There are some words that auto-correct or spell-checkers just don't catch. They might be spelled right, but mean something oh-so-wrong in the context. And this one proved an embarrassment for a charter school organization in Washington state.

An advertisement that ran in the Sunday and Monday editions of The News Tribune in Tacoma left out a single letter in quite the unfortunate spot, NBC station KING of Seattle reported.

"Are you interested in Pubic Charter Schools?" the ad mistakenly read.

"This was our mistake," Jim Spady, a spokesperson for the Washington Charter School Resource Center, told KING. The center wrote the newspaper ad, which was supposed to publicize an upcoming conference.

The News Tribune also reportedly did not notice that "public" was misspelled.

"It's an honest error," The News Tribune's marketing manager, Sue Piotrkowski, told KING.

The newspaper ran a corrected version of the ad Wednesday, according to KING.

Correction: University of Texas doesn't have school of 'pubic' affairs

Last month, Washington state voters passed an initiative that allows for charter schools, The Seattle Times reported.

Drew Mikkelsen, KING's south bureau chief, contributed to this report.

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SEATTLE -- Animal control officers seized 39 emaciated and sickly horses from inhumane conditions in dark stalls filled with feces on a breeding farm outside of Tacoma on Wednesday, authorities said.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents discovered the malnourished animals, many injured and some standing in more than a foot of waste, while serving drug-related warrants on Tuesday at the 99-acre property in Graham, Washington, Pierce County Animal Control supervisor Brian Boman told Reuters.

Animal control officers and sheriff's deputies from Pierce and Kitsap counties returned to the ranch a day later to seize the animals and found many were highly skittish because they had been "stall-bound" in three dark barns, Boman said.

"It was like a puppy mill, only with horses," Boman told Reuters. "The conditions are terrible. There's no telling how long it's been since they've seen daylight."

Read the story on NBC's KING5.com

Pierce County auditor Julie Anderson told NBC station KING 5 in Seattle that the horses had not been handled in a very long time. "They literally have their 'night eyes' on so they're very sun sensitive and are having trouble with depth perception," she said, describing the scene as "wanton criminal neglect."

The horses were receiving veterinary care and were being held for the time being as evidence, KING 5 reported.

No-one has been arrested so far but the owners could face charges of animal cruelty in the second degree, a gross misdemeanor in the state of Washington.

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KING 5 reported that an attorney for the owner said his client "loves these animals" and did not believe the conditions reached a criminal level.

'No lighting or ventilation'
Authorities spent more than nine hours rounding up the horses, which included mostly purebred Arabians as well as Belgian Draft horses and Clydesdales, to take them to nearby fairgrounds. None were race horses.

Some likely would be euthanized, Boman said.

A Pierce County Sheriff's Office news release, describing the roundup as the largest horse seizure the county had ever undertaken, cited the horses' living conditions as deplorable.

"Most of the horses were in barns that had large amounts of urine and feces in the stalls," the release said. "Some of the barns had no lighting or ventilation and the smell of ammonia was very strong."

Because federal and county criminal investigations are ongoing, federal authorities would not immediately release the name of the farm's owner, said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.

NBC News staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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A Tacoma, Wash., teacher has been placed on paid leave amid accusations that she had sex with one of her middle school students at least three times, both on school grounds and in the boy's bedroom.

Keshia Shaw, a 32-year-old science and math teacher at Gray Middle School, was charged with five counts of child rape on June 26. She is accused of performing oral sex and having intercourse with the student over a two-year period. 

The first time was when he was in her sixth-grade class in 2007; the last was during the fall of his eighth grade year, when they allegedly had sex in Shaw's classroom, according to documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court. After the last classroom incident, the documents allege, Shaw went to a bank and gave the boy $80 and then performed oral sex on him.

The allegations were not reported to Child Protective Services until this year, after the boy, now 17,  heard a sermon on molestation at church. After the service, he told his mother and a family friend he had been abused, court documents say.

Shaw's court date is July 10. She hasn't entered a plea yet, reported Tacoma's The News Tribune. She was placed on paid leave when the school district learned about the accusations on May 7, Tacoma school district spokesman Dan Voelpel told msnbc.com.

"Our teachers work for nine months, but they get paid over 12 months," Voelpel said. "She is currently receiving pay for the time she already worked, and she will continue to get that money."

The school district will re-evaluate whether Shaw should be placed on unpaid leave once her paychecks for time already worked run out, he said.

Shaw was hired by the Tacoma School District in 2002 as a substitute teacher and became full-time in 2005, KING reported.

According to Pierce County prosecuting attorney Heather DeMaine, the sexual abuse began at the end of the boy's sixth grade year. He was re-taking an exam in her classroom when Shaw, who had no underwear on under her dress, caught her student "looking at her and asked if he was turned on," DeMaine's court filing states. She proceeded to force him into sex in a locked room next door, the document says, and told him not to tell anyone.

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That July, after driving him home from summer school, Shaw had sex with the boy in his bedroom while his mother was at work, according to DeMaine.

More encounters, including anal intercourse, reportedly occurred in the following years on school grounds when the boy -- who went to a different school starting in seventh grade -- returned to Gray Middle School to visit friends.

The incidents happened when the boy was 12 to 14 years old. Shaw was in her 20s at the time, KING reported.

Voelpel, Tacoma's school district spokesman, told msnbc.com that no accusations have been made by other students.

Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum told The News Tribune, “We don’t know about other students. Who knows, this may bring other victims forward.”

Shaw filed for divorce in February of this year, court records show. She has two children, ages 6 and 8, according to The News Tribune.

Calls to attorneys in the case and to the Tacoma school district on Tuesday were not immediately returned.

Court filings identify the boy by his initials. NBC News and msnbc.com do not reveal the identity of alleged underage victims of sexual abuse.

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TACOMA, Wash. -- A 3-year-old boy accidentally killed himself with a gun as another child sat next to him in a car, police in Tacoma reported Wednesday, the third recent shooting of a child in Washington state.

The car was parked at a gas station just after midnight Wednesday when the boy's mom got out to buy some items and her boyfriend went to fuel the car, leaving his gun inside, NBC affiliate KING5 TV reported.

Police believe the boy then got out of a car seat, grabbed the gun and shot himself. The man's daughter was also in the car, though she was not hurt.

The family, who have not been identified by police, is believed to be from the Tacoma area and the boyfriend does have a concealed weapons permit, KING5 reported.

Tacoma police spokesman Naveed Benjamin said the man had put his pistol under a seat.

Detectives called the shooting a tragic accident, Benjamin said.

The shooting follows the death of the 7-year-old daughter of a police officer in Stanwood, Wash., on Saturday when a sibling found a gun and fired while the parents were out of their car.

And on Feb. 22, an 8-year-old girl was critically wounded in a Bremerton classroom when a gun fired from the backpack of a 9-year-old boy as he put it on a desk.

"It's another tragedy in a very short period of time," Benjamin said. "It is incredible in light of the other ones. You would think people would take more care, not less."

"You can't predict what children are going to do," he added. "You need to unload and lock it up if you're not carrying it."

"And keep it out of the hands of children," Benjamin said. "It's really not that hard to practice firearm safety."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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