• Paraguayan tennis player Adolfo Daniel Vallejo has pinpointed the reason he lost to France‘s Moise Kouame at the French Open this week – the match was umpired by a woman. “This sort of match needs to be umpired by a man,” Vallejo said of the raucous, pro-France crowd. “It has to be refereed by a man, because it’s a very demanding crowd and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd.”
• Paul Petyo, one of the 173 State of Colorado IT workers who were laid off this week, spoke to Marshall Zelinger at 9News about how he received an email invite to a mass layoff meeting three minutes before it started. The state says that media interview was a violation of its workplace policies (he was required to get departmental approval to speak to media), so the state, which again has already terminated him, then placed Petyo on administrative leave.
• For a little over 30 years, the Achilles heel at DIA is that you must ride a train to access the B and C concourses. That has been a huge issue that has prevented passengers from moving back and forth between the terminal and the concourses when power outages or other technical issues occur. It was such a problem that in 2021 the airport asked the public to provide suggestions for alternatives. Well, it took five years, but DIA just announced a solution: use existing underground tunnels to create walkways to the concourses. I’m no airport designer, but I’m not sure why it took five years to identify that one.
• Japan is giving us a look into what happens when a xenophobic, insular country drastically limits immigration in an era of declining birth rates: an “accelerating demographic crisis.” The country’s population has declined by 3.1 million people in the last five years alone, and that number pales in comparison to what is coming – a projected population decline from 123 million people in 2025 to just 87 million in 2070. Experts note that the current decline in population is already constraining Japan’s economy and putting pressure on the country’s health care system and causing labor shortages.
• The new fully electric Ferrari Luce will cost you at minimum $640,000, but that is a bargain compared to what it has cost Ferrari. The vehicle’s toy-like design sparked a flood of social media memes mocking it, which caused the carmaker’s market cap to fall 8%, or about $5 billion. Ferrari’s former president and chairman Luca di Montezemolo struggled to find something positive about the design, and could only come up with, “This is surely a car that at least the Chinese won’t copy.”
• Hours after being announced as performers at a concert on the National Mall to celebrate America‘s 250th anniversary, Morris Day and the Time, Young MC, Martina McBride, Poison’s Bret Michaels and The Commodores announced they would not be performing at what they were concerned was becoming a partisan event. The show will go on, though, with Vanilla Ice, Flo Rida and C+C Music Factory.
• Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is an NBA MVP, but he has also earned a reputation for flopping and trying to draw cheap fouls. Fans have even held up trophies shaped like an Oscar to mock his “acting” skills on the court. Now, Gilgeous-Alexander’s lawyers have sent a cease and desist letter to the makers of “Unethical Hoops,” a board game similar to classic kids game “Operation” in which a buzzer goes off anytime he is touched.
• The good news for 90s rapper Fat Joe is that he is finally getting some media attention again. The bad news is that it is because the Cleveland Cavaliers, tired of insufferable New York Knicks fans buying up courtside seats in the Cavs’ arena, revoked his tickets. Fat Joe was among at least 10 fans who were notified that they had purchased courtside tickets that were not eligible to be resold. Alas, it did not help. The Knicks swept the Cavaliers.
• We are in year four of a struggling real estate market, and many real-estate professionals are finally reaching their breaking points. The number of registered brokers is down more than 12%, while mortgage-industry employment has declined almost 40% from its peak in 2021.
• Blue Origin, the space exploration company that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos created to compete with Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, gave residents of Cape Canaveral, Fla., a beautiful fireworks show this week. Unfortunately, the eruption of orange, yellow and crimson colors in the night sky was actually the company’s new Glenn rocket exploding on the launch pad during testing.
• Controversial former Colorado Avalanche star and four-time Stanley Cup winner Claude Lemieux passed away. He was 60.
• A highly touted Los Angeles Dodgers prospect playing for the team’s Double-A affiliate in Tulsa was injured when he tripped over the team’s “bat dog” – a dog trained to retrieve bats from players who dropped them on the way to first base. The team announced they were “suspending the program,” which is a shame because “pawsing the program” was sitting right there.

Who won the week?

• Sidecar PR founder and CEO Sarah Cullen has been named a 2026 Denver Business Journal “Outstanding Woman in Business“.
• Karsh Hagan | Madden promoted Melissa Pert to Senior Vice President of Integrated Media.
• Lumen Technologies promoted Jessica Taylor to Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer.
• Tina Peters is scheduled to be released from prison on Monday.

