Local News

Columbia City bank damaged by Molotov cocktail

A Columbia City bank was damaged overnight when someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the side of the building, according to Seattle police.

When employees arrived this morning around 9:45 they discovered a broken window and burn marks on the side of the building at Rainier Avenue South and South Edmunds Street.

A police account of the incident says it appears that the gasoline-filled bottle struck and scorched the side of the bank, but did not cause significant damage.

The account did not name the bank.

In early January, someone left an incendiary device at a Chase Bank branch at 7100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. The device, which was described as two bottles wrapped in tape in a box with wires, failed to ignite.

2 comments | More in Business/Technology, The Blotter | Topics: arson, Seattle, Seattle Police Department

Tornadoes damage Boeing plant in Wichita

The Wichita Eagle reported on its website Saturday evening that the storms caused heavy damage at Spirit AeroSystems, Boeing and McConnell Air Force Base.

Boeing spokesman Forrest Gossett told the Eagle that the plant “took a direct hit.” A skeleton crew was on duty, he said, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. The company won’t be able to assess the damage until morning, he said, but it was extensive.

At Spirit AeroSystems, the paper reported, part of the side of the manufacturing process facility was also gone once the storm passed. Officials there also were working late Saturday night to assess damage, and the plant was without power. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Debris was along MacArthur Road along the plant.

KAKE TV reported extensive damage at Spirit Aerosystems buildings IPB3 and IPB 4 in South Wichita. Spirit Aerosystems is Wichita’s largest employer and a key Boeing supplier.

Spirit spokesperson Jarrod Bartlett said, “We are suspending operations tonight; employees who were scheduled to report to work tonight or tomorrow should not report unless contacted directly. We will not be able to fully assess the damage until daylight.”

Read more from the Wichita Eagle.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology | Topics: Boeing, Midwest storms

Arena backer Chris Hansen closes on 2nd Sodo property

Chris Hanson

Wannabe NBA arena developer Chris Hansen has closed on his second Sodo property.

The San Francisco hedge-fund manager paid John Kazdal $4.25 million for a 0.4-acre parcel now occupied by an old warehouse at 1534 First Ave. S., according to a document filed with King County Wednesday.

Hansen said Tuesday that he had locked up all the private property within the site of the proposed NBA/NHL arena, plus a “considerable piece” of the block to the north, and that the sales would start closing this week.

The Kazdal property is on the block north of the arena site, next door to the Dreamgirls strip club. Hansen has not indicated what he plans for that block.

Hansen bought his first Sodo property, 3 acres inside the proposed arena site, in December.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology, General news, Sports | Topics: arena, Chris Hansen

Union garbage drivers walk out 1 day to support Alabamans

Garbage pickup should get back to normal Friday after hundreds of drivers from Allied Waste/Republic Services declined to make rounds Thursday.

Members of Teamsters union locals 174 and 117 respected a picket line walked here by two drivers from Mobile, Alabama, where a strike is under way, said Tracey Thompson, secretary-treasurer of Local 117.

But the drivers here will be back to work Friday, after management in Alabama agreed to reopen negotiations Friday morning, she said.

The company’s Bellevue regional website apologized for the disruption and told customers: “If your garbage, recycling, and/or yard debris service is missed today, you may put up to double the amount on your next regularly scheduled collection day.”

Pickets showed up Thursday in Bellevue, Kent, Lynnwood and Seattle, Thompson said, and the company estimates that 60,000 customers were affected.  Similar walkouts have occurred in Columbus, Ohio, and Buffalo, N.Y., the union says.

A KING 5 story from earlier Thursday is here.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology, General news | Topics: Bellevue, Kent, Lynnwood

Talk about it: Seattle's port losing big customer to Tacoma

A consortium of three shipping lines that accounts for about 20 percent of the Port of Seattle’s container traffic is moving to Tacoma — the latest shift in the long-running rivalry between the two seaports.

The Port of Seattle said in a statement the relocation could mean job losses in Seattle, and called for greater cooperation between the two ports.

Read the full story by Times reporters Eric Pryne and Drew DeSilver.

Our usual reader comments feature is down for technical reasons, but you can use the commenting thread on this version to share your thoughts.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology | Topics: comments

Talk about it: Seattle’s port losing big customer to Tacoma

A consortium of three shipping lines that accounts for about 20 percent of the Port of Seattle’s container traffic is moving to Tacoma — the latest shift in the long-running rivalry between the two seaports.

The Port of Seattle said in a statement the relocation could mean job losses in Seattle, and called for greater cooperation between the two ports.

Read the full story by Times reporters Eric Pryne and Drew DeSilver.

