
• Street fights and looting are one thing, but teens in New Zealand have completely crossed the line. The latest trend is to cruise the streets overnight in cars and on bicycles with powerful speakers belting out. … Celine Dion.
• A man swimming in a scenic Northern California lake was attacked by a group of otters. “They wanted to kill me,” he said. “If we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” the otters should have responded.
• The Milwaukee Bucks invited rapper Flavor Flav to the sing the national anthem at one of its games this week, and it went exactly how you thought it would.
• FIFA is poised to award soccer’s 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia despite its atrocious human rights record and stifling heat.

So, who won the week?

• Denver Mayor Mike Johnston‘s administration continues to fill open roles. DIA Acting Director of Communications Jose Salas was named Deputy Director of Communications, and 9News producer Erin Powell accepted a position as deputy director of digital media.
• Independent (and occasionally renegade) journalist Shay Castle has been named editor of the Boulder Weekly.
• Sports talk radio host Darren “D-Mac” McKee, who was let go from 104.3 The Fan in September, landed this week at Altitude Sports Radio 92.5.

• Did USA Today publish AI-written articles under the names of fictitious reporters? The Washington Post thinks it may have.
• Some bears recognize quality when they see it. If you were a bear wandering through Pitkin County, where would you want to be? The kitchen of the St. Regis Aspen Resort, of course.
• I’m going to be honest – I didn’t realize that “Audubon” was someone’s name. I assumed it was a Latin word for bird or something. But this week we (or at least I) learned that not only is the National Audubon Society named after John James Audubon, but that he was a “19th-century ornithologist, naturalist and painter who owned slaves, opposed abolitionism and exploited Black and Indigenous people.” As a result, three chapters of the National Audubon Society are dropping his name from their branding.
• Boeing may have solved the 737 Max fiasco, but it is still hemorrhaging money. The company has reported losses of $25.5 billion since the 737 Maxes were grounded in 2019, and about $1.1 billion (and counting) of that loss is due to its contract to build two new Air Force Ones. Boeing’s CEO described the decision to seek that contract as “a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation. A very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn’t have taken.”
• Is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a white guy? Of course not. He’s talked proudly about his Black father and Samoan mother. But his wax figure in France’s Musée Grévin had to undergo some emergency touch-ups to reflect that.
• A woman in Atlanta returned home from a vacation to find that her house had been completely destroyed when a demolition company confused the address.
• An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot attempted to disable a plane’s engines mid-flight after taking “magic mushrooms” 48 hours before the incident.
• Denver‘s relatively isolated geography is causing more and more music stars to skip our city while on concert tours. The most recent include Drake, Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, Billy Joel, Pearl Jam and Metallica.
• Michigan State apologized midway through its 49-0 loss to rival Michigan, not for the team’s dreadful performance but rather for a trivia question that appeared on its Jumbotron that included an enormous picture of Adolf Hitler.
• If you are wondering what happened to George Costanza, he may have been working at Citigroup. One of its executives was recently fired for expensing a lunch with his significant other, and then claiming he had actually ordered and eaten two of everything – coffees, sandwiches and pasta dishes. Citigroup forbids expensing meals for partners. And, of course, the employee was part of the company’s … wait for it … financial crimes division.
• More than 42% of Coloradans consider our state to be located in the “Midwest.”
• Halloween is Tuesday, and it is the most deadly day of the year for child pedestrians.
• Chief 9News meteorologist Kathy Sabine reduced her on-air schedule following recent treatment for skin cancer, but she is now returning to her previous role handling the 4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm, 9 pm and 10 pm broadcasts. Unfortunately, it appears that fellow meteorologist Danielle Grant is the odd woman out. She is leaving the station and hasn’t announced what she plans next.
• In what is candidly a reflection of a lack of self-awareness, a survey of PR professionals found that getting reporters to respond to their pitches is the biggest challenge they face in their jobs. Reporters would likely say being overwhelmed with irrelevant pitches is their biggest challenge.

So, who won the week?

• 9News reporter/anchor Steve Staeger and his wife are expecting their first child.
• Emily Spencer has joined SE2 as a senior associate.
• Novitas Communications won two gold PRGN awards in the Digital Media and Community Engagement categories. 
• And, on a personal note, I have accepted an offer to become a partner at GFM|CenterTable (formerly GroundFloor Media). I will continue to lead our Crisis and Issues Management practice, as well as support a number of non-crisis clients.

• A federal trial that would have explored allegations of bid rigging at DIA sadly won’t take place after the parties reached a confidential settlement just as prospective jurors arrived at the courthouse. DIA Brewing, a company affiliated with Wynkoop Brewing and the Cherry Cricket, had sued Midfield Concession Enterprises alleging it had bribed DIA’s former chief revenue officer to rig bids in its favor.
• In the 1980s and 1990s, the Tattered Cover bookstore was among Denver‘s most notable local retailers. And then online booksellers started to crush brick-and-mortar stores. The Tattered Cover held on better than most, but it finally filed for bankruptcy this week. It will close three of its seven locations, and eliminate 27 of its 103 jobs.
• Britney Spears‘ new tell-all autobiography is coming out, and some of the revelations – that he pressured her to have an abortion and that he broke up with her via text – have former boyfriend Justin Timberlake and his good-guy image playing defense.
• X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is trialing a $1 per year fee that is says will help eliminate bots from the site. If expanded, that will test the resolve of many users who are committed to not paying Elon Musk even a penny.
• Americans‘ trust in media remained near record lows in the annual Gallup poll. About 34% said they trust mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly,” which is just two points higher than the lowest percentage Gallup has ever recorded, which was during the 2016 presidential campaign.
• Now that the Hollywood writers’ strike is over, some of them should look to Granby Ranch for inspiration for the next great TV drama. The latest development in the area’s years-long saga is that Marise Cipriana, the Boulder owner of the development, has been accused by her sister of being a diamond smuggler.
• “Saturday Night Live” resumed after the writer’s strike ended, and that wasn’t great news for University of Colorado head coach Deion Sanders.
• An Australian man had to fight a kangaroo that was trying to drown his dog. The man said the unusually muscle-bound kangaroo looked like he “just got out of jail or something.”
• Wyatt’s Towing, the company everyone loves to hate, is facing new allegations of corruption and fraud.
• New Mexico prosecutors are trying again to charge actor Alec Baldwin for the accidental shooting death of a cinematographer on the set of his movie “Rust.”
• Thousands of Venezuelans have donated their hair to help soak up oil slicks that are common on Lake Maracaibo. The hair is placed in large collection nets that scientists at NASA have determined actually work.

So, who won the week?

• We lost our friend Steve Sander this week. There will be a celebration of his life this Sunday from 11:30 am to 2 pm at the Greek Amphitheater at Civic Center Park.
• Reporter Hannah Metzger has joined Westword as a staff writer. She previously was at the Denver Gazette/ColoradoPolitics.com.
• Mikayla Ortega, formerly of Denver7 and the Denver Office of Emergency Management, has accepted the position of Communications and Marketing manager at the Denver Clerk & Recorder’s Office.
• For the first time in its history, the Colorado School of Mines‘ football team is ranked No. 1 in the country. The team plays in Division II.
• Chris LaPlaca, the head of global communications at ESPN, is retiring after a 43-year career with the network.
• Taylor Swift‘s cut of the opening weekend box office of her “Eras Tour” movie was $55 million.

Steve Sander was synonymous with Denver, and there were few high-profile civic marketing initiatives that he wasn’t involved in at some level. Whether it was the Denver Film Festival, Denver B-cycle or the Denver Nuggets championship parade, he was more likely than not to be involved. He was funny, quirky and engaging, and he collected friends the way most of us collect change. Steve took his own life last night. If you are experiencing mental health-related distress or are worried about a loved one, please call Colorado Crisis Services at 1-844-493-8255.

• The Washington Post is cutting 240 jobs due to a decline in advertising and digital subscriptions.
• Aspire to be a 1%-er in Colorado? You’ll need to earn $610,000 per year.
• Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and QB Russell Wilson are neck-and-neck in the race to be the person whom fans blame for the team’s dismal record. Payton had the early lead, but Russell really showed something last night in the Broncos’ 19-8 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
• The CEO of movie theater chain AMC disclosed he was the victim of a catfishing blackmail scheme after he shared explicit photos. Can’t imagine that will go over well with the board of directors.
• A St. Louis youth football coach was allegedly shot by a parent angry that his son didn’t receive enough playing time.
• High school students’ scores on the ACT college admissions test have dropped to the lowest in more than 30 years.
• Can DIA help fund improvements to RTD’s A-Line train service to the airport? DIA doesn’t appear to be trying very hard to find a way to say yes.
• Players and teams are pushing back against the NHL‘s new ban on Pride-themed tape on their hockey sticks. Last season, some players refused to participate in team sanctioned Pride night festivities, and the NHL said the issue had become “a distraction.”
• Tobias, the leader of the Denver Zoo‘s African lion family pride, was euthanized at seven years of age, less than a quarter of that age that is expected from lions in captivity.
• Global soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo leapt at a chance to take hundreds of millions of dollars to play for a team in Saudi Arabia. But giving the wrong woman a friendly kiss the cheek while at a tournament in Iran has state officials considering a sentence of 99 lashes.
• Bigfoot is alive and living on the Western Slope, if you believe a gullible Wyoming couple.

So, who won the week?

• Concerts at Red Rocks account for $717 million in annual economic impact in the metro area.
• Any chump can buy a multi-million home in Cherry Hills Village. It takes a star to buy two.
• B Public Relations was named best PR firm in the metro Denver area by Colorado Sun readers.
• Someone in California won the $1.73 billion Powerball lottery.
• How are movie theaters preparing for Taylor Swift‘s concert film? Alamo Drafthouse has lifted its age restriction and is planning to let young fans “break most of our policies to celebrate as much as possible.”

• Disney is being sued by a visitor to one of its water park rides over a “severe wedgie” injury.
• Thieves stole $73,000 worth of crab meat while a commercial truck driver slept in his cab. If you see a crab cake the size of an inflatable pool, you are asked to contact the authorities.
• The Denver Public Schools board is an absolute dumpster fire. This week, it was reported that the district gave board member Auon’tai Anderson a secret $3,500 payment that was accompanied by an illegal confidentiality provision. Said attorney Steve Zansberg, who represented several media outlets, “It is unfathomable that any public school district would include a provision in a settlement agreement by which it commits to withhold that public record from disclosure… .” That is attorney-speak for “WTF.”
• The Triangle Bar, one of Denver‘s oldest gay bars, has closed due to issues with homeless encampments.
• DIA has plans to add four new concourses with 100 additional gates by 2045. The addition will allow it to accommodate twice the number of passengers it serves today. There’s no mention of increased parking.
• Going public is hard, and going public during a pandemic is really hard. Denver-based Spruce Power Holding Corp., a company that converts gas-powered commercial trucks into hybrid vehicles, has been accused by the SEC of exaggerating its earnings as part of its IPO three years ago.
• The Colorado Rockies may have had their worst season ever with 103 losses, but they managed to draw 2.6 million fans to the ballpark, which puts them in the top half of MLB attendance. And that is why the Rockies will never be consistently good. What’s the incentive?
• Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays made the MLB postseason and drew 19,704 fans to its first playoff game. That’s the fewest fans for a playoff game in more than 100 years.
• Amazon has laid off about 5% of its communications staffers across its various divisions.
• More than 75,000 Kaiser employees, including 3,000 in Colorado, are participating in a three-day strike to protest what they say are “unfair labor practices and unsafe staffing levels.”
• How much does the Town of Vail not want low-income housing? It was willing to pay $17.5 million to acquire 23 acres that Vail Resorts wanted to use to build housing for its workers.
• Twitter has taken yet another step to offer less value to users.

So, who won the week?

• CBS4‘s news team’s focus on covering the entire state has resulted in significant ratings increases.
• If you missed out on the chance to buy Echo Mountain, good news! For just $7 million, you can buy the 373-acre Slopes at St. Mary’s Glacier ski area. The area hasn’t been operational since 1986, so you might need to upgrade a T-bar lift or two. Better hurry, though. Glaciers aren’t what they used to be.
• Jailed Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight against women’s oppression in Iran and advocating for human rights. 
• In the battle for Denver sports radio listeners, Altitude Sports Radio topped 104.3 The Fan for the first time.
• Prada has inked a deal to design the spacesuits that astronauts will wear during NASA‘s 2025 trip to the moon. I can’t wait for the designers to tell the astronauts they have decided to skip the kevlar and go with silk because it’s more slimming.

• The Denver Broncos. 🤷‍♂️. 0-3 so far, and if they go winless against the hapless Chicago Bears this weekend and the New York Jets next weekend, they may not win a game all season.
• Meanwhile, the Colorado Rockies have now set a franchise record for losses. They currently sit at 101 losses with three games left this season.
• The Denver Public Schools board president has called out her fellow members for their “exorbitant” travel expenses. Leading the pack is Auon’tai Anderson, whose $13,680 in expenses is 265% higher than what is allocated to him.
• Speaking of DPS, the district was called out for its glitzy annual report that “goes to great lengths to convince us that DPS is a combination of Lake Wobegon and Barbie Land.“
• Meta‘s Twitter competitor Threads has fallen off a cliff, and now ranks near the bottom of the most popular social media apps, ahead of only Tumblr.
• Some American, United and Southwest flights have been grounded after the airlines unknowingly used fake engine replacement parts. A British aerospace parts supplier forged certification documents.
• Empower Field at Mile High has the second-highest number of NFL player injuries on average, behind only Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
• An Ohio high school football coach resigned after his team used racist and antisemitic language to call out plays during a game against a team from a primarily Jewish suburb.
• An employee at the Deutsches Museum in Munich allegedly stole paintings from the museum’s collection, replaced them with crude forgeries, and then sold the originals at auction. Prosecutors say he made about $63,000 in the scam.
• Network TV ratings have been plummeting as viewers switch to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. There is one demographic that is sticking with network TV, however: Baby Boomers. And that explains why you can expect to see more new shows like “The Golden Bachelor” and more returning old shows like “FBI,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” “FBI: International,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire,” and “Chicago P.D.” Boomers love them.
• The NFL is not happy that its ads on Twitter (now “X“) appeared on accounts of white nationalists.
• A Philadelphia Phillies fan who tried to enter the stadium with his “emotional support alligator” was turned away.
• Humans had a good run, but it looks like we only have 250 million years left. That’s when scientists say the world’s continents will merge to form one supercontinent that will intensify climate extremes and make the world uninhabitable.

So, who won the week?

• Well-known local journalist Mark Harden has taken a content writer position with the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
• Stacey Sepp received the inaugural Survivor Advocate award from the Melanoma Research Foundation.
• Denver Post employees negotiated a 6% raise over the next two years from their hedge fund owners, Alden Global Capital.
• Coors is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a party in Golden this weekend.
• Native Roots is now offering a pumpkin spice cannabis vape pen.
• The Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) calculates that there are 1,500 start-ups based downtown, about 20% more than last year.
• Sales of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce‘s jersey spiked 400% after Taylor Swift watched last weekend’s game in his luxury suite.

