NASHVILLE (AP) — A deal to bring 900 jobs to Nashville has fallen through amid concerns the company closed several offices in Canada and laid off workers.
Mayor Karl Dean said the city is not moving forward on arrangements with IQT Inc., a provider of customer relationship management services. Gov. Bill Haslam, Dean and others announced the deal June 9.
Last Friday, IQT announced it was closing three call centers in Canada, according to WTVF-TV in Nashville.
Dean said he was surprised about the developments in Canada and dismayed about the way the employees were treated. He said no incentive funds have been paid to the company.
IQT does technical support for major companies for devices like cellphones.
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NASHVILLE (AP) — Hot and getting hotter is the overall weather forecast in Tennessee.
An excessive heat watch has been posted for this morning through Saturday night for the 10 West Tennessee counties closest to the Mississippi River.
The National Weather Service cautions that high humidity this week will drive heat indexes to 107 degrees with some readings of 110 degrees possible. A heat advisory was posted for the rest of West Tennessee into lower Middle Tennessee for the balance of the week.
Forecasters said there would be a chance of some thunderstorms, but with no organized front, most spots in the state probably won't get rain.
There is a stronger thunderstorm chance up the Tennessee River Valley in East Tennessee, but high temperatures are still expected to reach the mid-90s during the week.
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NASHVILLE (AP) — A former treasury analyst for Central Parking Corp. has pleaded guilty to wire fraud related to her embezzlement of more than $1.9 million from the Nashville-based company.
The U.S. attorney's office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement that 51-year-old Mary Harris of Pleasant View fraudulently transferred Central Parking funds to her own bank account and the bank accounts of relatives between August 2004 and August 2009.
She then tried to cover up the transfers by making fraudulent accounting entries in Central Parking’s ledger and creating false e-mails.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled Oct. 24. In addition to her guilty plea, Harris agreed to forfeit all money and property traceable to her crime.
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CLARKSVILLE (AP) — Montgomery County officials say a man mowing his lawn died after driving off a 70-foot cliff.
Robert Ellis died shortly after rescue personnel rappelled down the cliff and brought him back up. He had lost consciousness soon after rescuers reached him Monday afternoon, according to The Leaf-Chronicle of Clarksville.
Montgomery County sheriff’s deputy Ted Denny said Ellis’ death was accidental. His son had noticed Ellis and the mower were missing not long after Ellis began mowing the lawn around noon on Monday and called his mother. When Theresa Ellis arrived home, she heard her husband and then saw him below the cliff and called rescuers.
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CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Highway planners say a proposed new toll bridge across the Tennessee River should be built just south of the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in northern Hamilton County.
The planned bridge would link U.S. 27 with Interstate 75.
Still to be worked out is a maze of roads that could feed traffic onto the bridge, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
A route through Enterprise South would be the least expensive. The former Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant site is the home of the Volkswagen plant.
Consultants with the Tennessee Department of Transportation told local elected officials in December that the bridge is feasible as a quicker route between Collegedale and Soddy-Daisy. Those are the region's fastest-growing cities.
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GATLINBURG (AP) — June was another down month for visits to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The National Park Service says the number of visitors to the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border fell 17.6 percent from June 2010. While traffic at all entrances was down, visitors coming in through the 13 outlying entrances fell 31.1 percent.
Statistics show visits in the first half of 2011 were down 11.9 percent — about 480,000 people.
Camping in the family campgrounds is off 6.8 percent year to date.
The park's highest visitation was in 1999, when nearly 10,300,000 visits were recorded.
Deal collapses to bring 900 jobs to Nashville

