REGION

REGION

Avalon Holdings Corp.
records earnings increase

HOWLAND — Avalon Holdings Corp. earned $547,000, or 14 cents a share, in the third quarter, compared with $501,000, or 13 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. Net operating revenues this past quarter increased to $12.1 million compared with $11.1 million in the third quarter of 2006. Avalon provides waste management services and owns the Avalon Golf and Country Club, which operates golf courses in Howland, Vienna and Sharon, Pa.

NATION

Giant Heinz Ketchup sign
moving across Allegheny

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh’s iconic Heinz Ketchup sign will soon be lighted atop another building in the city.

Workers removed the neon sign from the H.J. Heinz Co. plant building on the city’s North Side and installed it atop the Senator John Heinz History Center across the Allegheny River.

The sign is a giant bottle of ketchup that empties and refills itself every 30 seconds. The aluminum and steel sign is about 42 feet high and 32 feet wide. The sign will be turned on again Friday, when the city kicks off the holiday season with its Light Up Night celebration.

Wal-Mart posts 8% rise
in third-quarter earnings

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — A year after its worst holiday sales season ever, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may rebound to have a good season after finding the right mix of merchandise and marketing to complement its return to a focus on low prices.

A whiff of this already showed up when the nation’s largest retailer posted third-quarter earnings Tuesday of $2.86 billion, an 8 percent rise that beat Wall Street expectations.

Associated Press