Day: July 10, 2026

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • 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?