• Vail Resorts reports that skier visits are down 20% this year, which the company blamed on the dry, warm fall and winter in the western United States.
• Verizon‘s cell and data services went down for a day this week, leaving millions of customers without service.
• A group of Kaiser Permanente affiliates that includes the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado and Colorado Permanente Medical Group P.C. have agreed to pay $556 million to settle allegations they committed Medicare fraud and pressured doctors to list incorrect diagnoses on medical records to receive higher reimbursements.
• It was a tough week for celebrities:
  • Former “West Wing” and “Thirtysomething” actor Timothy Busfield is facing allegations of child sex abuse in New Mexico and California.
  • Former “24” actor Kiefer Sutherland was arrested for allegedly assaulting a ride-share driver.
  • Former “Home Alone” actor Daniel Stern has been charged with soliciting a prostitute.
• Twenty current and former college basketball players have been charged with rigging the outcome of NCAA basketball games. The players represented universities including Tulane, DePaul and Fordham. That news is brought to you by ESPN and its official sports book provider DraftKings.
• Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip “Dilbert,” passed away from metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 68. At its height, “Dilbert” appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers globally and was made into a short-lived TV series. But “Dilbert” effectively ended in 2023 when Adams shared his view that African-Americans were “a hate group” and that “the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people.”
• The San Francisco 49ers continue to have far more than their fair share of injuries, and some amateur sleuths have identified what they say is the culprit: an electrical sub station located adjacent to the team’s stadium and practice facilities. Experts have dismissed the theory, but a social media post alleging that “low-frequency electromagnetic fields can degrade collagen, weaken tendons, and cause soft-tissue damage” has gone viral among players.
• The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) suspended two Norwegian ski jumping coaches and the team’s suit technician for 18 months for altering suits during the world championships last year.
• Sebastian Ofner, an Austrian playing in an Australian Open qualifier match, celebrated “winning” the fifth set tie breaker 7-1, only to learn that you must reach 10 points to win in Grand Slams. Naturally, Ofner then lost 12 of the next 16 points to lose the match.

Who won the week?

• In a full-circle moment as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, my firm GFM|CenterTable has rebranded and will once again be known as GroundFloor Media (GFM).
• The Rocky Mountain chapter of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) has appointed Margaret Fogarty and Leigh Picchetti to its board. Fogarty and Picchetti, the co-founders of Corkboard Communications, will serve as Second Vice President and Treasurer, respectively.
• Laura Schwinkendorf of Barefoot PR and Mark Truax of Pac/West Strategies are winners in the Denver Business Journal‘s 2026 40 Under 40 awards.
• Mandy Melbi has been appointed Vice President of Marketing at Nextworld.
• Matt Wagner has added Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver to his day job as a Vice President at Ogilvy.
• 9News announced that Drew Carney will replace Jordan Chavez as its weekday morning-show anchor. Carney has spent the past 19 years in Portland.
• The Denver Summit NWSL soccer team signed local women’s soccer star Lindsey Horan Heaps. Heaps is a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team and played soccer at Golden High School.