South Sound gas prices are religiously following a time-honored script this week, jumping on the “up” escalator as the new year unfolds.

The average price of a gallon of unleaded regular gas in the Tacoma area has jumped more than six cents a gallon in the last week, according to the News Tribune’s Gas Deal Finder.

The average price was $3.409 a gallon, up from $3.344 a gallon a week ago today.

The price curve is following a long-established pattern with prices hitting a 2012 low on Dec. 19 at $3.31 a gallon and then heading upward …

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Cost Less Pharmacy in Fircrest will dispense its final prescriptions on Friday.

The independent Fircrest mainstay, located at 1109 Regents Blvd., has been owned and operated by pharmacist Dale Bisceglia for 19 years.

The gift and greeting card business associated with the pharmacy will remain open and may expand, Bisceglia said Thursday.

All records and prescriptions will be transferred to the Walgreens Pharmacy at 2650 Bridgeport Way W. in University Place. Seven pharmacy employees will likely also move to the Walgreens, Bisceglia said.

“We’re a big part of the community, and we realize that,” he said. “Our profession is getting …

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A well-known Proctor business district merchant and civic leader is retiring and closing her gift store after more than two dozen years in the retail business in Proctor.

Judi Quilici told fellow Proctor merchants in a letter this week that she’s closing down Giardini Gift Store at 3815 N. 26th Street at the end of March. The store’s closure will end 34 successful years in the gift business for Quilici, who owned and operated the Stadium business district’s Connoisseur Shop for 10 years before opening her Proctor shop.

Giardini Gift Store

“I’ll be 74 next

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Tacoma union longshore workers were laboring today at Tacoma’s Temco grain terminal under the provisions of an existing labor agreement despite the imposition of a new set of wages and working conditions by other companies at Northwest export grain elevators.

Scott Mason, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 23 president, said Temco apparently isn’t following the pattern set by those other grain terminal owners.

Those owners, Louis Dreyfus, United Grain and Columbia Grain, represented by the Northwest Grain Handlers Association, this week implemented their “last, best and final” contract offer despite Longshore union members’ rejection of that agreement in a …

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Boeing seems sure to beat its European rival Airbus in the airline order race this year with less than a week to go before the year’s end.

As of last week, Boeing reported a net of 1115 airliner orders compared with 646 for Airbus through the end of November.

Airbus is likely to close that gap. It’s notorious for pulling orders out at the end of the year.

Boeing’s orders were lead by the popular 737 single-aisle jet with 1,047 orders.

The 777, a long-range twin-engine plane carrying more than 300 passengers was second with 62 orders. A 30-year-old …

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A winter storm working its way through the Midwest toward the East Coast today forced the cancellation of some 1,300 flights as holiday travelers were returning home.

But Sea-Tac travelers saw few delays and cancellations because of the storm.

Some flights to Sea-Tac were either severely delayed or cancelled from Newark, Charlotte and Dallas-Fort Worth airports, but others got through unimpeded because of changing weather conditions.

Flights to such usual winter cancellation hot spots as Chicago’s O’Hare Airport were operating normally today. O’Hare was hit with hundreds of canceled flights last week as travelers were heading to relatives’ houses.

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Tacoma casual longshore workers who’ve worked long hours to handle a sudden and substantial increase in container business at the Port of Tacoma this year got some holiday good news this week.

Eighty of those workers will get promotions soon to the regular ranks of longshore union workers at the port.

That means they’ll receive a generous bundle of benefits in addition to the substantial wages they receive for loading and unloading ships, moving cargo to rail cars and other work at the port.

The average cost of those benefits, said the association representing West Coast shippers, terminal operators …

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