Churchill Downs Inc.’s top executive told shareholders Thursday that the gambling and racing company plans to be aggressive in seeking new acquisitions as it comes off a record-setting financial pace in 2011, the Associated Press reports.
The Kentucky-based company also sees growth potential for its online wagering business, and has been encouraged by the popularity of the limited night-time racing at its namesake Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, said company Chairman and CEO Robert Evans, the AP says.
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Kentucky’s seasonally adjusted preliminary unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent in May 2012 from a revised 8.3 percent in April 2012, marking the 10th consecutive month of jobless rate decline, according to the Office of Employment and Training (OET), an agency of the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet.
The preliminary May 2012 jobless rate was 1.4 percentage points below the 9.6 percent rate recorded for the state in May 2011.
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Danville’s looks have garnered some extra attention from the company that now puts towns on more than just its famous maps, reports the Danville Advocate Messenger.
Contestants in Rand McNally’s “Best of the Road Rally” competition will be in town next week to help decide whether Danville will wear the crown as America’s most beautiful small town, the paper reports.
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Brown-Forman plans a new cooperage in Decatur, Ala., to make barrels for aging Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The Jack Daniel Cooperage is expected to open in May 2014, eventually employing about 200 and doubling the company’s barrel-making capacity. Brown-Forman’s only other cooperage is in Louisville.
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The Partnership for a Fit Kentucky and the Shaping Kentucky’s Future Collaborative have released a report addressing the state’s growing obesity epidemic, detailing multiple examples of local strategies to combat inactive lifestyles and build healthier communities.
In national rankings of overweight and obese children, Kentucky is third highest of all 50 states, and sixth in the rankings of overweight and obese adults. Health care costs attributable to obesity in Kentucky will reach an estimated $2.3 billion in 2013, according to Trust for America’s Health’s Bending the Obesity Cost Curve report.
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