Tag: Cops and Courts

Latest Headlines

July 12! Amazon sets second 24-hour Prime Day; two Conn. groups push against Humana-Aetna; and the Internet gorges on story about ‘world’s angriest’ Taco Bell customer

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 10:04 a.m.

AMAZON said this year’s 24-hour Prime Day sale would include more than 100,000 specially discounted items. U.S. members can shop starting at 3 a.m. ET/midnight PT, with new deals as often as every five minutes (press release). Last year, in addition to a 266% increase in orders vs. the same day in 2014, Prime Day also spurred more people than ever to try the $99-a-year Prime service. It also drove more sales than any of the retailer’s previous events — even beating Amazon’s 2014 Black Friday (The Verge). Apparently responding to complaints last year that some items sold out too quickly, Amazon said this year it would “dramatically” boost inventory and make it easier to search for deals by sorting through categories (Cnet).

Amazon employs 6,000 workers in the Louisville area at mammoth distribution centers in Jeffersonville, and in Bullitt County’s Shepherdsville. Plus, another big Prime Day is good news for the retailer’s shipper, UPS; with 22,000 workers at its Louisville International Airport hub, it’s the city’s single-biggest private employer.

HUMANA: Two Connecticut activist groups and the state’s medical society have criticized regulatory reviews of the proposed $37 billion Humana-Aetna merger in a letter this week to the U.S. Justice Department; they’re asking the trust-busters “to protect people from the harm these mergers will cause.” Aetna is based in Hartford. The groups, which also criticized a similar planned merger between Anthem and Connecticut-based Cigna, were joined by 40 other state doctors’ associations and health-care charities nationwide (Hartford Courant). Humana employs 12,500 workers at its downtown Louisville headquarters and other sites across the city.

UPS and the 2,500-member Independent Pilots Association  today announced a tentative agreement on a new five-year labor contract, including improvements across all sections. Specific details of the agreement will not be disclosed before the IPA presents the proposed contract to all UPS pilots (press release).

Also, a looming pilot shortage will soar to 15,000 by 2026, according to a study by the University of North Dakota’s Aviation Department, as more captains reach mandatory retirement age of 65, and fewer young people choose aviation as a profession. “And that’s in an industry,” says the Dallas Morning News, “where captains on the biggest international jets average more than $200,000 a year — with some pushing $300,000” (Morning News).

FORD‘s decision to bypass an employee for a position based on his use of opioids was not enough to prove his disability discrimination claim, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has found (National Law Review). The automaker employs nearly 10,000 workers at its auto and truck factories in Louisville.

PIZZA HUT: In New Orleans, police arrested a man and woman early yesterday who allegedly carjacked a Pizza Hunt deliverer’s car at gunpoint Tuesday night, then led cops on a car chase before they were apprehended. The driver told officers he was making a delivery about 11:30 p.m. when a woman who said she placed the order — Simonne Walker, 19 — approached him. But instead of paying him, the woman’s companion — Kenneth Rainer, 20 — walked up, put a gun to the driver’s back, and demanded cash and his car keys. Walker and Rainer then got into the car and sped off, the cops say (Times-Picayune).

ChambordBROWN-FORMAN is promoting its Chambord black raspberry liqueur through a “Just Add Chambord” Royale cocktails campaign starting tomorrow. The campaign targeting hotel bars and lounges runs through Sept. 30. The Louisville spirits giant will supply participating establishments with Chambord-branded flute glasses, recipe and tent cards. Nidal Ramini, marketing chief for Bacardi Brown-Forman brands said (in a very odd quote): “We are confident the new platform will inspire the on-trade in particular, to transform and elevate serves, whilst helping them understand how Chambord can be the perfect way to elevate a simple glass of bubbles, and ultimately increase profit” (Harpers). Here’s the Royale recipe.

PAPA JOHN’S fired an employee at Continue reading “July 12! Amazon sets second 24-hour Prime Day; two Conn. groups push against Humana-Aetna; and the Internet gorges on story about ‘world’s angriest’ Taco Bell customer” →

Latest Headlines

Louisville companies snap two-day losing streak, as Dow Jones soars 269 points; and Yum China bidders reportedly bust deadline, balk at $10B valuation

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:16 p.m.

