Natural gas started flowing through the new Everett Delta pipeline on Tuesday. Work is largely completed on the $32 million project, aside from some final cleanup and adjustments to meters and support buildings, said Rodney Gregory, a spokesman for Williams Northwest Pipeline Co. The nine-mile pipeline runs from Lake Stevens to south Everett, and was built so Puget Sound Energy could improve its distribution of natural gas to Everett and Marysville. Williams Northwest started work on the pipeline in June.

UPS plans to hire 70,000 temps

United Parcel Service plans to hire 70,000 temporary workers to help with the holiday shipping season, a 40 percent increase from 2003. UPS estimated Tuesday that it would deliver more than 340 million packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, peaking on Dec. 21 with about 20 million air and ground packages.

2004 apple crop nears a record

The 2004 Washington state apple crop could be close to or even surpass the record crop of 2000, according to the industry’s November storage report. Growers in the state have estimated this year’s harvest at about 98.4 million boxes. If that number holds, the crop would surpass the 98.34 million boxes in 2000, said Miles Kohl, executive director of the Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association.

Video game fans line up for ‘Halo 2’

There’s a new media king, only he isn’t on the radio or in the movies. His name? Master Chief. His role: Interstellar soldier and star of “Halo 2,” one of the most anticipated video games in recent memory. Across the nation, fans lined up for hours at some 7,000 planned “midnight madness” events Tuesday to get first crack at the $50 sequel from Microsoft Corp.

Search preview set for Thursday

Microsoft Corp., stepping up its efforts to compete with rival Google Inc., will offer consumers a preview of its technology for searching the Internet, beginning Thursday. Microsoft has long offered a search engine on its MSN Web site, but the technology behind it has been powered by subsidiaries of Yahoo Inc. Earlier this year, the Redmond-based software giant conceded that it had missed a large market opportunity by not developing its own search technology, and announced plans to launch its own search engine. The preview that begins Thursday won’t include technology to let people search their own computer desktops, but the company has promised desktop search functionality by the end of the year.

From Herald staff and news services