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.

OLYMPIA - Puget Sound Energy's natural gas customers will likely see an overall decrease in their monthly bills this fall under an agreement reached today between the company, state regulators, the Attorney General's Office and industrial users.

OLYMPIA - May 28, 2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear a Washington case that will determine whether the state Department of Social and Health Services can use Social Security money received on behalf of foster children to help provide for the children's care.

SEATTLE - The Washington State Attorney General's Office and the British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General today joined forces to seize assets and close down a Vancouver, BC telemarketer. The cooperative effort is part of crackdown by law enforcement agencies in both nations to stop cross-border telemarketing fraud.

"Cross-border telemarketing fraud has become a serious problem," Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire explained. "We estimate telemarketing fraud victims, many of them our vulnerable elderly citizens, lose $40 billion a year."

Seattle – Washington and more than 40 other states have settled a case against a Florida-based telemarketing firm accused of unfair and deceptive practices, Attorney General Christine Gregoire announced today.

As a result of this settlement and a similar one reached between the company and the Federal Trade Commission, more than 6,000 Washington residents could be eligible for restitution.