FRANKLIN — Woody's Smokes & Brews is going beyond beer and cigars as the Cool Springs store adds live music three days a week

Every Wednesday, Woody's Brewgrass Band entertains the crowd from 7-9 p.m. More commonly known as Full Force Gale, the band will showcase acoustic bluegrass.

On Thursdays nights, jazz is the word when Terry Kinakin and the Cats Pajammers swing from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

''We're hoping to get the drive-home crew to come in have a beer or a cigar and listen to some good music,'' LeMay said.

Fridays will be the big night, when Woody's showcases variety with writers' night from 8-10 p.m.

Musical entertainment on Fridays begins May 10 with folk blues artists Buddy Greene, Kenny Meeks and Dave Dillard. On May 17, Bethany & Jesse Thouin and Kelly Green play a full night of acoustic pop.

For more information, visit the Woody's Web site at www.coolspringswines.com/woodys.htm.

Music joins eclectic lineup at Woody's Smokes & Brews

How do you tell the difference between the companies that are going to survive the shakeout among telecommunications service providers and those that will go belly-up?

Every CEO running a phone company has studied the problem. When some number of customers stops buying, a company's remaining customers often come looking for discounts. It's exactly this double whammy of falling demand and falling prices that has hit telecommunications providers from WorldCom to Verizon.

Only Some Will Survive the Telecom Shakeout

Lipscomb University plans to start an engineering school that will offer two kinds of undergraduate degrees this fall.

The school will award bachelor's degrees in computer engineering and engineering physics, and it hopes to enroll up to 275 students within a few years, said Ralph Butler, chairman of Lipscomb's department of physics and engineering.

Lipscomb to create engineering school

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival is held 10 a.m.-6 p.m. every weekend in May and Memorial Day in Triune. Ticket process are $14 for adults, $6 for children 6-12, $11 for seniors and ages 5 and younger are free. Presale tickets end Friday at participating H.G. Hills stores. Additional information at 395-9950

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival

WASHINGTON, April 30 — Senators seeking to encourage high-speed Internet access introduced a bill Tuesday that would subject all services to the same regulatory constraints, regardless of how they are delivered.

THE BILL, DRAFTED by Louisiana Democrat John Breaux and Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles, seeks to boost competition by easing regulations on digital subscriber line, or DSL, services, which provide speedy Internet connections over telephone lines.

Senators seek deregulated broadband

Universal Music is in talks with its best-selling rap artist Eminem to incorporate copy-protection technology into all upcoming CD releases of "The Eminem Show," marking the biggest move yet to protect its top acts from music piracy, a label representative said Wednesday.

Universal and Eminem would need to strike an agreement on whether to release the security-enhanced CDs in the next two weeks to meet manufacturing deadlines for the June 3 release date outside the United States, a Universal representative said.

w1ld: LAME

Eminem may wrap CDs in copy controls

LONDON (Reuters) - Icelandic singer Bjork, one of the most unorthodox figures in pop, is five months pregnant, her London management company said Wednesday.

The former singer of indie-band "The Sugarcubes," who had a string of solo hits in the 1990s and is renowned for her kooky dress sense, is expected to give birth to American boyfriend Matthew Barney's child in September.

Icelandic Singer Bjork Is Pregnant

Roger Dowdy, director of engineering for television station WTVF-Channel 5, has been where many of his colleagues must still go.

When Dowdy's station started carrying a digital TV signal in November, it was the first in town to do so. Now, with other area stations scrambling to meet a government-imposed May 1 deadline to go digital, Dowdy is resting easy.

w1ld: good read for other local nashville networks

Government's push to promote digital TV has stations scrambling

A 4.5% flat-rate income tax proposal under consideration by the Tennessee General Assembly would raise more money but wouldn't inoculate the state from economic ups and downs, economists say.

Flat-rate tax not immune to economy's fluctuations

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The Transformers, a race of gigantic, shape-shifting robots, invaded planet Earth two decades ago, desperate to find life-giving fuel for their ailing civilization.

Now they're back, this time fueled by the nostalgia of Generation X.

Return of 'Transformers' the latest craze