• An unlicensed acupuncturist in New York City has been arrested after a patient’s lungs collapsed. Ouch.
• Alabama police tased and arrested a high school band leader when he refused to stop his band from playing after the game had ended.
• A Danish artist who gave a museum two blank canvases to place on display was ordered to repay $70,000 of his fee.
• Russell Brand has postponed his comedy tour after several women accused him of sexual assault.
• Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, was forced off the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation after he made “comments that diminished the contributions, genius and impact of Black and women artists.”
• Anheuser-Busch InBev said it will no longer cut the tails off its famous Clydesdale horses after pressure from animal-rights activists.
• European regulators have fined TikTok $368 million for not sufficiently protecting the privacy of children’s accounts.
• The shooting outside Dierks Bentley‘s bar in LoDo that injured five was the nation’s 500th mass shooting this year.
• Did India send assassins to Canada to kill a prominent Sikh leader? Canada says it did, and the countries are expelling each other’s diplomats as a result.
• Rupert Murdoch, 92, is retiring from the boards of Fox and News Corporation.
• Is Denver‘s food hall craze waning? Axios Denver thinks it might be.
• Weld County‘s High Plains Library District has agreed to pay $250,000 to a librarian it fired after she objected to the cancellation of programs for youth of color and LGBTQ teens.
• Colorado State Sen. Faith Winters has been hospitalized with a head injury after a bicycle accident. She reportedly was forced to swerve to avoid being struck by a truck and ended up hitting a curb.
• Tennis star Simona Halep has hired PR firm Berk Communications to help fight her doping ban. Berk works with other high-profile athletes such as Aaron Judge and Alex Rodriguez.
• Oh, Spain. The country won the FIFA Women’s World Cup last month and the president of the country’s soccer federation managed to completely overshadow it by forcibly kissing one of the players. Now, Spain has announced that the the player he kissed, Jennifer Hermoso, has been left off of the national team’s roster for the upcoming EUFA Nations League tournament “to protect her.”

So, who won the week?

• 104 West Partners has joined the Next Practices Group (NPG) network after a strategic investment by the Austin-based holding company. The agency will retain its name and leadership structure.
• Communications strategist and former Denver Post reporter Karen Crummy has joined the 76 Group.
• Some things go together like peanut butter and chocolate. In that spirit, Illegal Pete’s restaurant has co-developed a queso-flavored cannabis vape pen.
• DIA rose from 14th to seventh place in J.D. Power’s 2023 North America Airport Satisfaction Study. Better customer ratings for security was the biggest piece of DIA’s higher score this year.
• Former CU Buffs and Denver Broncos running back Phillip Lindsay is joining 104.3 The Fan as an afternoon sports talk radio host.
• Two Denver restaurants – La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal and Molotov Kitschen + Cocktails – made the New York Times’ list of the nation’s 50 most exciting restaurants.
• The Colorado–Colorado State football game drew 9.3 million viewers to make it the most-watched late-night college football game ever on ESPN. It was also ESPN’s fifth-most-watched regular-season game ever on the network for any time slot.
• A PBS volunteer who paid about $100 for Bob Ross’ first painting from his instructional TV show, “The Joy of Painting” sold it at auction for $9.85 million. That’s a lot of happy, little dollar bills.

• USA Today is hiring a reporter dedicated exclusively to covering singer Taylor Swift.
• Five Colorado restaurants received Michelin stars, and shockingly three of them are in Denver. I had assumed most of our stars would be in Aspen, Vail or Telluride.
• Online sports betting company DraftKings has apologized for its 9/11-themed parlay bet that packaged the New York Mets, New York Yankees and New York Jets to win. “Bet on these New York teams to win tonight on 9/11,” the offering read.
• A Nevada rapper has been charged with murder after police say he confessed to the crime in a song he recorded. The lyrics contained information about the crime that had not been released to the public.
• Nearly half of Grindr’s employees are swiping left and looking for a new employer after the company instituted a return-to-office mandate.
• Spanish soccer federation President Luis Rubiales finally resigned, a month after he kissed a female Spanish player without her consent following the team’s FIFA World Cup championship.
• Denver Public Schools board members know you don’t like them and don’t need you going on endlessly about it at their meetings. They have voted to put stricter time limits on public comment.
• Former Colorado Buffaloes and current Michigan State head football coach Mel Tucker has been suspended without pay while the university investigates claims he sexually harassed a woman who is a prominent sexual assault awareness speaker.
• If you, like me, are constantly confusing your vodka with your roofing contractor, well, not much is going to change. Skyy Vodka lost its trademark lawsuit against the Denver-based Skyyguard roofing company. I’m guessing Skyyguard’s lawyers celebrated with a Stoli on the rocks.
• Denver restaurateur Troy Guard’s Bubu is the latest business to close in Larimer Square. Since Larimer Associates sold the block to North Carolina-based Asana Partners in late 2020, the block has been in a death spiral.
• Actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have apologized for writing letters of support on behalf of fellow “That 70’s Show” star Danny Masterson. The letters were written to the judge responsible for his sentencing after Masterson was convicted of raping two women.
• MGM is continuing to experience “chaos” six days after a cyberattack crippled its operations
• Actress/talk-show host Drew Barrymore’s plans to restart her talk show amid a writer’s strike has drawn the ire of the Writers Guild of America.
• The New York Jets signed future Hall of Fame QB Aaron Rodgers in the offseason, which pushed the Super Bowl dreams of Jets fans to levels not seen since Joe Namath was their quarterback. But the Jets are the Jets, and Rodgers lasted an entire four snaps before he suffered a season-ending Achilles’ tendon injury.
• Speaking of football, Colorado State head coach Jay Norvell – who has a 3-10 record as a Ram – offered some of the weakest trash talk in the history of college football that was aimed at new CU coach Deion Sanders. And Sanders, who seemingly has never found an issue that he can’t take personally, was more than happy to use Norvell’s comments as motivation with his team. If I was betting on this game, I’d take CU and the over.

So, who won the week?

• Barefoot PR’s Cori Streetman has been elected board chair at Girls Inc. of Metro Denver.
• Corey Masisak, the former San Jose Sharks beat reporter for The Athletic, is joining The Denver Post as the Colorado Avalanche beat writer. He replaces Bennett Durando, who has taken over the Denver Nuggets beat writer role. It is not clear what Mike Singer, who previously covered the Nuggets, is doing now.
• Former CBS4 anchor/reporter Britt Moreno has returned to work at KXAN in Austin after taking a longer-than-expected maternity leave to address postpartum issues. Here’s wishing Britt and her family the best.
• A 6-year-old Chihuahua that disappeared at the Atlanta airport three weeks ago has been found in good health and reunited with its owner.

• Has Jimmy Fallon been “drunk” and “erratic” while at work on the “Tonight Show?” Some staffers claim so, and Fallon has now apologized.
• “That 70s Show” actor Danny Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison after being found guilty of raping two women.
• Qantas Airlines allegedly sold thousands of tickets for flights it knew had been canceled. As bad as that is, you’d still take it over what happened on a recent Delta Airlines flight.
• A lawsuit claims that a Peloton bike “instantly” killed a New York man when it tipped over and severed his carotid artery.
• A surgical tool the size of a dinner plate was left inside a New Zealand woman’s abdomen for 18 months after her baby was delivered by cesarean section.
• Two people cut a hole in the Great Wall of China with an excavator to create a shortcut for their construction work nearby.
• Colorado State Sen. Lisa Cutter and some of her colleagues traveled to the Western Slope to learn more about wildfire threats. Their return to Denver was delayed when I-70 was closed due to … a wildfire.
• Bruce Springsteen has cancelled all of his September concerts because he being treated for symptoms of peptic ulcer disease.
• Approximately 11,000 runners at this year’s Mexico City Marathon – 37% of the field – were disqualified after cheating by cutting the course during the race.
• Denver restaurateur Frank Bonanno has sold the Milk Market at Dairy Block food hall to Sage Hospitality amid slower post-pandemic sales.
• Burning Man went full Fyre Festival.
• Coloradans saw an average car insurance premium hike of 53% last year.
• Duke University’s share of low-income students is just 12%, nearly half of that of Harvard and Yale. This comes as legacy admissions are under more scrutiny than ever following the U.S. Supreme Court‘s ruling against affirmative action in admission decisions.
• Warner Bros. Discovery expects the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes to have as much as a $500 million negative impact on the company’s 2023 earnings.
• Team USA lost to Germany in the FIBA basketball World Cup, ending our hopes for a gold medal.
• Former Denver Broncos defensive end Von Miller may be tough on opposing quarterbacks, but he is even tougher on deadbeat tenants. Miller is foreclosing on the person who purchased his Denver-area home when he was traded a couple of years ago.
• Canadian rapper/singer Drake may have confused kilometers with miles. He has postponed his September show in Denver after only now realizing that “the distance the road crew has to travel” means it is “logistically impossible” to hold the show on its scheduled date.

So, who won the week?

• SE2 is celebrating its 25th anniversary as a communications agency focused on driving positive change.
• Longtime Denver Post reporter Kieran Nicholson has retired.
• CBS4‘s Dago Cordova has been promoted to executive director of the station’s digital news.
• Former Fox31 reporter Alex Rose is now the PIO at the Wheat Ridge Police Department.
• The Colorado Sun celebrates its fifth anniversary on Sunday.
• Broncos fans are cheering today after the Kansas City Chiefs lost their home opener last night to the Detroit Lions.

Last week, Colorado Public Radio announced that a donor gave it $8.34 million to buy a “six-story building at 777 Grant Street (that) will become home to CPR News, Denverite, CPR Classical, Indie 102.3, Audio Innovations and the organization’s production and business offices.”

Who is the donor? We don’t know. CPR President and CEO Stewart Vanderwilt said, “We’re not announcing the donors at this time.” That raises an interesting journalism ethics question – should CPR, as a news organization, withhold that donor’s name?

I’m sure CPR would say there is an inviolable firewall between its fundraising and news gathering organizations, much as there is a firewall between the journalists and ad sales teams at, say, 9News or The Denver Post. But we know who the advertisers are at 9News and the Post because we see the ads. It is a different situation when an $8.34 million gift is made without any disclosure.

Over the past few months, CPR and Denverite have covered numerous companies and wealthy individuals capable of providing that $8.34 million gift. While I trust the leadership at CPR to maintain ethical standards, those standards are supposed to ensure that it doesn’t get to the point that “trust” is required.

• Hurricane Idalia took two lives and is expected to cost insurance companies nearly $10 billion.
• Denver appears to be on the hook for another $4.72 million in payouts to Black Lives Matter protestors whose rights were violated. Desperate for a silver lining? Last year, the city paid $14 million to protestors, so … they’re trending in the right direction?
• Former Denver Post reporter Joseph Sebastian Sinisi passed away at the age of 80. Known for his thick Brooklyn accent, he covered everything from Pope John Paul II‘s visit to Denver to the Columbine High School shooting.
• Newspaper chain Gannett is rethinking its efforts to use AI to write high school sports stories after the technology botched several stories in Ohio. Or as the Gannett AI bot would report it, “The outlet of news media Gannett made the verdict to come to an end of its assessment of AI technology due to bigly wrong effects.”
• “Almost 42 million Americans – over one-eighth of the U.S. population – are estimated to have lived within one mile of a mass shooting since 2014,” according to CNN.
• The number of euthanizations performed by the Denver Animal Shelter has doubled since 2020. Experts blame several factors, including inflation that had made pet expenses soar, including costs associated with spaying or neutering animals.
• The Texas Tribune, “one of nonprofit news’ brightest stars,” is under fire for a lack of transparency around its recent layoffs, and for utilizing the services of a high-priced, high-profile, New York City-based crisis communications firm while simultaneously claiming financial hardship.
• Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and journalist Stephanie Ruhle are scrambling to explain the nature of their relationship after he gave her a secret burner phone to share nonpublic financial details and she provided him PR counsel on how to address negative publicity.
• A Nebraska man was pulled over by police for driving with a massive bull sitting in the passenger seat of his compact car. He had removed half of the car’s roof and windshield to make room for the animal. Nebraska, amiright?
• Pet dementia is real. Experts estimate that as many as 35% of the pet dog population age 8 and older and nearly one-third of cats ages 11 to 14 are affected.
• Ruby Franke, famous for her “8 Passengers” YouTube channel, was arrested on charges of child abuse.
• Burger King is being sued for allegedly making its Whopper burgers look 35% larger in ads than they really are.
• Rapper 50 Cent allegedly threw a malfunctioning microphone into the crowd at a concert, hitting and injuring a fan. While I don’t condone that, it is nice to see performers getting to hit fans with stuff for a change.
• American Airlines has been fined $4.1 million for holding passengers hostage on tarmacs.

So, who won the week?

• Denver Post reporter Jon Murray has been promoted to senior editor for public affairs at the paper.
• Lauren Scafidi is joining 9News as a reporter. She joins the station from 9 & 10 News in Northern Michigan.
• Colorado Public Radio has purchased a 72,000 square-foot building at 7th and Grant to serve as home for CPR News, Denverite, CPR Classical, Indie 102.3, Audio Innovations and the organization’s production and business offices. A donor footed the $8.34 million cost.
• Michelin Guide Colorado named nine local spots to its list of “budget-friendly” restaurants. Casa Bonita is not on it, but Hop Alley in Five Points and Basta in Boulder are.
• CNN named former New York Times Company CEO Mark Thompson as its chairman and CEO. His job: to stop “a nearly endless string of crises for the last 18 months.”
• Who says cheating doesn’t pay? Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong and his wife have sold their Aspen home for $17.5 million.
• Ethics Month for PR professionals begins today. I don’t think asking PR people to be ethical one month per year is too much to ask.
• The University of Nebraska women’s volleyball team set the world’s record for attendance at a women’s sports event this week, drawing 92,003 fans to its match against Omaha.

• Denver Public Schools students returned to class this week amid temperatures that were in the mid to high 90s, even though more than 40 district schools do not have air conditioning.
• Ford said that an unstoppable, 109-decibel “ear piercing” noise from speakers in its F-150 trucks doesn’t “rise to the level of a recallable safety defect.“
• Losing a 40-yard-dash to former NFLer Stevan Ridley was bad enough, but comedian Kevin Hart somehow managed to end up in a wheelchair after “tearing his lower abdomen.”
• A Washington restaurant appropriately named Frugals allegedly served milkshakes contaminated with Listeria bacteria when they failed to properly clean their shake machine. Three people have died.
• How do you say, “Oh, snap” in Russian? Russia’s space program had an embarrassing week when its first robotic lunar mission in nearly 50 years ended in failure (the probe crashed into – rather than landed on – the moon). And then, just days later, a competing probe from India succeeded. Оx, xватка.
• Taylor who? Ed Sheeran broke the Empower Field attendance record last weekend with 85,233 fans.
• Rosenberg’s Bagels has backed away from plans to open a deli at DIA following a dispute with one of the members of the powerful cartel of concessionaires that rule most of the businesses at the airport.
• If you are missing a bright orange iguana, please contact Arapahoe County Animal Services.
• FIFA is the PR disaster gift that keeps on giving. Last week, prior to the Women’s World Cup Final, FIFA President Gianni Infantino insulted women by saying they aren’t “picking the right battles” when it comes to equality. This week, the skeevy president of the Spanish football federation, Luis Rubiales, is on the brink of being fired for surprising star player Jenni Hermoso with a kiss on the lips following Spain’s championship. And, for good measure, Spain’s head coach, Jorge Vilda, may or may not have inappropriately touched a female staffer during the final against England.
• Ironically, a Florida library may have created the plot for the next Stephen King novel when a drop box used to return books after-hours severed a woman’s finger.
• You need to earn an annual salary of $709,000 to qualify as a 1%-er in Colorado. Out of reach? You could move to New Mexico, where it only takes a salary of $411,000 per year.
• One of Colorado’s most-acclaimed restaurants won’t be eligible to compete for a Michelin star because it is on the wrong side of Yosemite Street.
• Former Denver Bronco and current 104.3 The Fan sports radio host Chad Brown is being sued by two former employees of his exotic reptile business. And one of the two employees alleges the married Brown engaged in an extramarital affair with her.
• Fun Fact: Those “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” signs that appear at our state borders cost about $3,700 each. We know that because people keep stealing them and CDOT has to pay for replacements. Maybe somebody should look into the company that manufactures the signs to see if they are the ones stealing them.
• More people call in sick on Aug. 24 than any other day of the year.
• If, in your office pool, you had “accidentally fall out of a high-rise window” for the fate of Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, well, that was a great guess. The correct answer, however, was, “The private plane he was flying in ‘accidentally’ exploded.”

