The Enquirer

Kroger Co. is preparing to reopen two former Thriftway stores under the Kroger banner Thursday.

The stores at 4500 Montgomery Road in Norwood and 6725 Dick Flynn Blvd. in Goshen have been remodeled and will become part of Kroger's Cincinnati division, which operates 103 stores in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

Kroger has acquired eight Thriftway stores from struggling Winn-Dixie Stores Inc., which is pulling out of the local market.

AK Steel lays off 15 in Middletown

AK Steel Corp. has laid off about 15 workers with less than two years of service at its Middletown Works in recent days, a company spokesman and members of Armco Employees Independent Federation said.

"I really didn't expect a layoff," said Ed Shelley, union president.

An arbitrator's ruling issued this month clarified AK's "right" to lay off workers not yet covered by employment security provisions. Asked if there was anything the union could do about the layoffs, Shelley said the company is contractually permitted to lay off workers with less than two years of service.

P&G to design diabetes drug

Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals Inc. has reached an agreement with a Blue Bell, Pa., company to design new drugs for the treatment of diabetes.

Locus Pharmaceuticals will apply a computational drug design technology to identify new binding sites on the target protein, which will be tailored to regulate blood glucose levels. In a news release, Locus said the project represents a new approach for the treatment of diabetes, a growing problem in the United States that counts 13 million people, half of which are undiagnosed.