QUOTE OF THE DAY

“This was front-page news, and every American knew it.”

Robin Koval, president of Legacy, an anti-smoking organization, on a 1964 announcement of a report by Surgeon General Luther Terry confirming that smoking cigarettes caused lung cancer Article, 5A

Union vote secures 777X jobs for Seattle

Boeing workers narrowly approved an eight-year contract extension, their union announced late Friday night, in a move that will ensure production of Boeing’s new 777X aircraft in the Seattle region.

The vote was 51 percent in favor, with workers responding to pressures from top union officials and Washington state lawmakers, who warned that Boeing might place 777X production elsewhere, potentially costing Washington more than 10,000 jobs.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted after Boeing workers rejected a similar deal in November, 67 percent to 33 percent, because it contained numerous concessions, including a pension freeze.

Many Boeing workers changed their stance and backed the deal after they saw Boeing solicit offers from other states. The company said 22 states had offered 54 sites to assemble the 777X, with some states offering billions of dollars in subsidies.

Boeing had promised to do final assembly of its planned 777X in the Puget Sound area and assemble the plane’s composite wings there if the machinists approved the eight-year contract extension, which will be added to a contract running through 2016.

5 found dead after Oklahoma house fire

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. - Five people were found dead inside a home after a house fire in the northern Oklahoma city of Bartlesville, authorities said Saturday.

Bartlesville Police Sgt. David Hackler said the fire was reported shortly before 5 a.m.

Hackler said the case is still under investigation by police and fire authorities, along with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the state medical examiner’s office. The victims’ names hadn’t been released Saturday, and authorities had not yet released a cause of death.

Bartlesville is about 45 miles north of Tulsa.

Bush matriarch released from hospital

HOUSTON - Former first lady Barbara Bush praised the staff of a Texas hospital where she spent nearly a week being treated for pneumonia before going home Saturday.

Jim McGrath, a spokesman for former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, said doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital decided Saturday morning to allow Barbara Bush to go home. The 88-year-old Bush family matriarch had been hospitalized since Monday.

“She’s great. She’s had a couple of great days. She’s responded well to the medication,” McGrath said.

Barbara Bush had heart surgery in March 2009 for a severe narrowing of the main heart valve. She also was hospitalized in November 2008, when she underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. In 2010, she was admitted to the hospital after having a mild relapse of Graves disease, a thyroid condition for which she was treated in 1989.

“I cannot thank the doctors and nurses at Houston Methodist enough for making sure I got the best treatment and got back to George and our dogs as quickly as possible,” Bush said.

The nation’s longest-married presidential first couple will celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary Monday.

Obama to push for jobless-aid renewal

President Barack Obama urged Congress to make the restoration of unemployment benefits a priority as both he and lawmakers return to work after the Christmas break.

The renewal of the “vital economic lifeline” provided by the aid should be lawmakers’ “first order of business” this week, Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Lawmakers “went home for the holidays and let that lifeline expire,” the president said, referring to the program that provided supplemental payments to long-term unemployed workers. “And for many of their constituents who are unemployed through no fault of their own, that decision will leave them with no income at all.”

Senate Democrats are searching for a compromise with Republicans to extend the program for another three months to about 1.3 million people. The plan would cost about $6.5 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Republican congressional leaders say the spending should be offset with cuts elsewhere in the budget. The jobless benefits expired Dec. 28 after the program was left out of a deal to fund the government for two years that Democrats and Republicans hammered out before their break.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 01/05/2014