Tag: Featured

Cops and Courts

County prosecutor in Ind. accidentally fires gun in Texas Roadhouse; says ‘carrying a gun in my pocket is probably not the smartest move’

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

Crime scene tapeMadison County prosecutor Rodney Cummings says a 9-millimeter gun he was carrying in his pocket in a Texas Roadhouse accidentally fired into the floor as he was leaving late Saturday night, blowing a hole in his pants in the process.

No one was injured during the 11 p.m. incident in Anderson, Ind., which is about 43 miles northeast of Indianapolis, according to news accounts.

Another customer, Aaron Taffner, said he heard the gun go off while he was eating, and ran to the parking lot to get his own gun, according to WISH-TV. As he walked back in, Taffner said he saw Cummings leaving. “He had a big hole in the side of his shorts,” Taffner said.

Rodney Cummings
Cummings

Cummings said he started to walk out of the restaurant with the gun in the front pocket of his shorts. He usually keeps the safety on, he told WISH, but the safety might have come off.

Police arrived on the scene, questioned Cummings, and then let him leave without citing him. “It was an accident,” Cummings told the TV station. “That’s not a crime or a violation. It’s an accident.”

Cummings sounded more contrite in a story today by The Indianapolis Star.

“It was a new gun. I’ve only had it for a couple weeks,” he told the newspaper, adding that he’d carried a firearm for 36 years as a prosecutor and a police officer. “I always try to be as safe as I can,” Cummings said. “Carrying a gun in my pocket is probably not the smartest move.”

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

Jobs

CEO Niccol: ‘I think it’s the responsibility of companies like Taco Bell to step in and help these young people get their first job’

That’s Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol speaking to NPR’s Marketplace; listen to the just-broadcast interview. The Yum fast-Mexican division is among employers holding job fairs around the nation with the goal of getting 100,000 more young people on the payroll by the year after next. Taco Bell accounts for 6,500 of Yum’s 43,000 restaurants worldwide with a combined 505,000 employees.

Taco Bell logoNiccol, 42, has been CEO since January 2015. He learned some of his earliest lessons as a teenager running a lawn-mowing service with friends, according to the Los Angeles Times. Pricing varied by location, and to get a contract, marketing was a must — an idea he took to future jobs. “At the time you do it, you don’t realize how it’s influencing you going forward,” he said. “I think it carries on with you in the subconscious.”

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

Kitchen confidential: Louisville’s favorite daughter says goodbye to her first, pre super-stardom California home

Jennifer LawrenceBoulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:

Three starsJennifer Lawrence has just sold her Los Angeles starter home for $1.2 million, 33% more than what she paid for it back in 2006, when her career was just starting to take off. The 1,413-square-feet Santa Monica townhouse has two bedrooms and three bathrooms, hardwood floors, and a fireplace.

Lawrence, 25, hasn’t lived there since 2014, when she bought a Beverly Hills mansion for $8.2 million from comedian Ellen DeGeneres. By then, she’d scored three big hits: “X-Men: First Class” in 2011; “The Hunger Games” in 2012, the first in that ultra-successful franchise, and “Silver Linings Playbook,” also in 2012, for which she won her best-actress Oscar.

Lawrence hasn’t settled down yet. In May, she was spotted kicking the tires on a paparazzi-proof $14.4 million condo in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood, where neighbors have included mega Grammy-winner Beyoncé, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and his ex-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow.

Photo, top: That’s the kitchen in Lawrence’s just-sold home.

Travel

Louisville to Provincetown, Mass., for a postcard-perfect $12,000 vacation of sun, sand — and surreal

An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.

With the world’s attention focused on the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, what better time to jet off to Carnival — in Provincetown, Mass. Known to fans worldwide as P-town, the small, arty and very eclectic beach resort is perched on the tippy-tip of Cape Cod.

Provincetown aerial
At the tip of Cape Cod.

Held this year from Aug. 13 to 19, Carnival is one of the biggest annual outdoor celebrations in Massachusetts, attracting 90,000 revelers to an ultra-festive parade and parties from the east to west ends of lively Commercial Street along the waterfront. This year’s retro theme: “Back to the ’80s.” The Census Bureau says P-town is the gayest city in the world, which also means it’s all-inclusive.

The town’s year-round population is just 3,000, but swells to 60,000 during the summer, when seasonal residents and tourists from all around the world flock to its amazing seafood restaurants, art galleries, theaters, beaches and bike paths rolling through the dunes of the magnificent Cape Cod National Seashore Parks.

The itinerary

When: August 12-21. Airline: American and Cape Air. Route: Louisville to Chicago to Boston to Provincetown; total travel time is five hours and 30 minutes, excluding layovers. How much: $870; coach to Chicago, then first class to Boston. The Cape Air connecting flight is $318 aboard a nine-passenger prop. American reservations and Cape Air reservations.

If you don’t like the idea of small planes, two ferry companies offer frequent service from Boston to P-town: Boston Harbor Cruises and Bay State Cruise Co. Their fast-ferry service will get you there in about 90 minutes. By car from Boston’s Logan Airport, it’s about a 2½ drive.

Where to stay?