So, who won the week?

• The current stock market bull run has increased the number of 401(k) millionaires by 26%.
• University of Colorado Buffaloes’ football ticket sales have increased 1,667% since last season, a sign of how much excitement exists for Deion Sanders’ first year as head coach.
• Adams County named Kerrie Joy as its first poet laureate.

• Yuma County, Colo., now can claim the largest hailstone in our state’s history, a fact that will surely be of interest to home insurance providers.
• Vail Mountain must pay $275,000 to the state for releasing hazardous water from its snowmaking system into the Mill and Gore creeks, killing fish and turning the creeks a toxic blue-gray color.
• A United Airlines pilot snapped and attacked a barrier gate with an axe at a DIA employee parking lot, causing about $700 in damage. Police said that he told them that he “just hit his breaking point” after being stuck in a long line.
• Vlatko Andonovski, the head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, resigned after the team failed to advance in the knock-out round of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Spain and England will face off in the final Sunday.
• And it wouldn’t be a World Cup without FIFA officials saying something stupid. Right on cue, FIFA President Gianni Infantino used the world’s spotlight to declare that “women should ‘pick the right battle” to “convince us men” in the fight for equality. He was responding to criticism that women will receive about one-third of the prize money the men receive.
• Maui’s emergency management chief, Herman Andaya, resigned a day after facing mounting criticism for not activating the island’s public alert sirens during the recent wildfires. At least 111 people have died in the fires.
• Meanwhile, shares in the utility company Hawaiian Electric are down 61% this month. Officials suspect that the company’s power lines may have sparked some of the fires. For context, Xcel Energy’s stock fell only about 12% following the Marshall Fire.
• If you have ever wanted to see a trombonist chased by a buffalo, the Jazz Festival at Genesee Park is this weekend.
• Actor Bradley Cooper is receiving criticism for his prosthetic nose in his role as Jewish composer Leonard Bernstein in the movie “Maestro.” 
• The real-life people behind the feel-good movie “The Blind Side” are quickly positioning the film for a sequel. This one, however, will be a courtroom-based legal drama.
• Do you remember in 2012 when Denver-based Galvanize launched its coding school and co-working space that was going to revolutionize the tech industry? It played out a little differently.
• The Denver Catholic Archdiocese is fighting with the LGBTQ+ community again. This time, it has sued the state to allow it to exclude LGBTQ+ parents, staff and kids from its preschools that are part of Colorado’s new state-funded universal preschool program.
• A Vice News reporter who covers reproductive rights is sharing the weirdest sex-related PR pitches she has received. It will make you appreciate having relatively dull restaurant or healthcare clients.
• Beloved Colorado nature photographer John Fielder passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 73.

So, who won the week?

• Former Denver Post/AP/Colorado Sun reporter Brian Eason is returning to the Colorado Sun after a two-year stint with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• The reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets will kick-off the league’s 2023-2024 season with a primetime game against the L.A. Lakers.
• The San Miguel (Colo.) Sheriff’s Office saw one too many novices attempt to navigate the dangerous Black Bear Pass this week. In the most viral Colorado law enforcement tweet since “a large rock the size of a small rock,” the San Miguel sheriff declared that “ass clowns” who don’t know what they are doing “should be be prepared to abandon your vehicle, be stranded, or be seriously injured and inconvenienced.”
• Breckenridge and Vail announced they will open their lifts on Nov. 10.
• Who would you take in a fight between Batman and Barbie? In the box office battle, you’d want “Barbie,” which just surpassed “Batman” as Warner Bros. Discovery’s highest-grossing film ever. “Barbie” has now made $1.2 billion globally.

• A brand new driving instructor – it was his second day on the job – crashed his car into the Lakewood driving school where he worked.
• An Italian cheesemaker died after being crushed by thousands of rounds of Grana Padano cheese in the aging room of his factory in northern Italy.
• The mayor of Tampa reeled in a cooler-sized package of cocaine worth $1.1 million while fishing with her family in the Florida Keys.
• A Texas woman is recovering after she was simultaneously attacked by a snake and a hawk as she mowed her lawn. The snake was dropped mid-air by the hawk, and it landed on the woman and wrapped itself around her arm. The hawk then swooped down trying to re-snatch the snake.
• A massive data breach at the Colorado Department of Higher Education has affected people who taught at or attended a Colorado high school at almost any point this century. Names and social security numbers were among the information taken.
• Colorado is experiencing an “unprecedented” West Nile virus outbreak due to the heavy rains earlier this summer. Even more concerning is that the peak is not expected until September.
• A Lufthansa pilot upset over having his flight diverted flew the commercial plane in a penis-shaped pattern before finally landing in Malta.
• Former Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats was censured for his role in violating the code of conduct related to a secret contract with a former administrator.
• If you are tired of Californians moving to Colorado, you are not going to like this story. Hank the Tank, a 400-pound female black bear who has ransacked dozens of houses in South Lake Tahoe, has been relocated to our state. Hank said she is looking forward to lower taxes.
• NASCAR suspended driver Noah Gragson indefinitely after he “liked” a racist meme with a photo of George Floyd on social media.
• The repressive regime of Malaysia has made owning an LGBTQ-themed Swatch punishable by up to three years in jail.
• Fifty-three people have now died in the wildfires in Maui and the historic town of Lahaini has been destroyed.
• Commercial real estate continues to suffer following the pandemic and a continued work-from-home trend. The latest evidence: a vacant Denver Tech Center building is on the market for one-third the price that its owners paid for it in 2013. That’s a $50 million discount.
• Speaking of office space, former co-working darling WeWork disclosed in an SEC filing that, “Substantial doubt exists about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
• The Houston Texans continue to live up to their reputation as the sexual assaultiest NFL franchise.
• DJ Casper, the creator of the ubiquitous dance hit, the “Cha-Cha Slide,” passed away at the age of 58.

So, who won the week?

• 9News sports reporter Rod Mackey has moved down the street to CBS4.
• The Cherry Cricket and Snarfburger were the big winners of the 2023 Denver Burger Battle.
• Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson and his singer wife Ciara are expecting their fourth child.
• Telluride’s Stronghouse Brew Pub was named the best in the country by USA Today.

• Ice cream maker Baskin-Robbins is playing defense after a Hindu cleric accused the company of using animal byproducts in its Rocky Road flavor. Thought to be vegetarian, the flavor actually includes marshmallows that are made from gelatin that is “derived from hides, connective tissue, and/or bones of cattle and swine.”
• Buyers in Denver need to earn $162,000 annually to afford a median-priced home in the city.
• Fentanyl is being blamed for a 50% increase in deaths of people who are homeless in Denver.
• Three former dancers have sued Grammy-winning singer Lizzo, alleging that they were subjected to a hostile work environment and harassment.
• A new study finds that Denver Public Schools are more segregated today than they were 50 years ago.
• Fox Sports, not to mention fans, can’t be happy that the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team finished a disappointing second in Group E of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The second-place finish means that all of the U.S.’s remaining games (which take place in Australia and New Zealand) will now start between 1 am – 4 am MT.
• Apparently nowhere in Denver is safe. A golf club bandit has been targeting local golf courses.
• The Broadway adaptation of “Back to the Future” – yes, that is actually a thing – is getting roasted by critics.
• The Gaylord Rockies Resort has paid $87 million in back taxes is previously disputed it owed.
• The Bud Light boycott cost parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev $395 million in lost revenue in Q2.
• Magnus White, a 17-year-old bicyclist and member of the U.S. National Team, was killed when he was hit by a car while training in Boulder County. He was training to compete in the Junior Men’s Mountain Bike Cross-Country World Championships in Scotland next week.
• Texas A&M agreed to a $1 million settlement with a journalism professor it tried to hire away from the University of Texas. Texas A&M initially offered her the position of dean, but the terms of her job offer were subsequently diminished over several follow-up offers following what she alleges was political pushback.
• The PAC-12 Conference appears to be about 48 hours away from collapsing, potentially leaving Washington State, Oregon State, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley without a home.
• The EPA has blocked a state air permit for the Suncor refinery in Commerce City, citing complaints from local residents and environmental groups that the refinery has had a long history of air and water pollution violations.
• Zachery Ty Bryan, the Aurora, Colo. native who played the oldest son Brad on the TV series “Home Improvement,” was arrested again on domestic violence charges.

So, who won the week?

• Longtime Denver7 anchor Anne Trujillo announced she will retire in November. She first started at the station nearly 40 years ago.
• Amber Ferguson has been named the Deputy Director of Communications at Adams County Government.
• Erica Calhoun, SVP and head of experiential marketing at Public Label Agency, ShuBu Creative CEO Becca Cooper Leebove and 9News Director of Media and Brand Blair Nelson Marlin were named Outstanding Women in Business by the Denver Business Journal.
• Denver food truck The Easy Vegan won the “The Great Food Truck Race“ competition on the Food Network. The Easy Vegan operates in Denver as a pop-up restaurant, but was given a food truck to compete on the television show.
• Tired of security lines at DIA? For $4.1 million, you can have your own – albeit considerably smaller – airport.

• TV reality star Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Watkins plans to matriculate at Denver’s Regis University in the fall. Despite earning about $2.75 million during the run of her TLC show, she somehow received a $21,000 scholarship.
• Twitter is now X. As technology reporter Kara Swisher noted: “Rebranding HBO to Max was the dumbest rebrand in recent history. Elon: Hold my beer and/or whatever is being partaken at 3 am.”
• Some scientists say that the Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, a development that would bring catastrophic climate impacts.
• Singer and activist Sinead O’Connor, who made the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U” a No. 1 hit, passed away at the age of 56.
• It has been so hot in Phoenix that even the cactuses can’t take it.
• Nearly 22% of the calls made to Colorado’s suicide hotline went unanswered in April and May of this year.
• Former Denver Bronco Derek Wolfe is no longer the co-host of 104.3 The Fan’s afternoon drive-time radio show. He left less than a year after he joined the show “to focus on other interests.”
• Three years after Coloradans voted to reintroduce them, Colorado still can’t find anyone to give us wolves.
•  Tool manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker spent $90 million on a Texas tool factory whose automated system was such a bust the few tools it actually made are now considered collector’s items.
• The BBC has apologized after one of its reporters tried to get the captain of the Morocco women’s national soccer team to out gay teammates.
• New Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton didn’t hold back when asked his thoughts about last year’s head coach Nathaniel Hackett: “It might have been one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL. That’s how bad it was.”
• Trevor Forbes, the CEO of Wyatts Towing, has resigned from the state of Colorado’s Towing Task Force that makes recommendations to the PUC. The reason appears to be a state investigation into allegations his company is running “an illegal loan program for towed vehicles.”
• A broken audio system turned a $2 million Aspen wedding into “a date which will live in infamy.” That is according to hyperbolic real estate developer Craig Spencer, whose daughter’s March 2022 wedding apparently experienced Pearl Harbor-like conditions. According to Spencer’s lawsuit, “The failure of the audio system caused a cascading number of issues that essentially ruined the wedding,” including pushing the bride and groom’s entrance back to … gasp … 9:15 pm. The kicker: sixteen months later, the bride and groom are reportedly divorcing.

So, who won the week?

• CBS4 anchor/reporter Marissa Armas announced she is leaving the station.
• The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has scored four goals on their way to its 1-0-1 record in the FIFA Women’s World Cup so far, and all of those goals have been scored by Coloradans Lindsay Horan and Sophia Smith.
• The movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” raked in a collective $302 million during their opening weekends, reminding studio executives of the kind of business movies used to do before the pandemic. Even more surprising, the two very-different movies became a sort of bizzaro double feature – “Barbenheimer” – for many movie-goers.
• Nine-year-old Jaxson Finken is representing Longmont in the kids division of the U.S.A. Mullet Championships. The competition may be tough, but Finken says his confidence in his mullet is a “10 out of 10.”
• Former Fox31 political reporter Joe St. George became a father over the weekend.
• The University of Colorado announced it is leaving the PAC-12 Conference and rejoining the Big 12.
• Rumors have Tina Fey taking over “Saturday Night Live” when 78-year-old Executive Producer Lorne Michaels steps down.

“Summer’s tangiest yellow candy: French’s Mustard-flavored Skittles.”

• Denver7 anchor Bayan Wang has been suspended by the station following his arrest on domestic violence charges.
• I always thought it would be the $40 million debt load that sank the re-envisioned Casa Bonita. Instead, it may be a labor dispute with employees who are unhappy with the $30/hour salaries it is offering.
• Meow Wolf could be on the hook for $100,000 and additional legal fees for … not buying enough cheese crackers.
• The U.S. DOT is investigating why Delta passengers sweltered for hours in triple-digit temperatures while the plane waited on the tarmac in Las Vegas. The extreme heat caused some passengers to faint.
• Cincinnati Reds legend Johnny Bench has apologized for making an antisemitic comment about former Reds GM Gabe Paul during a press conference announcing Paul as a new member of the Reds Hall of Fame.
• Meta’s Threads has seen user engagement drop 70% since it launched as a high-profile alternative to Twitter.
• Country music network CMT has pulled singer Jason Aldean’s latest video from its rotation due to lyrics that critics say “are evocative of vigilantism, racism and sundown towns.” The video was shot in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the site of a lynching in the 1920s.
• Dan Snyder is no longer the owner of the NFL‘s Washington Commanders. Fellow owners did kick him one last time on his way out – they fined him $60 million for, well, typical Dan Snyder behavior.
• Disney CEO Bob Iger is trying to calm panicked executives after he told CNBC that he would be open to selling the company’s linear TV assets such as ABC, FX, National Geographic, A&E and Lifetime.
• Kevin Mitnick, who became the face of computer hacking in the early stages of the internet and made the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list, died at age 59. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
• Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned after an investigation concluded that he “inappropriately manipulated research” in academic papers he authored.
• More than one-quarter of young adults in the U.S. are estranged from one or both of their parents.
• Google has pitched an A.I. tool that it says is able to write news articles to executives at The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

So, who won the week?

• The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team begins its World Cup title defense against Vietnam tonight. The game is at 7 pm MT on Fox.
• Smokey, a feral cat who lives at Coors Field, is now up for adoption at Animal Rescue of the Rockies. Fun Fact: Smokey only has four fewer wins this season than Rockies ace pitcher Kyle Freeland.
• Jacksonville Jaguars assistant strength and conditioning coach Kevin Maxen is the first openly gay American pro sports coach.

