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WEST HARTFORD — People from Connecticut and across the country reacted on social media over the weekend to a local Dunkin' Donuts worker's comment with a West Hartford police officer waiting in line that the store wouldn't serve police officers. Dozens tweeted the accounts of the local Connecticut Dunkin' Donuts franchise group and the national Dunkin' Donuts headquarters, many users calling for a boycott of the company and for the employee, who police said told the officer, "We don't serve cops here," to be fired. Both accounts answered with the same response: "We are aware, Dunkin' Donuts & our franchisees...

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — An employee at a West Hartford Dunkin Donuts is in hot water after she told a police officer “We don’t serve cops here.” The officer walked into the busy store at 1234 Farmington Avenue to wait in line to order. As he waited, an employee looked over at the officer and shouted “He didn’t get the message, we don’t serve cops here.” The officer then left the store followed quickly by the employee herself and the store manager. Both offered apologies to the officer with the employee who shouted the statement saying that she was...

Looks like America will run a little less on Dunkin’. Dunkin’ Brands, the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and the Baskin-Robbins ice cream chain, announced Thursday that one of its franchisees it will be shutting 100 stores across the country in the next 15 months, reports Forbes. [....] Dunkin’ said a spike in the cost of eggs due to the recent avian flu outbreak in the U.S. was a reason along with concerns with the rise in minimum wage laws in cities across the country. Last month, New York became the first state to raise the minimum wage for fast-food...

Not even two years after being rolled out by the New York baker Dominique Ansel, the cronut -- that’s a doughnut made with croissant dough, for those who might have been living under a rock -- has gone mainstream. Dunkin’ Donuts, the Canton-based breakfast food franchise, said Wednesday that it would make the “croissant donut” a permanent addition to its menu. (“Cronut” is a trademarked term.) Since introducing the item in November, Dunkin’ said it has sold 8.5 million of them, with about 3.9 million sold since mid-December, according to past news releases.

Dunkin’ Brands Group will open more than 1,400 doughnut shops in China over the next two decades, the Canton-based company said Thursday. Dunkin’ said its agreement with Golden Cup Pte. Ltd. is the largest development agreement in its 65-year history. The company, which currently has 16 outlets in China, said the first restaurant under the new agreement would open in late 2015.

Sen. Rand Paul took a playful jab at Michelle Obama and her healthy eating initiatives that condemn all types of junk food, tweeting to her handle to let her know the location of his first New Hampshire stop — Dunkin’ Donuts. He wrote, to his nearly half a million followers: “Just arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. First stop: @DunkinDonuts cc: @MichelleObama,” The Hill reported. He didn’t specify his menu choices — but the jab was obviously at Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” anti-obesity campaign. The first lady has fielded considerable fire from schools, parents and hungry students who say her cafeteria...

On Monday, Dunkin' Brands CEO Nigel Travis said all of the country's illegal immigrants should be legalized. In an interview on Fox Business, Travis said that comprehensive amnesty legislation "would bring about 11 million more people into the economy." He claimed it "would be a stimulus" because "there's a lot of people who want to work but can't work legally." Travis also stated that it was "totally appropriate" that there is "a lot of pressure" to make sure "people who work are legal." "So let's legalize those people," he concluded. "And I think it will stimulate the economy because they'll...

James Herard came from a broken home. He was sexually abused by a family friend, and his mother inflicted forms of corporal punishment that some would consider abusive, a Broward jury was told Tuesday. And when Herard shot to kill during a string of violent robberies in 2008, it excited him. "I got a deranged mind," Herard said during an interview with detectives in late 2008. "It's like sex to me. I enjoyed it."

Steven Wilkerson spends long hours working alone at three restaurants in a Hess gas station in Tampa – a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Quiznos and a Godfathers Pizza – all for just $8.50 (U.S.) per hour. Three years ago he made just $7.50. The 28-year-old former U.S. Marine tried to find a role in communications, and later security, after his tour of duty in Iraq. He went to more than 30 interviews, but was told repeatedly that he didn’t have enough experience for jobs he wanted. “You know, everybody tells you when you’re in the military you’ll get any job you...

A Connecticut woman has started a petition asking officials at Dunkin Donuts to donate the uneaten leftovers to those less fortunate. After a visit to her local Dunkin Donuts in Canaan, Nancy Lewis noticed that "large amounts" of food was being thrown out. "I couldn't believe it when I found out how wasteful my local Dunkin' Donuts is," Lewis in a statement Friday. "Every day when new donuts arrive, my local store gathers up their leftover donuts and muffins and throws them into the dumpster." Lewis went on say that the store's employees were not allowed employees to take any...

