• Scientists are warning that the ink used in most tattoos may cause cancer.
• Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan and Foreman, P.C. is suing notorious Jeffrey Epstein-enabler Ghislaine Maxwell for more than $850,000 in unpaid legal fees.
• Denver’s South High School principal Rachel Goss shared a video with students discouraging them from contacting police if they witness racist or transphobic attacks. The rationale as stated in the video was that “police have been trained to see people of color, gender non-conforming folks and Muslims as criminals, they often treat victims as perpetrators of violence.”
• Speaking of DPS, school started this week and 48 of its campuses (campi?) do not have air conditioning.
• Sixty-three bears have been euthanized in Colorado this year due to dangerous interactions with humans.
• Actor Will Smith’s “Q Score” – an industry metric of likeability among the general public – dropped from 39 to 24, a nearly 40% decline, after his on-stage slap of Oscar host Chris Rock.
• A woman drove her SUV 60 yards through the second floor of a Boston-area shopping mall. When she finally came to a stop outside a Track 23 clothing store, she reportedly asked a shocked onlooker, “Do you know how to get out of here?”
• FedEx accidentally delivered six M1 military rifles to a high school in Philadelphia that had a similar address as a gun collector.
• The US Open tennis tournament begins next week, and the biggest story so far is about gender discrimination related to tennis balls. It is the only Grand Slam tournament that uses different balls for the men’s and women’s matches.
• Facebook parent Meta will pay a $37.5 million settlement after being accused of violating users’ privacy by tracking their movements through smartphones without permission.
• Tesla is demanding a group critical of the cars’ advanced driver-assistance capabilities remove a video showing an autonomous Tesla mowing down child-size mannequins.
• Orange County (Calif.) will pay $480,000 to an inmate who suffered a miscarriage while sheriff’s deputies stopped at Starbucks en route to the hospital.
• A former SeaWorld employee alleges that it is breeding “Jurassic World”-type orca whales.

So, who won the week?

• John Dakin, the Vail public relations executive who handled media for three World Alpine Ski Championships, was inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Museum’s Hall of Fame.
• Andrew Hudson is celebrating the 25th anniversary of his influential Jobs List. I have no data to back it up, but I would guess it is the most-used jobs site in Denver.
• Kate Stabrawa, a proud alumna of Ohio State, has launched her own consulting firm, Horseshoe Communications. Football fans will understand how her firm’s name and her alma mater are connected.
• Allison Gerdes was promoted to Director of Internal Communications at UCHealth.
• Kelly Collins was promoted to Employee Communications Manager at Lockheed Martin.
• Ivan Popov has been named Digital Media Associate at the ACLU of Colorado.
• A “triple-dip La Niña” may bring higher-than-normal snowfall to Colorado’s ski resorts this winter.

• An Ethiopian Airlines flight overshot its destination when both pilots fell asleep.
• A Colorado Department of Corrections captain “with an overwhelming foot fetish” just cost Colorado taxpayers $300,000.
• Raise your hand if you had Colorado as the cocaine capital of the country. I mean, sure Aspen helps, but who figured we’d beat Florida, New York and California for highest per-capita use of the drug.
• The Denver District Attorney did something incredibly rare this week – she opened a grand jury investigation into three officers involved in a recent LoDo police shooting that injured a suspect and six bystanders.
• Witnesses are blaming former Denver Bronco Aqib Talib for inciting the brawl at a youth football game in which his brother allegedly shot and killed a man. Amazon, which has hired Talib as an analyst for its new NFL Thursday Night Football package, has been verrrrrrrrry quiet about the incident so far, but I’d imagine it will quietly drop him before the season starts.
• Denver-area Kia and Hyundai owners are having a tough time getting insurance because of how often the car brands are stolen.
• Randy Gradishar, a leader on the Denver Broncos’ 1970s Orange Crush defenses, was again snubbed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• A federal judge ordered Walmart, CVS and Walgreens to pay $651 million in damages to two Ohio counties for their roles in the opioid crisis.
• People named “Issac” and “Chole” lead the list of those who file with the Social Security Administration to change their names. Not surprisingly, the two most common new names: “Isaac” and “Chloe.” Apparently, a shocking number of new moms and dads misspell baby names on birth certificates.
• Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Rodolfo Castro was suspended for one game by MLB after his cellphone fell out of his back pocket while sliding into third base during a game.
• Why actress Anne Heche died twice last week.

So, who won the week?

• Ramonna Robinson of GroundFloor Media | CenterTable was named a winner of the 2022 Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business awards. Joining her were Jordan Blakesley of B Public Relations, Cori Streetman of Barefoot PR, and Jenna McMullin, the VP of Communications at Lockheed Martin.
• American Airlines has ordered 20 supersonic jets from Denver’s Boom Supersonic, with an option for 40 more. The jets are still in the concept phase.
• The whimsical “singing sinks” at the Denver Art Museum are back after a five-year hiatus.
• The Denver Broncos have the eighth-best chance to win the Super Bowl, according to betting site FanDuel. That’s quite a jump from the past few seasons.
• Country music station KYGO-FM remains Denver’s top-rated radio station.
• Alma, Colorado, reported the state’s first 2022-2023 season snowfall. As you might imagine, it was just a dusting.

Congratulations to former Denver Broncos VP of Public Relations Jim Saccomano, who is the recipient of an inaugural Pro Football Hall of Fame “Award of Excellence” for his contributions to the NFL. Jim was recently profiled by his alma mater, MSU Denver, where he discussed the honor and his thoughts on the current and former Broncos teams.

