Wash

Boeing Co. broke ground Monday in Everett for a new delivery center for its widebody planes in Everett, Wash. The company says it will enhance the experience for customers taking off in new 747s, 767s, 777s and 787s. The center has three times the office and conference space than the center it replaces, which opened in the late 1960s and has delivered about 3,500 planes. The manager of aircraft delivery for Lufthansa, Matthias Baschant, joined Boeing officials for the ceremonial groundbreaking, which was held under umbrellas in a downpour.

Digital media provider RealNetworks will pay a $2.4 million settlement because of free trial subscriptions that resulted in unwanted monthly charges to customers, Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna announced. The lawsuit and settlement was filed Thursday morning in King County Superior Court in Seattle. McKenna said that over the past seven years, his office and the Better Business Bureau received more than 500 complaints against RealNetworks from customers from across the country alleging charges on their credit cards for subscriptions for television, sports or game content...

Police say they've arrested two Lacey, Wash., residents in a triple shooting earlier this week that killed one young man and injured two others. In a statement late Friday, police said they also believe they've recovered the handgun used to kill 23-year-old Joshua Nelson of Lacey on Monday. The injured men were cousins of Nelson. All three were shot in their rented home. The unidentified suspects were being booked Friday night into the Thurston County Jail for investigation of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

The mother of a toddler who briefly got stuck inside an active washing machine at a laundromat says she and his father aren't the people seen in a surveillance video that's received millions of hits online. Sakia David said Wednesday she didn't even know about the May 11 incident until she saw the video on the news. She said her year-old son was treated at a hospital for scrapes and bruises and wasn't seriously injured. David said the woman in the video is the girlfriend of the boy's father and was baby-sitting him. David said she doesn't know who the man in the video is. ...

A fire department spokesman says a Boeing worker has been seriously hurt in an accident at the company's Everett, Wash., facility. Everett Fire spokesman Rick Robinson tells KOMO-TV ( http://is.gd/uo9NDz) that the man was somehow pinned between two wing parts of a 747 aircraft Monday night. Boeing's emergency medical team tended to the man until fire department medics arrived. The unidentified man was taken to Providence Medical Center with what were described as serious injuries.

A Washington state man faces felony marijuana trafficking charges after an officer found 3.3 pounds of marijuana wrapped up as Christmas gifts during a traffic stop in northern Idaho. Jason D. Palmer, 36, of Springdale, Wash., was arrested Dec. 22 as he returned from a trip to Montana, where he had been visiting family, the Coeur d'Alene Press (http://bit.ly/uj4XeZ) reported Thursday. Kootenai County sheriff's officials said Palmer was stopped east of Coeur d'Alene because his vehicle was repeatedly changing lanes and following other drivers too closely.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Firefighters were gaining ground yesterday on a wildfire that burned across 15 square miles of dry grass and sagebrush in central Washington, as investigators began to examine how three firefighters were injured fleeing their truck in the flames. The firefighters had driven down a road to protect a home that was threatened, but the fire came up too quickly and they were unable to turn around, said Christy Boisselle, a spokeswoman for West Valley Fire and Rescue.

Police in Everett, Wash., say a woman is accused of cutting her sleeping husband's neck and shoulder with a power saw. Officers who arrived at the home say they could hear the man shouting: "You tried to cut my head off. You're going to jail. " The Daily Herald reports the 43-year-old woman appeared in court Monday on a charge of domestic violence assault and a judge kept her bail at $250,000. The newspaper did not identify her. Police say the woman told officers she grabbed the reciprocating saw Friday night because an intruder escaped out her daughter's...

TACOMA, Wash. -- Veteran journalist Don Gormley died Monday after a long illness, his family said. He was 77. Mr. Gormley was hired in 1978 as managing editor of The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, breaking a 70-year tradition of filling the position from inside. In 1982, Mr. Gormley became Cowles Publishing Co.'s general manager, overseeing the merger the following year of The Spokesman-Review and The Spokane Daily Chronicle. The Chronicle ceased publication in 1992. Mr. Gormley had a major impact on the newspaper, said Shaun O'L. Higgins, director of marketing and sales for...