The Crowne Pointe Historic Inn and Spa hotel’s penthouse suite promises spectacular panoramic town views with two bedrooms; a chef’s kitchen with six-burner gas stove and double ovens, and two private decks. The rate: $749 a night, or $6,741 for our nine-day stay, excluding taxes.

Dina Martina
Martina

P-town’s theater scene is like nowhere else. Boulevard especially recommends the incomparable comedian Dina Martina: “tragic singer, horrible dancer, and surreal raconteur.” (Emphasis on the surreal.) When: through Sept. 17 at the Crown & Anchor Resort.

Don’t forget The New York Times’ 36 Hours in Provincetown; TripAdvisor’s Provincetown page, and Airbnb’s Provincetown rentals.

The bottom line

For two: airfare and hotel, plus $300 a day for meals and incidentals comes to just under $12,000.

Here’s a drone’s-eye view of what you’ll experience:

Money in Politics

Opinion: Paul no friend of coal industry, or its beleaguered miners; ‘he hasn’t done a single thing’

That’s according to John Winn Miller, a retired journalist, screenwriter and movie producer who took on Sen. Rand Paul in an op-ed piece in this morning’s Courier-Journal.

“Paul pretends to be a friend by railing against big government and the mythical ‘war on coal,'” Miller writes. “But actions speak louder than words. The reality: he hasn’t done a single thing or passed a single bill to help the coal industry, distressed coal counties or out-of-work miners.”

And he cites several examples where the senator’s actions went against the industry’s interests. Miller says Paul:

  • offered an amendment to waive some environmental regulations and wage requirements in high unemployment areas. In other words, screw the coal miners and the health of people living in Eastern Kentucky. It was overwhelmingly rejected (33-64) in the Republican-dominated Senate.
  • supports the Keystone Pipeline and competing industries like cheap natural gas from fracking that — along with the growth of green energy — have far more to do with the demise of coal production than environmental regulations.

Miller’s contention the Republican senator hasn’t helped the industry comes despite the fact it’s been one of his biggest financial backers, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks Federal Election Commission data. In 2015-16, mining companies donated $129,250 of the total $9.5 million he took in, according to the center. The top 10 sources where industries were identified:

Rand Paul industry contributions 2015-16

Paul, an ophthalmologist, got the most support from health professionals: $471,241, or nearly 5% of all.

Coal on the way out

Miller writes: “The reality that Paul won’t admit is that coal production in Kentucky has been declining for decades –- long before President Barack Obama. It is the marketplace and the global shift to clean energy that is killing coal. Even China is starting to reduce coal mining and use.”

Indeed, statewide last year, Kentucky had only 9,493 coal mining jobs, a 46% decline from 17,670 as recently as 2008, according to the latest data from the Energy and Environment Cabinet. Mine operators produced 61.4 million tons, nearly half as much as the 121.2 million in 2008.

Jim Gray
Gray

Paul, who’s in his first Senate term, is up for re-election in November; he’s facing Democratic challenger Jim Gray of Lexington, the candidate Miller says is the only one “with a real, four-point plan to help the coal industry and revitalize coal-dependent counties as well as the ability to work with both parties.”

The Center for Responsive Politics hasn’t Continue reading “Opinion: Paul no friend of coal industry, or its beleaguered miners; ‘he hasn’t done a single thing’” →

Jobs

For $10-$50 an hour, there are 146 people in Louisville who rent themselves out as friends. (Seriously)

time-clockBoulevard reports extensively on executive pay at big local employers. But we also look at what folks make down in the trenches — and off in the more unexpected corners of the Internet. Here’s our latest installment.

The job: friend for hire.

The duties: accompany clients to the movies; take them bike-riding; hit Oxmoor Center for shopping — basically, anything friends would do, except for that benefits stuff. They’re available through a company called, appropriately enough, Rent-a-Friend. And according to ABC News, this is an entirely legit operation — no romance, and especially no sex. Worldwide, Rent-a-Friend has 531,434 to choose from. We reviewed all 146 local ones, then drew a brief portrait of rentable Louisville, starting with:

Nick, a 23-year-old college undergraduate whose field of study would make an interesting conversation-starter: skeletal forensics. Roger once spent seven months tree-sitting in the Redwoods of California; now 31, he organizes arts grants fundraisers for the annual Burning Man gathering. A guy named Fun Man is 6’6″ tall, and points out: “I am built-in security for you, as I am a trained fighter.”

Another man, who’s nearly (6’5″) as tall and goes by the name Money, loves to travel. As does Derrick, we imagine, because he can write and read Greek. But if you want to travel more widely, Timo speaks three languages (almost) fluently, and can communicate effectively in two more. (And since he’s only 21, he may have already picked up a sixth by the time you meet him.)

Rent A Friend logoCloser to home, Tommy would be handy because, at 51, he’s a jack-of-four-trades: rentable friend, actor, Uber driver, and window cleaner. Now, if you’re thinking about doing something shady for fun, you’d probably want to reconsider renting a 30-year-old woman who calls herself That There One Chick, because she’s a corrections officer. On the other hand, if you did get into trouble, Ryan is an attorney. And finally, last but not least, because he’s got an interesting nickname, G. Carver‘s friends call him “Cadillac.”

Photo, top: Two attendees at Burning Man — an annual event that Louisville’s rentable friend Roger helps support through fundraisers he organizes. That’s a photo by Flickr member Christopher Michel.