Seattle-based jeweler E.E. Robbins has opened an outpost in Tacoma.

The store near Costco and the Tacoma Mall at 2128 S. 37th St., Building C, opened a week ago, said the company.

E.E. Robbins specializes in engagement rings although it carries a few men's wedding bands and a small amount of other jewelry.

The three-store chain (the third branch is in Bellevue) began eight years ago in Seattle's Belltown.

The Robbins chain is a descendant of longtime Seattle jewelry store Ben Tipp Diamonds. Ben Tipp Diamonds was a premiere Seattle jewelry store in the '30s, '40s and '50s.

EE Robbins owner Eugene Robbins' grandfather, Ben Tipp, owned that store until he sold out in 1955.

Southwest Airlines says it started testing a new satellite-based airborne Internet service this week, beating rival Alaska Airlines to the punch.

Both Southwest and Alaska have made deals with California-based Row 44 to provide Internet services aboard their aircraft.

Alaska had equipped one of its Boeing 737s with the electronic equipment needed to test the Internet connectivity before Christmas, but the high demands of holiday traffic postponed the testing.

Southwest said it expects to have four of its 737s equipped with Row 44's satellite equipment by the end of this month.

The Row 44 system will allow passengers to connect to the Internet with their laptop computers, cell phones and personal digital assistants. Neither Southwest nor Alaska have decided on a fee structure for the service.

Southwest has teamed up with Yahoo! to create a homepage for the Internet service that includes such features as a flight tracker to plot their flight's progress and information about local events, weather and maps of their destinations.

Other airlines have begun limited airborne Internet service but using a system of cell towers scattered around the country.

Alaska opted for the satellite system because the cell tower system doesn't provide connections in remote areas of Alaska or over the Pacific between the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii.

Only in the Tri-Cities and the Southcenter/SeaTac area did hotel occupancy advance in 2008 as compared to 2007.

A year-end report out this week from Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood says statewide hotel occupancy fell 6.6 percent statewide in 2008 – and 22.8 percent in Pierce County.

Other regions that saw double-digit declines were Bellevue (19.5 percent), Everett (27.4 percent) and Southwest Washington (29.1 percent). The occupancy rate in downtown Seattle fell by 5.2 percent while Spokane marked an 8.4 percent dip.

In Pierce County in 2008, 43.8 percent of available hotel and motel rooms were occupied – compared to 56.7 percent of rooms throughout 2007.

The cost of a room in Pierce County fell 2.6 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, from $75.86 to $73.86. The statewide rate fell 1.0 percent from $114.92 to $113.76. Only in Southcenter/SeaTac, Southwest Washington and the Tri-Cities did the average rates increase.

Oregon hotels fared worse than those in the Evergreen State, Rood said. Statewide, Oregon hotels saw an average 16.1 percent decline in occupancy and a 5.1 percent decrease in rates. Central and Eastern Oregon pegged the greatest decline, with occupancy down 30.4 percent in 2008 over 2007. No region saw an increase in occupancy, and only suburban Portland hotels showed an increase in the average daily cost of a room.

Temporary labor provider TrueBlue Inc. closed 70 of its 920 branch offices in the fourth quarter of 2008 as demand for its laborers dropped sharply late last year.

The company, headquartered in Tacoma, said in a year-end report that the 70 branch closures brought the total of branches shuttered for the year to 102.

"The decline in demand for our services accelerated in the fourth quarter," said TrueBlue's chief executive Steve Cooper. "We will continue our focus on aggressive cost management and on maintaining our strong financial position," he said in a news release.

The company, formerly called Labor Ready, reported a net loss of $46 million or $1.08 a share for the last quarter of 2008.

Those results included a charge for loss of goodwill and intangible assets amounting to $61 million related to the company's acquisitions over the last five years.

Alaska Airlines and the union representing its flight attendants have reached a tentative deal for a new 2-year labor agreement.

The proposed deal offers pay increases for flight attendants while keeping the flight attendants' insurance arrangements and work rules intact, the union said.

Flight attendants represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA will vote whether to approve or reject the deal. No date for that vote has been set.

If the membership rejects the new pact, the union and the company will go back to the bargaining table this spring, said the union.

Unemployed workers in Washington could qualify for up to 13 weeks of additional jobless benefits, Employment Security Commissioner Karen Lee announced earlier today.

The U.S. Department of Labor has notified the state that Washington qualifies for extended benefits because of the rising unemployment rate, according to an ESD release.

Extended benefits will become available starting Feb. 15. They will be paid only after eligible workers have first used other benefits.

The department is identifying workers who have exhausted both their regular and emergency unemployment benefits, the release said. Application packets will be sent beginning the week of Feb. 22, although benefits may be paid retroactively to Feb. 15.

State officials are asking that potential applicants not call the state’s unemployment call centers, which are already at capacity due to high call volume. Instead, unemployed workers are asked to wait until they receive an application packet in the mail and then send the applications directly to Olympia. After the applications for extended benefits are received, the department will notify workers if they qualify and how much their benefits will be.

Washington qualified for the extension under state and federal laws because the three-month average for the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was both above 6.5 percent and 10 percent higher than the same period last year, according to the release. During the October, November and December, the state’s unemployment rate averaged 6.6 percent.