Buckle up. It was quite a week.

• You may have thought this summer’s World Cup was a PR dumpster fire with its “FIFA Peace Prize” and FIFA officials kowtowing to President Donald Trump‘s demand to rescind a red card for an American player, but things have really escalated in the two weeks since the tournament ended. FIFA President Gianni Infantino blindsided the world with a plan to sell billions of dollars in stakes in the World Cup to private equity, including Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The European soccer federation UEFA is leading the resistance, and its 55 member countries that include Spain, England, Germany, France and Italy have announced they will boycott all FIFA events until the proposal is killed.
• U.S. Senate Republicans subpoenaed Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to ask questions about the origins of COVID-19 and his response to the pandemic. What they got was Fauci invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions more than 100 times. Following the hearing, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley criticized Fauci, tweeting that “no honest person pleads the Fifth.” Democrats were quick to point out that President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 400 times in a 2022 deposition.
• Artificial intelligence systems at both Anthropic and OpenAI have gone rogue and independently hacked into computer networks of third-party companies, an ominous sign that may validate A.I. researchers who fear that the technology is advancing so rapidly that it could soon spiral out of human control.
  • Meanwhile, SE2‘s Eric Anderson is among those criticizing the A.I. company LemonLime for its “Orwellian” plan to offer immediate job interviews to anyone who agreed to get a tattoo of the company’s logo during a networking event. Seven people took the company up on its offer, and the CEO responded to the backlash by announcing, “I messed up.”
• Mercurial actor Jared Leto may have an Oscar, but his career is quickly being defined by the number of women coming forward claiming he sexually assaulted them. This week, the BBC aired a documentary that included allegations from 10 women that he abused them, including one who accused him of statutory rape. Leto has not been charged with any crimes related to the 10 women and he denies the allegations. He has also been accused of other sexual assaults over the course of his career.
• LIV Golf was created as a splashy alternative to the PGA golf tour, and it was funded with billions of dollars of Saudi Arabian money as the country tried to elevate its presence in the sports world. The Saudis didn’t get what they expected from the tour, and they have pulled the plug on their funding and LIV has just canceled its marquee final event, its team championship that would have awarded more than $40 million to the winners. LIV appears dead.
• The K-pop band BTS is planning to boycott the Grammys over what it believes is an attempt to sideline the band from higher-profile categories by creating a new category, “Best Asian Pop Music Performance.”
• CBS football analyst Tony Romo is on leave from the network after being arrested for DUI.
• A Canadian court of appeals has ruled that a man wrongfully served 18 months in prison after being convicted of child sexual abuse imagery offenses when investigators mixed up his username on an instant messaging app. The man’s username was “fus_ro_dah” and the username of the individual authorities meant to target was “fus__ro_dah.”
• In normal times, Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Victor Marx would be considered … an unconventional choice? He makes a living performing exorcisms, has claimed to have killed a person for the first time at age 7 and has had to backtrack from claims that he has rescued 45,000 at-risk women and children abroad. But in today’s Colorado Republican party that doesn’t seem to be serious about winning, he is pretty much on brand. Experts give his opponent, current Attorney General Phil Weiser a roughly 96% chance of winning, and some Republicans are concerned that former Republican Greg Lopez who is running as an Independent could cause Marx to fall short of the 10% threshold needed for the Republican party to maintain its status as a “major party.” Marx needs something to change the current dynamic, so it was a surprise to see him announce this week he would refuse to participate in a debate with Weiser if it included a moderator.
• A U.S. citizen is facing felony charges after he gave customs officers his duress passcode for his phone when they demanded to search it after he returned from a trip abroad. Entering the duress passcode immediately wiped the phone. The man’s attorneys argue the search was illegal in the first place and that he was targeted because of his history of anti-police activism.
