Crown Pacific Partners LP has sold its lumberyard in North Las Vegas, Nev., according to the Las Vegas Sun. The sale comes just weeks after the Oregon-based forest products company said it would consider selling its assets in order to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Among those assets is a mill in Marysville that employs about 40 people, and vast tracts of forestland in Western Washington, including Snohomish County. So far, the company has not announced changes for those properties.
The American Stock Exchange will launch options trading Monday for Bothell-based Nastech Pharmaceutical Co. Nastech, one of four Nasdaq stocks that will be added to Amex’s options market on Monday, develops and sells nasally inhaled drugs, including nasal spray forms of morphine and an erectile dysfunction treatment. Nastech’s stock closed at $13.36 a share Thursday, up 2 cents.
The number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in more than three years, a promising sign that companies feel better about the economy. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new jobless applications declined by a seasonally adjusted 14,000 to 328,000.
Taxpayers have been filing electronic tax returns in record numbers, the Internal Revenue Service reported one week before the April 15 filing deadline. The nation’s tax collectors said Thursday they have received 5 million more electronically filed returns compared with the same time last year. That amounts to a 12 percent increase in tax returns filed electronically even before a flood of returns arrives during the last two weeks before the filing deadline. Terry Lutes, a top official in IRS Information Technology Services, said the growth reflects taxpayers’ increased comfort interacting with the IRS online. Millions of taxpayers have also used the IRS Web site to check up on their expected refunds.
McDonald’s Corp. is joining competitors in offering lower-carbohydrate versions of its food. On Thursday, it announced plans to offer bunless versions of its hamburgers and chicken sandwiches nationally by early May. Some McDonald’s restaurants, including those in New York City, have been selling patties wrapped in lettuce rather than bread for several months to dieters who ask for them. Patrons in all McDonald’s have had the option of getting the patties without the buns.
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