Who Had the Worst Week?

• A Southwest Airlines pilot was removed from a plane and arrested for being inebriated as he was seated in the cockpit performing preflight checks.
• Toyota Motors’ trucking unit will plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $1.6 billion in civil and criminal penalties for concealing excess emissions from diesel engines sold in the United States..
• Meanwhile, American Express has agreed to pay $230 million to settle allegations that it was engaged in fraud probe and deceptive marketing practices.
• And Capital One has been accused by federal regulators of cheating its customers out of more than $2 billion. The bank allegedly deceived customers into accepting interest rates that were a tiny fraction of what they appeared to be.
• A group of investors that includes former Facebook and Skype executives is trying to raise $5 billion to do to the NBA what LIV Golf did to the PGA. And the nascent international basketball league just announced that Maverick Carter, LeBron James’ longtime friend and business partner, has joined the effort as a consultant.
• A Philadelphia Eagles fan whose foul-mouthed and misogynistic attacks were captured on video and shared via social media was banned for life from Eagles games and fired from his job. The chef’s kiss: he worked for a DEI consulting firm.
• Apple is temporarily disabling its AI summaries of notifications from news and entertainment apps amid media reports of wildly inaccurate results.
• DIA ranks sixth nationally for number of guns confiscated at TSA checkpoints. Four of the top 10 were located in Texas, and the airports in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston topped the list.
• A Pakistan International Airlines ad is being criticized as evoking the 9/11 terror attacks. The ad shows a plane flying toward the Eiffel Tower with the tagline, “Paris, we’re coming today.”
• MSNBC President Rashida Jones has stepped down amid ratings that have cratered following the November presidential election.
• More than 400 Washington Post employees have signed a letter to owner Jeff Bezos asking for a meeting to discuss their concerns about the future of the newspaper.

Who won the week?

• Johanna Erickson is now Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Special Olympics Colorado.
• Jesse Granger has taken the External Communications Manager position at Google Fiber.
• Turner PR has been retained as agency of record for Travel Wisconsin.
• Verde Brand Communications has been named agency of record for the eyewear brand VALLON.
• The Kennedy Center announced that comedian and talk-show host Conan O’Brien will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
• The house featured in the movie “Home Alone” sold for $5.5 million, $250,000 over its asking price.