Flagstar

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for a group of black Secret Service officers who are suing Denny's for alleged racial discrimination at the chain's Annapolis restaurant accused the company yesterday of more discrimination there and at seven other East Coast locations.The lawyers produced sworn statements alleging 10 incidents of racial discrimination at Denny's restaurants in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, and they asked a federal judge in California to hold the company in contempt of an April 1 court order barring Denny's from discriminatory practices.

Flagstar Cos. Inc. Chairman Jerry Richardson left his post last week as the company announced a bigger first-quarter loss than a year ago. The parent of Denny's restaurants and the biggest franchisee of Hardee's said it has been hammered especially hard by losses at Hardee's, which it blamed on highly competitive conditions in the fast-food business.Competitors like McDonald's Corp. and Wendy's International Inc. have a different but related problem: both posted big earnings gains in the first quarter, but increasingly draw customers with short-term promotions or sharply reduced permanent prices on Extra Value Meals, Super Value Menus, or the like (different companies use different names for the concept)

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Jerry Richardson, lead investor in the Charlotte, N.C., expansion bid, said modifications made last week in the city's payout to visiting teams contributed heavily to the Carolina Panthers' victory last night.The 28 NFL owners voted unanimously to give Charlotte one of two expansion franchises.NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue had said the league would expand by two, but Charlotte was the only city that received a complete endorsement from the seven-member expansion committee.

CHICAGO -- Cut up a firm, sweet, home-grown tomato; add a pile of crispy bacon slices, a glob of mayonnaise and a few leaves of crunchy lettuce; slide it all between two slices of fresh toast and you've got an American classic: a BLT.It's enough to make mouths water -- and to power the nearly $16 billion-a-year pork belly market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. A pork belly is basically a slab of bacon that hasn't been sliced, cooked, cured and smoked.That cravings for BLTs can drive the pork belly futures market is "conventional wisdom in this industry," said Jens Knutson, economic researcher with the American Meat Institute in Arlington, Va. "The industry even refers to this time of year as,'The BLT season.

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- It was like the old days, before men were allowed in the delivery room. A group of men sat in one room yesterday, nervously waiting for an announcement about the possible birth of a professional football team in Baltimore."

Carl O. Snowden, a longtime Annapolis alderman and a leading mayoral candidate, heads an organization that has collected thousands of dollars in the name of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. over the past nine years but is not registered as a charity.Whether the organization -- the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Awards Committee -- has violated state law by not registering is being examined by the office of Maryland's secretary of state.Under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act, if an organization raises $1 or more in charitable contributions, it must register with the secretary of state, said Jennifer Light, a spokeswoman for the office's Charitable Organization Division.

I own shares of Boeing Co. and don't like the bad news I've been hearing lately. What's the outlook for the company? - S.R., via the Internet Boeing definitely has an image problem. The world's largest aerospace company has experienced the surprise departure of two top executives as well as lower sales and profits. Chief Financial Officer Michael M. Sears was fired by the board of directors amid accusations that he violated company policy in dealing with a controversial proposal to lease and sell refueling planes to the U.S. Air Force.

Up and down the Rocky Mountains they go, riding the bus to the various outposts of the Western Slope League. Four of the trips take 3 1/2 hours; another takes six. For Leonard "Boogie" Weinglass, assistant coach for the Aspen (Colo.) High School boys varsity basketball team, there's plenty of time to think.A little more than three years ago, he was a prospective owner for a Baltimore NFL expansion franchise, traveling to meetings, mingling with owners, the "Diner" guy selling himself and his city, trying to bring pro football back to his hometown.

At Jimmy's Restaurant in Fells Point, you can get breakfast all day, a $2.95 Virginia ham sandwich or a cold beer, but since late March you haven't been able to smoke.They've lost a few customers, said night manager Oscar Pate as he took a break from frying eggs, but "our client base is so large you don't really notice it." Personally, he finds the atmosphere "more wholesome."It's been three months since Maryland's landmark workplace smoking ban took effect, and state officials, anti-smoking activists and businesses say the adjustment has been mostly without incident.