With a line of eager customers around the building and hundreds of cars forming a zigzag pattern in the parking lot, Krispy Kreme opened its first store in the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday to appreciative whoops and honking horns. It was much ado about a doughnut. “I was just going to order three dozen, but I’m up to six right now,” said Kip Hauser, a mortgage lender from Issaquah who had waited in line for 45 minutes before the 5:30 a.m. grand opening.
H. Mason Sizemore, president and chief operating officer for The Seattle Times, has retired effective immediately and will be replaced by General Manager Carolyn Kelly, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. The decision was personal and Sizemore felt comfortable in leaving abruptly – after a 36-year career with the paper – because Kelly was already in place to succeed him, said spokeswoman Kerry Coughlin. Kelly, 49, said Sizemore and Publisher Frank Blethen had discussed the changeover recently, but she was still surprised by the announcement.
A slushy economy and terrorist damage to its telephone infrastructure helped push third-quarter earnings down 46 percent at local telephone giant Verizon Communications Inc. The company also cut its earnings estimates for the rest of the year. In the quarter ended Sept. 30, Verizon earned $1.88 billion, or 69 cents a share, compared with $3.47 billion, or $1.27 a share, in the year-ago quarter.
The Coca-Cola Co., extending its reach into the growing market for noncarbonated drinks, said Tuesday it is buying premium juice maker Odwalla Inc. for $181 million. California-based Odwalla, which makes juice blends, smoothies and other fortified health drinks, will retain its current management and become part of Coke’s Minute Maid juice division. For Atlanta-based Coke, the world’s largest soft drink company, the deal means a bigger piece of the “good-for-you beverage area,” said John Sicher, editor of Beverage Digest.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has been accused by the government of defrauding the Pentagon of tens millions of dollars on defense contracts, including one to produce top-secret parts for the B-2 stealth bomber. The government said in civil court papers filed last week that the defense contractor produced bogus inventory records and other documents to hide the fact that it had inflated costs on contracts for producing radar jammers.
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