Our usual reader comments feature is down for technical reasons, but you can use the commenting thread on this version to share your thoughts.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology | Topics: comments

Will you buy the new iPad 3?

The new iPad will have, among other things, a higher res display, voice dictation, 4G, better battery life and cost the same as the iPad 2. (It will be thicker and heavier, though.)

You interested in getting one? Take the poll.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology | Topics: i Pad, poll

Obama pronounces new 787 airliner windows "cool"

President Obama toured one of the 787 jets on his visit to the Boeing plant in Everett Friday morning. He found the plane's windows to be "cool." Here he is checking out the interior and meeting Boeing employees. On the immediate right is Boeing's Mike Sinnett and Scott Fancher is on the far right. (Photo by Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)

At the Everett Boeing plant today, President Obama toured  a 787 Dreamliner being built for United Airlines.

He seemed particularly taken with the aircraft’s windows that dim with a touch of the button, according to reporters who tailed the president on the tour.

“This is cool,” Obama told the media when Boeing workers showed him how the windows work.  “Everybody, pay attention. Look at that. The thing goes dark on its own. Pretty spiffy.”

Watching it again, he said the technology is “remarkable.”

0 comments | More in Business/Technology, General news | Topics: 787 Dreamliner, Barack Obama, Boeing

Obama touts American manufacturing in Boeing visit

President Obama delivers remarks at Boeing's 787 airplane assembly facility in Everett, Wash., Friday, Feb. 17, 2012. (Photo by Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)

He delivered a stump speech touting his efforts to protect American manufacturing jobs through proposed tax policy changes as well as new measures to boost U.S. sales via the federal Export-Import Bank.

The president made his entrance to the crowd coming down the steps of the first United 787 at the end of the Dreamliner production line.

He said the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs has been “incredibly painful for a lot of families and communities” and conceded that due to productivity improvements and automation “a lot of those jobs aren’t coming back.”

He proposed to push in Congress changes to federal tax policy that will take away tax breaks for companies that move work overseas and correspondingly reduce taxes for those that keep work here.

Despite Boeing’s record of foreign outsourcing in the last decade, the president gave the company full credit for its more recent recognition of the value of its U.S. workforce.

“If you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, that’s your choice.  But you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it,” he said. “That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies, like Boeing, that decide to bring jobs home.”

He added, “It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America.  This Congress should send me these tax reforms and I will sign them right away.”

In addition, Obama announced moves to strengthen the powers of the Ex-Im Bank, which finances Boeing’s international sales. Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Ex-Im Bank, accompanied the president on the trip.

Obama cited Ex-Im financing support for Boeing’s sale of 230 jets to Lion Air of Indonesia, finalized just last week.

“That was one of the biggest deals Boeing had ever done,” he said.

He also announced that he is “instructing the Bank to give American companies a fair shot by matching the unfair export financing that their competitors receive from other countries.”

While the president didn’t give further detail in his address, supporting materials released by the White House suggest that Boeing could be a significant beneficiary of this move.

Those materials said that the Ex-Im Bank would offer support for “domestic or third-country sales with matching financing support to counter foreign non-competitive official financing that fails to observe international disciplines.”

Expanding the authority of the Ex-Im Bank to finance domestic sales would mean it could support Boeing with financing for jets sold to U.S. carriers in competition with Bombardier, which is offering its CSeries aircraft with Canadian government financing support.

Financing domestic sales would be a new departure that could not only help Boeing but also U.S. airlines. But it seems likely that this is a tool that will be used only if Canada pursues its intention to offer financing.

Boeing spokesman John Kvasnosky said after the speech that “it’s a new initiative and we’ll have to study it to understand the implications.”

What’s clear is it’s a tool that the U.S. government now has ready if it needs to use it, for example in the sales campaign to sell single-aisle jets to United Airlines, where Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier have all offered their jets.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology, Government | Topics: Barack Obama, Boeing, Dreamliner

Port of Seattle truckers heading back to work

Short-haul truckers at the Port of Seattle announced today they are going back to work, after a two-week walkout to seek better pay and working conditions.

About 400 drivers, mostly African immigrants, stayed off the job two weeks, taking about one third of the usual fleet out of service, and slowing cargo traffic. Truckers requested a federal Labor Department review and said they would walk out again unless progress continues. Various trucking firms this week agreed to increase pay per trip, and in some cases for time stuck in line at the docks, said a labor-union researcher aiding the driver movement.

“The strength, the courage, the conviction it took to walk off the job, I commend you for taking these steps, to feed your families,” King County Councilman Joe McDermott of West Seattle said at a news conference, in the Teamsters union hall in Tukwila.

0 comments | More in Business/Technology, General news | Topics: port, Port of Seattle, strike