Who Had the Worst Week?

December 6, 2024 ~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Edelman is laying off 330 employees as it navigates what it expects to be an 8% decline in revenue in 2024.
When we last heard from John Bowlen, the son of former Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, he was being arrested for domestic violence charges in 2015. So, did receiving $500 million from the sale of the Broncos help his situation? Looks like not. Westword reported this week that Bowlen posted a series of statements – “White fucking power. … F**k Black people. White is right” on his Instagram while attending a Broncos game in Las Vegas.
The CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed while arriving at an investor conference Manhattan in what appears to be a targeted attack. The New York Times noted that the assassination “has unleashed Americans’ frustrations with an industry that often denies coverage and reimbursement for medical claims.” Some users on social media platforms posted sentiments such as “Thoughts and deductibles to the family” and “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”
In what may or may not be a related story, 24 hours after the shooting Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield dropped its plan to limit the amount time it would cover anesthesia used in surgeries after doctors ~~went ballistic~~ strongly protested.
PR Week released its annual rankings of “Best Places to Work,” and as usual it is heavy on the coastal firms. Of the 29 winners, 62% are located in NYC/NJ and 90% are located in coastal states. Only three non-coastal agencies – in Austin, Chicago and Fairfax, Va. – managed to break through.
Vail native Mikaela Shiffrin suffered a deep abdominal puncture wound and “severe muscle trauma” during a frightening crash in a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont. It is not clear when she may return.
Florida International University fired its head football coach, Mike MacIntire, after his third straight 4-8 season. You may remember MacIntire as the head coach of the University of Colorado Buffaloes from 2013-2018.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley excoriated representatives from Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines at a Senate hearing this week. Hawley proclaimed, “Flying on your airlines is a disaster,” and it went downhill from there.
The City of Denver has seized the Wash Park Grille for back taxes. The unpaid taxes reportedly date back to April.
The Morrison Police Department, most known for running the most brazen speed traps in the state, has disbanded. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department will now provide police support to the town.
An Italian nun was arrested as part of a raid against the mafia in Milan. She is alleged to have served as a go between for the mafia and its jailed members.

Who won the week?

Daniel Brogan has sold 5280, the magazine he launched in 1993, to Charity Huff, the owner of January Spring, a Denver-based advertising technology company that works with dozens of niche publishers.
Spencer Soicher, the nephew of former 9News sports anchor Drew Soicher, is joining the station as a reporter. His father, Marc Soicher, was a sports reporter at Fox31.
9News meteorologist Laurann Robinson announced she is leaving the station.
Jeremy Bloom, the Olympic skier who also starred in football for the University of Colorado and the Philadelphia Eagles, has been named CEO of the X Games.
The annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list included three with Boulder connections – social media content creator Alex Haraus; Sristy Agrawal, the cofounder of Mesa Quantum; and Maddie Freeman, the founder of the nonprofit NoSo.

Who Had the Worst Week?