Up until this week, Starbucks had been neutral when it came to its gun policy, which meant that the coffee giant respected local laws regarding firearms. This policy was widely respected among gun-rights advocates—a Starbucks Appreciation Day has even been organized at stores throughout the country for the past few years—but it also drew the ire of anti-gun groups and lawmakers who have been pressuring Starbucks to change its ways. Although the coffee chain didn’t reverse its policy toward guns, on Wednesday the CEO issued a statement essentially saying firearms are unwelcome (but not banned). Even though this wasn't...

"Dunkin' Donuts recognizes the insensitivity of this spot and on behalf of our Thailand franchisee and our company, we apologize for any offense it caused," Karen Raskopf, chief communications officer for Dunkin' Brands, said in a statement provided to the Guardian. "We are working with our franchisee to immediately pull the television spot and to change the campaign."

A leading human rights group has called on Dunkin' Donuts to withdraw a "bizarre and racist" advertisement for chocolate doughnuts in Thailand that shows a smiling woman with bright pink lips in blackface makeup. Human Rights Watch said it was shocked to see an American brand name running an advertising campaign that would draw "howls of outrage" if released in the United States. The CEO for Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand dismissed the criticism as "paranoid American thinking." "It's absolutely ridiculous," said CEO Nadim Salhani. "We're not allowed to use black to promote our doughnuts? I don't get it. What's the...

BANGKOK A leading human rights group has called on Dunkin' Donuts to withdraw a "bizarre and racist" advertisement for chocolate doughnuts in Thailand that shows a smiling woman with bright pink lips in blackface makeup. The Dunkin' Donuts franchise in Thailand launched a campaign earlier this month for its new "Charcoal Donut" featuring the image, which is reminiscent of 19th and early 20th century American stereotypes for black people that are now considered offensive symbols of a racist era. In posters and TV commercials, the campaign shows the woman with a shiny jet black, 1950s-style beehive hairdo holding a bitten...

Dunkin’ Donuts wants to sell you a doughnut sandwich. Hitting stores Friday, the breakfast item is composed of a fried egg, bacon and two glazed doughnuts. It has 360 calories, according to the company website. That’s 60 more than an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's. Coming on the heels of the news that McDonald’s is offering egg whites as a substitution on any of its breakfast items, a glazed donut sandwich at Dunkin’ would appear to be running counter to a healthier-eating America. …

The entire city of Boston and most of its surrounding neighborhoods are on lockdown. Authorities have been all but begging residents to stay home and businesses to stay closed. And yet reports started to creep up that there was an exception: Dunkin' Donuts. The chain is an institution in the Boston area (it was founded 10 miles away), and Buzzfeed has now confirmed that four of its locations are open in Watertown, the area police are most heavily searching for bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Around noon, the chain released a statement explaining itself: "At the direction of authorities, select Dunkin'...

<p>A Connecticut man attacked a local Dunkin Donuts with an ax after he was kicked out by employees, police say.</p>

Priti Shetty, an Indian-American from Montville, alleges that a Dunkin’ brand rep told her she was not "servile enough" as an Indian woman. Shetty says the company tried to force her to keep her stores in the Oak Ridge section of Jefferson and Wantage open for 24 hours even thought she showed that doing so would be a money loser when expenses where factored in. She also claims that Dunkin Donuts refused to let her open a third store in the Stockholm section of Hardyston

More lawsuits are brewing at Dunkin’ Donuts. A franchisee is suing the coffee-and-donut chain for racial discrimination, in particular against “Asian Indian American women of color.” Priti Shetty, who is Indian American, filed a suit in New Jersey state court last week against publicly traded Dunkin’ Brands, accusing it of a poor track record with people of color.

(CNN) -- After a six-week operation dubbed "Extra Sugar," police determined that a New Jersey donut shop employee was offering more than coffee and sweets to her customers and arrested her on a prostitution-related charge, police said Tuesday. Melissa Redmond, an overnight worker at a Dunkin' Donuts shop on U.S. Route 46 in Rockaway, was arrested because she was offering sexual services for money, according to Detective Sgt. Kyle Schwarzmann of the Rockaway Borough Police Department. The original anonymous tip came in early June and police started surveillance on Redmond, 29, soon after, according to Schwarzmann.