The Associated Press

A 54-year-old inmate has been sentenced to death for killing a Washington state corrections officer in a prison chapel two years ago.

Byron Scherf is a convicted rapist who already was serving life in prison when he attacked and strangled Officer Jayme Biendl with an amplifier cord in January 2011.

North Korea says an American citizen sentenced to 15 years hard labor has started life at a "special prison."

No other details were immediately available Wednesday about Kenneth Bae. Pyongyang said earlier this week that Bae informed his family on Friday that he couldn't appeal his April 30 sentence and that he asked his family to urge Washington to push for his amnesty.

Boeing is delivering 787s again after a four-month halt while it fixed problems that led to smoldering batteries.

Boeing announced a delivery on Tuesday to Japan's All Nippon Airways.

As Idaho's J.R. Simplot Co promotes its genetically engineered potato, a tiny Canadian apple breeder is working on a similar product that could provide a glimpse of how consumers react.

Okanogan Specialty Fruits expects U.S. and Canadian government approval for Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apple varieties with their genes modified to halt browning.

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

A military judge has found Army Sgt. John Russell guilty of premeditated murder in the 2009 killings of five fellow service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq.

Russell now faces a sentencing phase to determine whether he will face life in prison with or without the possibility of release.

The same jury that convicted a Monroe Reformatory inmate of aggravated murder for strangling a prison guard starts work Monday in Everett on the penalty stage of the trial to determine whether Byron Scherf will be executed.

Snohomish County jurors were told during the trial that the convicted rapist was already serving a sentence of life without parole in 2011 when he strangled Jayme Biendl in the prison chapel.

Several inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla are taking part in a new program to try to ease violence and reduce the number of inmates in solitary confinement.

So far, the program is voluntary, and it targets dangerous, confrontational inmates who have been locked away in isolation.

Gunmen opened fire on people marching in a neighborhood Mother's Day parade in New Orleans on Sunday, wounding at least 19.

The shooting — described by the FBI as a flare-up of street violence — shattered the festive mood surrounding the parade that drew hundreds of people to the 7th Ward neighborhood of modest row houses not far from the French Quarter. Cell phone video taken in the aftermath of the shooting shows victims lying on the ground, blood on the pavement and others bending over to comfort them.

The young man known as the "Barefoot Bandit" says he's looking forward to leaving prison and having a "beautiful life."

Colton Harris-Moore became known worldwide after running from the law in stolen cars, boats and airplanes as a teenager for two years. Now the 22-year-old is serving a seven-year prison sentence after a plea deal with federal and local authorities.

  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wants to streamline government permitting and review aerospace incentives in order to help convince Boeing Co. to build its 777X jetliner in the state.

Inslee said Thursday that other strategies that lawmakers need to implement include improving the state's transportation corridors and investing in education and workforce training programs. He added those efforts can help preserve thousands of jobs.

"Today what we are doing is starting for the competition not just for the 777x but for the replacement of the 737. We’re getting ready for that today. We’re thinking long-term," the governor said.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has apologized for making a deliberate omission this week when he announced a plan to turn guns from a buyback program into plaques carrying messages of peace.

McGinn left the impression during a news conference on Tuesday the 700-plus weapons collected at a highly publicized buyback in January would be used to make the plaques.

The Washington state Administrative Office of the Courts was hacked in February, and up to 160,000 Social Security numbers and 1 million driver license numbers may have been accessed during the data breach of its public website.

Officials with the courts announced Thursday that so far, it has been confirmed that 94 Social Security numbers were obtained. Initially, authorities didn't think confidential information was obtained, but following an investigation by the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the broader breach was confirmed in April, said courts spokeswoman Wendy Ferrell.

North Korea says a Korean-American man sentenced last week to 15 years' hard labor smuggled in unspecified inflammatory literature and tried to establish a base for anti-Pyongyang activities at a hotel in the border city of Rason.

The statement late Thursday from an unidentified Supreme Court spokesman provides the most in-depth look so far of Pyongyang's allegations against Kenneth Bae. But it is still short on specific details. Bae hasn't made a public statement.

A Cleveland man arrested after three women missing for a decade were found alive at his home was charged Wednesday with kidnapping and raping them. Prosecutors brought no charges against his brothers, saying there was no evidence they had any part in the crime.

Ariel Castro, 52, was charged with four counts of kidnapping — covering all three captives and the daughter born to one of them while she was held — and three counts of rape against the three women. The former school bus driver owns the peeling, run-down home where the women were rescued on Monday, after one of them broke through a screen door.