Burnt: Shares of Nike were off by as much as 3% this morning as calls for a boycott of the sportswear giant gained traction on social media following its choice of Colin Kaepernick as a face for the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” slogan, Reuters reports. Over 30,000 people were tweeting with the hashtag #NikeBoycott this morning, making it among the top trending topics on Twitter. Some posted images of themselves burning and ripping their Nike shoes and apparel. Still, there were a large number of other users who took positively to Nike taking a stand on social issues. Read the full story.
No vacancy: Short-term rentals facilitated by Airbnb, HomeAway and similar web-driven operations have been changing neighborhoods in New Orleans and other cities, generating headaches along with tourist dollars. In 2016, the city seemed at the forefront of efforts to legalize and regulate the new industry, before efforts fizzled. Now, the city is trying again, prodded by dissatisfied residents and associations. “We were sold a bill of goods—that it was going to be mom-and-pop,” says Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, who won unanimous council approval for a city planning commission study of the issue and a nine-month moratorium on some rental licenses. Read the full story.
Vroom vroom: Sales of new American muscle cars are falling, raising questions in Detroit and elsewhere about whether a nostalgic, high-horsepower cruising culture that dates to before the 1950s is in peril. Part of the drop can be blamed on the shift from cars to SUVs that began more than a decade ago, but there are demographic factors that signal a decline. Baby boomers, who buy many of the muscle cars, are getting older. Muscle car fans consider the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Corvette, and the Dodge Challenger and Charger to be the mainstays of Detroit performance cars. But their combined sales fell 7% in 2016, 11% last year, and are down almost 10% for the first half of 2018, according to numbers provided by Kelley Blue Book. Read the full story.
