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Car thief caught in McDonald's drive-thru after placing order with owner

If you're going to drive a stolen car in a town of roughly 77,000 people - about the same size as Scranton, Pennsylvania or Ogden, Utah - you want to be very careful about where you drive that stolen car to eat. That's the lesson Katherine York of Kennewick, Washington learned when she was arrested for being in possession of a stolen Toyota 4Runner that also happened to have a bunch of stolen clothes from JC Penney and Sears in it.
Virginia Maiden woke up Tuesday, May 14 to find her 1995 4Runner - that she thought she forgot to lock - swiped from her apartment building. At 3 PM that afternoon, while working her shift at the drive-thru at McDonald's that day, she saw her truck in line. York hadn't even gone far - the McDonald's is not even five miles from Maiden's apartment. Maiden called the police, they showed up just as York was leaving, and York made another vehicle switch, this time into a black-and-white for a trip to the Benton County jail. They don't have McDonald's there, but she won't have so far to go to eat.

Toyota maintains world's largest automaker crown, GM and VW close behind

Toyota still holds the title of World's Largest Automaker. The Japanese automaker ceded the claim to General Motors in 2011 following a series of natural and man-made disasters that stifled production in Asia. Production is back up to full speed and, coupled with the introduction of a new Camry midsize sedan, Toyota retook the title in 2012 and has so far been able to keep it by selling 2.43 million vehicles in the first quarter of 2013.
The race is still tight - General Motors reports sales of 2.36 million vehicles, earning it the second spot globally with Volkswagen's 2.27 million sales nabbing the German automaker third place. It's not all smooth sailing for Toyota, either, as the brand's first-quarter figures were down 2.2 percent when compared to last year. GM posted a 3.6-percent gain and VW managed a 5.1-percent gain over the same period.
Sales in China may be a deciding factor as to which automaker performs best in 2013. Toyota's figures were down 13 percent in China. Meanwhile, GM and VW are continuing their upward trajectories in the crucial Chinese market.

Scion was Toyota's lost generation

Toyota's top North American leader was succinct in explaining the reasons for killing Scion. "It's the right decision at the right time," Jim Lentz said. It's hard to disagree. In a strong market that saw 17.5 million sales last year, Scion volume dipped three percent. Its product lineup has withered for years, which is always a telltale sign a brand doesn't have the full support of its owner. Though enthusiasts love the FR-S sports car, it's the fruit of a joint project with Subaru that also produced the BRZ. Scion's coolest car has a twin sold by one of its rivals. After the FR-S launched in 2012, Scion got nothing – squat – in the way of new products until the iA and iM arrived late last year, IHS senior analyst Stephanie Brinley noted. "[Scion] was not successful in building a visual brand identity or product personality," she said. Lentz, Scion's first vice president and now CEO of Toyota's North American division, admitted the market has changed. "Younger customers have a different mindset," he said. In the early oughts, a brand that catered to a youthful demographic made some sense, and this is one front where Toyota can declare victory. Seventy percent of Scion's buyers were new to Toyota, and the average age was 36 years old. The problem is, not enough of them buy Scions anymore. Scion hit a highwater sales mark of 173,034 vehicles in 2006 and hasn't come close to reaching that since. The recession hurt Scion, too. It bottomed out in 2010 with just 45,678 sales, a time when the rest of the industry was beginning to recover. There was a brief uptick (73,507) in 2012, but Scion failed to capitalize on that momentum and sales fell for three more years. Toyota is calling Scion's pending death a "transition" back to the main company. Sure, most of the cars will be rebadged Toyotas, like the FR-S, iA, and iM. The C-HR, an attractive future crossover that would have given Scion a boost, will go into production as a Toyota. But make no mistake: This is a failure. Toyota is closing a brand in the same way General Motors scrapped Oldsmobile, Ford shuttered Mercury, and Chrysler dropped Plymouth. Those brands languished for years. Toyota moved quicker to put the fork in Scion, which prevented it from becoming a long-term drain on the parent company. Lentz was dead on. It's the right time. News & Analysis News: Sergio Marchionne is against a Ferrari SUV Analysis: His exact words were, "you have to shoot me first," Bloomberg reported.