Tag: Donald Trump

The A-list

In Ali’s final big show, Hollywood royalty attended a sendoff worthy of a king
David Beckham
Beckham

The glittering roster of celebrities at yesterday’s Muhammad Ali memorial service is still growing, according to news reports — attesting to the enduring star power of the late prize fighter, who rocketed to global fame from a racially segregated childhood in 1940s Louisville.

Among the latest bold-face names to emerge: actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who Instagrammed a grinning selfie with eulogist and former President Bill Clinton), and David Beckham, the retired British superstar soccer player.

 

Beck’s wife, Victoria, the former Spice Girl singer, wasn’t spotted with him at the KFC Yum Center, where the number of mourners at the afternoon event ran as high as 20,000, according to Britain’s Mirror.

Whoopi Goldberg
Goldberg

Other celebrities whose attendance wasn’t previously reported included View talk show host Whoopi Goldberg; filmmaker Spike Lee; actor and former pro-football player Carl Weathers, and triple-platinum former singer Yusuf (Cat Stevens) Islam, says Britain’s Daily Mail and one of Boulevard’s Facebook friends.

They joined already known attendees, including comedian Billy Crystal, who gave one of the eulogies; actor and pallbearer Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith; Today show host Matt Lauer and former host Bryant Gumbel; retired pro boxer Mike Tyson — and the realest of royalty: King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Trump sends regrets

Rumors GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump would attend were quashed during the morning when Ali family spokesman Bob Gunnell said the reality TV star called Ali’s wife, Lonnie, to say he was unable to come, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Ali was one of the world’s most high-profile Muslims, so it’s hard to imagine Trump would have been welcome, given his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

The KFC Center service capped a week that drew tens of thousands of spectators earlier yesterday to a 23-mile funeral procession that snaked through the city — all broadcast live to millions online and on television the day he was buried. Chanting “Ali, Ali!” fans waved to celebrities riding with other Ali family guests in the 17-car motorcade. Security, which included the U.S. Secret Service, was tight; an estimated 500 Louisville police officers were there.

Ali and close family and advisors planned the funeral in secret during the final years of his decades-long battle against Parkinson’s disease. Born in Louisville’s West End in 1942, he died at 74 on June 3 in Phoenix, his primary home. He was buried yesterday at a so-far undisclosed gravesite at Cave Hill Cemetery, joining a Kentucky who’s-who of governors, business titans and other luminaries — the most famous being KFC founder Harland Sanders.

The motorcade entered Cave Hill’s iconic main entrance on a carpet of flower petals fans laid earlier in the day:
Embed from Getty Images

Latest Headlines

Uber using Fusions in new self-driving cars test; KFC hit over antibiotics use, and Bezos strikes back at Trump
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Activist group created “Auntie Biotic” mascot in campaign targeting KFC.

A news summary focused on big employers; updated 6:06 p.m.

FORD: Uber said today it’s using hybrid Fusions as it starts testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh (Fortune). Also, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and former Ford CEO Alan Mulally will receive awards at an innovation conference in Lexington starting Sunday (Daily Journal).

KFC: Activists are pressing KFC to stop buying chicken from industrial farms that use antibiotics meant for humans. The Natural Resources Defense Council created a mascot, Auntie Biotic, to draw attention to its cause (blog post). Australian restaurant operator Collins Foods is paying $19 million for 13 KFC outlets around the New South Wales and Victorian border (Business Insider). And teenage inmates who were involved in a tense standoff with police in Melbourne were promised KFC in exchange for their surrender (Daily Mirror). Yum shares closed at $80.07, little changed.

AMAZON CEO Jeff Bezos defended the company against criticism by White House hopeful Donald Trump, who said earlier that the retail giant was “getting away with murder, tax-wise (Seattle Times). Also, how Google Home could be Amazon Echo’s worst nightmare in the digital home assistant space (Verge). Shares closed at $698.52, up $1.07.

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Booth

TACO BELL: How the company turns fried chicken into taco shells (Consumerist). Meanwhile, the Internet can’t get enough stories about Florida’s Jack Booth, who woke up from a 42-day coma and almost immediately demanded 8½ crunch tacos. “I didn’t expect him to eat as many as he did, but he sure crushed it,” said friend and co-worker Andrew Haldeman (Naples News).

CHURCHILL DOWNS: Otabek Umarov, the owner and trainer of Looks to Spare, the longshot third-place finisher in last year’s Grade 1 Clark Handicap, has been ejected from the track’s facilities and suspended by state stewards (Racing Form).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE has weighed in on new overtime regulations mandated by the Obama Administration (Insider Louisville).

UPS is preparing to add on-demand 3-D printer services (3 D Print)

In other news, Louisville ranked No. 18 on employment site Glassdoor’s list of the 25 best U.S. cities to find work, well down from No. 8 a year ago (Business First). Glass door says its picks stand out for ease in finding work, affordability, and job satisfaction. This year’s No. 8 is Raleigh-Durham, N.C.;  full list.

Money in Politics

In U.S. Senate bid, Gray ran on business credentials. His first financial report lays them out

Lexington Mayor Jim Gray won the Democrats’ nomination for U.S. Senate yesterday by campaigning on his experience helping save the family’s Gray Inc. construction company after his father’s death. He’ll now face Republican Sen. Rand Paul in November — a contest he concedes will be tough.

