A stronger dollar and higher interest rates in China are keeping a lid on oil. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery lost 39 cents at $96.50 per barrel in afternoon trading Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price many international oil varieties, dropped 17 cents to $113.44 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. Crude had been rising since last week, nearly recovering from a late-June drop to around $90 a barrel following the announcement that the U.S. and other countries would release 60 million barrels of crude into world markets. Some investment banks said prices would head higher anyway as world supplies tightened later this year. But by Wednesday investors were again focused more strongly on short-term concerns about the global economy.
Broadband service restored in Stanwood
Wave Broadband customers in Stanwood and Arlington were without service until midafternoon Wednesday. The company provides cable, internet and phone services to subscribers in north Snohomish and Island counties as well as for the Sequim and Port Angeles area. A damaged fiber-optic cable is being blamed for the outage. The Kirkland-based company has 275,000 customers in Washington, Oregon and California. According to a message on the company’s help line Wednesday, service also has been disrupted to customers in Oregon and, to a lesser extent, to those in California.
Pilot took quick action to land damaged 737
A Southwest Airlines pilot didn’t wait around for approval from air traffic controllers before beginning an emergency dive after a hole ripped open in the plane’s roof. “We’ve lost the cabin,” the pilot told controllers after the April 1 emergency. “We’re starting down.” The pilot asked the controllers for permission to drop to 10,000 feet after the hole caused rapid decompression in the passenger cabin of the Boeing 737 as it cruised high over Arizona with 118 passengers and a crew of five. One of the controllers on the dramatic audio recordings released Wednesday by the Federal Aviation Administration can be heard relaying the pilot’s request to descend to another controller. When the second controller hesitated briefly, the first replied, “He’s doing it anyway.”
Comparable sales dip for Everett’s Zumiez
Everett’s Zumiez Inc., a specialty retailer of action sports equipment and apparel reported a 16.8 percent increase in net sales for the five-week period ended July 2. The total was $43.5 million, compared to $37.2 million for the five-week period ended July 3, 2010. The company’s comparable store sales increased 9.8 percent for the period. A year ago, comparable store sales had increased 10.9 percent. Zumiez operates 415 stores in the United States and 3 stores in Canada, primarily in shopping malls.
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