Rachael Bogert of the Sacramento Bee and Brad Talbutt of the Idaho Statesman have taken a look at independent coffee shops in an economy that is leading Starbucks to close some stores, including two in the Treasure Valley.

Independent coffee retailers are managing to maintain business, owners say.

"The little guys are trading on loyalty and, because of that, store sales have not dropped significantly and their core remains strong with a steady flow of patrons," says their story, the full version of which will run in the business section of Thursday's Statesman.

A Boise company says it is moving forward to develop a device that may one day charge cell phones with electricity generated by walking.

M2E Power Inc., a renewable-energy designer and developer at 875 W. McGregor Court near Broadway and I-84, says its charger will be the first to tap motion-producing electromagnetic fields and convert the motion into electricity to store for use on mobile devices. The miniature chargers will be placed inside batteries that can fit into existing battery cases.

With home prices falling, interest rates low, and a new federal tax incentive on the books, real-estate agents all over the Valley are touting today as the time to buy.

Cooper Kalisek is no different. But Kalisek offers an additional reason: a soon-to-be-prohibited form of seller financing — one the Internal Revenue Service has labeled a scam.

Downtown Boise’s Persian carpet store has a new location, but the same “half-Iranian, half-American” owner. Roddy Yazdanpour, 42 and a proud father of two, has moved Yazdanpour Persian Carpets to 1110 W. Jefferson St. in the same building as the Stewart Gallery and Randy Van Dyck's frame shop.

“All three businesses emphasize quality and value and have the same clientele,” he says.

New analyses show Micron Technology remains No. 4 among the world’s top producers of dynamic random-access memory. DRAM makers recently have stepped up production up at what iSuppli Corp. calls a “stunning” rate, and an oversupply is likely to drag prices down through September. Micron has lost money for six straight quarters.

Idaho at first told the federal government that the state would not comply with a new federal instruction aimed at screening farm hands for immigration violations before referring them to jobs. But that’s now changed, according to the Idaho Labor Department.

The reason: Idaho worried that it would be sued for discrimination. Federal officials have assured the state it will not be held responsible for that, spokesman Bob Fick said told Statesman reporter Bethann Stewart.

A Treasure Valley boy has made good – and hasn’t wasted any time doing it.

Dan Price, 24, who grew up in Nampa, is the founder and CEO of Gravity Payments, the largest credit-card payment processor in Washington state.

His first exposure to business came at age 15, when he was the bass player and manager of a rock band that wrote and produced all of its own music and sold 2,000 records.

Micron’s stock woes will form the backdrop Tuesday when the company holds a conference for stock analysts. Micron stock was trading at $4.65 Friday morning, having fallen as low as $4.42 in trading Tuesday – a day after reaching a 15-year low of $4.55 on Monday. One analyst this week cut her target price to $4.25 from $8.50.

Officials with the Sorrento Lactalis cheese factory in Nampa say the company will add up to 50 manufacturing jobs in the next two years, the Idaho Press-Tribune reports in a story picked up Thursday by the Associated Press.

Vice President of Manufacturing Jean Claude Bruneau says the company expects a new $50 million whey processing operation to be completed in about 20 months.

Bruneau says that will enable the cheese-processing plant at 4912 E. Franklin Road to produce 600,000 pounds per day, up from about 400,000 pounds now.

Moxie Java owner Rick Dean knows that even soldiers need their caffeine fix.

Boise’s Moxie Java International has donated 300 pounds of coffee roasted at its Chinden Boulevard location to members of the Idaho National Guard stationed in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Twice before, the company has donated coffee to troops serving in Iraq.