Puyallup's Mama Stortini’s Restaurant and Bar is opening a northern branch at Kent Station.

The Italian restaurant is scheduled to open May 20 in the former Zephyr Restaurant site in the downtown Kent shopping area.

The Kent location will be the second Mama Stortini’s and third restaurant for Specialty Restaurant Group.

The Mama Stortini's name originated with former Pierce County Executive Joe Stortini who opened the original Mama Stortini's, now closed, in University Place after he left politics.

Veteran restaurateur Roger Stilson purchased Mama Stortini's in Puyallup in 2006.

Stortini, no longer associated with Mama Stortini's, is proprieter of Joeseppi's in Tacoma.

Prior to launching The Specialty Restaurant Group, Stilson’s career included a twenty-year plus stint at Restaurants Unlimited as VP operations for Palomino Restaurant.

With Airbus' A400M military transport aircraft program wallowing in cost overruns and delays, even the French military is talking with Boeing about buying its C-17 airlifter.

French defense procurement officials acknowledged they've talked with Boeing about its four-engine airlifter to fill the hole left in the French airlift capability by the A400M's late delivery schedule.

The Airbus aircraft is now nearly four years behind schedule.

The French are not the only ones talking with Boeing. The British have said they're considering buying more C-17s to augment their airlift capabilities, and the South Africans are also reportedly considering the Long Beach, Calif.-built airlifter.

The prospects for foreign sales are good for Boeing which is nearing the end of its production run for the aircraft. The Obama administration has recommended the Air Force buy no more of the transports.

China Southern Airlines Co., China's largest airline, says it will postpone deliveries both Boeing and Airbus aircraft this year to save money.

The airline said it will push back deliveries of 13 Boeing 787s and five Airbus A380s this year.

The airline is also negotiating to delay the delivery of four Boeing 777 Freighters.

Boeing has already announced it will cut back the 777 production rate next year at its Everett factory from seven a month to five.

Meanwhile Airbus maintains it will deliver 18 of the superjumbo A380s this year despite feedback from customers that the 550-passenger jet is unneeded on some routes because of the decline in business travel.

Already Australia's Qantas Airways has delayed delivery of four of the A380s. Airbus' largest A380 customer, Emirates Airways, has pulled an A380 off its New York route because the plane was flying significantly below capacity.

The Boeing Co. sent layoff notices today to 300 more workers, 120 of them in the Puget Sound region.

The layoffs are part of a company plan to trim its worldwide workforce by 10,000 employees this year. Some 4,500 of those layoffs will come from the Commercial Airplane Group headquartered in Renton.

The layoffs will be effective in 60 days. The latest employee reductions will bring the company's total employment reductions to 800 for 2009. The company is also leaving 1,000 unfilled positions vacant.

The layoff notices don't necessarily mean that those workers will be jobless. Some may transfer to other jobs within the company and others may be spared when their colleagues retire.

The company contends it will produce 480 commercial airliners this year despite the workforce cutbacks, a feat that the company's largest union, the International Association of Machinists, doubts is doable with reduced workforce.

Two employees at Simpson Tacoma Kraft Company were taken to the hospital after a pump casing blew apart at about 9 a.m. with several workers nearby.

The official cause of the small explosion at 801 Portland Ave. is still being investigated, company spokespersons said in an e-mail this afternoon.

The injured employees have been released from the hospital since the accident this morning and are now in good condition, the statement said.