Tacoma Goodwill received a $1.6 million grant to expand job training and placement services for hundreds people with disabilities.

The money comes from the Projects With Industry grant through U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Funds will help train 500 disabled job seekers and place 275 people in jobs during five years, Tacoma Goodwill CEO Terry A. Hayes said in a statement.

"This is a great day for those who want to go to work and and another major step forward in our long history of helping people with disabilities," Hayes said. "This grant expands and enhances our services to provide specific training, placement and career advancement opportunities in trades where employers will need workers."

Goodwill is one of 66 organizations that received funding from about 200 that applied.

"Competition for the grant is rigorous and agencies who receive and award have demonstrated their ability to achieve exceptional results," said Lynnae Ruttledge, director of the state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

The grant will expand Goodwill's Retail and Customer Service Program, Office Essentials Program and Custodial/Janitorial Skills Training Program. Services are provided in Goodwill's Work Opportunity Centers in Tacoma, Longview and Yakima.

Major Pacific Northwest stocks followed the Dow Industrials downward today, swept downstream in the bout of selling by investors whose confidence in the economy was shaken.

Here are the numbers:

Dow, -508.39 to 9,447.11, down 5.11 percent
Nasdaq, -108.08 to 1,754.88, down 5.80 percent
S&P, -60.66 to 996.23, down 5.74 percent

Northwest companies:

Columbia Banking System, -.13 to 17.49, down .74 percent
TrueBlue Inc., -.49 to 12.81, down 3.68 percent
Boeing, -2.01 to 49.28, down 3.92 percent
Paccar, -1.38 to 31.90, down 4.15 percent
Costco, -2.67 to 57.80, down 4.42 percent
Expeditors, -2.09 to 29.16, down 6.69 percent
Microsoft, -1.68 to 23.23, down 6.74 percent
Weyerhaeuser, -4.45 to 50.37, down 8.12 percent
Nordstrom, -2.25 to 21.89, down 9.32 percent
Amazon, -2.67 to 57.80, down 10.29 percent
Alaska Air Group, - 2.14 to 16.05, down 11.76 percent

This Associated Press story makes me laugh but it seems like a good idea:

Here’s the scenario: It’s Friday night, and what began as an innocent happy-hour margarita morphed into a few pitchers. After all, those tacos were salty.

Bidding friends adieu, you jump in a cab, head home and decide a quick e-mail check is in order. And there it is: a message from your ex. Or your boss. Or that friend you’re secretly mad at.

If you’re the kind of person who types tipsy and regrets it in the morning, Google’s “Mail Goggles,” a new test-phase feature in the free Gmail service, might save you some angst.

The Goggles can kick in late at night on weekends.

The feature requires you to solve a few easy math problems in short order before hitting “send.” If your logical thinking skills are intact, Google is betting you’re sober enough to work out the repercussions of sending that screed you just drafted.

And if you can’t multiply two times five, you’ll probably thank Google in the morning.

To activate Goggles, Gmail users should click the “Settings” link at the top of a Gmail page, then go to the “Labs” section.

There’s no shame in admitting that sometimes you need a little extra help. Gmail engineer Jon Perlow designed Goggles with his own weaknesses in mind.

The strike-related production halt at Boeing's Puget Sound area aircraft plants is beginning to take its toll on airline schedule planning around the world.

The construction of new airliners has been stopped for more than a month because of the strike of some 27,000 Boeing union machinists.

Close to home, Alaska Airlines' vice president Brandon Pederson told airline analysts at a Colorado conference that the Boeing work stoppage will have "a significant impact on our business."

The SeaTac-based airline has 21 Boeing 737-800s on order.Ten of those are scheduled to be delivered by April.

Alaska in August retired the last of its fuel-guzzling MD-80s in favor of the Boeings.

Meanwhile in Texas, American Airlines' said that the timing of its plan to retire its 300 MD-80s and replace them with Boeings is being rethought because of the strike.

American is scheduled to receive 36 737-800s in 2009 and 40 in 2010.

In Europe, low cost airline Ryanair blamed the strike on the delayed startup of new flights from Edinburgh, Scotland and elsewhere.

In Australia, new international carrier V Australia has told passengers booked on its new flights from Australia to Los Angeles beginning Dec. 15 that those flights' startup will be delayed until at least Feb. 28.

The airline has three Boeing 777-300ER aircraft nearing completion at Boeing's Everett plant.

The airline is making other arrangements for passengers booked on the V Australia flights between Dec. 15 and Feb. 28.

No new talks are scheduled in the Boeing-union dispute. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney warned workers Monday that further concessions to the union could endanger the company's competitive position.

A Northwest Airlines Airbus A-330 jetliner will make a series of landings and takeoffs on Sea-Tac Airport's new third runway Wednesday to test instrument landing systems.

The test will be the first using a wide-bodied aircraft.

The Port of Seattle and the Federal Aviation Administration last month tested the new strip with a single-aisle Alaska Airlines 737-800 aircraft.

The 8,500-foot runway is some 14 years in the making. Final costs are expected to total nearly $1.2 billion.

The runway was built on a landfilled embankment west of the existing two runways. The construction project required that the port, the airport's owner, buy up hundreds of homes and businesses, rehabilitate creeks and wildlife habitat and construct massive holding ponds for airport runoff.

The third runway is expected to open to commercial traffic Nov. 20. It's construction was strenuously opposed by neighboring cities who contended the traffic would bring more noise and air pollution to their neighborhoods.

The port says the new runway will give the airport more capacity in inclement weather because it is far enough from the airport's eastern-most runway to allow staggered landings on both strips during bad weather.

The two existing north-south runways are too close together to allow simultaneous landings in all but the clearest weather.

Executives at Minneapolis' Sun Country Airlines says it plans to continue operating normally today in spite of its late Monday bankruptcy reorganization filing.

The airline's once daily flight from Sea-Tac to the Twin Cities was reported to be scheduled to leave at the usual time this evening. The airline also operates flights from Sea-Tac to Laughlin, Nev. Those flights will operate normally, too.

The airline was forced to resort to bankruptcy after a federal investigation into other businesses controlled by former Sun Country CEO Thomas Petters cut off short-term credit to the airline.

The airline normally would have borrowed money from Petters' other companies during the fall when passenger loads are relatively low to bridge the gap until wintertime resort flights begin.

The company has deferred 50 percent of its employees' salaries while the financial crisis looms.

It has pledged to make good on those salaries once business picks up in the winter.

Sun Country has a small but loyal following who like its service and its fleet of modern Boeing 737 jets.

Sun Country is the latest airline to file for bankruptcy this year. Some, like Frontier Airlines, are reorganizing and continue to operate.

Others, such as ATA, Aloha, Skybus and XL, have halted operations and liquidated assets.