The Woodworking Machinery Industry Association (WMIA), which represents North American importer and distributors of woodworking equipment and accessories, announced the appointment of Riccardo Azzoni, past WMIA president, to serve as its executive vice president.

ARTMORE, AL -- Swift Lumber suffered extensive damage caused by a blaze Sunday afternoon. It was the second fire the facility experienced in the past five months.

Some wood component buyers have turned back to domestic suppliers because their requirements are smaller and higher ocean shipping costs have made domestic sources competitive again, say the editors of Hardwood Review.

Groupon's ventures into wood business promotions and a sawdust blaze at Hardwood Specialties topped the news this week, along with Indonesia's logging ban, Emerald Ash Borer Week (ugh), and Bernie Botten's blog about the Kitchen Cabinet Makers Assn. coating standards. Here are the top stories, blogs and video.

CHENGDU, CHINA -- A build up of combustible dust has been implicated in the firey blast that killed three workers and injured 15 others last week at the FoxConn Technology factory where the iPad2 and other Apple products are manufactured.

HARTSELLE, AL -- Sonoco (NYSE: SON) has begun rebuilding its molded wood plug operations, which were lost to a fire last November.

Wood manufacturing hardware firm Hafele said today at Interzum that it has launched a furniture-focused industrial engineering firm, Hafele Engineering GmbH & Co. KG.

OTTAWA, ON -- Housing starts in Canada declined 3.1% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 179,000 units, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). This is down from 184,700 units in March 2011. “Housing starts moved lower in April mostly because of decreases in multiple construction across the country and in rural starts,” said Bob Dugan, chief economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “The multiple segment market in Ontario and Quebec contributed the most to the overall decline in Canada.”

The U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Energy (DOE) have earmarked $42 million to help fund eight research projects in bioenergy and biobased products, including the harvest, transport and preprocessing of biomass feedstocks.

EMI Industries announced that it will open a manufacturing facility and sales office in Arlington, TX, to better serve the company's markets east of the Mississippi.