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.