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Muhammad Ali is in "grave condition" in a Phoenix-area hospital, a well-informed source tells NBC News, as the boxing legend continues to battle a respiratory condition. The 74-year-old former heavyweight champion's family has gathered by his bedside just a day after he had been hospitalized in what spokesman Bob Gunnell said Thursday was to be a "brief" stay.

Muhammad Ali has been placed on life support — and his family fears that it “likely won’t be long until he passes away,” according to a report. The boxing legend was hospitalized in Scottsdale, Ariz., for a respiratory issue on Thursday and insiders tell Radar Online that his loved ones are now rushing to his side because it appears his condition has worsened. “He needs every bit of fight he’s got left to survive,” a source told the website. “Doctors are telling the family that it likely won’t be long until he passes away.”

Ali Thumps Trump..? But Why Isn't The Champ Hitting Back At The Obvious... "I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is," ... - Muhammad Ali, 12/9/15 Muhammad, I believe Donald Trump is doing a magnificent job of bringing that particular understanding to the American people. We have a homegrown jihadist in our midst but "moderate" Muslims are not condemning his actions. You know him, Champ. He's all over TV and Facebook with his racist rants....

Muhammad Ali, one of the most famous athletes in American history and a convert to Islam in the 1960s, returned to the public spotlight Wednesday night to say that political leaders had a responsibility to foster understanding about his religion. His comments came after Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, stoked anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States by, among other things, suggesting that foreign Muslims be barred from traveling to the country. Trump has also questioned President Obama's affirmation that Muslim Americans are some of the nation's sports heroes. ...

So the media has decided to drag out Muhammad Ali to denounce Trump as a bigot. That's a great plan. Let's ask Martin Luther King about it. "When Cassius Clay joined the Black Muslims and started calling himself Cassius X he became a champion of Racial Segregation and that is what we are fighting against. I think perhaps Cassius should spend more time proving his boxing skill and do less talking," Martin Luther King said. How "Islamophobic" of King. Of course Ali's Black Muslim group at the time, The Nation of Islam, was a vile racist and anti-Semitic organization....

I had always maligned Muhammad Ali for having developed, implemented the Rope-A-Dope tacticthat despite being a very effective strategy, felt was a cheap, cowardly way in which to defeat his opponents. But on closer inspection as offered by the enclosed gif, I came to see first hand that the Rope-A-Dope I thought he used was simply to have him standing in the cormner his head protected his opponent tiring himelf out in the process. But as I now see it, Ali had developed a deeply analytical, highly effective, disciplined approach that was more proactive than reactive, for which he deserve...

World famous German photographer Thomas Hoepker, sharing his memoirs on famous boxer Muhammad Ali with the Turkish audience, states he took 'legendary' photos of Ali. World famous German photographer Thomas Hoepker, sharing his memoirs on famous boxer Muhammad Ali with the Turkish audience, stated he took 'legendary' photos of him. Being in Turkey's Bursa city as a guest of "Third International Photography Festival in Bursa" Hoepker told his photography memories with famous boxer Muhammad Ali and said he had the opportunity to take each scene of him during a boxing match. "It was an incredible thing to approach him that...

The US National Security Agency spied on civil rights leader Martin Luther King and boxer Muhammad Ali during the height of the Vietnam War protests, declassified documents reveal. According to the BBC, the documents show the NSA also tracked journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post and two senators—Democrat Frank Church and Republican Howard Baker. …

Consider a polarizing political and cultural figure who is seen by many people as a hero and by others as a traitor – and who has a powerful symbolic importance to members of a persecuted minority. This person adopts a new name and a new identity, which transforms his or her relationship to mainstream culture and confuses both the media and many members of the public. Many people refuse to accept the new name and identity, or treat it as a nickname or a passing fad. At age 25, this person is prosecuted for an act of conscience-driven defiance against...

Two weeks before Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship, the boxer’s trainer met secretly with FBI agents and identified members of the Nation of Islam who were associates of Ali, according to bureau records. In a "confidential" February 1964 memo to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a supervisor in the bureau’s Miami office reported on a meeting with “trainer-manager” Angelo Dundee and Dundee’s brother Chris, who was promoting the fight between Liston and Ali (who was then still known as Cassius Clay).

