The folks over at Exit133.com are reporting that an Apple store may be coming to Tacoma Mall. This is based on an online advertisement for a store manager at the mall.

Amy Barney, a spokeswoman for Apple, was tight-lipped about any plans.

"We've made no announcements regarding a store in that area," she said Tuesday. When asked about the online job posting, she said:

"I can't speak to that because I don't handle advertising. But any job openings are listed at apple.com/jobs."

When you hop over to that site and check out future openings for store manager, a spot at the Tacoma Mall is among them.

Tacoma Mall's manager, Steve Heim, referred calls to the mall's spokeswoman. I've left her a message and will post an update as soon as I hear back.

UPDATE: Sarah Bonds, spokeswoman for the mall, said "At this time we don't have any information to disclose. But as soon as we know something, we'll let you know."

I've called a few Apple stores in the region to see if anyone there had heard anything, and they have less to say than the CIA. We'll keep trying to find out more.

I filled my tank this morning (13.22 gallons. I wish it had been emptier.) and I paid less than $10, $9.51 to be exact.

Get outta here, you say. Special circumstances, did apply, I'll admit, but still it was amazing considering the same tank in mid-July would have cost me $57.37 at Tacoma's average unleaded regular price.

The special circumstances: I shop at Safeway. I use their club card. I'd bought some gift cards there for Christmas. Since my local Safeway doesn't have a gas station, my club card gas credits tend to mount up. And Safeway is offering extra credits for buying a $100 or more in gift cards. So when I paid, the cashier told me that I had earned $1.00 off per gallon.

With that incentive, I went out of my way to stop at a Safeway gas station on the way to work. Saved $13.22 on the $1.719 price.

Any more purchases and they would have been paying me to fill up.

How could gas prices change so radically? The same way the rest of the economy from the stock market to unemployment rates. A disturbance in the momentum that fueled the rise can send prices and the economy in the opposite direction in a heartbeat.

Consider how much the price of gas continues to fall.

According to TacomaGasPrices.com, 11 stations in Pierce County were selling gas for less than $1.60 a gallon Tuesday. The average price for regular in the county fell 5.3 cents from Monday to Tuesday.

Those same prices dropped 16.3 cents in the last week and 57.5 cents in the last month.

The price of crude oil Tuesday hovered within a few cents of $42 a barrel, just a bit over 28 percent of the $148 a barrel it sold for in July.

I'm working on a story about finding a job in this tough economic climate.

Are you looking for work? For how long? What has that been like?

Or are you unemployed and have you stopped looking for work? Why?

And employers, are you hiring but not finding what you need?

E-mail me at kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com by the end of the day with your story. Please include your full name, your hometown and a daytime phone number for possible follow-up questions.

Unsettling news for Boeing and Airbus.

China is encouraging its airlines to postpone or cancel scheduled deliveries of new airliners next year because of falling traffic.

According to a report from Bloomberg News, the government is asking the air carrier to sideline some planes already in service to cut capacity.

China is among the biggest markets for the two planemakers. Its growing economy had provided a big market for the two companies as its increasingly affluent citizens began flying.

The worldwide economic slowdown has hit China hard, cutting demand for the consumer goods its factories produce.

The Chinese government has begun financial assistance to some airlines including China Southern, the country's largest airline. Other airlines considering asking for help include China Eastern and Hainan Airlines. Hainan is the only one of those that flies to Sea-Tac. Hainan flights connect Sea-Tac with Beijing.

Most employers in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area expect to maintain their current staffing levels in January through March, according to a survey out today.

Manpower Inc. does a quarterly survey to measure employers' intentions to grow or reduce their staffs. It's based on interviews with 31,800 employers in the top 200 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the country.

The Tacoma-area results tracked closely to the national ones, with about two-thirds of employers planning on neither hiring nor reducing payroll in the first quarter of 2009. In the area, 17 percent planned to hire, 15 percent planned to reduce payroll and 4 percent weren't sure.

Manpower said in a news release that area job prospects appear best in these areas:

=> Read more!

It was business as usual today at Seattle's KCPQ and KMYQ television stations after their parent company, Tribune Co. Monday filed for bankruptcy reorganization.

"We're just doing business as we always have," said Pam Pearson, Q13 vice president and general manager.

Those two stations are part of a group of media companies including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel owned by Tribune.

The company said it will continue publishing its newspapers and airing its television programs while it reorganizes.

KCPQ was once owned and operated by the Clover Park School District. The district sold the station in the mid-'80s to Kelly Broadcasting Co. of Sacramento. Kelly moved the station to Seattle and affiliated it with the Fox Network. Kelly sold the station to the Tribune in 1998. It merged its operation with KMYQ-22, its Seattle MyNetwork affiliate.

Falling advertising caused by the down economy and Internet competition is credited with the troubles for the media company headed by Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell.

Tribune also owns the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field although they were not included in the bankruptcy. The company has been offering the baseball team and the historic ball park for sale to reduce its debts.

Got an unexpected e-mail from what appears to be the IRS in your mailbox?

Don't believe what it says and don't follow its instructions.

A new fraud scheme using the IRS name designed to empty you bank account is circulating on the Internet.

Under that scheme, you receive a message from what appears to be the IRS informing you of an opportunity to avoid some paying taxes. The e-mail asks you to fill out an official-looking but bogus tax form and submit it to the taxing agency.

The form asks for such vital information as Social Security number, address, bank account numbers and passwords and even your mother's maiden name. That's all that a scammer would need to access and drain your bank account.

The IRS advises you to delete such mail. The IRS will write you a letter to initiate an inquiry, not send you an e-mail, the agency said.