• Not a Wall Street Journal headline that Aspen homeowners want to see: “Aspen’s Market Seemed Unstoppable Until the Snow Disappeared.” Clearly Colorado’s lack of snowfall in recent years is having an impact.
• San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan – a Cherry Creek High School graduate and son of former Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan – is expected to miss some of the team’s training camp after being significantly injured in a car accident. Shanahan broke his nose, three ribs and bones in his hand; needed more than 40 stitches; and suffered what is described as a “severe” concussion.
  • Kyle Shanahan‘s car accident wasn’t reported in the media for nearly two weeks, and some journalists including ESPN‘s Adam Schefter have been criticized for allegedly sitting on the news at the San Francisco 49ers‘ request. Schefter co-wrote a book with Kyle’s father Mike Shanahan.
• The Denver Public Schools board and superintendent Alex Marrero find themselves in the worst kind of stand-off. Neither of them wants Marrero there, but the board refuses to buy Marrero out of his contract and Marrero refuses to resign. Good luck, kids!
• Howard University has reinstated 200 students – about 20% of its incoming class – that it accepted and then unenrolled when they failed to meet school deadlines for payment. Many of the students said they had reported pending scholarships and payment plans to the school well prior to the school’s deadline. In a moment of cognitive dissonance, the school interim president both announced the students had been reinstated and then insisted that, “The university didn’t make a mistake.”
• The Tour de France was forced to reroute its final stage due to wildfires ravaging the country. The tour shortened the final stage and redesigned it to take place entirely within Paris because emergency personnel originally assigned to the tour have been redeployed to the southwest of France to help address wildfires.
• When a pair of journalists wrote articles critical of eBay, several of the company’s security personnel went nuclear, including anonymously mailing them threatening packages containing a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, live cockroaches and a bloody pig mask. When the plot finally fell apart, seven eBay employees were charged and several served prison sentences. This week, eBay settled a lawsuit with the journalists for $56 million.
• Elijah Bieniemy, the son of former University of Colorado running back and current Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, has been arrested after allegedly shooting his mother, Eric’s wife, at their home in Virginia.
• An official presentation from officials at the U.S. Department of State at the AIDS 2026 summit in Rio de Janeiro featured a map of Africa that called out six countries that are receiving U.S. funding. All six countries were misidentified.
• The University of North Carolina sold its soul for the chance to get the NFL‘s greatest coach ever, Bill Belichick, as its head coach. It has been a disaster, and it is getting worse. Belichick’s team went 4-8 last year and was overshadowed by a feud between UNC’s athletic department and Belichick’s 26-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson. This season hasn’t even begun yet, and already there are more issues. UNC just placed Belichick’s hand-picked general manager, Michael Lombardi, on leave due to alleged HR complaints. Meanwhile, the College Sports Commission, the enforcement body that looks into potential violations of NIL and revenue-sharing rules, has reportedly launched an investigation into the program.
• Cracker Barrel has been on a years-long decline as its core customers dwindled and its country-kitsch brand prevented it from attracting new, younger customers. The company brought in CEO Julie Masino to shake things up, and she did by refreshing Cracker Barrel’s brand and modernizing its locations. Many existing customers revolted, however, and the Cracker Barrel board undermined Masino and caved immediately, creating one of the biggest PR disasters of the past year. Predictably, Masino is now out at Cracker Barrel.
• A minority owner of the WNBA‘s Seattle Storm franchise has been suspended and fined by the league after confronting and cursing at two teenage girls who held signs supporting Indianapolis Fever star Sophie Cunningham at a recent game. Cunningham has been vocal in her opposition to allowing transgender women to play in women’s sports.
• Thirteen YMCA campers in New Jersey were reduced to what a parent described as “little baby zombies” after consuming mushroom-laced edibles brought and shared by a fellow camper.

