BUSINESS DIGEST ||
Eatery closes
NILES
Hometown Buffet at the Eastwood Mall Complex is closed.
The Texas-based company said it lost its lease at the Niles location, but Cafaro Co., which owns that property, said Hometown declined to renew the lease that was set to expire Sunday.
The buffet was in operation there for more than 20 years, previously operating as the Old Country Buffet, Cafaro Co. spokesman Joe Bell said.
“It came as a surprise,” Bell said. “We had no intention of terminating that lease.”
Cafaro is in search of a new tenant for the “turn-key” restaurant operation, Bell said.
An online auction of the items inside the restaurant is taking place at: https://online.auctionnation.com/auction/8076
‘Obamacare’ sign-up tally dips slightly to 8.7M
WASHINGTON
More than 8.7 million people signed up for coverage next year under the Obama-era health care law, the government reported Thursday, as the program that President Donald Trump has repeatedly pronounced “a disaster” exceeded expectations.
The final tally for the 39 HealthCare.gov states showed about 80,000 fewer sign-ups than an initial count provided last week, before the Christmas holiday. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the slight dip was due to late cancellations.
Still, HealthCare.gov enrollment reached nearly 95 percent of last year’s level, outperforming projections in a show of consumer demand, despite a shortened sign-up season and big cuts in the ad budget.
Ahead of open enrollment, analysts had predicted somewhere around 1 million to 2 million fewer people would sign up for subsidized private coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
12 dead in New York City apartment fire
NEW YORK
Twelve people were killed and four more were seriously injured and fighting for their lives late Thursday in a fast-moving fire at an apartment building on a frigid night in the Bronx, according to New York City’s mayor.
The victims included a child around a year old, Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a briefing outside the building.
The blaze broke out at a five-story building, a block from the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.
About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, just 15 degrees, to rescue people from the building. Water sprayed from hoses froze into ice on the street.
The fire began on the first floor just before 7 p.m. and quickly ripped through much of the building, officials said.
Neighborhood resident Robert Gonzalez, who has a friend who lives in the building, said she got out on a fire escape as another resident fled with five children.
Staff/wire reports
Selected local stocks
STOCK, DIVIDENDCLOSECHANGE
Alcoa Inc., .1254.172.33
Aqua America, .71 39.330.25
Avalon Holdings,2.020.04
Chemical Bank, .2753.980.19Community Health Sys.4.23 0.13
Cortland Bancorp, .2820.500.00
Farmers Nat., .1614.800.05
First Energy, 1.44 30.440.12
Fifth/Third, .5230.640.14
FirstMerit Corp.,--
First Niles Financial, .1211.150.00
FNB Corp., .4813.970.06
General Motors, 1.5241.390.08
General Electric, .9217.37-0.01
Huntington Bank, .28 14.740.15
iHeartMedia Inc.,0.48-0.07
JP Morgan Chase, 1.92107.780.56
Key Corp, .3420.340.10
LaFarge, .34--
Macy’s, 1.51 25.720.08
Parker Hannifin, 2.52 199.200.29
PNC, 2.20145.670.69
Simon Prop. Grp., 6.60171.150.38
Stoneridge 23.39-0.43
United Comm. Fin., .12 9.410.21
Selected prices from Thursday’s 4 p.m. close.