Tagged: Business

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington state e-book consumers will receive $2 million under a nationwide settlement with three of the country's largest book publishers over allegations of price fixing.

WestSide Baby is a nonprofit organization in Seattle that collects used car seats, cribs, toys and other items for children and distributes them for free to South King County families in need.

Donations are inspected, organized and then used to fill wish lists of food and clothing banks and service care providers, such as public health nurses and social workers.

Loyalty cards have long given discounts to shoppers who sign up, but stores are increasingly offering personalized discounts tailored to each customer's shopping patterns.

Those tailored discounts mean someone standing in front of you at the supermarket checkout line might get a lower price on the exact same gallon of milk that you're buying.

A 'Secret Deal'

Heather Kulper is one of those people who really wants to get a good deal. She's a mom in a suburb north of Seattle who writes a blog about coupon clipping and saving money.

Washington liquor prices were 17 percent higher on average in June, compared to the same month a year ago.

The state Department of Revenue also reported sales declined in the first month private retailers could sell spirits in Washington.

You could soon pay for a latte at Starbucks simply by walking into the store with a smartphone in your pocket and giving the cashier your name.

Square, a San Francisco-based payments startup unveiled a deal Wednesday with the world's largest coffee chain that will move its mobile payments products into Starbucks stores around the U.S. starting this fall.

If you cuss at work, 57 percent of bosses say they are less likely to promote you and 64 percent will at best think less of you for it, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com.

So, Seattleites should be getting ahead in the world since we didn’t make the top ten cities in the U.S. for swearing at work.

Some African-American hair stylists are objecting to an Oregon licensing rule that means they can't braid hair without taking a two-year course. And they’re asking state lawmakers to take up the cause.

Amber Starks wants to put her braiding skills to work as a volunteer for African-American children in foster care. The Oregon Department of Human Services embraced the idea. But the Portland woman soon found that even a volunteer needs to get a cosmetology license.

Microsoft made a $6.2 billion accounting adjustment this quarter that threw it into negative territory for the first time as a public company, the AP reports.

Microsoft took the charge mostly based on the acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company Microsoft acquired in 2007.

As MSNBC reports, the "charge was an acknowledgement that the company's struggling online services division — which lost about half a billion dollars in the previous quarter — is a significant financial drag on the company." Microsoft, remember, is the owner of the search engine Bing.

SALEM, Ore. – A joint effort in Oregon and Washington to make sure truckers are following safety rules turned up a higher than expected number of weary drivers. More than a quarter of drivers inspected in Oregon were found to be on the road when they shouldn't have been.

Truckers are required to take rest breaks every so often in order to ensure they're alert when they're behind the wheel. They have to keep track of those breaks in their logbook.