FILE - In this April 28, 2006 file photo, Bridgestone/Firestone's Dayton tire plant is pictured in Oklahoma City.Bridgestone-Firestone North America is recalling nearly more than 36,000 heavy truck tires in the U.S. and Canada because the tread can separate from the body and cause the tires to fail. The recall covers 22.5-inch Firestone FS561 replacement tires made from January 25, 2015 to January 27, 2016.(AP Photo) A longtime downtown Chattanooga auto service shop - that was part community service - has reopened as a corporate outlet.
Firestone Complete Auto Care at 1271 Market St. across from St. John's Restaurant will mark its grand opening on April 1-3 with a variety of discounts, including reduced prices for new tires and oil changes.
The completely remodeled shop opened on Feb. 15 at the site of the former Market Street Tire & Auto, a business that Krue Brock bought in 2000 - to help boost the Southside neighborhood where his family, which includes two U.S. senators, launched its fortune 110 years ago with the Brock Candy Co. Idealism, not hard-nosed commerce, inspired Brock.
"This was when Southside was just starting that momentum," Brock told the Times Free Press in November. "I never wanted to lose money. But profit has never been the biggest incentive."
FILE - In this Thursday, March 19, 2015, file photo, signs are lit up at a Starbucks Coffee shop in New York's Times Square. Starbucks says it will introduce a prepaid card by the end of 2016 that lets people earn points for its rewards program. The Seattle-based company plans to offer the card through Chase and says people would be able to use it wherever Visa is accepted. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) Starbucks says it will introduce a prepaid card by the end of the year that lets people earn points for its rewards program.
The Seattle-based company plans to offer the card through Chase and says people would be able to use it wherever Visa is accepted.
It's the latest move by Starbucks Corp. to convince people to sign up for its loyalty program by giving them more ways to earn rewards "stars" outside of its cafes. The company also previously announced deals that entail selling its stars to The New York Times, Spotify and Lyft. Those companies would then distribute the stars as incentives to their own customers, Starbucks has said.
Panama Canal to inaugurate expansionsPanama has set a June 26 date to inaugurate an expanded canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans following a multibillion-dollar expansion.
The $5.2 billion expansion was initially slated to be concluded in October 2014. But a string of work stoppages and disputes with the Italian conglomerate behind the expansion over cost overruns has led to repeated delays.
As part of the expansion project, wider locks with mechanical gates will reduce congestion and be able accommodate post-Panamex vessels, which are as long as three football fields and have the capacity to carry about 2.5 times the number of containers than held by ships currently using the canal.