UW to cut 600 to 800 employees
SEATTLE — University of Washington President Mark Emmert says the UW will cut 600 to 800 staff positions as it reduces projected spending in the next fiscal year by $73 million.
The Seattle Times reported the 60-day layoff notices will likely go out Thursday and Friday so they can take effect before the fiscal year begins in July.
Emmert says the UW plans to cut administrative and support functions more than academics.
The university also is reducing enrollment, raising tuition 14 percent and tapping a reserve fund for $10 million.
Ellensburg: I-90 stimulus job starts
The first state highway project paid for with federal stimulus money is under way on Interstate 90.
The $2.5 million paving project will resurface parts of the freeway between the Yakima River and west Ellensburg. The state Department of Transportation also will update safety features, such as guardrails, signing and striping.
Stimulus money will pay for 181 local and state highway projects in Washington. They include four other repaving projects on I-90 and improved traffic cameras on Snoqualmie Pass.
Forks: Officer sex charge on hold
The prosecution of a Forks police officer accused of a child sex misdemeanor is on hold while he serves with the Army National Guard in Iraq.
The arraignment for 33-year-old Erik A. Hanson has been postponed until Aug. 28 in Clallam County Superior Court in Port Angeles.
The Peninsula Daily News reports the Forks man was arrested Thursday by sheriff’s deputies. He was charged Tuesday with communication with a minor for immoral purposes.
Prosecutors say he communicated with a 12-year-old girl several months last year. She told a sheriff’s investigator Hanson hugged her and kissed her when he was off duty.
Hanson knew the girl because two years ago he arrested a man suspected of sexually assaulting her.
Yakima: Former coach gets 6 months
A former Mabton High School girls basketball coach has been sentenced to six months in jail for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old player on his team.
Michael Roettger, 33, admitted having a relationship with the girl during the 2007-08 basketball season. He entered the guilty plea in Yakima County Superior Court in March and was sentenced Tuesday.
Tukwila: Body in Green River
Police called a fire department boat to recover a body from the Green River at Tukwila.
Police spokesman Mike Murphy says it was spotted about 10:30 a.m. Thursday by a nearby worker. It was submerged and apparently snagged or attached to something on the bottom.
Murphy says there are no recent reports of people missing in the river.
Olympia: Money for parks, land
The state Legislature approved $70 million for a program that funds parks, trails, wildlife habitat and farmland preservation projects.
The money in the capital budget is a 30 percent cut from the $100 million approved two years ago.
But the executive director of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, Joanna Grist, says she’s grateful to get it, in the current economy.
The money will pay for 95 projects in the state, compared to 135 in the previous budget. The program leverages money from grants and other sources to buy land or easements.
Seattle: May Day march is today
Activists plan a march this afternoon through downtown Seattle as part of the national May Day demonstrations.
Organizers told The Seattle Times the march will start at 3:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Church and go through the International District, Westlake Center and Pioneer Square.
Issues include immigration reform, worker rights, universal health care and ending U.S. wars.
Bellevue: Homicide arrest at funeral
Police arrested a suspect in a Bellevue homicide at the victim’s funeral.
Police say the shoes the suspect wore to Monday’s funeral matched a shoe print on the face of the man who was beaten and strangled last week at a business park.
The Seattle Times reported King County prosecutors are preparing to file a murder charge against the 35-year-old Bellevue man. A King County District Court judge ordered him held Wednesday on $1 million bail.
The body of the 33-year-old victim, Emilio A. Perez-Oliva, was found April 21 at the Unigard Office Park.
Investigators say the men had been drinking beer together.
Associated Press
Oregon: Infant kidnapping attempt
Portland authorities are searching for a man who reportedly barged into a woman’s apartment Thursday afternoon and tried to take her baby.
Detective Mary Wheat of the Portland Police Bureau says the child’s mother told officers she confronted the armed stranger, and the man fled
The man was described as in his late teens or early twenties, wearing a white baseball hat, a red-and-white, short sleeve dress shirt with horizontal stripes, and a white T-shirt underneath.
He also wore black jeans and white tennis shoes.
Wheat says anyone with information about the case should call 9-1-1.
EPA fines company in woman’s death
A Eugene extermination company has been fined $4,550 for illegally applying pesticides at the home of a Florence woman who died from cardiac arrest.
Swanson’s Pest Management fumigated an elderly couple’s home in June 2005.
After returning a few hours later, 76-year-old Florence Kolbeck died and her husband was hospitalized with breathing problems. Emergency responders also became ill.
The Environmental Protection Agency says a worker who had failed his licensing exam seven times sprayed too much pesticide and failed to properly ventilate. The agency says the fine is the maximum allowed under the law.
Joan Jensen, Swanson’s operations manager, told KLCC radio that the company is not at fault and disagrees with the EPA’s judgment.
Swanson’s settled a $2.5 million lawsuit filed by Kolbeck’s husband.
Court says mug shots not required
The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that refusing to pose for a mug shot does not amount to obstruction of the law.
The court reversed the Oregon Court of Appeals and a trial judge who had ruled that Artissa Gaines had violated a law that prohibits “physical interference or obstruction” of “governmental or judicial administration.”
In January 2004, Gaines was being booked on a felony charge. A corrections officer discovered that her file lacked a frontal photograph of her face, but she refused three times to pose for the mug shot.
The officer decided she would resist future efforts to obtain a photograph and charged her with obstruction.
But the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that simple refusal and passive resistance was not enough to be charged or convicted.
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