Borders in Niles to close this week

Borders in Niles to close this week

NILES

The last remaining Mahoning Valley Borders bookstore will close by midweek.

The Niles store, 2102 Niles-Cortland Road SE, already liquidated most of its inventory and is trying to sell off its remaining bookshelves and book tables.

The Hermitage, Pa., Borders Express inside Shenango Valley Mall, along with many of the other 397 locations nationwide, closed at varying times this weekend.

Michigan-based Borders announced in July its plans to liquidate all of its stores. The closings affect about 10,700 employees nationwide.

Greece imposes new property tax

THESSALONIKI, Greece

Greece’s cash-strapped government said Sunday it would impose a new property tax on top of existing austerity measures to compensate for a revenue shortfall that is threatening to disrupt its vital international bailout program.

The government also decided, in a symbolic move aimed at a public angry at politicians, to dock a month’s pay from all elected officials — from the head of state to the country’s 325 mayors.

“It is better that we all lose something than lose everything, forever,” Prime Minister George Papandreou said at a news conference in Greece’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki.

Papandreou, whose party is trailing the main opposition conservatives in opinion polls, also ruled out early elections.

Debt-crippled Greece urgently needs to keep a program of cutbacks on track to secure the continued flow of international rescue loans — worth $302.6 billion — protecting it from a catastrophic bankruptcy.

Staff/wire reports