October 25, 2024 ~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

A Mesa County resident has died and 26 other Coloradans were sickened by an E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s restaurants.
Denver Broncos wide receiver Josh Reynolds was shot while leaving the strip club Shotgun Willie’s at 3 am. Reynolds has been on Injured Reserve and hasn’t been playing due to an unrelated finger injury.
A surfer in Indonesia died after she was impaled by a swordfish mid-ride.
UCHealth has postponed some non-emergency surgeries due to an IV fluid shortage. The North Carolina company that supplies 60% of the nation’s IV fluids, including to UCHealth apparently, still hasn’t recovered from Hurricane Helene.
The U.S. Department of Transportation fined American Airlines $50 million for “cases of unsafe physical assistance that at times resulted in injuries and undignified treatment of wheelchair users, in addition to repeated failures to provide prompt wheelchair assistance.”
The Denver Nuggets lost their first game of the 2024-2025 season, giving Denver sports talk radio plenty of “the sky is falling” fodder.
Sephora is the latest national chain to abandon the 16th Street Mall.
The leader of a large-scale car-theft ring that targeted cars primarily at DIA was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Denver‘s Infinite Monkey Theorem will close at the end of the year, citing declining wine sales locally and nationally.
The Michelin-starred restaurant Brutø in Denver has been forced to close for a month due to an issue with the kitchen’s hood vent.
Speaking of restaurants, you can almost hear restaurant owners groaning after The Denver Post reported on our city’s best 50 restaurants as voted on by Yelp reviewers.
Three members of the Los Angeles Times editorial board have now resigned after the paper’s billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, reportedly refused to allow it to make a presidential endorsement.
What would have been a little noticed interview between The Verge‘s Decoder podcast and the CEO of Intuit became newsworthy when Intuit demanded that Decoder delete an entire section of the recording focused on Intuit’s efforts to stall legislation that would simplify tax returns. The Intuit Chief Communications Officer called the line of questioning “inappropriate,” “egregious,” and “disappointing.”
Speaking of Intuit, the fee for standard parking spaces at the Los Angeles Clippers’ new Intuit Dome is $70.
Former Denver Broncos QB and reality TV star Jay Cutler was arrested in Tennessee and charged with driving under the influence, possession of a handgun while under the influence and failure to exercise due care to avoid a collision.
Former WWE CEO Vince McMahon has been sued for allegedly allowing a ringside announcer to use his position to sexually exploit children as young as 12 years old.
Fun fact: The Denver Broncos lead the NFL by serving more than 700 Uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to players and staff each week. NFL teams combined serve more than 80,000 of the processed sandwiches each year.
A California man claims in a lawsuit that his French bulldog died from stress related to being downgraded from first class to coach on an Alaska Airlines flight.

Who won the week?

Boulder‘s Comprise has been named “Agency of the Year” for the fourth straight time by Business Intelligence Group.
Philosophy Communications added Phyllis Offee to its team. I’ll give you a minute.
The Denver Post healthcare reporter Meg Wingerter will be on maternity leave beginning Monday.
A crowdfunding effort has at least temporarily saved The Denver Voice. The Voice’s editor is Elisabeth Monaghan who is well known and loved in Denver’s PR community.
University of Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders earned more NIL money – $5.6 million – this year than any other college athlete in the country.
Seven friends in England who were testing a new metal detector discovered $5 million-worth of Norman-era coins.
Taylor Trammell, currently a 27-year-old minor league outfielder enjoying the offseason, played in 10 major league games this year – five for the Los Angeles Dodgers and five for the New York Yankees. As a result, he is assured of a championship ring when the two teams play in the World Series.

Who Had the Worst Week?

March 8, 2024 ~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson has been ordered to pay $61,000 in legal fees to Black Lives Matter 5280 and its board member Amy Brown related to his unsuccessful defamation suit.
The layoffs in the journalism industry continue and are hitting close to home. Colorado Public Radio has cut 15 employees in its audio and podcast production departments, although the station’s newsroom was spared.
The Denver Broncos announced they will cut QB Russell Wilson, a move that will count $85 million against the salary cap for a player no longer with the team. In his two years with the Broncos, Wilson earned $124 million in salary and bonuses. The Broncos also cut fan favorite safety Justin Simmons.
Comedian Nick Swardson had a melt-down on-stage in Beaver Creek that forced organizers to yank him from the stage. He blamed the effects of alcohol and cannabis edibles for his bizarre behavior.
European Union regulators fined Apple the equivalent of $1.95 billion for allegedly “thwarting competition among music streaming rivals.”
Three passengers who were aboard the Alaska Airlines flight whose door plug blew out mid-flight are suing Boeing and the airline for $1 billion.
And Boeing just can’t catch a break. This week, a tire fell off of a United Airlines Boeing plane shortly after take-off as it was en route from San Francisco to Osaka, Japan.
A jury has ordered the Denver Police Department – i.e., Denver taxpayers – to pay a 78-year-old Montbello woman $3.76 million for conducting a SWAT-style raid on her house that found nothing. The jury determined that police did not have reasonable cause to search her house.
New York Times crossword puzzle editor and NPR “puzzle master” Will Shortz is recovering from a stroke he suffered last month.
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and LinkedIn both suffered unusual outages this week.
Scammers cost Coloradans about $164 million in fraud in 2023, up 17% from 2022 and nearly double the amount Coloradans lost to fraud in 2021.
Liberty University has been fined a record $14 million by the Department of Education for violations of federal law that included failing to issue timely warnings about criminal activity, failing to notify the campus about emergencies and dangerous situations, and not maintaining an accurate and complete crime log.
A U.S. House committee unanimously supported a bill to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest its ownership or face an app store ban in the U.S.
Ikon season passes for Alterra resorts will cost $1,249 (up 7.7%), and Vail Resorts‘ Epic passes will set you back $982 (up 8%).
About a dozen fans who attended the bitterly cold January playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins suffered such severe frostbite that amputations were required. Unfortunately for Broncos fans, Patrick Mahomes was not one of them.