• More than 150 insurance companies who paid claims for the Marshall Fire in Boulder County have banded together to sue Xcel Energy. The suit does not name a liability amount, but the fire caused more than $2 billion in estimated damages.
• In a move that must amuse NBA basketball players who shoot free throws in front of 19,000 shrieking fans, Wimbledon umpires have had to admonish spectators to refrain from popping champagne corks during play.
• Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson and his singer wife Ciara are closing their chain of fashion stores nationally, including two in Denver. They will keep one store open at DIA, presumably because no one loves Wilson more than tourists from other NFL cities.
• Deteriorating telecommunications cables from companies such as AT&T and Verizon are leeching toxic lead into communities across the country. Tests conducted by The Wall Street Journal found high levels of lead in soil, waterways and even the bloodstreams of children who played near these cables.
• You may be rewatching some of your favorite shows in the coming months. Hollywood actors have now joined writers on strike, bringing the American movie and television business to a halt.
• Northwestern University is reeling after it bungled its response to a hazing investigation into its football team. The school first suspended head coach Pat Fitzgerald for two weeks, and then backtracked and fired him once it realized the intensity of the backlash to its slap on the wrist.
• Speaking of sports, former (?) University of West Virginia head basketball coach Bob Huggins now says he did not resign after last month’s DUI arrest, which was his second in 20 years. West Virginia has declined to reinstate Huggins, likely in part because it also had to suspend him for a few games after he went on a homophobic and anti-Catholic (a rare combination) rant on live radio two months ago. I’m no detective, but I’m guessing alcohol may have played a role in that interview as well.
• Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s Doug Friednash – a former Denver city attorney and former chief of staff to former Gov. John Hickenlooper – is one of the most politically connected lobbyists in the state, but his presence on the board of Denver Health while simultaneously representing cigarette and vaping manufacturer Altria is not sitting well with some public health officials.
• The San Diego Union-Tribune has been sold to Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group, almost certainly resigning it to the same fate as its new sister publication The Denver Post – bled to near death to maximize the return on investment.
• Denver’s rent increases over roughly the past decade are the second highest in the nation, behind only San Jose.
• The New York Times announced it will shut down its own sports desk and instead rely on coverage from The Athletic, the sports website that the Times purchased last year. The Times’ sports desk dates back to 1896 when it covered the first modern Olympic Games in Athens.
• Crocs has sued a former employee – the son of its ex-CEO – alleging that he stole sensitive documents that he then used in his new role with a competitor.
• Harry Styles is the latest singer to be hit by an object thrown by a fan while performing on stage.
• Food Bank of the Rockies CEO Erin Pulling says “the level of need that we are seeing right now is really higher than we’ve ever seen before.“
• The City of Denver renewed its cable television franchise agreement with Comcast, much to the dismay of Nuggets and Avalanche fans who have been blacked out for nearly four years.
• The disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually abused Olympic female gymnasts among others, was stabbed multiple times by another inmate at a federal prison in Florida.

So, who won the week?

• CBS4 GM Tim Wieland has returned to work following emergency heart surgery.
• 9News multimedia journalist Katie Eastman is headed to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she has taken a job with KOTV.
• Carina Julig is leaving the Aurora Sentinel to take a position covering city hall for the Santa Fe New Mexican.
• Denver7 has hired Wanya Reese as weekend morning anchor and reporter. Reese formerly was with WMAZ in Macon, Georgia.
• Barefoot PR is hiring an associate position.
• SE2 is hiring two positions: a senior associate and a content creator.
• Colorado Rockies catcher Elias Diaz was the “unlikely hero” of the MLB All-Star Game after his two-run, go-ahead homer gave the National League the win for the first time since 2012.
• Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray won an ESPY Award for Best Comeback Player, while Vail’s Mikaela Shiffrin won for Best Athlete in Women’s Sports. 
• Taylor Swift’s concert tour is projected to help her earn $332 million this year, which would almost certainly make her 2023’s highest-paid entertainer.
• Expect an influx of overly polite tourists – VISIT Denver has retained Canada’s Pulse Travel Marketing to help boost tourism from our neighbors to the north.

• Ahh, the post-COVID travel boom. A tourist in Rome who carved his name on an inner wall of the ancient Colosseum could face 2-5 years in jail.
• A corporate, billionaire-controlled social media platform is quickly being replaced by a corporate, billionaire-controlled social media platform. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg summed it up in one Tweet.
• United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has apologized for using a private jet to get from New Jersey to Denver amid his airline’s meltdown from cancelled and postponed flights. “Taking a private jet was the wrong decision because it was insensitive to our customers who were waiting to get home,” he said.
• The site of what was the high-end seafood restaurant Oceanaire in the downtown Performing Arts district has been sold. The buyer? The owners of the Diamond Cabaret strip club. They plan to open a Bombshells restaurant, which is a Hooters knock-off that features female servers wearing low-cut military-style uniforms.
• Meanwhile, the restaurant that could do no wrong has started doing nothing but wrong. Following last week’s no-tips fiasco, Casa Bonita’s new South Park owners have now cracked down on Etsy artists using the iconic restaurant’s image. Westword editor Patty Calhoun noted the irony since South Park “regularly depicts real people and places, right down to their logos.”
• A cameraman for the New York Yankees-Baltimore Orioles baseball game suffered an orbital fracture when an errant throw from second base to first base struck him in the face.
• The King Soopers employee who filmed the viral video of shoplifters stealing a shopping cart’s worth of laundry detergent has been fired for violating the company’s policy against employees chasing or intervening in a theft.
• July 3 was the hottest day ever recorded globally.
• Researchers have discovered the first case of CTE in a female athlete, an Australian rugby player.
• A Subway franchise in Savannah, Georgia, removed a marquee sign that read, “Our subs don’t implode.“
• A woman in Parker burned down her own home and her next-door neighbor’s when she threw used fireworks in a recycling bin. The residual heat of the fireworks eventually ignited the other materials in the bin, which led to the fire.
• The swim beaches at the Chatfield and Cherry Creek reservoirs are currently closed due to high E. coli levels.
• In case you are keeping track, $600 is the going rate for sex with a PT’s Showclub stripper. That’s according to a law enforcement investigation that may close the club permanently.
• Old LoHi restaurant Root Down is suing new LoHi restaurant Rooted, alleging trademark infringement.
• Fox31 has an open meteorologist position now that Jessica Lebel left, and not everyone is impressed with the salary range: “I’m sorry, but a (meteorologist) in Denver with a science degree should be paid more than the manager of a Panda Express.”
• A Lakewood woman who – at the moment – is unknown made national headlines with her racist rant against a Latino family that was sharing her apartment complex’s pool. The rant was recorded and shared via social media.
• This week gave us the most TMZ Sports headline of all time: No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Victor Wembanyama’s security guard allegedly slapped singer Britney Spears outside the Aria hotel and resort in Las Vegas.

So, who won the weeK?

• Denver’s iconic Republic Plaza building will not become what Kyle Clark speculated would be the world’s largest Spirit Halloween store after its owners secured funding to keep it out of bankruptcy.
• Shaquil Barrett may have left the Denver Broncos for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but his heart remains in Colorado. He and his wife just dropped nearly $5 million on a house in Parker.
• Last month’s heavy rains in Colorado have made our entire state drought-free for the first time in four years.
• Notable Denver bankruptcy attorney Brad Dempsey has taken the interim CEO position at Tattered Cover, likely giving the iconic bookstore its best shot at surviving.

From a Subway restaurant in Savannah, Georgia:

• A Harvard scholar who wrote seminal academic studies on honesty has been accused of fabricating his findings.
• A janitor destroyed 25 years worth of scientific research when he turned off a super-cold freezer that held cell cultures and other samples. He said the freezer’s constant beeping annoyed him.
• A ground worker at San Antonio International Airport died after he was “ingested” into a Delta plane’s engine.
• Casa Bonita has enjoyed nothing but positive media coverage since the South Park team bought it, but an abrupt shift to raise employee salaries while eliminating tips has some servers unhappy.
• Edelman PR laid off 240 people – 4% of its staff – due to “macroeconomic conditions.”
• A study found that nearly 30% of women who played in qualifying games for this summer’s Women’s World Cup or at the 2022 European Championship were not paid for their participation, a sign of how neglectful FIFA is about women’s soccer.
• Independent liquor stores in Colorado have seen sales drop as much as 60% since voters passed a law last November allowing wine sales at grocery stores. Said one small store owner: “We’re screwed.”
• Renters frustrated about high rents crashed an Apartment Association of Metro Denver awards ceremony to hand out their own awards – the “Slummies.”
• Aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in Diet Coke, Extra chewing gum and some Snapple drinks, is expected to be named a carcinogen by the the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
• The Denver Public Library is exploring a new name for its Ross-Barnum branch after research has shown that circus pioneer P.T. Barnum, its namesake, knowingly exploited Black people and people with disabilities. Some free advice to every governmental entity in Colorado: stop naming things after people.
• National Geographic, which has covered science and the natural world for 135 years, laid off all of its last remaining staff writers. Editors will work exclusively with freelancers now.
• Madonna’s upcoming show in Denver was cancelled after the singer was hospitalized due to a “serious bacterial infection.” Her manager said a full recovery is expected.
• Weather delays have disrupted the entire airline industry this week, but United Airlines has suffered far more than any other carrier.

So, who won the week?

• SE2’s Bazi Kanani has been named to the Children’s Affairs transition committee for Mayor-Elect Mike Johnston.
• Boulder-based Comprise won two Web Excellence Awards for its print and website design work.
• GBSM is hiring an associate.
• CBS4 reporter Conor McCue is headed to Nashville. Denver … Nashville. If he can relocate to Austin at some point, he’ll have hit the hipster trifecta.
• The Denver Business Journal has named Cassidy Ritter as its new technology reporter.
• Ryan Seacrest has been named the next host of “Wheel of Fortune,” replacing the retiring Pat Sajak.
• Belgium shot put and hammer throw champion Jolien Boumkwo kept her team from being disqualified from the European Championships when she agreed up to run the 100-meter hurdles after two of her teammates withdrew due to injuries.
• Everyone in South Korea just got a year younger.

Legendary Denver advertising executive Tom Hagan passed away at the age of 92. Hagan, along with business partner Phil Karsh, founded Karsh Hagan in 1977, and it quickly grew to be one of the most recognizable agencies in the region. Its clients included Aspen Snowmass, Denver International Airport, Steamboat, Bank of Colorado, McDonald’s, Telluride and VISIT DENVER.

• A migration of millions of crickets in Nevada is so bad that crews are literally plowing them off the roads. Miller moths don’t seem so bad now, do they?
• Former Denver Broncos linebacker Bill Romanowski was never one to play strictly according to the rules, so I guess it is no surprise that he allegedly owes the IRS more than $15 million in back taxes and penalties.
• The owners of a Northern California taqueria have been ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages after they hired a man to pose as a priest to elicit “confessions” of wrongdoing from employees. “The priest mostly had work-related questions, which I thought was strange,” one employee told investigators.
• A preschool in Taiwan has cracked the code on settling down rambunctious kids: sedatives.
• The Paris 2024 Olympics may be 13 months away, but it is never too early to kick off the scandals. French authorities raided the headquarters of the organizing committee as part of a probe into suspected embezzlement.
• A contestant on “The Price is Right” dislocated his shoulder on-camera when he celebrated too exuberantly.
• 3M has agreed to pay $12.5 billion to settle hundreds of lawsuits brought by cities whose drinking water was contaminated with PFAS “forever chemicals” the company made for decades.
• A new, high-end W Hotel in Scotland is making headlines for its design that is remarkably similar to the poop emoji.
• The FTC has accused Amazon of enrolling consumers into its Prime program without their consent and making it difficult to cancel those subscriptions. And proving that it’s not just the marketing people at Amazon who are clever, the internal code name for the scheme to make it difficult to cancel was “The Illiad.“
• Former talk-show host Maury Povich has launched a line of at-home paternity tests.
• Colorado’s public pension system PERA announced it had a –13.4% rate of return in 2022. If you are a public employee, you might want to plan to continue working.
• Dozens of people were injured and seven went to the hospital after hail hit the Louis Tomlinson concert at Red Rocks. Meanwhile, 9News’ Kyle Clark was not impressed with the facility’s response on social media.
• The Atlanta Braves sent infielder Charlie Culbertson down to the minors the day before his father was scheduled to throw the ceremonial first pitch.
• More than 30 Colorado congregations announced they are leaving the United Methodist Church in a dispute over gay marriage.
• None of the world’s Top 10 Most Livable Cities were located in the United States. Canada had three.
• Will Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk pummel each other in a cage fight? We can only hope.
• Longtime Colorado Rockies TV announcer George Frazier passed away. He was 68.
• It appears that as the world closely watched the search for the lost submersible that was touring the wreck of the Titanic, the five passengers were already dead. Meanwhile, humanity did what humanity does, and the dark jokes and memes about “Schrödinger’s Sub” were, in some cases, vicious.

So, who won the week?

• Colorado native Wyndham Clark won the 2023 U.S Open golf tournament. Clark graduated from Valor Christian High School.
• The Denver Post reporter Conrad Swanson has taken a position with the Seattle Times.
• Meteorologist Jessica Lebel announced she is leaving Fox31 and the news business entirely.
• Former Denver7 investigative reporter and Colorado native Jennifer Kovaleski joined the ABC affiliate in Phoenix.
• Denver Water has tapped Alan Salazar as its new CEO. Salazar currently is chief of staff for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.
• The Denver Post has wisely abandoned its comments section.

• The Denver Nuggets won their first NBA championship earlier this week, but the euphoria of the celebration went downhill pretty fast:
  • On the night the Nuggets won, many of the national headlines were about the 10 people who were injured in a mass shooting that took place amid the championship celebration as the they were winding down.
  • During the championship parade several days later, a Denver police officer was somehow run over by a slow-moving fire truck that was carrying star players Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray. The officer will survive, but it is not clear whether he will lose a leg.
  • A presumably drunk fan threw a beer can at Jokić while he was riding on the fire truck. The beer missed Jokić but deflected and hit his wife in the face.
  • At the conclusion of the parade, two more people were shot just blocks away from Civic Center Park.
• With the Nuggets season over, it is a good time to remind you that your Colorado Rockies remain in last place in the N.L. West.
• Heavy rains and hail have put a damper on the annual City Park Jazz series. Some concerts have been canceled, and others that usually attract thousands have seen only hundreds. Now, organizers fear the financial losses may be devastating.
• Lower-than-expected use of C-470’s toll lanes has required CDOT to loan its tolling oversight arm $4 million to cover revenue shortfalls. None of the other toll roads in Denver has required a similar bailout.
• Actor Marlon Wayans was cited for disturbing the peace when he got into a dispute with a United Airlines employee at DIA over carry-on luggage.
• Gannett announced that 51 members of the Pueblo Chieftain’s print production team will lose their jobs when it transitions the printing of the paper to The Denver Post.
• The East Moon Asian Bistro in Westminster has been ordered to pay nearly $250,000 in back wages after federal officials said the restaurant failed to pay overtime to employees and illegally kept their tips.
• Twitter has been evicted from its Boulder office after it just stopped paying rent.
• Transgender activist Rose Montoya has been banned from the White House after she shared photos of her topless on the South Lawn during an LGBTQ Pride Month celebration.
• Circle K fired a 75-year-old woman in Westminster for gently pushing a robber away when he went behind her counter to steal cigarettes. She had worked at the store for 18 years.
• The Concacaf Nations League semifinal soccer game between the U.S. and Mexico lived up to its tradition of ugliness. There were multiple melees, four red cards and a U.S. player had half of his jersey ripped off. Meanwhile, the ref ended the game 5 minutes early because of repeated homophobic chants from Mexico fans. The U.S. won the game 3-0 and will now face Canada in the final on Sunday.

So, who won the week?

• As I mentioned earlier, the Denver Nuggets won their first NBA championship.
• Just in time for the re-opening of Casa Bonita, the prestigious Michelin Guide has added Colorado as the sixth U.S. region whose restaurants it will award its coveted stars. The other regions are New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, California, and Miami/Orlando/Tampa. In reality, I’m guessing that most, if not all, of the star-rated restaurants in our state will be in Aspen, Vail and/or Telluride.
• UPS drivers are celebrating after the shipping company agreed for the first time to add air conditioning to its iconic big brown delivery trucks. Temperatures can exceed 120 degrees in the trucks’ cargo areas.

