An upscale hotel and a gourmet grocery store are coming to Seattle’s south Lake Union area, joining other businesses as part of plans to redevelop the area north of downtown. Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, a unit of Tokyo’s Tokyu Group, will open a 160-room hotel at 2200 Westlake Ave. N., on the corner of Westlake Avenue N. and Denny Way. It will be joined by Whole Foods Market, part of the popular Austin, Texas, chain of gourmet groceries.
The European judge deciding whether to suspend European Union sanctions against Microsoft Corp. has told the software giant to beef up its claim that compliance with an order to share some technical information would cause it irreparable harm, the London-based Financial Times reported. Bo Vesterdorf, president of Luxembourg-based Europe’s Court of First Instance, asked Microsoft for more evidence to back up its contention that its intellectual property rights would be under threat if it is forced to divulge information on its servers.
Crude oil prices jumped well above $45 a barrel Thursday, continuing to rally on uncertainties in oil-producing nations at a time when demand is strong and the world’s excess output capacity is thin. The price of light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 70 cents to $45.50 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest settlement price on record.
General Motors Corp. says it is trimming production of its slow-selling Ion compact car at its Saturn assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., affecting 300 to 400 jobs, though union officials say no one will be laid off. The automaker told employees this week it will reduce the number of work crews in the plant from three to two effective Sept. 7. The plant now operates with three crews of 300 to 400 workers over two shifts, six days a week.
Google Inc. opens the auction for its hotly anticipated initial public offering today, despite legal questions about a newly published Playboy interview with the founders of the online search engine. The 28 brokerages handling Google’s unorthodox IPO were to begin accepting bids at 6 a.m., according to a statement posted by the Mountain View, Calif.-based company on Thursday. All bidders must already have obtained one of the registration numbers that Google has distributed during the past two weeks.
From Herald news services
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