Who won the week?

• Cancer recovery support nonprofit Worth the Wait has selected M&C Communications to provide PR services.
• Denver‘s Sukle has been named Ad Age‘s “2026 Purpose-Led Agency of the Year.”
• CBS4 reporter Alan Gionet is retiring from the business after nearly 40 years as a television journalist.
• Colorado was named as the No. 1 state in the country for education by U.S. News & World Report.
• Forbes released its list of highest paid podcasters, and Joe Rogan topped it at $82 million. Others on the list: Jason and Travis Kelce made $35 million from their podcast “New Heights,” while actors/comedians Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes made $37 million.
• Happy birthday, Colorado. Our state turns 150 tomorrow.

• Is Taylor Farms the source of the Cyclospora parasite that has sickened more than 11,000 people in the U.S.? The FDA first said a positive test confirmed it was, then walked back that test as a “false positive” but said it remained confident that Taylor Farms was the source. Adding intrigue, Taylor Farms claimed the FDA apologized, but the FDA disputes that. Nothing like a “whodunnit” to keep this issue front and center in the headlines.
• Controversial bro influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested in Miami after British authorities filed 38 charges against them that included rape and sex trafficking. The brothers also face human trafficking charges in Romania and the state of Florida has an active criminal investigation into their behavior.
• Denver Water set a goal of users reducing their water usage by 20% following our record drought winter. How is it going? Users have cut their usage by 2%.
• The Denver Downtown Development Authority (DDDA) has dangled $7 million in incentives to encourage Alterra Mountain Co. – the owner of the Aspen/Snowmass, Jackson Hole and Arapahoe Basin ski resorts, among others – to relocate from RiNo to Upper Downtown. Kyle Zeppelin, the nepo owner of Zeppelin Station that currently houses Alterra, is furious, calling the financial incentive to help move Alterra from one part of Downtown Denver to another the start of a “civil war of neighborhoods.”
• Just because the FIFA World Cup is over doesn’t mean the crass commercialization has ended. New Jersey is feuding with FIFA over what it says are FIFA plans to sell small bits of the World Cup Final playing surface to fans. At stake are proceeds of more than $11 million, money that New Jersey officials believe should belong to taxpayers who paid for the field.
  • Speaking of soccer, an independent international advisory body has notified FIFA that some recent World Cup games may have been fixed. FIFA, not surprisingly, is dismissing all the claims, saying that its own analysis found “no suspicious betting activity or indications of match manipulation.”
• The Henley Passport Index is a measure of which countries’ passports get the holder into the most other countries without prior visa authorization. It is considered by some to be a ranking of the soft power that countries hold globally. Two decades ago, the U.S. was tied for first, and this year we have fallen to 10th. The new leader is Singapore, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Japan and South Korea, which are all tied for second.
• FIFA President Gianni Infantino has shown remarkable levels of sycophancy to President Donald Trump, including making up a FIFA Peace Prize to soothe President Trump’s hurt feelings after being passed over for a Nobel Peace Prize. Now, President Trump is lobbying for Infantino to be the next United Nations secretary-general, an endorsement that will certainly kill any remote possibility Infantino had of getting the job since the position is elected by secret ballot and the winner can be vetoed by Russia or China, among others.
• We’ll file this one in the “It’s Never Too Late to Do the Right Thing” folder – Flock CEO Garrett Langley has apologized for calling privacy advocates who oppose Flock cameras “terrorists.” Langley told Forbes this week that, “My comments were a mistake and I apologize.” Did he have a change of heart? Unlikely. More likely is that he is responding to the traction protesters have made nationwide in ending Flock contracts, including with Denver.
• Regal Colorado Cinema 9 has one of only two IMAX 70mm projectors in Colorado, but that doesn’t mean it is a good one. Moviegoers who purchased tickets to see Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey” weeks ago have been frustrated that the projector continues to break down, forcing them to shift to standard IMAX screens or get refunds.
• Friends and family of longtime Colorado reporter Bill Fryar are mourning his passing at age 80. Fryar spent nearly 40 years with Prairie Mountain Media, the publisher of the Boulder Daily Camera and the Longmont Times-Call.
• Billionaire Bill Koch put his 52-acre Aspen estate on the market for $125 million in 2025, but failed to find any buyers. He pivoted to an auction last week, and the winning bid was $33.5 million – a 73% discount. Aspen … it’s for bargain hunters.
• The food critic for The Washington Post tried the new “Spam Dog” hot dog available at some baseball stadiums, and suggested it is worth a bite. But just one. “My first bite of the basic Spam Dog was a pleasant surprise,” he said. “Four bites later, I retracted everything. The gurgling inside my stomach told me there was no way I would finish this dog, not even under duress.”
• A maintenance worker in Illinois spent seven hours trapped inside a gas station sign 130 feet in the air after his lift malfunctioned. Firefighters who responded couldn’t initially rescue him because their tallest ladders can only reach 100 feet.
• A 77-year-old Florida woman is fighting with Broward County over a license plate she was given – SQZ A55 – that she feels is a little suggestive.