Jim Gray
Gray

“I have no illusions about it being a challenging race,” he told the Lexington Herald-Leader, “but I’ve got the experience and I’ve got the record. That experience is in the private sector, in building a family business.”

In the race to the senate, Gray, 62, joins other well-heeled candidates who’ve run on business bona fides, including Gov. Matt Bevin and White House hopeful Donald Trump. Gray’s first financial disclosure report, filed last month, offers a glimpse at that record.

The April 15 report covers the period extending back to the start of 2015. As with all such reports candidates and office holders must file annually, Gray’s assigns only a range of values for his family’s business, real estate and stock holdings. An individual stock, for example, may be valued at between $15,001 and $50,000 — the value Gray gave to his investment in the biotech giant Amgen. What’s more, it’s a point-in-time view; there’s no way to know the value of any of the assets today, nor whether they’re even still owned.

Still, Gray’s report offers a revealing snapshot of his family’s more big-ticket assets:

  • Gray Inc.: valued between $5 million and $25 million
  • Gray Realty commercial property: $1 million to $5 million
  • Woodford Realty commercial property: $250,000 to $500,000
  • Visual and Antiquity Investments, which consists of contemporary paintings, sculptures, mixed media and rare books: $1 million to $5 million. The report doesn’t say whether this is a private collection or commercial venture

The report also lists stocks and other investment securities, with a combined value between $1.8 million and $4.1 million. The portfolio includes a mix of technology stocks (Apple and Facebook); pharmaceuticals (Bristol-Myers and Merck, in addition to Amgen) and consumer goods (Starbucks and Walt Disney). A partial list:

Gray portfolio medium

Finally, Gray also reported annual wages of $160,000 as mayor, and $125,000 from Gray Inc., where he’s non-executive board chairman.

Related: Watch Gray’s “American Dream” campaign video about saving the family business.

Latest Headlines

Trump renews Amazon attack, 93-year-old KFC retiree hits rare milestone; and UPS plans big new Austin facility

A news summary focused on big employers; updated 2:02 p.m.

Donald Trump
Trump

AMAZON: White House GOP candidate Donald Trump attacked Jeff Bezos again, claiming the Amazon CEO bought The Washington Post to promote a political agenda that would help the company on taxes (CNN). Also, a former software director who led the company’s new FireTV initiative was charged with promoting prostitution in the Seattle area (KIRO).

KFC: A retired 29-year employee in Ontario has reached an American Legion milestone that few reach in any organization: he’s been a member for 60 years. William Young, 93, worked at a KFC franchise, rising to manager before retiring. And he met founder Col. Harland Sanders (Argus Observer).

UPS plans a new $70 million, 300-employee distribution center in Austin with room for 300 vehicles; it’s to open at the end of 2018 (Austin Statesman). Asked and answered: How important is e-commerce to the shipper’s sales (Motley Fool).

In other news, The Courier-Journal has joined 199 other investors in buying a two-year-old colt, which the nascent Churchill Downs Racing Club hopes to run during the current spring meet. The horse is being trained by Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas (Courier-Journal).

Money in Politics

As NRA readies big annual meeting here, equally big Ky. political donations emerge

Some 70,000 National Rifle Association members are holding their annual meeting in Louisville this week, a four-day gathering that will include speeches on Friday by White House hopeful Donald Trump, plus Gov. Matt Bevin, Sen. Rand Paul, and others.

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McConnell

The group gave $810,462 to federal candidates for the 2014 election, including a total $22,900 to six Kentucky Republicans, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics:

  • Sen. Mitch McConnell: $9,900
  • Rep. Hal Rogers: $5,000
  • Rep. Brett Guthrie: $2,500
  • Rep. Ed Whitfield: $2,500
  • Rep. Andy  Barr: $2,000
  • Rep. Thomas Massie: $1,000

Overall, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund has given $197,609 to Kentucky congressional candidates since 1998, according to this new Courier-Journal story.

Unexpectedly, the Responsive Politics center’s data, from the Federal Election Commission, doesn’t show any NRA money for Sen. Paul. And I don’t find any going to Bevin, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics’ data for the governor; it tracks campaign money at the state level.

The NRA meeting and trade show will be held at the Kentucky Exposition Center; more key information in today’s CJ, which also reports on the group’s history and rise to one of the nation’s most powerful organizations.

Related: etiquette advice for party hostesses who don’t want gun-totin’ guests.

Money in Politics

Donald Trump’s paltry fundraising in Kentucky shows how far he’s got to go

Here’s how much Donald Trump has coasted on free publicity in Kentucky to advance his who’d-a-thunk-it presidential campaign: He ranks No. 10 among candidates who’ve collected contributions in the state, raising a grand total of only $27,654, according to the latest Federal Election Commission numbers. Compare that to Sen. Rand Paul, who raked in $367,924 in the state before dropping his bid three months ago, and likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton‘s $443,851.

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Yours for $25.

To be sure, Trump hasn’t done any formal fundraising so far, relying instead on casual contributions and merchandise sales through his campaign website. But now that he’s got a virtual lock on the GOP nomination, his days of relying solely on gratis media attention are over. He acknowledged as much yesterday, but ruled out self-funding his campaign, however many billions he may have in the bank, according to Slate.

Related: For the third consecutive month, Sen. Bernie Sanders raised more money in Kentucky than any other presidential candidate. And more about Louisville politics.