• Steven Rosenbaum, the author of “The Future of Truth,” a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth, acknowledged that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I. To his credit, that fact alone may illustrate more than the rest of the book what the future of truth will be.
• President Donald Trump was noncommittal about attending his son Don Jr.’s wedding this weekend, saying he would “try and make it,” but that “this is not good timing for me.” At least he didn’t say, “I’ll catch your next one.”
• Corey Hutchins‘ “Inside the News in Colorado” reports that The Denver Post‘s hedge-fund owners reached a new union agreement that gives staff a 3% raise this year and 3% next year. And then the Post abruptly announced a new round of buyouts that will eliminate another 10% of the newsroom. Granted, Alden Global Capital had already decimated the Post’s newsroom to the point that a 10% reduction represents only four employees.
• After an analysis revealed that 60% of the grades given at Harvard were “A”s, the university’s faculty voted to limit the number given to 20%.
• An investigation by 9News reporter Steve Staeger found that the Town of Hudson illegally issued $1.25 million in speeding tickets using an automated camera system that did not comply with state law. The town voted this week to void the tickets and issue refunds to those who had already paid them.
• Colorado‘s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis fancies himself a libertarian outsider capable of bridging the political divide, and nothing seemingly pleases him more than taking a contrarian position. That likely was his motivation in commuting the prison sentence of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was prosecuted by a Republican D.A. and convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors by a jury of her peers in heavily Republican Garfield County. The commutation will be Polis’ legacy, and so far it is not going well. The Colorado Democratic Party voted to formally censure him, and days after commuting her sentence Vice President J.D. Vance announced that Peters is exactly who the Trump administration had in mind when it created a $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate what they say are victims of prosecutorial overreach by the Biden administration.
• Tennessee postponed the execution of a convicted murderer after staff members were unable to find a vein to administer the lethal injection drugs.
• Denver police had to respond to the Cherry Creek Shopping Center after the Swatch store was overwhelmed by fans trying to buy its newly released line of Royal Pop pocket watches. That’s bad news for the mall, but good news for Swatch, which received millions of dollars in free publicity nationwide.
• Jeff Probst, the host of the TV show “Survivor,” accidentally shared the result of upcoming episode that has not yet aired.
• The restaurant chain Atomic Cowboy agreed to pay $800,000 after it stiffed servers on pay.
• “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert hosted his final episode last night, the victim of CBS‘s efforts to placate President Donald Trump. David Letterman, who created “The Late Show,” was a guest during the final week of shows, and offered a CBS-themed farewell to the company’s executives: “In the words of the great (CBS journalist) Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, motherf*ckers!”
• A 56-year-old woman was killed when she fell into an open manhole after she stepped out of her S.U.V. in Manhattan.
• The Aurora City Council is feuding with the Aurora Police Department. Fed up with what it views as excessive social media editorializing about crime and the posting of mug shots of people charged but not convicted of crimes, the council passed an emergency resolution requiring APD to get city approval before posting on social media, sending news releases or commenting on legislation.
• A middle-aged Australian man walking down stairs to a beach became the star of an outdoor fashion show he didn’t know was taking place. As a male model sashayed down the long stairway to kick the fashion show off, the beachgoer popped out onto the stairs ahead of him and was the first “model” to cross the stage.
• Strippers in Montreal are using this weekend’s Formula 1 race as an opportunity to strike to call attention to their demands for better working conditions.
• Friends and family are mourning the death of longtime CBS4 producer Raetta Holdman.

Who won the week?

• Alyson Benn has been named Vice President of Corporate Marketing at View Homes.
• The City of Lafayette appointed Erin Frazier as the city’s new communications director.
• PRSA Colorado is accepting entries for its 2026 Gold Pick awards. The early-bird deadline is May 27, and the regular deadline is June 5.
• A new union contract with New York City hotels will result in housekeepers earning more than $100,000 annually.
• Elon Musk is poised to take his company SpaceX public, a move that likely would make him the world’s first trillionaire.

• Some New York University students have philosophical objections to 2026 graduation keynote speaker Jonathan Haidt and demanded that he be replaced. Why don’t they want him to speak at graduation? His argument that “the American education system has poorly served a generation of young people by cocooning them from ideas they might find distressing.”
• AI has significantly increased the rate of college grade inflation, and the proliferation of “A” grades is making it harder for employers to distinguish between good and great prospective employees.
• The U.S. government addressed the actions it is taking in response to the recent hantavirus outbreak, and the press conference was led by Admiral Brian Christine, MD, the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If you are already familiar with Dr. Christine, my sympathies. The Trump administration appointee is most known for his clinical work as a penile implant specialist who hosted a YouTube series called “Erection Connection.”
• The Trump Mobile cell phone will begin shipping next week, a year later than originally promised. The $499 cell phone, which CNN reports looks suspiciously like a Chinese cell phone that retails for about $199 at Walmart, will be gold and features the Trump logo prominently.
• Recess Beer Garden in the Lower Highlands neighborhood canceled an anti-vaxxer singles event when, as 9News’ Kyle Clark put it, “word of the mixer started spreading as fast as an easily-prevented but highly-communicable disease.” If you are a fan of disease, however, there is good news. Westword reports that The Grizzly Rose has stepped in to host the event.
• A Chicago White Sox fan was hospitalized when he fell from the bleachers into the visiting Kansas City Royals‘ bullpen.
• Chick-fil-A famously is closed on Sundays so workers can enjoy the sabbath, but an employee who is a member of the United Church of God in Texas has sued the restaurant chain for refusing to give her Saturdays off so she can enjoy her sabbath.
• A White House staffer was reportedly trampled by Chinese journalists during President Donald Trump‘s trip to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
• Friends, family and Denver sports fans are mourning the death of former Denver Broncos QB Craig Morton at age 83. He led Denver to its first Super Bowl in 1977.