Who won the week?

• Quinn Kelsey has joined FleishmanHillard as a Senior Vice President.
• PeaceHealth has added Gregg Moss as its System Vice President of Marketing & Communications.
• Elexis Schroder of SchroderHaus was named a winner of the PRSA “Women of Impact” awards.
• Denver-based Vantage Data Centers appointed Ed Harnaga as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer.
• Former 9News morning anchor Jordan Chavez has resurfaced at Denver7. He will be the station’s new morning anchor, and his first day is Aug. 3 (timed to honor a six-month non-compete?). Curiously, when Chavez departed 9News, the station said he was leaving “to start a new chapter outside of TV news.” With the state of TV salaries these days, however, Denver7 isn’t Chavez’s only new job. He announced he is also starting a position as a coach at Orange Theory Fitness.
• The Denver Business Journal added Brett Forrest to cover the economic-development beat. He joins the DBJ from KOAA-TV in Colorado Springs.
• Denver Gazette and Colorado Springs Gazette editor Vince Bzdek announced he is retiring and will transition to a new “editor emeritus” position.
• Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Weiser named former CPR reporter and current Jeffco Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper as his lieutenant governor running mate.
• Actor Ryan Gosling must live a pretty charmed life because his biggest professional regret is the direction of his hand in the official “La La Land” movie poster is not aligned with co-star Emma Stone‘s. That shot, which Gosling did not realize would be used on the poster, has haunted him, and the studio has now corrected it in a new poster that is being released for the movie’s 10th anniversary.

• The ability for the public to use prediction market services like Polymarket to bet on the existence or growth of wildfires is concerning public officials who worry that it could financially incentivize arson.
• Smoke from wildfires caused Denver‘s air quality to rank as the worst in the country and among the 10 worst cities in the world this week. Cough, cough.
• If you think it is hard to be a Rockies fan, it could be worse. Angel City FC‘s postgame fireworks show celebrating Independence Day malfunctioned, shooting fireworks into the stands.
• The FIFA World Cup has been a revelation to the U.S. and the world. TV ratings are through the roof and Americans have been charmed by visitors from Scotland, Japan and Norway, among others. And visitors to the U.S. have been stunned to realize just how lovely Americans and America are. Meanwhile, the U.S. team advanced to the knock-out round and even beat Bosnia and Herzegovina. And then a single phone call changed it all. President Donald Trump‘s plea to FIFA President Gianni Infantino to rescind a U.S. player’s red-card suspension, which ultimately happened, ruined the mojo of the tournament. The U.S. lost, and the rest of the world remembered why they don’t trust us.
• Members of the Mexican National Soccer Team were forced to give back Rolex watches gifted to them by content creator Stephen Deleonardis, better known as “Stevewilldoit.” Deleonardis said he gave the watches, valued at a total of about $1 million, to team members because they had defeated Ecuador 2-0 in a World Cup game, allowing Deleonardis to win a $2 million bet he had placed on Mexico.
• If you have been training to participate in the Nordic Combined in the 2030 Olympics in the French Alps, bad news. The IOC announced it is cutting the sport and replacing it with freeride skiing and snowboarding. The Nordic Combined has been part of the Olympics for more than a century, but not enough viewers watch it and the same few countries tend to dominate its medals.
• The cold war between Denver Public Schools superintendent Alex Marrero and the DPS board is the gift to local journalists that keeps on giving. Marrero seemingly applies for every open superintendent position nationwide, and he has accused the board of overstepping its role and violating his contract. This week’s development was the disclosure that the DPS board paid Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent Alberto Carvalho more than $100,000 over the past three years to mentor Marrero, a role that came to an abrupt end when the FBI raided Carvalho’s home as part of a federal investigation.
• The Air Force Academy fired Athletic Director Nathan Pine after seven years on the job. Adding a nice bit of insult to injury, the AFA issued a public statement saying that the Department of the Air Force informed the school that Pine’s services were “no longer accepted.” Relatedly, if you think your job is difficult, try being an athletic director or coach at a military academy where athletes cannot accept NIL money and the transfer portal only works one direction – letting kids leave.
• Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed millions of ChatGPT sessions and uncovered one curious interaction – an “anonymous horndog (who) spent months using the OpenAI chatbot to generate vividly detailed pregnancy fanfiction about the high school characters in the visual novel series “Doki Doki Literature Club!” So there’s another argument against AI data centers.
• A Colorado Springs man fell out of a fourth-floor hotel window during a psilocybin therapy session “after his counselor served him psilocybin tea and then left him alone.“
• Nearly 1,000 poisonous cobras and other venomous snakes escaped when floodwaters breached a breeding farm in China.