A Washington state boy who survived after being pulled seemingly lifeless from the Pacific Ocean has been released from a Portland hospital. Oregon Health and Science University spokeswoman Elisa Williams says 12-year-old Dale Ostrander (OH'-stran-der) of Spanaway, Wash., was discharged on Wednesday. Denise Minge, the daughter-in-law of the family's pastor, says Ostrander has been transferred to a hospital closer to home. On a blog set up to chronicle his recovery, friends and family report that he is eating some foods, doing puzzles and saying simple phrases.

Authorities say a father's prank at a southern New Jersey laundry nearly turned tragic when his toddler son briefly got stuck inside an active washing machine. Now, they're hoping to identify and locate the family. The say the matter isn't considered criminal, but they want to ensure that the child wasn't harmed. The May 11 incident at the Camden business was captured on a surveillance video, which drew millions of hits after being posted on YouTube and other Internet sites.

A Washington state couple kept two young autistic boys in a dark room with a cage-like door for convenience, prosecutors told jurors Monday while the defense countered that the child-proofing was intended to keep the children from harming themselves. The opening statements came as the trial of John Eckhart, 31, and Alayna Higdon, 27, opened in Clark County Superior Court. The Vancouver couple are charged with unlawful imprisonment of Eckhart's sons, ages 5 and 7, between October 2010 and April 2011.

Heavy rain washed out all play at the Open de Nice clay-court tournament on Monday. Because of the delay, 12 first-round matches are scheduled for Tuesday. On Sunday, only one match was started and it was later stopped in the second set with Belgium's Xavier Malisse leading 7-5, 1-0 against Taiwan's Lu Yen-Hsun.

A jury in Tacoma, Wash., is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday after closing arguments in the voyeurism trial of Steve Powell, the father-in-law of Susan Powell who disappeared nearly three years ago in Utah. Powell faces a standard sentence of around four years if convicted, but aggravating factors could result in a longer term. He faces 14 voyeurism counts, including accusations that he filmed two girls using their bathroom next door to his home in Puyallup (pew-AL'-up)

SEATTLE - Washington state's worst outbreak of whooping cough in decades has prompted health officials to declare an epidemic, seek help from federal experts, and urge residents to get vaccinated amid worry that cases of the highly contagious disease could rise much higher. It is the first state to declare a whooping cough, or pertussis, epidemic since 2010, when California had more than 9,000 cases, including 10 deaths. Washington's 1,280 cases for 2012 are 10 times the number reported in 2011.

Washington state's worst outbreak of whooping cough in decades has prompted health officials to declare an epidemic, seek help from federal experts and urge residents to get vaccinated amid worry that cases of the highly contagious disease could spike much higher. It's the first state to declare a whooping cough, or pertussis, epidemic since 2010, when California had more than 9,000 cases, including 10 deaths. Washington has had 10 times the cases reported in 2011, and so has Wisconsin with nearly 2,000 cases this year, though that state has not declared an epidemic.

Police in Bellingham, Wash., say a 10-year-old boy defended his mother from an attacker by shooting him in the face with a BB rifle as many as four times. The man accused of the attack rents a room in the woman's home and came home drunk and angry Tuesday morning. Police say he kicked in a bedroom door and started choking the woman. Officers say the boy hit the attacker with a board and then shot him in the face with the pump-action BB rifle as he grappled with the woman. The woman and boy were able to flee to a neighbor's home and call for help.

Rescuers in the south Seattle suburb of Federal Way have pulled a man from a vehicle that ran off a road, plunged down a ravine and wound up in a creek. Television news footage showed firefighters orchestrating an elaborate rescue to haul the man up to medics late Friday afternoon. KIRO-TV reports the car's occupant was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The cause of the crash in the Peasley Canyon area near State Highway 18 is under investigation.

People celebrated last month when the Legislature said it wouldn't have to make college any more expensive in Washington state, but many forgot that lawmakers had already put plans in place for a double-digit tuition increase next school year. Washington State University's board of regents posted a timely reminder Friday, when it voted to raise tuition 16 percent for the second year in a row. That increase of $1,500 will make WSU tuition $10,874 for in-state undergraduates next school year.