• A postal carrier who stole, filled out and submitted 19 mail ballots as part of a rogue plan to test the security of Colorado‘s signature verification process was sentenced to five years in jail. The scheme was identified when election officials contacted alleged voters whose signatures did not match and learned they had not submitted ballots.
• University of Colorado Regent Wanda James and her colleagues are using The Denver Post‘s editorial page to fight over a board investigation that could lead to her censure.
• The U.S. Navy stripped former San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk‘s name from one of its vessels. Milk was a U.S. Navy veteran and the first openly gay man to be elected to office in California. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth justified the decision by saying, “People want to be proud of the ship they are sailing in.”
• Jake Rosencranz, a University of Denver alum who worked in Denver at the Behm Consulting Group, was struck by lightning and killed while on his honeymoon in Florida.
• Two U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team players – Weston McKennie and Tim Weah – who play professionally with Juventus in Italy have caused an uproar by alleging that the country’s food is boring and lacks variety.
• What appeared to be an off-the-cuff comment in a press conference from Denver Nuggets Vice Chairman Josh Kroenke about the potential to trade MVP Nicola Jokić serves as a reminder of how careful and prepared executives need to be when speaking to the media. The throwaway comment completely overshadowed the intention of the press conference, which was to introduce the team’s new co-GMs.
• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez‘s wedding this weekend had to be relocated to a more secure venue after residents of Venice, Italy, threatened to crash it. If you are still looking for a gift for the couple, $2,000 is the largest gift card Amazon offers.
• Elon Musk fired Tesla‘s head of North American and European operations following a prolonged sales slump, as if that guy was the problem.
• Brad Pitt‘s Los Angeles home was ransacked and robbed while he was away promoting a new movie.
• Microsoft has updated its infamous “blue screen of death” to a new-and-improved black version. Maybe the engineers instead could have focused on eliminating the bugs that cause it in the first place?
• President Donald Trump‘s new cell phone venture, Trump Mobile, quickly pulled the coverage map from its website when critics noticed that it included the “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the “Gulf of America.”
• Gov. Jared Polis‘ desire to build a legacy project in the form of a $30 million bridge to connect the state capitol to Lincoln Park has hit a snag in the form of 9News’ Kyle Clark. The most influential media figure in town has been on a crusade to kill the project, even spending a six-minute block of his “Next with Kyle Clark” show on a commentary criticizing every aspect of the plan.

Who won the week?

• PRSA Colorado announced the winner of its 2025 awards:
  • Doug Hock, longtime oil-and-gas communications executive, won the Lifetime Achievement award.
  • Jennifer Quermann, senior director of Communications and Marketing at the Butterfly Pavilion, won the PR Person of the Year award.
  • Walker Shumock-Bailey, marketing coordinator at A Little Help, won the Rookie of the Year award.
  • Jake Kasowski, managing supervisor at FleishmanHillard, won the Chapter Service award.
  • Jason Evans, communications manager at FlatironDragados, won the Mentor of the Year award.
  • Rosalind “Bee” Harris, publisher of the Denver Urban Spectrum, won the Outstanding Business Leader award.
  • Tina Griego, senior editor at the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, won the Media Professional of the Year award.
• Reporter Nicky Andrews announced she is leaving the Boulder Daily Camera/Longmont Times-Call. No word yet on where she will land.
• Metro State, a longtime commuter campus, has unveiled plans to build its first on-campus residence hall, a $118 million project that will house 550 students.