Aviation blogger Jon Ostrower says today he's learned that Boeing is shuffling the delivery order for its new 787 Dreamliners.

The major result of that change is that 787 launch customer All Nippon Airways will be taking delivery of 11 of the first dozen production Dreamliners off the assembly line, Ostrower says he's learned.

The Japanese carrier has moved up on the delivery list because some Chinese carriers dropped back to later positions.

Chinese airlines had complained that they were unhappy with taking delivery of early Dreamliners because they're likely to be less efficient than later planes coming off the assembly line because the early examples will be over Boeing's target weight for the plane.

Another incentive for taking early deliveries has also disappeared for the Chinese carriers. They had hoped to take delivery of the high-tech planes before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

With the delivery of the first production aircraft now set for the first quarter of next year, the plane is nearly two years behind schedule.

A new player is entering the competition to win the nod from Tacoma's Russell Investments for its new headquarters.

The Downtown Seattle Association acknowledged this week that it plans to make a sales presentation to Russell executives to bolster Seattle's chances of winning the corporate headquarters for the worldwide investment advisory firm.

Russell has been studying where to relocate its headquarters for more than a year now. Tacoma has mounted a civic campaign to win the company's favor. That sales effort includes more than $40 million in tax and development incentives to stay in Tacoma where the company was founded.

Russell, which originally had planned to announce a decision by the end of 2008, has indefinitely postponed the decision.

The company is due to announce staff reductions soon to cope with the diminished business that the worldwide recession has brought.

Russell is downtown Tacoma's largest private employer with more than 1,200 workers here.

Several Seattle developers and realtors have been pursuing Russell for months, but the association has stood on the sidelines until now.

With the purchase of Washington Mutual by JP Morgan Chase, downtown Seattle is due to lose hundreds of high-paying financial industry jobs and a major tenant in two Seattle skyscrapers.

A Russell move to Seattle could help plug that gap.

Though Russell says it is still mulling over where to locate, the company clearly has other priorities such as reorganizing its business under a new chief executive and coping with the world economic meltdown before it thinks of fancy new quarters.

Two downtown Tacoma sites remain in play for the company. One includes an expansion near its present A Street headquarters and the other involves new construction on the former site of downtown bus terminal on Pacific Avenue.

Ten Washington stores including locations in Federal Way and Gig Harbor are among 300 stores Ritz Camera Centers Inc. will close nationwide, the company announced today.

Ritz, parent company of Kits Cameras, Wolf Cameras and Proex, is closing the stores as part of a bankruptcy reorganization.

The camera chain filed for bankruptcy in February.

Closeout sales will begin Saturday at all of the stores being shuttered, the company said.

Retail inventory at the stores worth some $50 million will be liquidated. No closing dates have been set for the stores targeted.

Stores set for closing in Washington include locations in Bellevue Square, Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham, Southcenter Mall in Tukwila, Pavilions Centre in Federal Way, Westlake Center in Seattle, downtown Woodinville, Everett Retail Center, Olympic Village in Gig Harbor, Kirkland Parkplace and Mill Creek Town Center.

Locally, Kits locations in the Tacoma Mall, in Lacey, Olympia and in the Willows Shopping Center in Puyallup will remain open.

Some 400 Ritz locations will remain open for business after the closings.