Who won the week?

• Philosophy Communication named Tera Haselden Keatts president. Keatts has been at Philosophy for more than 16 years and was recently recognized as a ColoradoBiz ICON Award winner.
• SE2 added Jennifer Ramos as an associate. She will support SE2’s PowerMap strategies.
• Littleton Public Schools named Maggie Hesketh Chief Communications Officer.
• Brownstein Farber Hyatt Schreck promoted Lara Day to Chief Culture and Engagement Officer.
• Eight months ago, Karsh Hagan and Madden Media announced they were living together. This week, they announced they married.
• Snooze named Dallas-based Champion as its agency of record.
• CPR reporter Jenny Brundin is retiring. Jenny has covered education at CPR for the past 15 years.
• It took a week to confirm, but “high-risk missionary” and exorcist Victor Marx won the Republican nomination for Colorado governor. That is good news for him, but maybe not such good news for our state or Republicans. Expect a lot of late-night jokes at our expense.
• HBO Max was the big winner at the annual announcement of Emmy nominations. The TV show “The Pitt” earned 25 while “Hacks” picked up another 24. Winners will be announced on Sept. 14.
• For years, people (mostly business majors) have joked that a philosophy degree was a direct path to waiting tables or being a barista. But the tables are turning as A.I. companies pursue philosophy majors to help guide the development and refinement of LLMs.

