Who Had the Worst Week?

• 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?