A bankruptcy court judge in New York has granted Blockbuster Inc.’s new owner, Dish Network, until July 20 to decide which of the 1,700 Blockbuster video and game stores it will keep open and which it will close.

Dish has said it wants to keep a network of brick and mortar stores, but it needs more time to study the leases and business of each store before deciding.

Because Dish bought Blockbuster after the video chain had sought bankruptcy reorganization, the company can terminate leases without penalty.

Dish hopes to merge its satellite entertainment business with Blockbuster’s video rental …

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Tacoma has known since early December that an iconic business that was once one of the area’s larger employers was due to shut down for good sometime this year. Now that plant’s new owner has set a specific date.

Pinnacle Foods Group LLC said today it will halt production at Nalley’s South Tacoma plant by June 25. The company makes chili and canned beans at the facility. That production is being transferred to an Armour Canned Meats facility in Fort Madison, Iowa. Pinnacle owns Armour.

The Tacoma plant will remain open as a warehouse and distribution facility through next fall …

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Tacoma Rail will upgrade three of its locomotives to meet new pollution standards by late next fall thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

The total cost of the upgrade will be $4.3 million with Tacoma Rail contributing $1.8 million.

The locomotives will likely receive new power plants to reduce emissions and to increase their reliability or the municipally owned rail system may purchase already-upgraded locomotives, the railroad said.

The rail system provides switching service on the Tacoma Tideflats and on a 204-mile network that reaches as far south …

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The Boeing Co. has bolstered its Washington workforce by 1,337 workers in the first three months of the year as the company moves to increase its production of its 737 and 777 jetliners and to install modifications to yet-undelivered 787 Dreamliners.

That workforce is likely to continue to expand in the coming months as Boeing begins work on the Air Force KC-46A tanker at Everett and ups the production rate on all of its airliners, Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney said Wednesday.

The company’s Commercial Airplane Group grew by 2,782 workers in that same period. Most of those workers are in …

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Though some gas stations have already passed the $4 per-gallon benchmark, the average price for unleaded in Tacoma Thursday remained just below that mark.

The average cost of a gallon of regular in the Tacoma area was just two cents less than $4 today, according to TacomaGasPrices.com.

That figure was up 3.4 cents in the last week and 20.2 cents in the last month. A year ago, gas cost $3.06 a gallon in Tacoma.

Tacoma’s prices are a fraction of a cent less than 10 cents a gallon more the the national average, said the Web site.

If this year …

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The Boeing Co. today failed to make it to the final round in a closely-watched contest to supply the Indian Air Force with 126 new fighter jets.

The contract could be worth as much as $11 billion to the winning contractor.

India’s Defence Ministry announced this morning that two European planemakers are the finalists in the bidding. EADS is offering its Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault is offering its Rafale.

Most of the world’s largest aerospace companies bid on India’s business. Boeing was offering its F/A-18. Also eliminated today from the competition were Sweden’s Saab with its Gripen, Russia’s MIG …

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Lured by the promises of government incentives and lower costs, Boeing this week broke ground for a new facility in Oklahoma City for two programs it is moving from California.

The company will use the 320,000-square-foot structure near Tinker Air Force Base as home to its B-1 bomber modification program and its C-130 avionics update program.

The company plans to move 500 jobs from Long Beach, Calif to the Oklahoma capital to staff those engineering programs.

The Oklahoma City expansion is the latest Boeing move to shift work from higher cost states with union-friendly laws to lower cost states with …

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The Washington Attorney General’s office this week announced a settlement with a group of software companies accused of using deceptive warnings and “free scans” to sell anti-spyware programs and registry cleaners.

The companies are all owned by Mississippi resident Bruce Cope. They include e-Next Media Inc., c-Net Media Inc., 2Squared Software LL, Antispyware LLC, PC Utility Inc. and C&C Networks Inc.

Those companies sell products such as SpywareStop, SpywareBot, Spyware Remover, MalwareBot, Ad-ware alert, RegistryBot, Error Killer, RegRecall and others, the attorney general’s office said.

The companies encouraged Internet users to perform a “free scan” on their computers. Those scans …

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