• New Casa Bonita owners Trey Parker and Matt Stone reportedly spent $40 million renovating the iconic restaurant. If Casa Bonita maintains standard restaurant profit margins, Parker and Stone only need to generate somewhere between $400 million and $650 million in revenue to make back their investment.
• Boulder County investigators determined that the billion-dollar Marshall Fire likely had two ignition sources: an Xcel power line and embers from a trash fire on property owned by the religious cult-like organization Twelve Tribes. I’m guessing most of the lawsuits are filed against Xcel.
• PR agencies nationally are seeing a sharp rise in bad debt from clients who are walking away from their bills.
• The PGA Tour. Where to begin? Convincing golfers such as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to reject literally hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi-funded LIV Golf, only to then turn around and merge with the rival league? Spending two years making moral arguments (9/11, Jamal Khashoggi, women’s rights, etc.) against the Saudi league, only to, again, turn around and merge with it? Blindsiding its own golfers and having them learn about the merger on social media? It goes on and on. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has to be a dead man walking, although at least not in the Khashoggi way.
• CNN fired CEO Chris Licht after a string of bad decisions. He had only been CEO for 13 months. Also gone: the communications team that was behind the brutal Atlantic article that sealed Licht’s fate.
• The Los Angeles Times is cutting 10% of its newsroom staff. Meanwhile, hundreds of Gannett journalists walked off the job to protest the company’s continued job cuts.
• Scripps, the parent company of Denver7, announced that companywide layoffs are coming and that newsrooms will also be affected.
• You know how national media don’t really pay attention to winter storms until they reach Illinois and Ohio? The same thing is happening with smoke from forest fires. More than 75 million people in the Northeast, Midwest and mid-Atlantic are under air quality alerts due to smoke from forest fires in Canada, and national media is all over it.
• Denver’s last drive-in movie theater is closing.
• Actress/talk show host Drew Barrymore has gone to war with tabloids that reported that she wished her mother was dead.
• “90210” actress Shannen Doherty shared that her breast cancer has spread to her brain.
• Twitter ad sales dropped 59% as advertisers continue to flee the social media platform.
• A Denver woman went on a crusade demanding that her rusted-out RTD bus-stop shelter and overflowing trash can be maintained better. She got results. The shelter and trash can have been removed entirely.

So, who won the week?

• MLS may be an also-ran soccer league globally, but the league’s Inter Miami franchise just signed the biggest soccer star in the world – Lionel Messi.
• Modelo Especial has supplanted Bud Light as the nation’s top-selling beer, amid Bud Light’s transgender marketing woes.
• Do energy drinks and ribeye steaks make you live longer? Probably not due to heart attacks. But scientists think an amino acid contained in both of those may offer insight into how to slow the aging process.
• Colorado ski resorts saw a record-breaking 2022-2023 ski season.
• Cameron Schaefer, the CEO of Denver’s Vinyl Me, Please record club, was named to Billboard’s 40 Under 40 List.

• Maryland failed to renew a web domain featured on one of its commemorative license plates, and now 800,000 cars in the state are advertising for an online casino in the Philippines.
• An AI-enabled drone “killed” its human operator in an Air Force simulation when the operator tried to prevent the drone from completing its mission. This is how the world ends, by the way.
• Twitter is now valued at about one-third of the $44 billion that Elon Musk paid for it last fall, according to the investment firm Fidelity.
• Hard Rock Cafes were the hottest restaurant chain going in the 1980s, which naturally meant Denver got one in 1998. Now, 25 years later, Denver’s Hard Rock Cafe is closing. The pandemic and construction on the 16th Street Mall were too much.
• Chick-fil-A is no stranger to the culture wars, but this time it’s different. Conservative activists are accusing the chain of “going woke” because it adopted a diversity, equity and inclusion policy and hired an executive to be in charge of DEI efforts.
• Amazon has agreed to pay a $30 million fine for violating the privacy of Ring and Alexa customers.
• In May, Denver saw the highest number of eviction filings in more than five years.
• A man attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a three-foot sailboat had his 1,900-mile voyage dashed after about a mile when it began taking on water.
• A woman wanted by police poisoned a lookalike with a piece of cheesecake in order to steal her identity.

So, who won the week?

• The Denver Nuggets‘ sweep of the L.A. Lakers meant they had nine days off before starting the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. Fortunately for Denver, the Nuggets showed no rust and now lead the series 1-0.
• Celebrities, they’re just like us! Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez bought a $61 million L.A. mansion that has 12 bedrooms, 24 bathrooms and a 12-car garage. Not to be outdone, Beyoncé and Jay-Z dropped $200 million on a 30,000-square-foot home in Malibu. They paid cash.
• “Sex and the City” fans are abuzz about reports that Kim Cattrall will reprise her role as Samantha in a spin-off.

• The L.A. Dodgers watched Bud Light’s recent flip-flopping on a transgender marketing promotion and decided to get in on the action. The team invited, disinvited and then reinvented the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of self-described “queer and trans nuns,” to celebrate Pride Night at Dodger Stadium. The LGBTQ+ and Catholic communities got whiplash trying track of whether they supported or opposed the Dodgers.
• Meanwhile, Target also seems to be raising its hand to become a pawn in our culture wars. The retailer has pulled some LGBTQ+ items from its shelves after threats were made by protesters.
• The hits just keep coming to Elon Musk’s Twitter. This time it was a technically challenged presidential announcement.
• The start of the summer travel season has airline passengers flying out of DIA concerned about the chaotic and often-lengthy security screening process. A review from a Minnesota traveler who took time to write a letter to the editor of The Denver Post: “I am still completely dumbfounded at how bad it was.”
• The Miami Zoo has apologized for offering visitors the ability to pet a captive kiwi bird. The zoo said, “The development of the kiwi encounter was, in hindsight, not well conceived.”
• A lawsuit filed by Denver Amazon drivers against the company alleges “harsh work quotas” so bad that they are forced to pee in bottles and defecate in dog poop bags.
• Colorado skiers are mourning the official close of the 2022-2023 ski season. A-Basin, the last holdout, announced it will close June 4.
• KMGH/Denver 7 could be facing potential layoffs if reports about cutbacks at Scripps station are true.
• Denver Broncos placekicker Brandon McManus, the only holdover from the team’s Super Bowl 50 win, was cut by the team this week. New head coach Sean Payton said it was a financial decision, but some are speculating McManus’ refusal to participate in voluntary off-season workouts had something to do with it.
• A woman celebrating her recent graduation from Yale in Turks and Caicos had her foot severed by a shark.
• JPMorgan Chase is chest-deep in deposition from lawyers wanting to know why it kept serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a banking client when it was aware of his behavior.
• This weekend’s Indy 500 is America’s biggest and most-prestigious auto race. But don’t expect to watch is live on TV if you live in Indianapolis. It’s blacked out.
• A Dallas school district distributed a Winnie-the-Pooh booklet that teaches elementary school kids how to survive an active shooter at school.
• Orca whales are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more. They have started attacking boats off the coat of Europe.
• A WNBA rookie has a novel idea after she was cut from the Connecticut Sun – a mandatory retirement age so veteran superstars don’t clog up roster spots and keep lesser-talented rookies from making teams.

So, who won the week?

• The Golden Police Department is testing a 32-hour workweek for its officers and staff that will not require them to take a corresponding cut in pay.
• Ford and Tesla are partnering on charging technology in what may be a serious step toward establishing an industry standard for electric cars.
• Barefoot PR is hiring an associate.
• United Airlines is adding 35 flights in and out of Denver.

• Alabama chef Timothy Hontzas was named as a finalist for a prestigious James Beard award, only to be disqualified days later for alleged violations of the organization’s code of ethics – screaming at customers and employees.
• A driver stopped by Baca County, Colo. police quickly switched places with his dog in the passenger seat and claimed he was not driving. Police say the man, who “showed signs of intoxication,” then fled and made it about 20 yards before they apprehended him. This is Colorado’s most notable DUI arrest since one of the co-founders of Crocs wrecked his car and then claimed that his girlfriend Taylor Swift was driving.
• Philadelphia TV reporter Shawnette Wilson was shot with pellets from an airsoft gun during a live broadcast. She handled it amazingly well.
• A brawl broke out at Disney World when one family refused to move for another so they could take a picture in front of the “Happiest Place on Earth’s” iconic sign.
• Edelman’s latest “Trust Barometer” report finds that 69% of people are concerned about systemic racism and racial injustice in the U.S., but that people “distrust all types of institutions to address racism, including non-governmental organizations, media and government.” 
• Organizers of Spain’s Carrera de la Mujer women’s running race have (half-heartedly) apologized after the winner was awarded a kitchen appliance, which sparked accusations of sexism.
• The Oakland A’s have suspended announce Glen Kuiper indefinitely after he uttered a racial slur on-air during the team’s pre-game show.
• The Denver Museum of Nature & Science has decided to close its North American Indian Cultures exhibit hall because it  “reinforces harmful stereotypes and white, dominant culture.“
• The IRS is reviewing the algorithms that guide who gets audited after acknowledging that Black taxpayers are audited a a far higher rate than others.
• It’s Miller moth season in Colorado. Ecologists say you should learn to love the annoying little guys.
• LinkedIn and Facebook parent company Meta are the latest tech companies to announce layoffs. LinkedIn will let 716 employees go, which represents about 3.5% of its workforce. Meanwhile, Meta said it will eliminate yet another 6,000 jobs.
• A Chinese comedian was fined the equivalent of $2 million for making a joke about the People’s Liberation Army.
• West Virginia University suspended men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins three games and find him $1 million after he appeared on a sports radio show and inexplicably dropped multiple homophobic and anti-Catholic slurs.
• The Denver Public Schools board approved a 10% raise for the district’s superintendent amid a wave of concerns about both finances and student safety.
• The gender gap at the top of the largest PR agencies has declined slightly. PR Week’s latest survey shows only 42.2% of the firms currently are led by women, down from 44.7% last year.

So, who won the week?

• Barefoot PR was named a finalist for the Denver Business Journal’s small business awards.
• Linhart PR promoted Marina Salais-Robbins to senior account executive and hired Claudia Witczak as a senior account executive.
• The Denver Nuggets lead the L.A. Lakers 2-0 in their playoff series. If the Nuggets win, they will make their first trip in franchise history to the NBA finals.
• The University of Denver women’s lacrosse team made it to the Final Four.
• Author Salman Rushdie made his first public appearance since he was stabbed on-stage in an attack at a literary event nine months ago. Rushdie famously was the subject of a fatwa calling for death by the Iranian government for authoring “The Satanic Verses.”

• The coronation of King Charles III takes place tomorrow, but not all Englanders are feeling the spirit. What the New York Post described as “cocky pranksters” mowed a giant penis into the grass of the famous grounds of the Royal Crescent in Bath, where one of the coronation parties is scheduled to take place.
• If you have any spare wolves, the State of Colorado would like to talk to you. Plans to re-introduce the predators by the end of 2023 have hit a snag because neighboring states aren’t very interested in supplying them. They fear the wolves will reproduce in Colorado and then head back to their states.
• Two weeks ago, I included PERA Executive Director Ron Baker on this list because he had been placed on administrative leave and no one would explain why. Now he has been fired, and still no one is saying why.
• Actor Jamie Foxx has been hospitalized for three weeks for unknown reasons, and reports are that he is not getting better.
• Stop me if you have heard this before: The EPA says Denver‘s air quality has gotten worse.
• Digital media company Vice could be just weeks away from filing for bankruptcy.
• The University of Alabama is having a tough spring. The school has fired baseball coach Brad Bohannon less than a week after suspicious gambling wagers were placed on the team’s games. The firing also comes just months after men’s basketball team member Darius Miles was arrested for capital murder. Star teammate Brandon Miller, who is expected to be a first-round NBA draft pick next month, was allowed to continue playing for the Crimson Tide despite allegedly supplying the gun used in the shooting.
• Mobile phone tracking data shows that Denver‘s downtown has only returned to about 62% of the pre-pandemic traffic.
• Jackson Mahomes, the social-media gadfly brother of Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, was arrested for aggravated sexual battery and held on a $100,000 bond.
• Actress/talk-show host Drew Barrymore withdrew as host of MTV Movie & TV Awards just days before the event, citing the WGA writers’ strike.
• Two student journalists from USC covering the NFL draft were arrested for stealing jerseys intended for first-round draft picks.

So, who won the week?

• Linhart PR added Claudia Witczak as a senior account executive. She formerly was with G&S Business Communications in Chicago.
• Former 9News news director Megan Jurgemeyer has been named the news director at KMGH/Channel 7. Could her first order of business be to hire away key talent from 9News?
• Reporter Bob Mook is returning to the Denver Business Journal after a 12-year break in which he worked in various communications positions for the Colorado Health Foundation and the University of Colorado College of Nursing, among others.
• Amber Carlson is the Boulder Daily Camera’s new city reporter. She formerly was the night/breaking news reporter at the Longmont Times-Call.
• The editors of Food & Wine have named DIA as one of the “Top 10 U.S. Airports for Food.”

• There’s a lot of pent-up anger at Winnie the Pooh, apparently. A studio is developing an R-rated live-action/animation hybrid series about Christopher Robin. Variety described the series: “Christopher Robin is a disillusioned New Yorker navigating his quarter-life crisis with the help of the weird talking animals who live beyond a drug-induced portal outside his derelict apartment complex.” Earlier this year, a low-budget indie film, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey,” had its one-night-only run extended. The plot: Winnie the Pooh and Piglet brutally murder 11 people.
• The biggest drama in the Denver Nuggets-Minnesota Timberwolves playoff series occurred after game 5 when the Nuggets eliminated the Wolves. Frustrated by missing a last-second shot that would have sent the game to overtime, Timberwolves guard Anthony “Don’t Call Me Goose” Edwards went on a one-man tirade, running into a security official as he ran off the court and then allegedly swinging a folding chair that struck two women. Denver Police held up the Wolves’ bus to the airport to cite Edwards for third-degree assault.
• It was a tough week for media scoundrels. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and CNN’s Don Lemon were both fired for, well, a multitude of sins. And NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell was fired for having an inappropriate relationship with a colleague.
• The Riverside County (Calif.) Sheriff’s Department lost 60 pounds of meth when the target of a sting operation quickly fled in his car after the buy. The chef’s kiss: Sheriff’s Department officials criticized the drug dealer, saying his high-speed escape exhibited a “disregard for public safety.”
• There is nothing worse than a self-inflicted PR crisis, but that is exactly what Bud Light did when it first engaged with a transgender social media influencer and then quickly backed away from that decision. It is the same three-act play I have written about countless times before: Act 1: Tweet something controversial about a 50-50 issue. Act 2: Feel the withering backlash from 50% of the people; try to quickly back away from the issue. Act 3: Incur the wrath of the 50% of people on the other side of the issue for trying to back away from it; slowly realize that you have now pissed off approximately 100% of people.
• New CU Buffs football coach Deion Sanders told the world in his introductory press conference what he planned to do – completely turn over the team’s roster, encouraging players who went 1-11 last year to transfer other places. But seeing the sheer number of CU athletes in the transfer portal has sparked some soul-searching about the real-life impact on players.
• A bipartisan group of county treasurers are warning metro Denver homeowners that they should expect their property taxes to increase as much as 50%.
• Financial realities have sidelined RTD‘s plans to purchase 17 electric buses. The transit system cancelled its order when it realized it does not have the funds to expand its maintenance and operations facilities to accommodate the buses. 
• A German magazine editor was fired for publishing an AI-generated “interview” with racing legend Michael Schumacher. The magazine promoted the interview as Schumacher’s first since he became incapacitated after a 2013 skiing incident in which he hit his head on a rock.
• Singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran has been in a New York City courthouse this week defending himself against a lawsuit brought by the heirs of Marvin Gaye. They allege Sheeran’s song “Thinking Out Loud” stole the musical composition of Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”
• New York Times v. Sullivan strikes again. Chad Burmeister, a Colorado businessman suing 9News and Kyle Clark, reportedly wound up paying a $30,000 settlement to cover the media outlet’s legal fees just to extricate himself from his own lawsuit and subsequent appeal.