Pakistan's leading arts college has pushed boundaries before in this conservative nation. But when a series of paintings depicting Muslim clerics in scenes with strong homosexual overtones sparked an uproar and threats of violence by Islamic extremists, it was too much. Officials at the National College of Arts in the eastern city of Lahore shut down its academic journal, which published the paintings, pulled all its issues out of bookstores and dissolved its editorial board. Still, a court is currently considering whether the paintings' artist, the journal's board and the school's head can be charged with blasphemy. The college's decision...

Angelo Dundee, the brilliant motivator who worked the corner for Muhammad Ali in his greatest fights and willed Sugar Ray Leonard to victory in his biggest bout, died Wednesday in Tampa, Fla. He was 90.

When boxing great Joe Frazier died last week, the media managed to say nice things about Smokin' Joe without ever detailing how they and their chosen one of the moment, Muhammad Ali, conspired to ruin Frazier's life. I got a sense of this in March 1971, when my friends from grad school and I drove from Purdue to watch a large screen presentation of the first Ali-Frazier fight. Given the imperatives of student poverty, we headed not south to Indianapolis, which was 40 miles closer, but north to Gary, which was five dollars cheaper. The moment we walked into the...

It is appropriate to set aside this journal’s customary business now and then to pay tribute to class and loss away from baseball. If you think that boxing is a profession, if not necessarily a sport, to which class is an unwelcome intruder, you may not have known Joe Frazier, who died of liver cancer at 62 on Monday. Or, at least, you may not really think that class was beaten out of the profession once and for all by the third and last of his showdowns with Muhammad Ali. “I heard somethin’ once,” Ali told Sports Illustrated‘s Mark Kram,...

‘Don’t you know I’m God?” taunted Muhammad Ali, in the first of the epic trilogy of heavyweight prizefights with Joe Frazier that defined the early 1970s. Ali even took to accompanying each word — Don’t — you — know — I’m — God? — with a swing of his fists, unleashing another flurry of his lightning-fast punches. Frazier, undaunted, singularly unaffected by Ali’s sophomoric doggerel and sophisticated psy-ops, kept boring in on his opponent, a steady, bobbing, weaving machine, and spat back through his bloodied mouthpiece: “Well, God, you gonna get whupped tonight!” And very near the end of that...

Muhammad Ali always said he was the prettiest thing that ever lived. He has a point. It does take a certain beauty to make 1,300 punching bags, five miles of stainless steel and two miles of aluminum tubing look like a work of art. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a talented sculptor rendering those materials. California artist Michael Kalish will unveil his Ali art installation, "reALIze," later this month in Los Angeles. The project, which depicts the three-time heavyweight champ by using speed bags, stands two stories high, fills up 15,00 cubic feet and includes five miles of...

Former President George W. Bush was happily stunned when legendary former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali stood facing him. Bush was at a Barnes & Noble Booksellers store in Phoenix today signing his book, Decision Points when the Greatest entered (with the Secret Service) to shake hands. With his famous comic humor, Ali sat next to Bush and held the book up as press and public snapped photos.

While he continues to harm troop morale in Afghanistan by refusing for the past three months to send urgently requested reinforcements, Barack Obama has taken the time to pen an op-ed for USA Today praising the most famous draft dodger of the 20th Century, Muhammad Ali, for his ability to overome the "adversity" caused by his refusal to serve his country in a time of war.While Ali can be praised for his humanitarian work and the way he has connected with people all across the globe, which Obama does in the article, for a commander-in-chief in a time of war...

Muhammad Ali, who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee inside the boxing ring and became a political and humanitarian force outside of it, will receive an honorary doctorate from Muhlenberg College. The former three-time heavyweight champion and Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the 20th Century will be honored at the college's 161st commencement May 17 with two others -- Galway Kinnell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and Kathleen A. McGinty, former state environmental secretary for Gov. Ed Rendell. First known as Cassius Clay, he won the boxing Olympic gold medal in 1960 and became heavyweight champion in 1964. The...

Muhammad Ali Awarded Honorary Doctorate from Princeton University Wednesday, June 06, 2007 Associated Press PRINCETON, N.J. — The Greatest is now an Ivy League doctor. Muhammad Ali has been awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities from Princeton University. Ali was honored for his contributions to humanitarian efforts and his athletic achievements. The 65-year-old former heavyweight boxing champion was one of seven people awarded honorary degrees at the university's graduation ceremony Tuesday.