Who won the week?

• The Sundance Film Festival has named Bloomerang PR as its Colorado agency of record.
• Denver Business Journal reporter Analisa Romano has left the publication to focus on a freelance career.
• CBS4 anchor/reporter Kelly Werthmann is among the participants of the 2026 “Dancing with the Denver Stars,” a fundraiser for the nonprofit Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.
• Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is renaming its Littleton location after actress and Denver-native Pam Grier. The Pam Grier Cinema is officially being dedicated today to recognize her “badass career.” 
• The Colorado Rapids named Justyne Freud as the club’s first-ever senior vice president of marketing and brand strategy.
• The Colorado Avalanche came back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Minnesota Wild and advance to the Western Conference Finals. If they win that series, they are in the Stanley Cup Finals.

• The CEO of Delta Air Lines made a classic PR mistake: he told the truth. On a recent earnings call, CEO Ed Bastian shared with analysts that the airline would maintain the higher fares caused by the war with Iran even if oil prices declined in the future. In essence, the prices you see today are the airline’s new floor.
• Economists are trying to make sense of a stagnant high-end art market even as the number of individuals considered “super rich” continues to grow and deliveries of private jets and yachts reach all-time highs. Some theorize that “the art world has become too reliant on baby boomer collectors who are past their peak buying years.” Regardless, if you’ve had your eye on a Warhol, and research into the Denver PR Blog readership indicates most have seven-figure art pieces in their homes, now is the time to make it happen.
• Police in Vancouver rejected a request to give FIFA President Gianni Infantino a “level-four motorcade escort” typically reserved for dignitaries such as the Pope. It would have meant blocking off other drivers so Infantino’s vehicle could run through red lights.
• While we have all been distracted trying to protect our trees from the emerald ash borer and the mountain pine beetle, a sneaky new invasive threat has established a stronghold – the Asian jumping worm. Ground zero of our infestation is Denver‘s Hilltop neighborhood.
• ESPN, supported by its official sports betting partner DraftKings, reports that Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby has checked into a residential treatment program for a gambling addiction.
• If there is one person you don’t want to pick a fight with, it is Kalyn Heffernan. Westword describes her as a “disability activist,” but that just scratches the surface of her influence and tenacity. Why am I mentioning her? Blame RTD. Denver‘s transit agency created a campaign that wrapped buses with visuals celebrating the Americans with Disabilities Act, and one of them was a picture of Heffernan that was used without her knowledge or consent. She had thoughts, which she shared with Westword: “It’s so tokenizing, it’s exploitative, it’s performative. … (RTD was) the first transit company to be forced to be made accessible.”
• Fans of Colorado peaches are mourning a crop that will never be. An early April deep freeze — preceded and followed by an unusually dry and warm period — destroyed peach crops across Colorado’s Western Slope. There is a silver lining: orchards in Palisade were largely unaffected.
• The futures of Denver Nuggets players and coaches are up in the air after the team lost in the first round of the playoffs, another disappointing end to a season following the team’s 2023 NBA title. A team that was expected by many to become a dynasty has since fizzled.
• Former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms received the dreaded endorsement of former President Joe Biden in her effort to become governor of Georgia. The endorsement follows Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer‘s recent endorsement of Maine Gov. Janet Mills for U.S. Senate, which ended in her abandoning her campaign after failing to gain traction with voters. Dinosaurs never realize they’re dinosaurs, I guess.
• The Saudis created LIV Golf as a competitor to the PGA golf tour as an effort to elevate the country’s influence on the world’s sports stage, but after four years and $5 billion, they have decided it’s not working and will no longer fund it. That has left the tour in a “free fall” and many of the players who abandoned the PGA tour to join LIV professionally homeless. On the bright side, none of the players were choked to death, dismembered and disposed of by Saudi operatives, so they have that going for them.
• We’ve seen a lot of fights about high school mascots named after Native Americans, but here’s a new one. Residents of Lenox, Mass., a wealthy community in the Berkshires, are passionately divided about their local high school mascot, the Lenox Millionaires. Part of the divide is generational. Younger residents find the name arrogant and embarrassing, and older residents argue that changing it is erasing history. They say to never argue about religion, politics or high school mascots.
• For those of us with healthcare/health care clients, the debate as to whether it is spelled as one or two words has raged for years. For decades, AP Style has dictated two words, making life harder for us one-worders. However, this week, editors at the AP Stylebook announced it shall be spelled as one word from now on. The good news: not having to type a space is 8.33% more efficient. Think of how many other things you can now get done.
• Finally, on a profoundly sad note, the family of beloved former Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post reporter Lynn Bartels has shared that Lynn is recovering from surgery to remove a large brain tumor. The pathology report has confirmed a diagnosis of a glioblastoma, an aggressive, fast-growing form of brain cancer.

Who won the week?

• GroundFloor Media added Jess McCaa as an integrated project manager and Jojo Segura as a creative services coordinator.
• Republican attorneys general in Kansas and Indiana have joined the legal fight to block Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna on antitrust grounds.
• The North Denver bar Yacht Club was named one of the country’s 10 best, according to Food & Wine magazine.