My Publicist Note Book

Amazon and Whole Foods Market announced Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods Market will close on Monday, August 28, 2017, and the two companies will together pursue the vision of making Whole Foods Market's high-quality, natural and organic food affordable for everyone. As a down payment on that vision, Whole Foods Market will offer lower prices starting Monday on a selection of best-selling grocery staples across its stores, with more to come. The news sent the shares of grocers like  Kroger ,  Supervalu  Sprouts Farmers Market and even  Walmart , the largest U.S. grocer, and  Target , down on fears of an intensification of the price wars among the food retailers and that fact that Amazon will instantly have 450 new physical locations. In addition, Amazon and Whole Foods Market technology teams will begin to integrate Amazon Prime into the Whole Foods Market point-of-sale system, and when this work is complete, Prime members will receive special saving...

President Donald J. Trump  and  Melania Trump  said they wouldn't participate in this year's Kennedy Center Honors to avoid "political distraction."   It will be the fourth time in 40 years of the event that the sitting president won't be attending. WASHINGTON — The White House announced early Saturday that President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, would not participate in this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.” The decision was another episode in an already fraught week for the White House. Mr. Trump has become increasingly isolated after a series of comments about the white supremacist marches in Charlottesville, Va. Concerned about being aligned with Mr. Trump, business leaders on the Strategic and Policy Forum agreed to disband this past week. And on Friday, all 16 members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned in ...

The Jacksons: Marlon, Tito, Jackie This past  Friday  night,  Central City Productions  paid to  The Jacksons, Pastor Donnie McClurkin, Slick Rick, Guy, Oleta Adams, and Jody Watley  at the  Black Music Honors  at the  Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, TN .  Black Music Honors', A 2-hour television special honoring legendary African American icons who have influenced and made significant contributions to American music. Shanice &  Tony Terry Dr. Bobby Jones Singers  Shanice & Tony Terry  opened the event with an amazing performance.  The Black Music Honors  also included special performances by  Avery Sunshine, Dave Hollister, Jonathan Butler, Karen Clark Sheard, Kid N Play, Latice Crawford, Leela James, Marvin Winans, SWV, Da Brat, Sevyn Streeter  and more.  The legendary group,  The Jacksons , received the  Lifetime Achievement in Music ...

Dancer Carmen de Lavallade Is the Second Kennedy Center Honors Recipient to Boycott Reception “In light of the socially divisive and morally caustic narrative that our current leadership is choosing to engage in, and in keeping with the principles that I and so many others have fought for, I will be declining the invitation to attend the reception at the White House,” she said to the  Washington Post . Legendary television producer Norman Lear was the first from this year’s recipients to announce that he wouldn’t be attending the ceremony, saying that the “White House that has no interest in supporting the Arts and Humanities.” Earlier this year, Donald Trump proposed completely eliminating the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, a gesture that makes White House-backed arts honors feel flippant. Lionel Richie, another recipient, told  Today  that he was considering not attending the ceremony as well. “I’...

As the old show business saying goes “Dying is easy, and comedy is hard,” and that’s been the case for a number of titles in the genre at the box office this year which has dropped like flies. Take your pick:  Rough Night, Baywatch, The House, Fist Fight , the list goes on. Compare this to last year when four comedies –all released during the summer– held their own including  Ghostbusters  (it made $128M despite being a financial upset),  Central Intelligence  ($127.4M),  Bad Moms  ($113.3M) and  Sausage Party  ($97M) . But this summer, and this year to date, Universal can relish the fact that they bucked a downward box office trend with their sleeper hit  Girls Trip  from director Malcolm D. Lee which is crossing $100M at the domestic box office today. Many say that the female audience is underserved, and again it shows that they’re titillated by raunchy comedies, and that’s why  ...

The Teen Choice Awards, always a bubble of teenage celebration, took time out during Sunday night's ceremony to consider the world its young audience will inherit. Hashtags, surfboards and loud shrieks dominated the Teen Choice Awards, as usual, with YouTube star Jake Paul presiding over a show designed to be tweeted, Snapchatted and put on Instagram.  But with the two-hour broadcast coming a day after the violence at a rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, some winners pleaded for teen viewers to do better than their elders. The music performance-stuffed show, broadcast live on Fox from Los Angeles, followed a three-hour "Teen Fest" concert in downtown Los Angeles that was streamed on YouTube. Miley Cyrus, an 18-time Teen Choice award winner, was to receive the ceremony's highest honor, the Ultimate Choice Award. But she was announced as a last-minute cancellation early in the ceremony. Many of the other biggest names either sent video a...