• Tennis great Serena Williams had a grapefruit-sized cyst removed from her neck. Tests confirmed that it was not cancerous.
• Thieves have stolen $110,000 worth of copper from RTD track signals, switches and rail crossings since April, actions that have caused significant disruptions to train service.
• Bath & Body Works has apologized for its “Snowed In” scented candle whose design looks suspiciously like a KKK hood.
• Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding is wanted by the FBI in connection with charges that he ran a drug trafficking ring that shipped vast amounts of cocaine across the Americas and killed several people. I guess Shaun White isn’t the most entrepreneurial snowboarder after all.
• El Paso County leads the state in a bizarre demographic trend: It has more men than women, with 103.5 men for every 100 women. Denver isn’t far behind at 101.8 men per 100 women, leaving many to wonder—where are all the women?
• Wimbledon is ditching human line judges and replacing them with the high-tech Hawk-Eye system. That’s 300 temporary workers out of a job as the tournament fully embraces the future of electronic line calls.
• The headquarters for the Mountain West conference will leave Colorado Springs for Las Vegas as soon as its current lease expires.
• The precision of meteorologists’ forecasts for where hurricanes will make landfall has some conspiracy theorists convinced the meteorologists are directing where they hit. Relatedly, MLB‘s Tampa Bay Rays will not be able to open the 2025 season at home at Tropicana Field because of extensive damage caused by Hurricane Milton. That is, of course, all Al Roker‘s fault.
• Germany‘s Lufthansa Airlines was fined a record $4 million for discriminating against Jewish passengers who were wearing traditional Orthodox clothing.
• Former One Direction singer Liam Payne died after falling from a third floor window at a hotel in Argentina. Meanwhile, after intense criticism TMZ quickly removed a partial photo it said was of Payne’s body following the fall.
• The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to 1,300 people who say they were sexually abused by Catholic priests. The payment brings the L.A. archdiocese’s total payments for abuses to more than $1.5 billion.
• Boeing plans to lay off 17,000 workers and take $5 billion in charges. Those actions follow a crippling labor strike and continued quality issues that date back years.
• Chess scandal! Grandmaster Kirill Shevchenko was booted from a tournament in Spain after he was accused of using a cell phone in a bathroom to get help from a computer program.
• High cocoa prices, combined with a growing preference among Millennial and Gen Z consumers for chewy and sour treats, will make Halloween hand-outs look different this year.
• The press release is dead. Long live the press release. Bonus press release news: the terms “thrilled” and “cutting edge” in press releases may have peaked in 2023.

Who won the week?

• Erin Rist has accepted the position as Director of Marketing and Development at BGOLDN.
• Denver‘s Turner PR been reappointed as the PR agency of record for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism.
• Publicis Groupe, which owns PR agencies MSL and Kekst CNC, saw organic revenue increase 5.8% in Q3. And Omnicom Group increased its organic revenue 4.3% in Q3.
• Ent Credit Union has signed Denver Broncos QB Bo Nix and KOA NewsRadio announcer Dave Logan as brand ambassadors.
• Recently retired Colorado Rockies star Charlie Blackmon didn’t waste any time getting out of Colorado. He and his family have relocated to Atlanta and his home in the Belcaro neighborhood is now listed for $4.3 million.
• We are seven weeks into the NFL season, and the Denver Broncos have a winning record.