YAKIMA – The state Transportation Department said Monday it is close to lifting the restrictions that have bottlenecked traffic on Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass since a rockslide last month.
The freeway has been restricted to one lane in each direction at 35 mph while crews have been stabilizing the slope and removing rock debris.
Weather permitting, the second eastbound lane will be opened today, and the speed limit in those lanes will rise to 55 mph, said department spokesman Mark Ettesvold.
The other westbound lane should open by this weekend, with the speed limit in both directions returned to 65 mph.
Associated Press
Olympia: Senate GOP chooses new leader
Sen. Mike Hewitt of Walla Walla was elected Monday as the new state Senate Republican leader.
Hewitt succeeds Sen. Bill Finkbeiner of Kirkland, who announced last month that he was stepping down as minority leader to spend more time with his family and on graduate studies at the University of Washington.
Hewitt, who had previously served as Republican whip, beat out two other colleagues, Sens. Linda Evans Parlette of Wenatchee and Joyce Mulliken of Ephrata. The vote tally of the secret ballot was not disclosed.
Associated Press
Cashmere: Carbon monoxide kills couple
A man who was honored for historic preservation work and his wife, both in their 90s, died after a car was left running in the garage of their home, investigators said.
Roy and Marie Maves, 95 and 93, were found dead in bed Wednesday by a health care worker arriving for a scheduled visit, Chelan County Sheriff Michael Harum said. Their dog also was found dead.
Autopsies on the couple were pending, but death appeared to be from carbon monoxide poisoning, Harum said.
“It appears to be an accident,” Harum said. “There didn’t appear to be anything unusual at the scene.”
Associated Press
Seattle: Lawyers want to overturn conviction
Lawyers for Ahmed Ressam, who plotted to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium, asked a federal appeals court on Monday to overturn his conviction on one of the counts he faced at trial. If the court agrees, Ressam could see his 22-year prison sentence cut by a decade.
Ressam, 38, was convicted in 2001 of nine explosives and terrorism charges. One of those charges alleged that he carried explosives in relation to the commission of a felony – namely, providing false information to customs agents when he drove off a ferry in Port Angeles.
Ressam’s lawyers say he wasn’t carrying the explosives in relation to the felony of providing false information; he was simply doing it at the same time. They say the jury instructions on this matter were flawed.
Associated Press
Ex-customs officer for Canada is sentenced
A former Canadian customs officer who said gangs threatened to harm his family unless he agreed to smuggle marijuana into the United States has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Altaf Merali, 37, of Surrey, British Columbia, did the right thing when he came clean to U.S. federal agents as soon as he was caught with 90 kilograms, about 200 pounds, of marijuana in his van May 3 in Blaine, but he nonetheless had to be held to a higher standard, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez said.
Associated Press
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