OLYMPIA — More than 300 May Day demonstrators took to the streets Wednesday to protest globalization, corporate greed and homelessness — and to party.
Similar demonstrations were the rule around the Northwest.
The Olympia throng included high school and college students, anti-war organizations and activists from a hodgepodge of groups. They departed from four locations, on foot and bicycle, chanting and dancing and occasionally stopping for brief speeches about war, globalism and other issues.
They converged downtown, blocking Plum Street in front of City Hall and the police department for about an hour, then marched toward the state Capitol Building, shutting down traffic on the city’s main drag for about 30 minutes before heading back downtown.
In Seattle, about 300 people gathered to press their causes, including amnesty for undocumented workers and understanding for foreigners.
In Portland, a May Day rally and parade drew several hundred people who spoke out for workers’ rights and to protest federal immigration policies.
Wenatchee
Police put bite on dental floss escapee: A Wenatchee man who used dental floss to saw his way out of an Okanogan County Jail recreation area was arrested after he was found hiding in the trunk of a car here. Scott A. Brimble, 29, was found inside the car about three hours after Wenatchee officers stopped it after it left a home being watched by SWAT unit officers, police said. Brimble was arrested on an Okanogan County Superior Court arrest warrant charging first-degree escape. He escaped from the Okanogan County Jail on April 20 after dental floss and toothpaste were used to weaken a wire mesh in a recreation area.
Packwood
Heating fuel fouls tributary: Cleanup crews worked to contain a 900-gallon heating oil spill at the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center in Mount Rainier National Park. An unknown amount of oil flowed into a tributary of the Ohanapecosh River. Absorbent booms were set up to prevent any more fuel from reaching the river. Park officials traced Monday’s spill to a broken coupling in a line supplying fuel to the visitor center’s heating system.
Olympia
Locke selects Californian to run lottery: Gov. Gary Locke has tapped Anthony Molica, director of sales for the California Lottery, to run the Washington State Lottery. Molica, 52, has worked at the California Lottery since its inception in 1985. He manages a sales staff of 260 for a lottery that pulls in $2.9 billion in annual sales at 19,000 retail outlets. Molica will replace Robert Benson, Jr., who is retiring.
Remains identified: Human remains that were found in November have been identified as those of a woman who may have had car trouble, tried to walk to safety and fell off a bluff. Tami J. Carpenter, 38, of Kent, also may have been disoriented from using methamphetamine, Adams County Sgt. Doug Barger said Tuesday. "She could have been wandering and hallucinating," he said. There was no evidence Carpenter had been hit on the head and no bones were broken, but deputies did find a used syringe with traces of meth in her car and relatives confirmed that she used the illegal stimulant, he said. Carpenter’s scattered bones were found Nov. 17 about 10 miles south of this Eastern Washington town and were identified through advanced DNA tests on her teeth after less sophisticated techniques failed, Barger said. From Herald news services
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