• Kanye West pulled what The Wall Street Journal called a “switcheroo” when he submitted local-market Super Bowl ads that directed people to his website that sold non-controversial apparel, and then swapped the clothing out for wildly sexist and antisemitic versions. The ads aired in markets such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Atlanta before the local stations realized what was going on.
• Kid Rock threw an on-stage temper-tantrum that was posted to social media when a Nashville crowd was not clapping enthusiastically enough for his taste. “If you ain’t gonna clap, we ain’t gonna sing. That’s how it’s gonna go,” the singer told the crowd. In (probably) unrelated news, reports emerged this week that Kid Rock was seen getting into a cab at 2:30 a.m. with Colorado‘s own Rep. Lauren Boebert on inauguration night.
• If you are hug-deprived, good news! Denver apparently has a cadre of “professional cuddlers” who can help. That’s not creepy at all.
• Mittens the cat may have more frequent fliers miles than you do. The cat ended up making repeated trips between Australia and New Zealand when cargo unloaders overlooked her crate due to a wheelchair that had been stowed in front of it.
• Are egg prices out of control? Thieves swiped 100,000 of them from the trailer of a semi in Pennsylvania. I doubt George Clooney or Brad Pitt will play any of the characters in the movie version of this whodunnit.
• If you were hoping President Donald Trump would get tired and settle down a bit, it’s not looking good. This week he banned AP reporters from news conferences for not using his “Gulf of America” designation, gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, imposed a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, stopped DOJ investigations into friends WWE founder Vince McMahon and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, banned eco-friendly paper straws from government buildings, appointed himself chair of the Kennedy Center (expect a lot of Lee Greenwood and Kid Rock performances), fired numerous inspector general watchdogs, furloughed 97% of the employees at USAID, and cut federal NIH medical research funding, among other things.
• Meanwhile, President Trump‘s announcement that he wants the U.S. to stop minting pennies could hit the Denver Mint hard. The facility makes more than a billion pennies each year.
• The Colorado legislature saw some rare bipartisan spirit this week. Unfortunately for Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis (D-Longmont), it was the Senate Ethics Committee that is investigating accusations that she was abusive toward five of her legislative aides. She did not impress her colleagues by railing against the appropriateness of an ethics investigation when she herself publicly called for one to investigate the allegations several months ago.
• Happy Valentine’s Day! (Presumably male) researchers have found that men are actually more romantic than women. The researchers did acknowledge that, “In relationship research, ‘romanticism’ refers to general beliefs about love, rather than (actual) actions taken within romantic relationships.” So, in men’s minds, thinking about getting you flowers is basically the same thing as doing it.
• A celebration of life was recently held for Ned High, a Denver journalist and public relations firm owner. He passed away at the age of 90.

Who won the week?

• Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has joined the Denver public affairs firm Freestone Strategies.
• Former Denver Post reporter Joe Rubino is now a senior media relations strategist for the City of Aurora.
• The most-liked Super Bowl commercials were from brands Pfizer, Doritos, Budweiser, Booking.com and Little Caesars.
• A humpback whale scooped up a kayaker in its mouth off the coast of Chile and then spit him back out. The kayaker was not injured in the incident, which was captured on video by his father who was kayaking with him.
• KOSI-101.1 FM DJ Murphy Huston is retiring after 28 years at the station and a 53-year career in radio.
• The social media app TikTok is now again available in both the Apple and Google app stores.
• Could United Airlines move its corporate headquarters from Chicago to Denver? A recent land purchase advance to DIA has some speculating it might.
• YouTube users now consume more than 1 billion hours of content each day, and interestingly TV streaming has surpassed both mobile and desktop streaming.
• A giant schnauzer named Monty won this year’s Best in Show honors at the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show.