Northwest Briefly: National Guard’s 81st Brigade due home soon
Published 11:36 pm Monday, July 20, 2009
CAMP MURRAY — The first planeload of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team could be home as soon as Saturday from a yearlong deployment in Iraq.
The National Guard says the soldiers are beginning to travel from Iraq to Fort McCoy, Wis., for demobilization.
The soldiers will be flown to either McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma or Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane depending on where they live. The entire brigade is expected back by the first week of August.
The brigade is headquartered in Seattle and made up of 2,400 soldiers from Washington and about 900 from California. In Iraq they focused on convoy security and provincial reconstruction.
Seattle: Police seek suspect in stabbing
Two women were stabbed while they slept at home by a man who slipped through a door or window, rattling residents of the south Seattle neighborhood because the assailant, who remained on the loose, may have chosen the victims at random.
Police distributed fliers and called a neighborhood meeting Monday to talk about the crime that left one woman dead and the other seriously wounded.
“He’s considered very, very dangerous. This is a man who clearly has evil intent, again very predatory in nature with the attack, and we need to get him off the street.” Assistant Police Chief Nicholas Metz told KING Television.
An intense manhunt for a man in his late 20s or early 30s was under way. The 40-year-old woman who survived described him as slim but muscular, about 6 feet tall and 160 pounds, with a thin mustache.
A 37-year-old woman died at the scene and the other woman was released Monday after being treated at Harborview Medical Center for multiple stab wounds. Authorities would not release the victims’ names.
Unsecured load causes traffic mess
The Washington State Patrol says an unsecured load caused a chain reaction crash that delayed Monday evening commuter traffic for hours on the I-90 floating bridge across Lake Washington.
Trooper Dan McDonald said two westbound lanes were blocked for nearly 2 1/2 hours by the accident that involved five vehicles and a tractor-trailer rig.
McDonald said the problem started when a car swerved to avoid a bucket on the freeway.
Six people were taken to Harborview Medical Center but none appeared to have serious injuries.
A pickup involved in the accident spilled about 20 gallons of paint that went into a storm drain.
Traffic backed up at least 6 miles to Bellevue.
Olympia: Domestic partnership foes
Sponsors of a campaign to overturn the state’s recent “everything but marriage” domestic partnership law have set an appointment to turn in their petition signatures this weekend.
Secretary of State Sam Reed says supporters of Referendum 71 have made an appointment to turn in the signatures at 2 p.m. Saturday.
To qualify for the November ballot, they must have 120,577 valid voter signatures, and election officials have suggested that referendum sponsors turn in about 150,000 as a buffer.
The new expanded domestic partnership law is scheduled to take effect Sunday, but will be delayed if the referendum seekers turn in their petitions Saturday afternoon. If they have enough signatures, the law will be delayed until the outcome of the election.
Yakima: New arrest in bat attack
The Yakima County Sheriff’s Office said a third man has been arrested in the death of a 42-year-old man beaten with baseball bats in an apparent feud with neighbors near Toppenish.
Authorities said a 34-year-old man was arrested Monday afternoon at his home. Deputies had already arrested two men — ages 19 and 32 — on Sunday.
Deputies were called Sunday night after a report of an assault. Daniel Simmons was taken to Yakima Regional Hospital, where he died.
The sheriff’s office said the men had a running feud with the victim.
Pacific Crest Trail reopened despite fire
A temporary trail closure has been lifted for the Pacific Crest Trail in north-central Washington.
A wildfire in the Pasayten Wilderness, about eight miles south of the U.S.-Canada border, forced the National Park Service to close parts of the area. But park officials say fire growth has been limited, despite strong winds and hot, dry weather.
The fire is estimated at about 90 acres. No structures are threatened.
Meanwhile, residents in Eastern Washington can point to Canada if they’re wondering about all the smoke in the air.
Firefighters in southern British Columbia continue to battle a forest fire that has forced the evacuation of 11,000 residents near the city of Kelowna. The fires started over the weekend.
Bellingham: Senator recovering
State Sen. Kevin Ranker of San Juan Island said he’s expected to make a full recovery from a minor stroke-like attack.
He was airlifted from the island Saturday and spent the night at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham.
He told The Bellingham Herald he suffered a transient ischemic attack, which is caused by a temporary loss of blood to the brain. Ranker noted his speech was slow but doctors told him he’d be back to normal within a week or two.
Tacoma: Foghorn annoys neighbors
The second Tacoma Narrows Bridge came with a new foghorn.
Instead of the deep-tone air horn that resonated through Tacoma’s West End on foggy days for half a century, the digital electromagnetic device installed in 2006 is described by resident Tom Smith as like a large burp — a long “brrraaaaaap.”
Another resident, Richard Frederick, told The News Tribune of Tacoma it’s about as romantic as a car alarm or the beeps from a truck backing up.
There also have been complaints about when the horn blows. Department of Transportation maintenance supervisor Kip Wylie said the automatic system sometimes couldn’t tell the difference between fog and a sunny day.
The Coast Guard says the horn is needed as a warning to ships in the Narrows.
Associated Press