• Three federal firefighters were killed while battling wildfires in western Colorado. The firefighters were part of a team assigned to the Snyder-Mesa fire, a 28,000-acre fire that was the result of the convergence of four separate fires.
• Colorado‘s primary elections were Tuesday, and it was a tough night for “establishment” politicians. Fifteen-term U.S. Rep. Diane DeGette lost her bid for re-election to a Democratic Socialist, three-term U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet lost his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor to AG Phil Weiser, and Barb Kirkmeyer, who has served as an elected official for more than 30 years, is losing her bid to be the Republican nominee for governor to Victor Marx, a ministry leader who may be the most dishonest and unqualified nominee in the history of the state.
• Meanwhile, Gov. Jared Polis’ campaign to completely shred his legacy as his term ends continues. After commuting election denier Tina Peters‘ sentence because she “showed remorse,” only to have her immediately hit the MAGA talk-show circuit to make the same claims as before, Polis has now fired two members of his clemency review board who shared publicly that the board was unanimously opposed to releasing Peters and that Polis skipped over more deserving candidates.
• It’s no fun to learn that Grandma was a Nazi, but that is what some Germans are dealing with thanks to a new online searchable database of official German records. “Given my mother’s entire character, mentality and political convictions as a liberal Catholic, it was actually inconceivable that she would have joined the (Nazi Party) in 1940 at the age of 23,” said a surprised university research professor who searched the records for his parents. “But it is documented in the card index …. She never mentioned this within the family.”
• What greater tribute to America’s 250th anniversary is there than … accidentally blowing up your own home because an unattended cigarette ignited 700 pounds of illegal fireworks in your basement. To quote Trey Parker and Matt Stone‘s movie Team America: World Police: “America … F–k Yeah!”
• “The average life expectancy of a new Russian recruit—from arrival at a training ground to death in a combat zone—lies somewhere between 10 days and three weeks. Once sent onto the battlefield, they survive an average of 20 to 35 minutes.“
• NPR’s Nina Totenberg has been breaking stories since the 1970s, but the 82-year-old’s mistake this week in incorrectly reporting that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had retired risks overshadowing much of that storied career. NPR retracted and apologized for the story, but not before it was published by other public radio members that were then forced to remove the article and issue their own retractions. Was it an embargoed story that accidentally got published too soon? We may find out tomorrow in a holiday Friday news dump.
  • Meanwhile, ESPN has formally retracted an article it says “contained errors” alleging that NFL player Michael Pennel had a relationship with a woman who was found dead on property he owned in the Dominican Republic.
• The prosecutors of Charlie Kirk‘s alleged killer seem to be going out of their way to make a conviction harder. The judge in the case issued a contempt of court ruling against the top prosecutor for violating a court order by speaking to media about the case, a move that almost caused the judge to take the death penalty off the table.
• Peak Colorado–Nebraska animosity took place in the early 1990s when Bill McCartney and Tom Osborne were head football coaches. While things have cooled since then, a flare-up has emerged. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on Nebraska’s accusation that Colorado isn’t sending it enough water via the South Platte and Nebraska’s attempt to eminent domain land in Colorado to build a canal to alleviate the alleged shortage.
• Uruguay failed to win a single game at the FIFA World Cup (they had two ties and a loss), so its national soccer governing body canceled the team’s charter flight home and made them fly commercial. If they had lost all three games, Uruguay probably would have also assigned all the players middle seats.
• The Colorado Supreme Court struck a blow against Democratic hopes to gerrymander Colorado in response to similar efforts in red states. In a 7-0 decision, the court rejected five ballot measures that would have allowed the state’s congressional districts to be redrawn because they violated the state’s single-subject requirement.
• Volkswagen will reportedly cut as many as 100,000 jobs globally over the next few years, which represents 15% of its global workforce. Industry analysts point to U.S. tariffs and increased competition from electric cars from China as the cause.
• One more reason to avoid big cruise ships: the latest ocean cruise trend is elaborately decorating your cabin door like it is a sorority pledge binder.
• The Buffalo Bills are relocating to a new stadium this fall, but one element of the previous stadium will not make the move: a tribute to disgraced former Bills running back O.J. Simpson that has been part of the team’s “Wall of Fame.” A Bills representative said, “We have made an organizational decision that he is not a fit to display inside our new stadium and family circle.”

Who won the week?

• SchroderHaus has added McKinzey Crossland Saig, Katrina Froelich and Danielle Aires to its team.
• GroundFloor Media promoted Lauren Noser and Becky Cole to the roles of vice presidents.
• Dovetail Solutions promoted Jack Holleran to Director of Client Services.
• Melissa Draper has retired from her role as Senior Director of Internal Communications at VF Corporation.
• Beatty & Wozniak added Kristin Merikangas Dalmy as Director of Marketing & Business Development.
• 9News weekend evening anchor Jennifer Meckles is switching to anchoring weekend mornings, a move she says is more family-friendly.
• Happy Independence Day, America. It hasn’t always been easy – we’ve survived a civil war, two World Wars, slavery, an internment, a depression, dozens of recessions, four presidential assassinations and one presidential resignation, among other things – but over the past 250 years we have survived and grown to be a world superpower. No matter how many hits we take, we always get off the mat. Here’s hoping that applies to the next 250 years, too.