So, who won the week?

Westword promoted Thomas Mitchell from cannabis editor to news editor.
Former 9News meteorologist Danielle Grant has resurfaced at Denver7.
The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team will play a friendly against South Korea in June at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

Who Had the Worst Week?

February 16, 2024 ~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

A New York City man accused of attempting to smuggle Burmese pythons into the U.S. by shoving them in his pants has been sentenced to probation. A more-fitting punishment might be to make him do it a second time.
Evergreen Lake nearly faced an early end to its skating season due to high temperatures, but officials now say they think they can make it through the end of February. So you probably won’t sink through the ice and drown.
Planning a crime? Now’s the time. An “untold” number of criminal cases are on hold after a ransomware attack disabled the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office‘s computer network.
Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who a decade ago falsely claimed to be Black while leading the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, was fired from her position at an Arizona school district due to her explicit OnlyFans account.
After years of trying, Russia finally killed political opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
A Colorado Supreme Court case could undermine the wide-reaching legal immunity ski reports currently enjoy.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed a lawsuit to block King Soopers’ parent company Kroger’s $24.6 billion merger with Albertsons. Critics argue the merger would lead to higher food prices and lower employee salaries.
Rolling Stone editor Noah Shachtman is resigning due to editorial disagreements with CEO Gus Wenner.
College students everywhere are mourning the death of Bill Post, the inventor of the Pop-Tart. Fun fact: Pop-Tarts were originally marketed as “Fruit Scones.”
Denver Broncos fans were forced to watch the rival Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl for the second straight year, and the third time in five years.
Meanwhile, tragedy struck yet another sports celebration when one person was killed and 22 others were shot at the Chiefs‘ Super Bowl victory parade.
And here in Denver, Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson has been quietly shopping his $25 million Cherry Hills mansion, a sign that he expects he won’t be back next year.

So, who won the week?

LegalShield has named communications veteran Robert Toevs Chief Communications Officer. Toevs previously led communications for DISH, Qwest and others.
Colorado Rockies broadcaster and back-up play-by-play announcer Jenny Cavnar has taken the primary play-by-play job with the Oakland Athletics. She will be the first female primary play-by-play broadcaster for a team in MLB history.
Denver7 sportscaster Troy Renck is returning to The Denver Post as a sports columnist, replacing Mark Kiszla who moved to the Denver Gazette.
In 1991, the average home price in Denver was $139,00, Federico Peña was finishing his second term as mayor, Dan Reeves was the Denver Broncos head coach, and “Dances with Wolves” won Best Picture. That was also the year now-Denver7 meteorologist Mike Nelson started his career in Denver with 9News. He announced this week that he will retire at the end of this year.
Two investors are planning to revive the Colorado Springs Independent and the Colorado Springs Business Journal.
The University of Iowa‘s Caitlin Clark set the NCAA women’s scoring record in basketball with 3,569. Her next goal is to break the real record set by the University of Kansas‘ Lynette Woodard, who scored a major school record 3,649 points in 1981 when women’s basketball was governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. That should happen in the next two to three games.
The Super Bowl drew 123.4 million viewers, making it the nation’s most-watched television program of all time.