So, who won the week?

• 9News reporter Luis de Leon announced his departure from the station.
• Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought a bottom-tier Wales soccer team as what appeared a joke. In the intervening two years, they have have become beloved in the team’s town of Wrexham and this week the team finished first in their league and will be promoted next season.
• Mattel has released its first Barbie doll featuring a character with Down Syndrome.
• A Cherry Creek High School senior is getting recognized for his Rubik’s Cube portraits.

IABC Colorado is offering a half-day workshop focused on corporate communications on May 4. It starts with lunch and a case study from Ball Corporation Director of Internal Communications, Renee Robinson and then moves into a Communication Playbook workshop with Steve and Cindy Crescenzo of Crescenzo Communications. 

IABC Colorado Communications Workshop
Thursday, May 4 from 11:30 am – 4:30 pm
Ball Corporate Headquarters
9200 West 108th Circle
Westminster, CO 80021
Register

• Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson may be the best known of his peers, which makes a recent poll showing him with the support of just 9% of registered Denver voters that much more damning.
• The new 13-foot metal fencing around the White House wasn’t enough to keep out one shifty intruder – a toddler who squeezed through the bars. Secret Service officers walked across the North Lawn to retrieve the kid and reunite him with his parents at a nearby gate.
• Fox agreed to settle Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit for $787.5 million, an admission that its hosts were knowingly sharing lies about the company’s voting machines when they alleged widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
• Buzzfeed announced it will shut down its Buzzfeed News division. It won a Pulitzer Prize, but it wasn’t enough to keep the financially troubled division afloat.
• In what can only be described as a metaphor for his 2022 season, Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson crashed his golf cart into a bunker, causing it to flip over. Wilson was not hurt.
• Southwest Airlines temporarily grounded all of its planes on Tuesday due to “equipment issues.” The ground stop follows last December’s holiday meltdown that cost the airline more than $1 billion.
• Netflix had a hell of a week:
  • The streaming service announced it would begin enforcing password-sharing restrictions in the U.S. and shut down its once-pioneering DVD-by-mail service.
  • It also botched its live “Love is Blind” reality show reunion episode, proving that it is not as ready for live events as it thought. Meanwhile, brands ranging from Hulu to McDonalds to the San Diego Zoo took the opportunity to roast Netflix on social media during the delay.
  • And one of the stars of the Netflix show “Beef,” David Choe, is desperately trying to suppress episodes of his old podcast in which he describes behavior that made him what he called “a successful rapist.” Choe says the descriptions were “performance art,” but he has filed DMCA take-down notices to two women who posted copies of the podcast in order to bring attention to his statements.
• The already-cash-strapped Douglas County School District agreed to pay its former superintendent $833,000 to settle a wrongful termination claim. Meanwhile, the board of the also-cash-strapped Denver Public Schools has now paid mediators $43,000 to help board members get along with each other better.
• Denver City Auditor Tim O’Brien isn’t happy that DIA disagreed with seven of his 10 recommendations to improve the procurement and construction process for its Great Hall project. O’Brien’s audits usually remain under the radar, but he chose to conduct a full-blown media and social media blitz in an attempt to embarrass DIA for dismissing him.
• Ron Baker, the executive director of the Colorado public pension system PERA that manages billions of dollars in assets, went on leave March 8 and no one will say why.
• There’s nothing more inspiring than a CEO who earned $2.5 million in bonuses the past two years castigating employees who are frustrated that their bonuses have been cancelled.
• Inexplicably, New Zealand planned a contest for children under the age of 14 to hunt and kill feral cats for cash prizes.

So, who won the week?

• Nicole Yost has been named the City of Loveland’s first Director of Communications and Engagement.
• A couple in Wheat Ridge hosted a party bus full of basset hounds to celebrate their dog’s birthday.
• Maybe the Los Angeles Dodgers are the good guys after all. Andrew Toles has not played a game for the Dodgers in four years due to ongoing mental health issues, but the club has resigned him each year since to essentially a $0 contract to allow him to keep his health benefits to continue treatment.
• The key to old age: Tennis, pickleball and … burlesque dancing?

• Denver’s Regis University has seen a 51% decline in undergraduate enrollment over the past decade, causing concerns about the long-term viability of the school.
• The Wells Fargo “cash register” building downtown is a bird-killing machine.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the Suncor refinery in Commerce City is accused of releasing harmful air pollutants. This week it was sulfur dioxide.
• The new MLB pitch clock has shaved about 30 minutes off the length of the average baseball game, but it has had one unintended consequence: fewer beer sales. The Colorado Rockies announced they are extending last call from the end of 7th inning to the end of the 8th to combat the decline that could cost the team millions of dollars.
  • Perhaps relatedly, Denver Police are giving the “attack” on Rockies mascot Dinger seemingly more attention than it gives to, say, catalytic converter thefts. No one was hurt in the incident that The Denver Post described as “interrupting” Dinger’s dance routine, but there is now a $2,000 reward for information about the assailant.
• HBO is synonymous with prestigious programming (“The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Succession,” “Veep,” “Euphoria,” etc.), so naturally the marketing geniuses at Warner Bros. Discovery have decided to rebrand the company’s HBO Max streaming service simply Max.
• NPR dealt a high-profile blow to Twitter when it announced it would suspend its activity on the platform due to Elon Musk’s decision to label NPR first as “state-affiliated media” and then “government-funded.” NPR said, “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility,” which is not going to help Musk’s efforts to bring back wary advertisers.
  • PBS announced it will follow NPR’s lead, as did local NPR affiliates CPR and KUNC.
• Much of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is underwater after a storm dumped more than two feet of rain on the city in 24 hours.
• Likely the last time you heard about the Boeing 737 Max, it was related to the FAA’s 18-month grounding in 2019-2020 due to problem with, well, crashing. The 737 Max has reappeared in the news this week because Boeing announced it would reduce deliveries of the aircraft due to a “non-standard” manufacturing process used on parts in the planes’ fuselages. Bon voyage!
• Fox News and AM radio host Sean Hannity is accusing car manufacturers such as Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, Mazda, Volvo and Tesla of conspiring against conservative talk radio by eliminating AM frequencies from their car stereos. The car manufacturers say that interference from electromagnetic frequencies from electric car motors causes a buzzing noise and a weak signal.
• In an announcement that will surprise absolutely no one, promoters say that “fraudulent activity” was found during ticket sales to an upcoming concert at Red Rocks.
• Portland edged out Denver to take the title of the nation’s top city for marijuana. You can decide for yourself whether Portland or Denver had the worst week in that scenario.

So, who won the week?

• Amber Miller launched her own consulting firm, Mountains & Plains Strategies.
• The longtime owner of Beau Jo’s announced he is selling the pizza chain to his employees. He is establishing an Employee Stock Option Plan that will give each of the 252 employees an ownership stake.
• Fox31 anchor/reporter Joshua Short has accepted a position at WNDU in South Bend, Ind.

• Tesla employees have reportedly been spying on customers through cars’ cameras and microphones and sharing the most embarrassing. videos with fellow employees.
• An ornery moose that moved into the courtyard of the Mountain Village Apartments in Steamboat has residents uneasy.
• FBI officials in Denver are warning people not to use free public phone charging stations because of the threat of malware.
• The LSU women’s basketball team won the national championship, but the team’s celebration has been overshadowed first with a feud between LSU star Angel Reese and Iowa star Caitlin Clark, and then a feud no one saw coming between Reese and first Lady Jill Biden.
• Colorado taxpayers are subsidizing million-dollar weddings in resort towns like Aspen through an obscure economic incentive program. One of the biggest beneficiaries: actor Kevin Costner.
• Elon Musk continues to punch out at his enemies. This time it was NPR that felt the impact when Twitter officially labeled it “state-affiliated media” – the same designation that propaganda outlets like the Russian-government-owned RT and the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper receive.
• The company behind the proposed Park Hill Golf Course development hit yet another roadblock this week when Denver voters rejected the plan roughly 60%-40%.
• The line to sue Kanye West got longer this week when two former teachers at his private school Donda Academy alleged the school violated state regulations.
• Bud Light’s partnership with transgender TikTok star Dylan Dulvaney has triggered some conservatives, most notably singers Kid Rock and Travis Tritt, who took to social media to rail against the company.
• Our city continues to be ripped apart by one of the most controversial issues in a generation – pickleball.
• Samsung engineers inadvertently disclosed trade secrets when they submitted confidential source code to ChatGPT and asked it to check for errors and optimize the code. Anything submitted to ChatGPT is retained and used by its engineers to improve the service.

So, who won the week?

• John Elway officially retired from the Denver Broncos this week. His tenure as GM was a little rocky, but history will be very kind to his legacy of two Super Bowl wins as a player and one as a GM.
• The Colorado Rockies delivered a 1-0 win in their home opener against the Washington Nationals. The best news: the new pitch clock helped keep the game to just two hours, 18 minutes.
• Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough elevated from the other 14 candidates for Denver mayor to make the run-off.

• It’s not exactly “Ocean’s Eleven,” but the Monarch Casino in Blackhawk is out $500,000 after someone allegedly tricked a cashier into delivering them the money. You can read the details of the crime yourself, but suffice it to say that if they made a movie about this heist, a Don Knotts-type actor would play the cashier.
• A Florida school principal resigned after she wrote a $100,000 check from the school to an online scammer posing as Elon Musk. The scammer promised millions in exchange for a $100,000 upfront “investment.”
• Japan is on the verge of “societal collapse” due to its alarming drop in birth rates, so much so that lawmakers have introduced a host of bills – compulsory paternity leave, cancelling student debt for young parents, cash payouts for a third baby, for example – to combat the country’s population decline.
• As expected, DIA CEO Phil Washington withdrew his nomination to lead the FAA after shaky support from Democrats.
• The U.S. Army had to pause what had to be a multi-million dollar recruitment campaign after its star – “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Creed III” actor Jonathan Majors – was arrested for domestic violence.
• Amsterdam is awash in young, male British tourists, to the point that it is running digital ads discouraging any more from visiting
• Xcel Energy, under fire from media and ratepayers for high prices, revealed in court documents that it could spend as much as $31 million to clean-up contaminants in the Elitch Gardens area downtown. Xcel’s predecessor, Public Service Company, operated a plant there 100 years ago. Xcel’s media relations team should be prepared for a phone call from Marshall Zelinger to determine whether ratepayers or investors will pay the $31 million.
• Coloradans vying for a spot at a state university may find more competition in the future. A bill under consideration at the statehouse would allow Colorado universities to admit more students from out of state (who pay almost twice as much in tuition) in exchange for offering more financial aid to in-state students.
• Sixteen candidates are vying to be Denver’s next mayor. The election is four days away, and no one has any clue who is in the lead. Is this an unintended consequence of Denver’s Fair Election Fund?
• American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Moscow after Russian authorities accused him of being a spy. The WSJ “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter.”

So, who won the week?

• Longtime CBS4 anchor Jim Benemann officially retired.
• New Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton purchased a $4.55 million home in a gated section of the Belcaro neighborhood.
• The Colorado Rockies won their Opening Day game 7-2 against the San Diego Padres.
• A Utah jury ruled actress Gwyneth Paltrow was not responsible for a ski accident that left a man with broken ribs and brain damage. She did, however, have to spend two weeks in a Utah courtroom, so maybe she belongs on the list above.
• Ken Griffey Jr. has not played for the Cincinnati Reds for more than 15 years, but the deferred compensation provision in his Reds contract means he will receive $3.5 million from the team this year – making him the team’s fourth-highest-paid “player.

You may find 9News anchor Kyle Clark arrogant, snarky or self-aggrandizing, but he’s not a man to be trifled with. He’s created a nightly news show – “Next with Kyle Clark” –that is light years’ more informative and entertaining than the competition’s, and his Norman Rockwellian presence belies an incredibly sharp mind and a masterful approach to both television news and social media.

The latest victim to underestimate Clark is Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson. The recent East High School shooting has put Anderson under intense scrutiny due to his leadership role in kicking police officers out of district schools two years ago. Public pressure forced the school board to reverse its position last week, and Anderson chose to accept an invitation from Clark to discuss the issue.

To put it mildly, Clark was salivating at the opportunity. First, Clark boxed Anderson into a dialectic corner that forced him to say he believes that kids who have been charged with gun violence crimes should remain in regular classrooms as long as their crimes occurred off-campus. And, then when Anderson tried to minimize his conflict with police officers, Clark went for the jugular with this epic question: “In the 2020 social justice protests, you described police officers as ‘motherf*ckers’ and said they were all corrupt. Do you still believe that police officers are ‘motherf*ckers’ and they are all corrupt?”

To Anderson’s credit, he didn’t wilt, but I’d imagine his hopes for re-election this coming November are essentially gone.

• DIA chief Phil Washington’s U.S. Senate committee vote to lead the FAA was tabled yesterday, a sign that his nomination is in serious trouble.
• The SEC has filed suit against eight “celebrities” alleging that they promoted crypto assets without disclosing they were paid to do so. The celebrities are Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Austin Mahone, Lil Yachty, Ne-Yo, Akon and Kendra Lust.
• There’s no bad situation that with a little effort you can’t make worse. The Longmont’s bakery Babettes learned that the hard way when they responded to a negative online review with a threatening voice-mail. Naturally, the recipient immediately posted the voice-mail to social media.
• The Denver Public Schools board is reeling after the latest East High School shooting forced it to flip-flop on its ban of school resource officers on campuses. The DPS superintendent announced the shift in policy before the board had discussed it, essentially daring them to fire him if they disagreed. Several hours later, they voted to formally support the superintendent’s decision.
• Meanwhile, Denver-based Fox News national reporter Alicia Acuna stopped her live coverage of the East High School shooting momentarily to hug her son who is a student at the school.
• The NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks – who, no surprise, play their home games in Chicago, Illinois, USA – are opting out of a league Pride Night celebration because of a Russian law that restricts activities seen as promoting LBGBTQ+ rights. Several of the team’s players are Russian or have ties to Russia.
• Nickelodeon is playing defense after it was accused of discriminating against one of its young stars who came out.
• Police are investigating a punch thrown by a Memphis player in the handshake line of its Women’s NIT game against Bowling Green. The punch knocked a Bowling Green player to the floor.
• An Aurora dentist to the stars (if you consider KNUS radio host Steffan Tubbs a star) has been arrested for allegedly poisoning his wife. Local TV news stations could not get enough of this story.
• Six Maryland road construction workers were killed when a car crash sent a vehicle into their path.
• A new survey found that 25% of Black women say they have been denied a job interview because of their hair.
• Is peanut butter a liquid? The TSA says yes.
• In a move that may be a sign that eating Fruit Roll-Ups impairs cognition, General Mills is reminding consumers that they should not eat the plastic film on the leathery, fruity snack.

So, who won the week?

• A lonely, three-year-old zebra at a Seoul zoo lived his best life for a few hours when he escaped and took to the city’s streets.
• The value of the Colorado Rockies grew 6% last year to $1.475 billion. Imagine what they would be worth if they could win just half of their games. If you are keeping track, the New York Yankees ranked first at $7.1 billion and the Miami Marlins ranked last at an even $1 billion.
• Heavy March snow has pushed Colorado‘s snowpack to 136% of its 30-year-normal.

