Authorities raid MN Walgreens where Prince reportedly picked up prescriptions for heavy-duty medications by Nancy Dillon at NY Daily News. “Investigators spent several hours combing through the store’s pharmacy records looking for evidence of doctors involved, drugs dispensed and possible aliases used, (TMZ) said. Unidentified family members reportedly told TMZ that Prince had multiple doctors scoring him prescriptions, including a “personal friend.” Read more

 

Home Depot’s CMO Trish Mueller Resigns by Patrick Coffee at Adweek. “(Kevin Hofmann’s promotion) allows us to further integrate our digital assets to optimize our interconnected retail model,” Holmes told Adweek. “When you look at the growth and expansion of digital marketing, the combination of the physical and digital storefronts and things we are doing to integrate those elements to create an interconnected retail experience for consumers, having Kevin take on the CMO role in addition to his responsibilities as president of online makes a lot of sense.” Read more

 

Amazon Pledges to Bring Same-Day Delivery to Bronx After Outcry by Spencer Soper at Bloomberg. “…the only New York City borough now excluded — following criticism from elected representatives that the company’s data-driven service boundaries unfairly left out minority communities.” Read more

 

Target brand perception falls, but it’s not ‘catastrophic’ by Hadley Malcolm at USA Today. “Before Target made its policy public last week, 42% of people said they would consider shopping there the next time they needed something. As of Wednesday, that number had dropped to 38%, which YouGov CEO Ted Marzilli says is a “significant” shift.” Read more

 

Walgreens Medical Marijuana Website Sparks Speculation by Chuck Ludley at Green Rush Daily. “For many in the medical marijuana community, one section stands out as especially promising. In this section, Walgreens says that “research has also shown marijuana provides pain relief in ways traditional pain medicines don’t.” Read more

 

Former Walmart VP takes over top role at Hallmark via The City Wire. “Former Walmart executive Beth Ward, managing director of Hallmark’s Asia Pacific procurement organization, has been named senior vice president – supply chain. Ward will replace Pete Burney who retired after 25 years with the company.” Read more

 

** Trade show spotlight – 2016 National Stationery Show – The ONLY stationery market in North America!

“I want to keep hearing customers say “you have the best cards in the city”, and the Stationery show is a very efficient way for me to assure that.” Retail chain owner. On May 15-18 at Javits Center, NYC join 10,000 attendees and 800 exhibitors from around the globe for the only stationery show in North America. Last year’s photo gallery | Show categories | Upcoming trends you’ll see | Register

 

J.C. Penney shares could double in price in three years: Barron’s via Reuters. Read more

 

The Nebraska town that said no to Costco chicken plant and 1,100 new jobs because they want to protect their rural way of life via Daily Mail. “John Wiegert…questioned whether Nickerson’s plant would attract legal immigrants from Somalia – more than 1,000 of whom have moved to other Nebraska cities for similar jobs, along with people from Mexico, Central America and Southeast Asia.” Read more

 

Walmart SVP: Tech talent is easy to find, just ‘recruit from within’ by Justine Brown at CIO Dive. “Walmart recently reached out to all of its 2.4 million workers to inform them that the company was seeking people who graduated with certain STEM skills in the last 24 months, according to (Sharon) Wibben. As a result, the company found about 1,000 employees with STEM skills.” Read more

 

Calm Down Internet, Whole Foods’ New ‘Hipster’ Stores Won’t Have Tattoo Parlors by Valentina Zarya at Fortune. Read more

 

Will Lundgren stay at Macy’s helm? by Alexander Coolidge at Cincinnati Enquirer. “Analysts believe investors, the board of directors and Lundgren himself want to see what results from the growth initiatives yield before pushing for any further changes at Macy’s.” Read more

 

GNC CEO: Selling off of company stores only beginning by Paul J. Gough at Pittsburgh Business Times. “GNC has about 9,000 locations nationwide, and more than 2,000 of those locations are within Rite Aids. By the time the Sun deal is completed, the company will own 3,302 GNC locations and there will be 1,163 franchised locations.” Read more

 

Amazon cuts off sales to Iranian embassies after discovering $100k in purchases over 3 years by Todd Bishop at GeekWire. “The purchases included $900 worth of items “for an individual designated under Executive Order 13382,” according to the filing. That executive order is “aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, and isolating them financially,” explains a U.S. State Department summary.” Read more

 

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