OLYMPIA - March 9, 1999 - State Attorney General Christine Gregoire announced today Washington will receive at least an additional $394.9 million in settlement payments from the nation's major tobacco companies.

The money is Washington's share of an $8.6 billion Strategic Contribution Fund which was created as part of last November's settlement with tobacco companies. The fund was created as an extra award for those states which played a lead role in the lawsuits against tobacco companies and the negotiations which ultimately resulted in settlement.

SEATTLE - On Wednesday, Dec. 4, a King County Superior Court judge will consider a motion by Pierce and King counties and others to halt the implementation of I-776 in those counties. The counties have asked for the injunction while the court considers the merits of their lawsuit seeking to have the initiative declared unconstitutional.

Olympia -2/22/01-Attorney General Christine Gregoire has sued a Blaine tobacco company for failing to make state-mandated payments that are set aside to cover possible judgments against the company in future state lawsuits.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Thurston County Superior Court, was brought against 3B Holdings, Inc., which manufactures and sells a roll-your-own tobacco product called "Sixty 1." Between May and December of 1999, the company sold more than 844,000 cigarettes in the state.

Olympia - 2/18/00 - Every day 3,000 kids become regular smokers. Tobacco use costs Washington taxpayers $1.3 billion in health care costs and 8,200 lives of family and friends every year. The budget released today by the House Republicans will do nothing stop this deadly epidemic and drain on our state’s health care system.

OLYMPIA -  Attorney General Christine Gregoire today announced the signing of an agreement with the Walgreens drug store chain that will help curb the sale of tobacco to minors.

Walgreens, which operates 45 stores in Washington State, signed the multi-state agreement implementing in-store procedures, employee training and other protections intended to reduce youth access to tobacco products.

Olympia - Millions of pages of once-secret tobacco industry documents will have a permanent home on the Internet thanks to a grant from the American Legacy Foundation to the University of California, San Francisco.

Vancouver - Ben Hasson, former Ridgefield assistant public works superintendent, was ordered today to serve time in jail for filing false reports with state regulators and violating the state sewage laws at the city's wastewater treatment plant.

Olympia -  Attorney General Christine Gregoire has asked the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a three-judge panel that threw out the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health's tobacco outdoor advertising regulation in November 1999.

Olympia - Attorney General Christine Gregoire today filed a request to take part in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) challenging whether D.O.E. can lower clean-up standards for some high-level waste at the Hanford site.

OLYMPIA -- A former City of South Bend official was sentenced to 16 months in prison in Pacific County Superior Court today for stealing more than $153,000 in city funds. Colleen K. Mason pleaded guilty in November to five counts of first degree theft and one count of second degree theft.

In court today, Judge Mark F. McCauley also ordered Mason to pay $153,379.36 in restitution to the City of South Bend, $110 in court costs and a $500 crime victims' compensation assessment.