• Colorado Springs’ Sixty35 Media, a relatively new entity that includes the Colorado Springs Independent, Colorado Springs Business Journal, the Pikes Peak Bulletin and several other publications, laid off half its staff – 15 positions – after it discovered $300,000 in unaccounted for debt that carried over from its formation.
• If you have ever (allegedly) created a subsidiary company to quietly pay girlfriends, well, you could have a friend in the diamond business.
• The Colorado Times Recorder is punching back on the Denver Gazette’s attacks on The Denver Post.
• Colorado’s Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA) lost $18 million when the value of its stake in Silicon Valley Bank plummeted last week amid its meltdown.
• Tattered Cover CEO Kwame Spearman dropped out of the 17-candidate-strong field for Denver mayor and threw his 1% support to Kelly Brough.
• The son of the Philadelphia Flyers GM apologized for throwing a woman’s wheelchair down a flight of stairs.
• Independent monitoring of air quality around the Suncor Energy refinery in Commerce City found previously unknown radioactive particles.
• New York Mets pitcher Edwin Diaz injured his knee celebrating a win in the World Baseball Classic and will miss the 2023 season.
• Five years ago, The Denver Post’s hedge fund overlords laid off one-third of the staff. That was a terrible, terrible day, but it did serve as a the catalyst for the Colorado Sun.
• If you see a 9News reporter today, give them a hug. The deal by hedge fund Standard General to acquire 9News parent company TEGNA for $24/share is falling apart due to concerns from regulators. As a result, TEGNA stock is currently fighting to stay above $15/share.
• Hardcore gym bros are eating dog food to get the protein that is apparently lacking from people food.
• Filippo Bernardini is accused of stealing more than 1,000 manuscripts from publishing houses not for money but because he just loved to read.
• A surprising number of upsets in the men’s NCAA tournament meant that only 0.12% of brackets were still perfect six hours into the first day.
• Friends and family of Denver Urban Spectrum editor and Metropolitan State University of Denver journalism professor Alfonzo Porter are mourning his passing. He was 60.

So, who won the week?

• Longmont data scientist Stephen Webb is on a seven-episode “Jeopardy” win streak.
• Denverites are among the biggest tippers in the nation.
• H&R Block’s campaign championing equity for women’s college athletics won Campaign of the Year at the PR Week U.S. Awards 2023.
• The Denver Nuggets won last night, clinching a playoff spot.

• CDOT celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower Tunnel by … stopping westbound traffic for 50 seconds. I guess an artificial traffic jam is as appropriate a tribute as any.
• Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant has been suspended for at least six games after he appeared to flash a gun in an Instagram Live video filmed at Shotgun Willie’s.
• Scientists have revived a “zombie virus” that has been frozen in permafrost for nearly 50,000 years. What could go wrong?
• It turns out Tiger Woods requires his girlfriends to sign non-disclose agreements. That’s a totally normal thing to do.
• The Colorado Rapids apologized for fans’ homophobic chants during its nationally televised game against Sporting Kansas City.
• NASCAR star Chase Elliott is out indefinitely after breaking his leg in a snowboarding accident in Colorado. He owns a home near Vail. Speaking of Vail …
• Vail Resorts is increasing the cost of its Epic Pass to $909 – a $68 increase. Alterra Mountain Co. also announced its Ikon pass will increase $80 to $1,159.
• Chocolate maker Toblerone is dropping the iconic image of the Matterhorn from its packages to comply with Swiss law as it moves production to Slovakia.
• A data breach at Denver Public Schools compromised employee data, and officials waited 58 days to tell them, according to 9News.
• Walgreens is the latest company to find itself a political football, caught between anti-abortion attorneys general and pro-choice customers.
• Adidas is trying to figure out what to do with $1.3 billion worth of Yeezy sneakers.
• If you don’t make the payments on your next Ford, it just might repossess itself.
• The Denver Art Museum has stripped Emma Bunker’s name from a gallery and returned $185,000 in donations after an investigation found she likely aided a criminal looting enterprise.
• Hard-to-find Raspberry Rally Girl Scout cookies are appearing on eBay for six times their list price. I hope the ones who are profiting are Girl Scouts earning their price-gouging badges.
• A survey found that Monaco Parkway has the worst potholes in the city.
• 9News parent company Tegna’s stock hit a 52-week low after the FCC raised questions about its proposed acquisition by hedge fund Standard General.

So, who won the week?

• The University of Colorado System named Jeff Howard its vice president of Communications.
• Paul Huberty has been named executive director of Wind River Development Fund. He formerly was VP of Strategic Services and Communications at Colorado Access.
• Mile High United Way’s Vanecia Kerr is the 9News Leader of the Year.
• Lindsey Runyan has been promoted to executive director of the Englewood Chamber of Commerce. She formerly was the organization’s Marketing & Communications director.
• Public Media Co. CEO Erin Moran has stepped down after more than a decade with the organization.

From a new Chipotle on Las Vegas Boulevard:

Photo: @Keith_lee135

• Dish Network continues to recover from a ransomware attack that interrupted its satellite service, internet sites and call centers. It also said customer information may have been taken.
• Xcel Energy, under intense scrutiny due to high bills, disclosed in a new filing that its Colorado revenue in 2022 was $5.7 billion.
• A Colorado landowner is closing public access to two of our state’s 14ers after lawmakers rejected legislation that would limit his liability.
• Spain’s Secretary of Transportation and the head of the state rail company resigned after they authorized a $270 million deal to build dozens of new trains that are too wide to fit through some tunnels in the country.
• The Aurora Sentinel is losing managing editor Kara Mason, who announced she is leaving.
• A New York City road sign honoring Jackie Robinson Parkway misspelled the late baseball player’s name.
• A Japanese hotel manager has apologized after it was revealed that it only changed the water in its spa bath twice a year. An inspection found that it was “teeming with potentially deadly bacteria.”
• Twitter laid off an additional 200 employees, lowering its headcount to 1,800. It had about 7,500 employees when Elon Musk acquired it October. Meanwhile, outages have increased significantly. It had four widespread outages in February, compared to nine total in 2022.
• Los Angeles County agreed to pay the family of the late Kobe Bryant $29 million to settle allegations that fire and sheriff’s department employees shared gruesome photos of the helicopter crash in which he died. The family said it would donate the money to its foundation.
• A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who estimates he has deported thousands of undocumented immigrants learned that his U.S. birth certificate is fraudulent and he’s actually a Mexican citizen.
• Greek authorities released audio recordings that show a train conductor had been told by his bosses to ignore red track lights when it was involved in a head-on crash that killed 57.
• Denver’s mayoral election is just weeks away, and the latest poll indicates none of the 17 candidates has more than 5% support. 58% of voters remain undecided.

So, who won the week?

• United Airlines named Oscar The Grouch as its first Chief Trash Officer. Maybe Delta will respond by appointing the Count as its CFO.
• It’s been an especially cold and snowy winter, but summer isn’t too far off. Water World announced it is accepting applications for more than 1,000 positions.
• It’s 303 day for those who celebrate. Make it a good one.

The Denver Post announced it would drop the comic strip Dilbert after creator Scott Adams made racist comments about Black people last week. The Denver Post’s decision follows similar moves by other publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the USA Today Network, The Boston Globe and others. Dilbert’s distributor also announced this weekend that it would no longer work with Adams due to his comments.

While many of those other publications issued formal statements announcing their decisions and the rationales, The Denver Post’s announcement came in the form of two sentences added to the end of a 10-paragraph Associated Press article on page A4 of Sunday’s edition: “The Denver Post is in the process of ending its publication of Dilbert. Today’s comics section was printed in advance.” I would link to it, but that article is not available on The Denver Post’s website.

• NPR announced it will lay off 10% of its staff after experiencing a $30 million budget shortfall.
• Expect a flurry of chaos as the Denver mayoral election approaches. Ballots will be mailed in less than three weeks and a recent bipartisan poll found that 59% of voters are undecided and that only three of the 17 candidates – Kelly Brough, Leslie Herod and Mike Johnston – are polling higher than the 4.8% margin of error.
• A gunman shot and killed a woman in Florida, fled, then returned to the scene of his crime and killed a TV reporter covering the first death.
• Coaches and the director of the University of Denver Junior Pioneers youth hockey team withdrew from a local tournament after one of its 12-year-old players was threatened by an opposing team member’s parent. That player, the son of Denver PR professional Margaret Fogarty, scored the winning goal in the game.
• Several weeks after Michael Roberts announced he was leaving Westword, Conor McCormick-Cavanagh made a similar announcement.
• Facing a recommendation from the superintendent to close three schools due to budget shortfalls and low enrollment, the Denver Public Schools board tabled a separate motion that would have raised their pay by 366%.
• The Mormon Church has agreed to pay a $5 million fine after the SEC accused it of hiding $32 billion in assets.
• DIA led the nation in delayed and cancelled flights in January, the result of unusually cold and snowy weather.
• Florida beach communities are preparing for an invasion of seawood this summer that one official likened to “a Stephen King movie.” The seawood washes ashore, covering beaches and making swimming next to impossible.
• Officials at Vanderbilt University apologized for for using OpenAI’s ChatGPT to write an email to students in the aftermath of the shooting at Michigan State University.
• The superintendent of a Texas school district resigned after a third grader found his gun unattended in a school bathroom.
• More Americans than ever distrust news media.
• Passengers aboard an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to New York City traveled 16 hours to reach … Auckland. A power outage shut down JFK and there wasn’t enough space at other airports to accommodate all the inbound international flights, so the Air New Zealand jet turned around eight hours into its flight.
• A woman at a Miami art exhibit couldn’t believe how much a Jeff Koons porcelain sculpture looked like the kind of twisted balloon animal you’d get at a kid’s birthday party, so she tapped on it, causing the $42,000 piece to fall and shatter.
• A passenger on a Ryanair flight who ate a full rack of ribs while occupying a middle seat has divided the internet as to whether he is a hero or villain.
• Looking for a good vacation home? A mobile home in a trailer park in the Hamptons just sold for $3.75 million.

So, who won the week?

• Kyle Henley has been named vice president for marketing and communications at Colorado State University. He joins CSU from the University of Southern California, where he was SVP/CCO.
• Denver’s Catalyst Marketing landed a three-year AOR contract with DIA that could be worth as much as $4.7 million.
• The Welton Street Cafe in Five Points plans to re-open in June. Community members contributed more than $100,000 to help the long-time restaurant build out its new location.
• Former Denver Business Journal reporter Ed Sealover has joined the Colorado Chamber to help it launch its own news site.
• Heather Dratler, the vice president of Brand Engagement at B Public Relations, is joining the board of directors of EatDenver.

Justin Wingerter at BusinessDen: “Two prominent Denver public relations firms are entangled in a public dispute over their relations. At issue are bold claims of incompetence, bad faith and disparaging political remarks. At stake are hard-earned reputations and hundreds of thousands of dollars. … Details of their doomed plan to merge are spelled out in Denver District Court documents.”

“In late 2020, (Novitas’ Michelle) Lyng and Wendy Aiello met to discuss the idea of Novitas buying Aiello PR, so Aiello could retire. Novitas claims that a purchase agreement was approved verbally; Aiello PR denies that. Regardless, the two began working together as a joint venture. … After Southlands Mall, an Aiello client, was transferred to the new joint venture, Aiello PR didn’t receive the 10-percent cut it was supposed to. The same happened after another Aiello client, Celebration Chevrolet in Aurora, was transferred to the joint venture.”

“Worse yet, Novitas’ ‘poor work, lack of resources and lack of experienced employees’ led the car dealership to fire them both, according to Aiello PR. For its part, Novitas claims it was Aiello PR that ‘missed calls with clients and, when attending calls, was unprepared for the call, leaning on Novitas to perform all work.’ … At times, the differing social views of Lyng and Aiello were on display, according to court documents. Aiello claims that Lyng said she ‘hated Black Lives Matter’ at a business dinner, leading Aiello to admonish her for a perceived lack of professionalism. A Novitas attorney says Lyng’s criticisms of BLM were fair and made at an internal Novitas holiday party.”

“Novitas wants a Denver jury to make Aiello PR pay $330,000, plus interest and attorney fees, for breach of contract. Aiello PR wants a jury to make Novitas pay an undetermined amount for breach of an agreement, unjust enrichment, fraudulent inducement and bad faith dealing.”

• The indie horror movie “Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey” had its one-night-only run extended, much to the dismay of Pooh fans. The plot: Winnie the Pooh and Piglet brutally murder 11 people.
• Denver-based Alterra Mountain Co. has agreed to pay $17.5 million to Ikon pass holders who were not able to use them during the COVID-shortened 2020 ski season.
• CNN morning show anchor Don Lemon was conspicuously absent from his show after he said that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was “not in her prime” because she isn’t in “her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.” If you are keeping track, President Joe Biden is 80 and Republican front-runner former President Donald Trump is 76. Haley is 51.
• DIA CEO Phil Washington, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the FAA, has been named in a discrimination lawsuit by a former DIA employee, further complicating his efforts to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
• Barney is back. Mattel plans to reintroduce a TV show featuring the purple dinosaur next year.
• Michigan State University students were the latest to experience a mass shooting event. It was the nation’s 71st mass shooting event of 2023, and it occurred on just the 44th day of the year.
• France’s defense minister apparently does not go to movie theaters but does subscribe to Disney+. We know this because this week he formally protested the depiction of French soldiers in the hit film “Wakanda Forever.” The film hit theaters last November but started streaming on Disney+ just this month.
• Xcel Energy, which is being hammered by customers, media and now elected officials for high rates, has backed off plans to ask the PUC for another rate hike.
• Vermont’s Islands Ice Fishing Derby was cancelled after three competitors fell through thin ice and died.
• Microsoft’s new AI-powered chatbot is giving us a glimpse into the hell our lives may become.
• Staffers at a Miami child care provider are accused of dressing toddlers in black face paint to celebrate … wait for it … Black History Month.
• The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile was sidelined in Las Vegas when its catalytic converter was stolen.

So, who won the week?

• Kyle Clark and his 9News colleagues are being lauded for taking the near-impossible – a political debate featuring 13 candidates – and making it both organized and informative.
• Season 3 of “Ted Lasso” will stream on Apple TV+ beginning March 15.
• Basketball legend Michael Jordan has donated $10 million to Make-A-Wish in honor of his 60th birthday.
• PR firm Edelman saw revenues rise 12.8% to $1.1 billion in 2022.

• Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson’s charity only spends 24.3% of its funds on charitable activities, while it spends twice that on salaries and benefits, according to USA Today. Wilson responded, saying the report reflects only two COVID-19-affected years that are not representative of what his foundation has accomplished.
• The Hyatt Regency Denver called security on a group of guests from the notoriously rowdy National Association of School Psychologists. The tip-off that something was amiss: the group requested a large plate upon which cookies could be placed at an informal reception. Any guesses as to what race the guests were. Yep.
• NFL Network analyst and former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin was quickly pulled from the network’s coverage of the Super Bowl after allegations surfaced that he behaved inappropriately with a woman at his hotel.
• Colorado State University officials have apologized to a Ukrainian-born Utah State basketball player after CSU students taunted him with chants of “Russia” as he shot free throws.
• Hoping for a state tax refund? You may be waiting a little while. Colorado is not yet accepting tax returns because the state’s processing system is not ready. The issue: new tax laws that voters passed in November haven’t been accounted for in the system. Meanwhile, the IRS is still deciding whether last year’s Colorado TABOR refunds should be taxable.
• Aramark has apologized for an “inexcusably insensitive” lunch to kick-off Black History Month at a New York middle school – chicken and waffles, served with watermelon.
• Four people on a United Airlines flight were hospitalized after a laptop computer battery caught fire mid-flight.
• Singer Chris Brown has apologized after a series of Instagram posts asking “who da f**k” Robert Glasper is after Glasper beat him out for a Grammy award.
• The City of Centennial has sued to shut down a swinger’s club that it says is operating on the wrong side of I-25.
• As if things weren’t bad enough for Southwest Airlines this winter, now United Airlines – United Airlines! –will air a Super Bowl commercial that is a thinly veiled shot at Southwest’s woes.
• Adidas warned investors of lower than-expected-revenues and said that dropping Kanye West could cost the company more than $1 billion in sales.