Those 10 companies tracked by Boulevard joined U.S. stocks clawing their way back from two consecutive days of steep losses, following Britain’s stunning vote last week to quit the European Union. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed moments ago at 17,410 — up 1.6%; the broader S&P 500 index jumped 1.8% to 2,036 points, and the Nasdaq climbed 2.1% to 4692.

June 28 Guardian
Today’s Guardian.

“This is going to take a long time to play out and I think the initial shock is being a little reversed right now,” Doug Cote, chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management told CNBC. “This is not 2008. It’s more like 2011.” (Read the latest Brexit developments in Britain’s Guardian.)

In Louisville, virtually all of Boulevard’s top 10 rose by the time markets closed at 4 p.m. They included Kindred, which got pounded yesterday, falling 7%. The closing prices:

Those gains came even as Ford said it expects the double-whammy of any softer post-Brexit industry and a weaker British sterling “would have an adverse impact on our operations in the long term,” a Ford spokesman told financial news site The Street. Ford also said it would issue revised 2016 guidance during its second-quarter earnings call July 28 (The Street). Ford shares have now tumbled nearly 8% since Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union — nearly twice as much as the broader S&P 500 index.

In its most recent annual report, in February, Ford warned about the impact of a possible Brexit, saying it “could cause financial and capital markets within and outside Europe to constrict, thereby negatively impacting our ability to finance our business, and also could cause a substantial dip in consumer confidence and spending that could negatively impact sales of vehicles.”

Last year, the U.K. was Ford’s single-biggest market after the U.S., accounting for 8% of the automaker’s $149.6 billion in sales:

Ford sales graphic

Ford employs nearly 10,000 workers at an auto assembly and a truck factory in Louisville.

In non-Brexit business news: At YUM, potential bidders for the fast-food giant’s mammoth China division  Continue reading “Louisville companies snap two-day losing streak, as Dow Jones soars 269 points; and Yum China bidders reportedly bust deadline, balk at $10B valuation” →

Cops and Courts

A dangerous mix: brandy ‘shooters,’ two boyfriends, and one angry woman

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants.*

KFC

Crime scene tapeIn Athens, Ga., 30-year-old Tina Gail Anderson was arrested after she showed up drunk with her current boyfriend at her former boyfriend’s KFC workplace,
called for him to come outside, and then drove recklessly in the restaurant’s parking lot.

When police arrived, they saw Anderson driving over a curb and into the parking lot of Ingles next door, according to a police report cited by the Athens Banner-Herald.

After Anderson was stopped, police said they found empty “shooter” bottles of brandy in her car, along with an open pint bottle of the liquor, the newspaper said.

Taco Bell

In upstate New York’s Genesco, two men who already had a string of misdemeanors were charged by police with three more on Saturday, after they allegedly crashed their U-Haul truck into a Taco Bell restaurant awning, then drove off after causing minor damage.

One of the men, Ricky Jackson, 49, had 15 suspensions on his expired permit, plus an active bench warrant for misdemeanor petit larceny, according to WHEC. After driving off, Jackson then returned to the scene and allegedly told a cop he watched police investigate from afar (which seems weird, right?).

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants in five countries. With that many locations, crimes inevitably will occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

Saturday night dive: a bad one for Pizza Hut, after a good one for Roadhouse; and Jack Daniel’s reveals a hard truth

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 6:36 p.m

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In an undated photo, Jack Daniel — center, in white hat — and to the left, a man who could be a son of Nearis Green, a slave who taught Daniel how to make whiskey.

PIZZA HUT: In Memphis, police are investigating why an officer shot and critically wounded a suspect around 11:10 last night in front of a Pizza Hut, after a caller reported two men were robbing a driver there. One suspect was shot and taken to the Regional Medical Center in critical condition. The second suspect fled; it’s unknown if he was also hit (Commercial Appeal).

In Ohio, Harrison Township deputies were investigating a break-in at a Pizza Hut early this morning; reports indicate a cash register from the business was located by deputies, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether burglars were able to get away with anything (WHIO).

