Axios

YouTube, the Google-owned video platform, plans to launch a new music subscription service in March 2018, Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg reports. Warner Music Group, has already signed on, sources tell Shaw, and YouTube is already in talks with other major record labels, like Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group.

Why it matters: It's a foray into the subscription music scene that's primarily been dominated by Googls's biggest competitors in the space: Apple, Spotify and to an extent, Amazon. YouTube's biggest challenge will be striking deals with music groups, which in the past have argued that they have not been fairly compensated in deals with YouTube. Roughly 25% of music streaming happens on YouTube.

Music streaming services Spotify and Tencent Music Holdings have agreed to invest minority stakes in one another, both companies announced on Friday.

Why it matters: The investments could allow each company to expand their global footprints. Tencent Music's parent company is a dominant force in China's social internet economy, and has recently made investments in American companies like Snapchat. Spotify has been working to go public through a direct listing, and an investment from Tencent could help convinvce shareholders that it has global appeal.

This interactive chart shows a sector-by-sector look at the U.S. economy, tracking employment and wages since 2006, just before the crash.

How to read it: The circles indicate industries, sized by their average number of employees over time. From there, the chart is doing two things — tracking jobs and earnings from 2006 to 2017 (the up and down movement of the circles shows the change in number of jobs; left to right is the change in earnings), and projecting forward from 2014 to 2024 (signified by the intensity of the colors of the circles).

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Note: Most growth projections are made at the same level of industry detail shown here. In cases where no growth projection exists, the number shown represents one detail level up; Chart: Chris Canipe / Axios

Go deeper: A snapshot of the jobs malaise

Investors sent shares in Dollar General higher Thursday after the company announced better-than-expected sales growth and plans to open 900 stores in 2018.

Why it matters: Dollar General avoided the struggles of the broader retail industry by focusing on poor, rural communities overlooked by Walmart, which are home to customers living paycheck-to-paycheck with limited access to credit cards.

Walmart Chairman Greg Penner told an audience at the Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou, China, today that "open borders and free trade have been good for our consumers." He added that each of the past 11 presidential administrations has sought out the opinions of the company on such matters due to Walmart's large size and U.S. employee base of more than 2 million.

Why it matters: Walmart has long been associated with red-state America, but the company has recently clashed with the GOP's anti-free trade faction, as evidenced by the lobbying it did to kill proposal earlier this year to increase taxes on companies that import goods from abroad.

MSNBC is re-hiring radio host and TV personality Sam Seder as a contributor after firing him earlier this week when one of his tweets from 2009 was re-shared by "alt-right" follower Mike Cernovich, according to the Intercept.

Flashback: This isn't the first time that "alt-right" leaders have attempted to smear prominent progressives. The Intercept points out Obama's Department of Agriculture fired Shirley Sherrod after Andrew Breitbart posted clips, out of context, from one of her old speeches. Like Seder, Sherrod was ultimately offered her job back after the full speech was seen.

Seder's tweet: "Don't care re Polanski, but I hope if my daughter is ever raped it is by an older truly talented man w/a great sense of mise en scene." Seder has said the tweet was intended to mock those who advocated for easier sentencing for Roman Polanski, the accomplished film director who pled guilty to raping a 13-year-old and eventually fled to Europe to escape sentencing.

Seder said in a statement, "I appreciate MSNBC's thoughtful reconsideration and willingness to understand the cynical motives of those who intentionally misrepresented my tweet for their own toxic, political purposes."

MSNBC President Phil Griffin explained the decision, "We made our initial decision for the right reasons — because we don't consider rape to be a funny topic to be joked about. But we've heard the feedback, and we understand the point Sam was trying to make in that tweet was actually in line with our values, even though the language was not. Sam will be welcome on our air going forward."

In the age of Amazon, the world's largest retailer is changing its legal name from "Wal-Mart Stores Inc." to "Walmart Inc." effective Feb. 1, AP reports. Walmart this year tripled the number of items sold online from a year ago.

Wall Street Journal: "Other big companies have changed names to signal a shift in strategy to customers or investors. Steve Jobs in 2007 decided to shorten Apple Computer Inc.'s name to Apple Inc. as it moved into phones and other devices. Google Inc. became Alphabet Inc. in 2015 as the company branched out into more businesses beyond search, like self-driving cars and robots."

"A vigorous, stirring true-life thriller ... Steven Spielberg's latest film stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in a drama about The Washington Post's role in publishing the Pentagon Papers," the Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy writes (opens Dec. 22).