Boeing Co. booked orders for 35 more of its revolutionary 787 Dreamliners last week despite reports that the company is poised to delay the plane's first delivery for a fourth time.

Those orders, attributed by Boeing to unidentified customers, raise the 787 total order book to 892.

The 787 orders were among 85 new orders Boeing booked last week through Tuesday. Included in those orders were deals for 35 more 737s and 10 more 777s.

Airbus remains ahead of Boeing in the order race this year despite the new order additions. The European planemaker says it has booked 341 airliner orders through this week in 2008.

Four of 38 Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 airliners pulled from service Wednesday for inspection had developed cracks in the fuselage skin near the planes' windows.

The Dallas-based airline said it returned the 34 undamaged planes to service today, but withheld the four aircraft with metal fatigue cracks until they can be repaired.

Those four aircraft are expected to return to service this weekend after undergoing repairs.

Southwest withdrew the 38 planes from service after an internal audit showed the airline had not performed federally required electrical "eddy current' inspections for the cracks.

The audit found that 44 aircraft in Southwest's fleet hadn't undergone the inspection. Five of those planes were already grounded for other maintenance, and the sixth had been pulled from service because it was due to be retired.

Southwest canceled 126 flights Wednesday because of the inspections. None of those flights affected originated at Sea-Tac Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration has fined Southwest $10.2 million for other maintenance lapses that occurred in 2007 and involved other neglected inspections.

The FAA allowed Southwest to keep those planes flying over eight days while those neglected inspections were carried out. Those inspections found cracks in six jets. The FAA has also revealed that 70 Southwest 737s also missed mandatory rudder inspections.

Southwest has suspended three employees involved in the maintenance problems.

Gov. Chris Gregoire plans sign a bill Friday aimed at keeping Russell Investments headquarters in Tacoma.

That signing will take place at the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board's annual luncheon and meeting.

The bill creates a sales and use tax deferral for eligible investment projects in community empowerment zones.

Downtown Tacoma is one such zone.

Though applicable elsewhere the bill has been tailored to helping Tacoma retain the company, which is seeking to expand its headquarters.

It's a piece of a larger effort, spearheaded by the EDB, to keep the financial services company in Tacoma.

The governor has also committed $700,000 from unclaimed lottery funds toward the effort, called Project Destiny.

The EDB plans on making a formal presentation – including the bill, the governor's money and additional incentives – to the Russell company later this month.

I know you've all the been on the countdown ...

There's only six days left until you can watch Port of Tacoma commission meetings via the Internet.

The commission voted in December to begin broadcasting its meetings online and on television.

The port anticipates that next Thursday's commission meeting will be streamed over the Internet.

"Unless there’s any technical challenges we don’t know about we’ll be live streaming on the 20th," Rod Koon, the port's director of communications, said today.

You should be able to access the meeting on the port's Web site.

The effort will cost the port $170,000. That includes new equipment and training.

No word yet on when the first port meeting will be televised.

The initiative comes after much urging by Friends of the Port, a citizens' group formed last summer.

Florida's law enforcement officers will soon have the ability to check a suspect's fingerprints rapidly against a database of known offenders.

That ability comes thanks to a biometric identification system delivered this week to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement by Tacoma's Sagem Morpho Inc.

The system combines proprietary and commercial software and hardware systems to give officers in remote locations the ability to identify offenders and to retrieve offense and warrant information about them.

Here's how Sagem Morpho says the system will work:

In a typical Rapid ID application, a police officer on the street or a parole officer in a field office uses a small portable device called an edge biometric scanner to obtain digital fingerprint images from an individual.

The edge unit transmits the digital print images either wirelessly or via a closed network to the Rapid ID system in Tallahassee for matching against the approximately 4-million-record FDLE fingerprint database.

If a database match is made with the individual’s prints, Rapid ID uses an identification number to extract that person’s criminal records from the Florida Criminal Information Center.

This "rap sheet" information is packaged into an abbreviated format and returned to a screen on the edge device where it can be viewed and read by the public safety official.

The on-screen information provided to public safety officers allows them to instantly identify the offender in question, and ascertain whether that person is a sex offender or if there is an outstanding arrest warrant, so the officer can take appropriate action. If no match is made, the Rapid ID system purges the prints, and they are not retained in a database.

Amazon.com today gave Facebook users a way to see what their friends are reading and buying at the online retailer.

Amazon Giver and Amazon Grapevine, allows Facebook users to see and purchase what their friends want through their Amazon Wish Lists, as well as recent public activity on Amazon.

Amazon Giver allows users to see what their friends on Facebook have on their Amazon Wish Lists. Users can choose to purchase a gift for them from Amazon.com via the application, or view suggested items based on interests they have listed on their Facebook profile.

Amazon Grapevine allows users to see friends’ activity on Amazon.com, such as when they update their Wish List, write a review or tag a product, via News Feed updates.

Both Amazon Giver and Amazon Grapevine share only the information with Facebook users’ friends that each user has affirmatively chosen to share via an opt-in mechanism.

In order to view friends’ Wish Lists, all users must set their Wish Lists to "public" on Amazon.com. Any Wish Lists set as "private" will not be displayed.