Carolyn Adolph

It was before dawn on Thursday, and the cold air off the Blair Waterway in Tacoma was damp and penetrating.

Karl Anderson, a mustachioed man in his 70s, stood on his company’s graving dock, waiting for the Kalakala.

Billionaire Elon Musk says he’s setting up an engineering center in Seattle that could have 1,000 workers within three or four years.

Musk is CEO of Space Exploration Technologies. He made his name as co-founder of PayPal and designer of the Tesla electric car. He made the announcement in a conference call with journalists at Bloomberg.

It should only take half an hour to drive between Everett and Seattle on Interstate 5, which was possible during the holidays.

But it’s back to reality now, and the regular commute can take longer than an hour.

It was a year of soaring profits for Boeing and Microsoft, rapid expansion for Amazon and anguish for Boeing machinists. KUOW's economy reporter Carolyn Adolph tells Bill Radke how the Puget Sound region's major employers fared in 2014.

Travelers to the San Juan Islands have always had to cope with uncertainty. Up to now there’s been no way to guarantee a spot on a particular ferry.

But Washington ferries are now taking reservations for the San Juan Islands. The first ferries to fill up under the new system leave Monday morning.

This year’s ski season is getting off to a slow start thanks to an old skiers’ nemesis: the pineapple express.

Unusually warm and wet weather has been washing away the snow on the region’s ski hills. Fresh snow finally started falling over the weekend.

But not before some innocent pineapples had to die.

Five years ago this Monday, Boeing's 787 flew for the first time. The Dreamliner, billed as Boeing's game-changing plane, roared into the sky above Everett at 10:27 a.m.

Now another milestone approaches: Boeing says 2015 is the year it makes its first profit per plane on the 787 line.

A report from the National Transportation Safety Board says Boeing, its contractors and the Federal Aviation Administration share the blame for a fire in a 787's lithium-ion battery at Boston's Logan Airport two years ago. That fire was one of two incidents that led to the grounding of the Dreamliner fleet in 2013.

The NTSB said the fire on the tarmac at Boston Logan was the result of a short-circuit in a single battery cell. It resulted in smoke, which Boeing said would be a one in 10 million event. But then it spread to other cells, causing a wave of extreme heat known as a thermal runaway and fire.

The Washington Traffic Safety Commission is taking another run at an expanded distracted driving law. A proposed bill is sitting at the governor’s office now. The legislation would expand the current ban on texting or holding a handset to the ear to include touching a mobile device while driving.

Though the proposal addresses more of the ways people are interacting with their devices, it leaves out one major distraction:  Siri.

Tuesday is the first day of actual classes for students of Marysville-Pilchuck High School. On Monday, students were bused to the school for a shortened day. It was the first time since the shooting on October 24 that the school community had come together.

Four young people are in intensive care following a shooting in a Marysville high school cafeteria. And two young people are dead.

One, a girl. The other, the alleged shooter. Police have yet to confirm his identity.

KUOW reporter Carolyn Adolph reports.

Staff at JCPenney in Bellevue are preparing for the store’s closure. In November the store ends its 59-year run in Bellevue Square.

JCPenney, a flagship of the middle class, has been struggling for years. The Texas-based retailer closed 33 under-performing stores across the country earlier this year. Then in September it added Bellevue to the list.

Rollout of Seattle's $15 minimum wage is still half a year away, and Seattle's auditor says the city is already learning lessons about how to enforce workplace laws.