And in northern Delaware yesterday, two armed men confronted a male clerk closing a Pizza Hut in Bear at 1 a.m., demanding cash from the register. The clerk complied and turned over an undisclosed amount. The suspects then fled the store; no injuries were reported (Delaware Online). BTW: Yelp reviewers don’t like the Bear restaurant one bit.

BROWN-FORMAN‘s Jack Daniel’s unit is using its 150 anniversary celebrations this year to talk candidly about its history: the founder learned his craft from a slave named Nearis Green. “This version of the story was never a secret,” The New York Times says today, “but it is one that the distillery has only recently begun to embrace, tentatively, in some of its tours, and in a social media and marketing campaign this summer” (New York Times).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE‘s new restaurant in Roanoke, Va., drew 350 diners when it opened last week for the first time. But managing partner Eric Grow wasn’t surprised in the least, “even though there was very little spectacle at the opening — no formal ribbon cutting or announcement,” says the Roanoke Times. “A few weeks ago he began switching on the building’s LED lights. The first night he did this, he estimates the restaurant got more than a hundred calls asking if it was open yet” (Roanoke Times).

Books

A UPS aircraft mechanic, her ‘Dark Brown Lies’ book, and a very expensive advertisement on the CJ’s front page today

Many Courier-Journal readers were no doubt left totally confused this morning when they saw an advertisement on the front page — one of the most expensive you can buy — for a three-year-old book written by a former UPS aircraft mechanic.

CJ June 26 detail

Debbie Simpson’s “Dark Brown Lies” doesn’t show up in the CJ’s database, which means a lot of readers were learning about it for the first time. The book, which she self-published through a company she apparently incorporated in Arkansas in 2013, is about her 19-year-career at Louisville’s biggest private employer — one that ended very badly.

Debbie Simpson
Simpson

“This true story,” she writes on her website, “is about a female aircraft maintenance technician that worked for one of the most powerful companies in America and the consequences she faced for standing up and speaking out against harassment within the workplace. The consequences were: employee entries, warning letter(s), retaliation, intimidation, suspension, the constant real threat of termination and termination.”

What exactly happened isn’t detailed. But her beef with UPS, which employs 22,000 people at its hub here, may stem at least partly from a whistleblower case she lost in 2008 before the U.S. Labor Department.

Simpson’s advertisement this morning is only indirectly about her book. Instead, she’s drawing attention to another legal case where a pilot, Douglas Greene, has sued the Frost Brown Todd law firm in federal court in Louisville and two of its attorneys. Simpson says she’s dealt with one of the attorneys, Tony Coleman, in her own legal fight against UPS.

Cops and Courts

In these Papa John’s holdups, ‘it sounds like they got out of control with their addiction and spending’

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants.*

Crime scene tapeSalt Lake City police arrested a man Thursday on suspicion of robbing “several” Papa John’s restaurants just outside the Utah city during a robbery spree this month involving as many as 20 businesses.

At first, Mathew Kuepper, 32, was robbing businesses about once daily, said Unified Police Lt. Lex Bell. But over the last week, police believe Kuepper was committing two or even three robberies a day to support his addiction to heroin and crack cocaine. His ex-wife, Kellie Kuepper, 31, was also arrested in connection with the alleged armed robberies.

Kellie and Matthew Kuepper_edited-1
Kellie and Matthew Kuepper.

“It sounds like they got out of control with their addiction and spending,” Bell said. Police say Mathew Kuepper displayed a firearm during each robbery. But he told detectives after his arrest that he used a “plastic toy that looked realistic,” according to the Deseret News.

Texas Roadhouse

In Paducah, police arrested 34-year-old Anthony Davis on suspicion of assaulting a Texas Roadhouse employee with a beer mug two weeks ago.

The victim told police he was walking through the restaurant when Davis hit him with the mug and kept hitting him until restaurant patrons pulled him away. The employee’s face was cut, there were cuts inside his mouth, and one of his teeth was knocked out, according to police cited by WPSD.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants in five countries. With that many locations, crimes inevitably will occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.