SUNNYSIDE — For the fifth time, a drug task force has raided a vineyard in the lower Yakima Valley, this time seizing more than 4,400 plants.

The latest raid was Saturday morning near Sunnyside. It brings the total to more than 77,000 marijuana plants seized in Yakima County this season. The owner of the vineyard is being sought.

A day earlier agents seized more than 19,000 plants from a vineyard near Mabton and arrested three men.

A task force supervisor, Washington State Patrol Sgt. Richard A. Beghtol, says pot growers are buying vineyards to hide their illegal crops. However, he says marijuana requires much more irrigation than grapes, so heavy water use is often a tipoff.

Drug agents say a mature marijuana plant can be worth about $1,000.

Associated Press

Kingston: Two held in strangling of man

Two men are being held in the strangling of an elderly man whose body was found in a bedroom closet of his home in Kingston.

David Robert Adams, 23, and Jesus Castro De Juan, 29, were arrested Friday night as they arrived on a bus from California.

Both were jailed for investigation of first-degree murder in the strangling of 74-year-old Richard Hugh Jones Jr. Bail was set at more than $1 million. They are scheduled to appear today in Kitsap County Superior Court.

According to a statement from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, both men previously lived with Jones at his house in Kingston. Jones was found dead Thursday, and investigators believe he was strangled the previous weekend. His car was found later in Bremerton.

No motive has been given.

Kitsap Sun

Tacoma: 2 dead after 2 motorcycles collide

Two men died in a collision between their speeding motorcycles in Tacoma.

Officer Andrew Hankins Jr. said a 31-year-old man and a 29-year-old man were both on E. 56th Street between E. B and E. E streets.

Hankins said both were going at a high rate of speed when they crashed Saturday afternoon, but it’s not clear whether they were racing.

The News Tribune

B.C.: Rocks cleared off Sea to Sky Highway

The main highway under construction for the 2010 Winter Olympics has been reopened.

Road crews finished removing rock from the collapse of a cliff face south of Squamish, and traffic began moving again Saturday night on Highway 99.

The scenic, winding road between Vancouver and Whistler, known as the Sea to Ski Highway, was closed after a massive rockfall Tuesday night. The reopening came a day ahead of schedule.

The chief engineering technician on the highway widening project said that several hundred tons of rock from the slide will be used at construction sites.

Associated Press

Montana: Spokane slaying suspect caught

A Spokane man has been arrested in Montana for a gang-related killing last September.

Missoula County sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents arrested Freddie J. Miller, 28, just after 3 p.m. Saturday at the Rock Creek Lodge, east of Missoula. He was being sought on a fugitive warrant for homicide in Spokane County and is being held without bail at the Missoula County jail.

Extradition proceedings are pending. Miller is scheduled to appear today in Missoula Justice Court.

Missoula County Sheriff’s Capt. Susan Hintz said Miller’s case was slated for trial in Spokane early last spring and he may have fled the jurisdiction.

Associated Press