Taylor Lorenz and Caroline O’Donovan at The Washington Post: “A coalition of top TikTok stars is pledging to cease all work with Amazon — including shutting down storefronts and halting new partnerships with the e-commerce platform — until the company meets the demands of the Amazon Labor Union.”

“Boasting a combined following of over 51 million, the group of 70 TikTok creators says that the campaign, called the ‘People Over Prime Pledge,’ is designed to pressure Amazon to meet the requests of its workers, which include a $30 minimum wage, increased paid time off and halting activities the group considers ‘union busting.’ “

You know, it’s the CEO who lays off employees who is the real victim. Just ask HyperSocial CEO Braden Wallake.

• The union representing Denver Post reporters received a contract proposal from the paper’s hedge-fund owners that included a 0% raise.
• The new below-ground I-70 corridor failed its first test when first responders had to rescue 11 people during torrential rains this past weekend. Pumps designed to drain the roadway failed to automatically turn on.
• Red Rocks settled a lawsuit with the Department of Justice alleging that the concert venue had overcharged for wheelchair-accessible seats by $48,000 over the past four years.
• Fans of Casa Bonita are sweating new reports that the restaurant still doesn’t know when it will re-open. New owners Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South park fame. The two told The Denver Post they “had no clue what they were getting themselves into when they picked up the landmark.”
• RTD’s BroncosRide remains on hold as executives determine whether the service violated federal regulations, including the Americans with Disability Act.
• The attempt by Domino’s to rule the Italian pizza market came to an entirely predictable end. The chain pulled the plug on the last of its 29 locations in the country this week after learning the hard way that Italians aren’t idiots.
• Legendary baseball player Pete Rose declined to discuss allegations of statutory rape, telling a female reporter, “I’m not here to talk about that. … It was 55 years ago, babe.”
• Actress Anne Heche died from injuries sustained in a car accident.
• Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck at a lecture event, 33 years after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a religious decree calling for Rushdie’s death for writing a novel considered blasphemous.

So, who won the week?

• Denver officials removed a plaque at 20th & Blake streets that misrepresented brutal attacks on Chinese residents as the “Hop Alley/Chinese Riot of 1880.” 
• 9News meteorologist Kathy Sabine returned to the airwaves this week following surgery for skin cancer. She shared her experience as a warning to others about the importance of taking precautions.
• Longtime 9News anchor Gary Shapiro announced he is retiring after four decades at the station.
• Little League batter Isaiah Jarvis walked from first base to the mound to hug pitcher Kaiden Shelton when he realized the pitcher was visibly distraught after hitting Jarvis in the head with a pitch.

It was 55 years ago, babe.

Pete Rose to a female reporter declining to address allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a minor in the 1970s. In court filings, Rose has acknowledged the relationship, but said he thought she was 16, the age of consent in Ohio.

• No doubt the venerable Denver strip club Diamond Cabaret has been the source of many a communicable disease outbreak, and this time it might be monkeypox.
• Denver Public Schools paid $2.1 million to settle allegations that it misused AmeriCorps funds.
• Verizon is scrambling to upgrade its 911 call-routing technology in Denver after media reported that its system routed 911 calls to dispatchers in Aurora during a recent high-profile shooting.
• What’s to blame for downtown Denver’s increased violence? Food trucks!
• The U.S. Forest Service halted construction on a Keystone chairlift that would access a new 555-acre, 16-trail expansion. That action was in response to the resort mistakenly building a temporary construction road in protected alpine tundra.
• Glass windows on the exterior of a downtown Denver apartment complex have been shattering due to heat.
• An airline passenger who brought two McDonald’s sausage McMuffins on a flight from Indonesia to Australia was fined the equivalent of more than $1,800 for failing to declare “potential high biosecurity risk items.“
• Jeff Bezos’ $500 million unfinished yacht was towed from its Rotterdam shipyard in the middle of the night because officials refused to allow him to partially disassemble a bridge that it would be too tall to clear once finished. Outraged at the request, locals had threatened to pelt the yacht with eggs and tomatoes when it passed the historic bridge.
• Warner Bros. spent $90 million to make the movie “Batgirl,” but the result was so bad that the studio has completely shelved it – it won’t appear in theaters or on streaming services.
• After more than 14,000 episodes, NBC has relegated “Days of Our Lives” to its Peacock streaming service, ending the soap opera’s 57-year run on broadcast TV.
• Restaurants are tough businesses to start with, and now a review scam is making life even more difficult. Scammers are leaving one-star reviews and then demanding a ransom to remove them.
• WNBA star Brittney Griner was found guilty of drug charges in a Russian show trial. The best odds of her being released are a prisoner swap.

So, who won the week?

• The Denver Broncos new ownership group added Formula One racing legend Lewis Hamilton. It turns out Hamilton’s a bit of a local – he owns a home in Beaver Creek.
• DIA held onto its title as the third-busiest airport in the world. Only Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth ranked ahead of it.
• The New York Times added 180,000 digital subscribers in the second quarter of 2022, giving it 9.17 million total.
• Applebee’s got coverage for its latest marketing stunt: a line of chicken wing-flavored lip glosses.

Applebee’s has introduced Saucy Gloss, a line of chicken wing-flavored lip glosses. The collection includes four different flavors, including Get Me Hot Buffalo, Sweet Chile Kiss, Be My Honey Pepper, and Honey BBQ-T, “each with their own taste and hue.”