So, who won the week?

• LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.
• More than 1,000 golden retrievers (and their owners, probably) met up in Golden at the city’s annual “Goldens in Golden” event.
• Former Denver Broncos star DeMarcus Ware was voted into the Football Hall of Fame.
• Omnicom PR Group posted a 13.7% revenue increase in 2022. The firms within the Omnicom PR Group (OPRG) include FleishmanHillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli.
• Colorado Rockies player Cole Tucker is engaged to “High School Musical” actress Vanessa Hudgens.

• Members of the Colorado PUC may be limited in their ability to rein in Xcel Energy’s rate hikes, but their amateurishness in communicating what they are doing and why is exacerbating an already frustrating situation. Even worse for Xcel, Kyle Clark’s “Next” show has turned the company into its new RTD A Line – a nightly segment.
• Warren Miller Entertainment will not film a ski movie this winter, breaking a 70-year streak. Financial challenges at its parent company, Outside Inc., are to blame.
• Has Denver’s “fast casual architecture” made the city … fugly?
• Visit Saudi, the tourism arm of one of the worst countries in the world for women’s rights, is now a proud sponsor of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
• The latest FBI numbers show that Coloradans lose about $25 million annually in cryptocurrency scams.
• An Illinois school district employee was charged with stealing $1.5 million worth of chicken wings from the district.
• New York’s Empire State Building was lighted in green and white lights on Sunday night to celebrate the Philadelphia Eagles win to advance to the Super Bowl. As you might expect, New Yorkers weren’t thrilled to honor a rival.
• Netflix announced details of how it will enforce a ban on sharing passwords.
• Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet publicly called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores due to national security concerns.
• The Duke and Florida State women’s basketball teams played the first half of their game using a slightly larger men’s basketball before it was realized, according to Duke coach Kara Lawson. (Duke lost.)
• Honda issued a rare “Do Not Drive” warning for 8,200 of its cars due to airbag concerns.
• The Denver Zoo is on high alert following a series of incidents at the Dallas Zoo that included the kidnapping of two emperor tamarin monkeys and the intentional release of a leopard.
• Is a balloon going to be the cause of World War III?
• Israel’s Chief Rabbinate — a bellwether rabbinical council for religious certifications in Judaism – is grappling with the question of whether lab-grown meat is kosher.

So, who won the week?

• Denver Business Journal reporter Ed Sealover is leaving the paper. He said he will formally announce his new position when he starts on Feb. 21.
• CBS4 named Romi Bean as its lead sports anchor. She is the first woman to have that role at any station in Denver.
• The Denver Broncos named Sean Payton as the team’s head coach. Fans should be excited, but after previously being excited about Nathaniel Hackett, Vic Fangio, and Vance Joseph, enthusiasm is a bit muted.
• Publicis Groupe announced it will pay “record-high” annual bonuses of close to $550 million to staff members after posting better-than-expected 2022 revenue (up 10%) and profit (up 23%).
• The U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs in January, shattering expectations that were diminished in part due to a series of high-profile tech layoffs.

• Westword reporter extraordinaire Michael Roberts announced he is leaving, in a move that is a huge blow to the media outlet. He has spent more than 32 years at Westword, and is its most prolific reporter. His last day is today.
• Seven western states including Colorado are days away from having the federal government unilaterally implement cuts to their allotment of water from the Colorado River. As one public policy advocate said, “Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster. We’re really at a moment of reckoning.”
• Coban Porter, the younger brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter, Jr. and a member of the University of Denver basketball team, was arrested on vehicular homicide charges after a fatal accident near the DU campus.
• M&M’s is trolling America by placing its “spokescandies” mascots on an “indefinite pause” and replacing them with comedienne/actress Maya Rudolph. While conservatives criticized the “woke” characters and liberals then criticized M&M’s “overreaction,” the fact is everyone is talking about M&M’s. We’ll wait for parent company Mars, Inc.’s Q1 earnings report before we decide whether M&M’s marketers are geniuses or idiots.
• Meanwhile, A&W Restaurants – yes, there are still A&W Restaurants apparently – sought to steal a little of the M&M’s spotlight by announcing that its previously pants-less mascot “Rooty” would now wear them because of the current “polarizing” political environment. Winnie the Pooh, the Geico Gecko and Chester Cheetah had no comment.
• Former Colorado Rockies star Todd Helton barely missed election the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 72.2% of the necessary 75% of votes. Early predictions had him making it.
• There has been a lot of concern recently over alleged air quality issues caused by the Suncor refinery in Commerce City. To show they are responsive to community concerns, the company’s latest environmental accident was water based – releasing 40-80% more benzene than legally allowed in Sand Creek.
• Two months after being seriously burned in a garage fire, comedian Jay Leno was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him with multiple broken bones.
• A Kansas hunter was killed when his dog stepped on and fired a rifle in the back of the pickup he was in. I guess animals stick together.
• Denver mayoral candidate Lisa Calderon’s official website is being held as part of a ransomware scheme. In her defense, IT security is not listed as part of her campaign platform.
• Scientists have moved the “Doomsday Clock” to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to the midnight metaphor for Armageddon. Presumably the war in Ukraine is responsible for the change, but I’m not sure how that is worse than the cold war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example. Nevertheless, you’ve got 90 seconds, people. Use that time wisely.
• Former Denver Broncos player Shannon Sharpe has apologized for his ridiculous behavior at a recent L.A. Lakers game. It turns out years of being a screaming voice on a hack sports TV show may actually be detrimental to your mental health.
• Richard Steadman, the groundbreaking orthopedic surgeon and namesake of Vail Health’s famed Steadman Clinic, passed away at the age of 85.

So, who won the week?

• Justin Beiber sold the rights to his 290 songs for $2 billion.
• Thirteen Colorado chefs and restaurateurs have been named semifinalists for prestigious James Beard awards.
• In a sign that its re-opening is imminent, Casa Bonita is now hiring for 550 positions ranging from wait staff to cooks to cliff divers.

Altitude Sports host Marc Moser doesn’t realize the Colorado Avalanche broadcast has started when he gets into it with a seagull.

• The University of Texas and Texas A&M are the latest universities to ban TikTok due to privacy and security concerns. The two universities join others in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma and South Dakota that have banned the app.
• Gun seizures at both DIA and in Denver Public Schools hit new records in 2022.
• Denver ranks 17th-worst for for traffic in the U.S., and drivers waste an average of 54 hours in traffic jams.
• Philadelphia Flyers player Ivan Provorov created a public backlash when he refused to participate in a pre-game warm-up wearing a Pride Night jersey, saying it violated his religious beliefs.
• It’s been a tough week at JFK Airport. Just days after two Delta and American Airlines planes almost collided at high-speed on a runway, a JetBlue plane hit a second JetBlue plane in the gate area .
• Less than a week after winning the college football national championship, University of Georgia offensive lineman Devin Willock was killed in a single-car accident. He was not wearing a seat belt.
• Harvard Medical School, perhaps you’ve heard of it, is the latest to withdraw from U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of best medical schools. Harvard’s dean said the “rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparedness, and compassionate and equitable patient care.” 
• Boston’s new statue honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. is not exactly winning fans. “Awkward” may be the nicest adjective that has been used to describe it.
• A San Francisco art gallery owner has been arrested after spraying a homeless woman with a water hose to make her move away from his gallery. Video of the incident went viral on social media.
• Twitter has seen a 40% drop in revenue as more than 500 advertisers have paused spending since Elon Musk took over.
• Microsoft and Google are the latest tech companies to announce massive layoffs – a combined 22,000. Microsoft gets extra credit for hosting an executive event in Davos that featured singer Sting just hours before announcing the layoffs.

So, who won the week?

• Proud CSU Ram Jane Dvorak is now an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.
• Denver7 news director Holly Gauntt announced she will retire once a successor is found.
• Two show pigs that were stolen as part of a truck theft near the National Western Stock Show were recovered in good condition. Given our nation’s love affair with bacon, however, they may have been safer on the run.
• Marvel movies got Millennials and Gen-Zers back to the box office post-pandemic, while “Top Gun Maverick” got Gen-Xers. Now, the Tom Hanks movie “A Man Called Otto” is being credited with bringing Boomers back.

• Amtrak passengers called police claiming they were held hostage when what was supposed to be a 17-hour trip from Virginia to Florida turned into 37 hours due to freight train derailment. “Stale air, dwindling food supplies, trash piling up in the aisles and a lack of timely information from the crew” contributed to what passengers called the “train ride from hell.”
• Peloton will pay a $19 million fine for failing to “promptly report treadmill hazards and for distributing recalled treadmills.”
• Former Cleveland Browns QB Bernie Kosar learned about the NFL’s ambivalent relationship with sports betting the hard way. Kosar was fired by the Browns from its radio broadcast team after he placed a bet on the team to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. This item was brought to you by Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings, FanDuel, FOX Bet, BetMGM, PointsBet, and WynnBET, all of whom are official NFL partners.
• LSU is providing star gymnast and TikTok sensation Olivia Dunne with additional security at competitions after unruly fans overran the team’s season opener against Utah.
• West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter Amelia Ferrell Knisely had her position eliminated after defying threats to stop reporting on the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources. Gov. Jim Justice has appointed “partisan operatives” to WVPB’s board of directors.
• You wouldn’t think there would be much new in the world of bowling, but newfangled bowling pins have caused a (7-10) split in that community. The new “string pins” are regular bowling pins “with long cords attached to the top and tethered to string pinsetters. The string pinsetters hoist fallen pins like marionettes and lower them into place.” A study found the new pins yield 7% fewer strikes than traditional pins.
• Police arrested a top executive of the Indian subsidiary of Wells Fargo for allegedly urinating on another passenger on a flight from New York to New Delhi.
• Meanwhile, six journalists in South Sudan were arrested after circulating footage of President Salva Kiir wetting his pants at an official event.
• TCU’s 65-7 drubbing by Georgia in the National Championship game was bad enough, but TCU fans endured the added insult of being rained on inside a “domed” stadium. SoFi Stadium in L.A. has a covered roof but no side walls, and heavy winds drove rain onto the upper decks that contained TCU fans.
• Closer to home, the Colorado State Rams finished the college football season at #123 in The Athletic’s end-of-season rankings, one spot ahead of #124 University of Colorado. The Air Force Falcons led the state at #40.

So, who won the week?

• GroundFloor Media | CenterTable promoted Becky Cole to Associate Vice President and Lauren Noser to Senior Director.
• Andrea Burns has been named interim CEO of Historic Denver.
• Gail Bransteitter has joined Barefoot PR as Director of Public Relations.
• Jon Ekstrom of Deft Communications has been tapped to produce a new podcast from Altitude Sports’ Vic Lombardi.
• Colorado Sun reporter Shannon Najmabadi is leaving to join The Wall Street Journal to cover issues in Midwest.
• Olympic Gold Medalist and native Coloradan Mikaela Shiffrin tied Lindsey Vonn for most World Cup ski wins with 82.
• Golden’s Lindsey Horan and Highlands Ranch’s Mallory Pugh Swanson have been named to the 24-player US Women’s Soccer Team training camp roster, the first step toward representing the U.S. this summer at the women’s FIFA World Cup.
• Former CSU Ram and current Tennessee Titan punter Ryan Stonehouse broke an 82-year-old NFL record for longest punting average over a season.

Chris Daniels at PR Week: “It’s not surprising to learn that PR pros, as a profession, are statistically more progressive than the U.S. population. Many communicators are also more liberal than the general population on issues of politics, society, economics and safety. That difference is massive, especially when it comes to political ideology.”

“Practitioners overwhelmingly self-identified as ‘progressive’ (68%), followed by ‘centrist’ (25%). Only 7% identified as ‘conservative’ when it comes to their politics. That’s a stark difference from the U.S. population. Only 26% of the general populace identifies as ‘progressive.’ More of them self-identify as ‘conservative’ (34%), 27 percentage points higher than PR practitioners.”

“’That measure on political ideology indicates the most risk for PR professionals and campaigns,’ says … Jennifer Scott, a clinical assistant professor for PR and corporate communication at NYU’s School of Professional Studies. Scott spent 17 years at Ogilvy, including in thought leadership, comms counsel and research and insights roles, and three years at Edelman. She says PR pros understand they’re operating in a politically polarized environment in the U.S., and audience research can lead them down a dangerous path.”

“’The danger is they see that Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, want brands to take a stand, and so even research into target audiences isn’t necessarily likely to temper the tendency to go very progressive,’ says Scott. ‘It may take a brand to a place that seems mainstream, but that, in fact, triggers a momentum of polarization. Then the brand is in trouble.’” 

• Actor Jeremy Renner was airlifted to a hospital after suffering “a traumatic injury” while plowing snow at his home near Lake Tahoe. Renner reportedly lost a significant amount of blood when his 14,000 lb. Sno-Cat ran over him.
• An American Airlines ground crew worker died when he was “ingested into the engine” of an Embraer 170 aircraft at the Montgomery, Ala., airport.
• Rolling Stone ranked the best 200 singers of all time and Celine Dion was notably not included, much to her fans’ outrage.
• Slip-and-fall attorney Frank Azar has “settled” a 20-month-old $716,000 IRS tax bill for $769,270. Fun fact: Azar’s 2017 taxable income was $3.9 million.
• Tennis legend Martina Navratilova announced that she has been diagnosed with both throat and breast cancer.
• Former Denver Broncos running back Peyton Hillis is in the ICU after a Florida swimming accident where he saved his children from drowning.
• Radio conglomerate Bonneville International, which owns KKFN 104.3 The Fan and KEPN 1600 ESPN Denver, introduced a new “Denver Sports” brand this week whose name and logo are suspiciously similar to the existing DNVR Sports brand. Not surprisingly, DNVR Sports is threatening a lawsuit. Fun fact: Bonneville International is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mormon Church.
• A Park City, Utah, resort employee died when he was ejected from a chairlift whose line was severed by a fallen tree.
• The Texas A&M-University of Florida men’s basketball game was delayed when the Aggies forgot to bring their game jerseys to the arena. Trainers retrieved the jerseys from the team’s hotel, but not before the officials assessed a technical foul against A&M for delaying the start of the game.
• One of the largest personal injury firms in Colorado, the Sawaya Law Firm, is now the Wilhite Law Firm. A spokeswoman said the name change was unrelated to allegations that founder Michael Sawaya sexually assaulted and sexually battered a client in his office.
• Southwest Airlines is offering passengers whose flights were cancelled or delayed during the holidays 25,000 frequent flyer points. The move represents the airlines’ first tangible step toward trying to repair its reputation.
• If you have a 20%-off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond, you might want to use it this weekend. The retailer warned that it is running out of cash and may file for bankruptcy soon.

So, who won the week?

• Gil Rudawsky and Skip Thurman have been named partners at Rockford Gray.
• Former Denver7 anchor Mitch Jelniker has joined M&C Communications.
• A GoFundMe campaign by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin to raise money to buy kids holiday toys has grown from less than $2,500 to nearly $8 million as fans horrified by his on-field cardiac arrest made contributions in a gesture of support.
• Greeley Hat Works is getting a lot of love for its work outfitting the cast of the hit show “Yellowstone” with authentic cowboy hats.
• “Today Show” meteorologist Al Roker returned to the show after a two-month hiatus to address blood clots in his leg and lungs.