A round-up of today's news about Seattle's biggest coffee company:

• Starbucks paid $225,000 to settle allegations by district attorneys in California that it failed to refund gift card balances under $10, violating a 2008 state law, the Associated Press reported. Starbucks did not admit wrongdoing.


• It cut 16 workers at its South Carolina roasting plant, the second job reduction since Starbucks let go hundreds in Seattle and thousands nationwide in an effort to cut costs. Earlier this summer, Starbucks laid off a "small number" of workers at its Seattle customer service center.


• The coffee chain has abandoned Sorbetto, Reuters reported. That's the icy beverage it tested at a few hundred California stores last summer.


• Starbucks is closing more stores than it opens, but not in New York City, The New York Times reports. The chain opened 23 more stores there over the past year, bringing its total to 258.


• In its ongoing dispute with Starbucks, the Industrial Workers of the World took part in a protest against the company in New York over increases to health premiums, the Times also reported. The IWW was part of a protest against Starbucks in Minneapolis last week, where customers also rallied for a barista they say was unjustly fired, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.


• And yesterday, the Associated Press said Starbucks spent $130,000 on lobbying in the second quarter, according to a government report out of Washington, D.C.