CHEHALIS — The state Transportation Department is rolling out a new tool to stop speeding in highway construction zones.
It’s an automated camera system that captures the license number of a speeding car and sends a $137 ticket to the owner.
The department is setting up the camera in an SUV at a project on I-5 at Chehalis. It officially starts on Sept. 15.
Bellevue: Teachers’ strike talks break off
The union for striking Bellevue teachers said talks broke off Thursday evening and no new negotiations are scheduled.
The Bellevue Education Association said teachers will rally at 4:30 p.m. Friday at the school district headquarters.
The strike began Tuesday when no contract agreement was reached before the scheduled start of classes.
Teachers say they want a pay increase that reflects Bellevue’s high cost of living and they want to have a bigger say in lesson plans.
Spokane: Missing man found cold and wet
A stroke victim who walked away from a residential care facility has been found lying in a yard in Spokane.
Police say the man was cold and wet but uninjured when he was found early Friday.
The man has physical and mental limitations because of the stroke. Police had asked the public to check yards and garages for the man after he disappeared Thursday.
Police also say caregivers should take current pictures of at-risk patients in case they are needed for searches.
Longview: Transient accused in hate crime
Police arrested an 18-year-old transient accused of assaulting an interracial teen couple in Longview.
Det. Terry Reece said tips led to Thursday’s arrest of Shawn Mooney. He’s held for investigation of malicious harassment, a hate crime, with bail set at $200,000.
He’s accused of breaking a 14-year-old boy’s jaw and throwing a 13-year-old girl to the ground. Racist language was used during the Aug. 21 attack and the suspect wore a black cap with a swastika.
Reece said Mooney also is suspected of spray painting swastikas at the home of a black family in Longview.
Seattle: Wade Cook begins prison term
Financial adviser Wade Cook has been taken into custody to start serving a seven-year tax fraud sentence.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle said Cook was arrested Thursday after his bail was revoked. He had been free on appeal, but an appeals court panel in July upheld his conviction.
Cook was convicted in federal court in February 2007 of income tax evasion and filing a false income tax return. His Wade Cook Financial company in Tukwila once employed 550 people, selling and producing books and seminars on his investment strategies.
His wife, Laura Cook, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to obstructing a tax investigation and is due to be released in January from Geiger Corrections Center in Spokane.
Alaska: Residents cash in on annual dividend
It’s the season for Alaskans to be rewarded just for living here, and this year’s take is extra sweet: $3,269, a record share of the state’s oil wealth combined with a special cash payout to help with stratospheric energy prices.
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell announced Friday that every eligible man, woman and child will receive $2,069, thanks to dividend payments from the state’s oil royalty investment program distributed annually. On top of that, the checks will include another $1,200 from the state treasury to help offset soaring fuel prices.
The one-time energy boost was proposed by Gov. Sarah Palin and approved by state lawmakers last month. Palin has since been tapped as the running mate of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain.
“The royalty dollars that flow through the state are the people’s wealth,” Parnell said. “The $1,200 resource rebate goes to that philosophy.”
People must live in Alaska one calendar year to qualify for the payout. For residents in Alaska’s rural communities, the money couldn’t arrive at a more crucial time.
Oregon: Salvage crews near end of shipwreck
The New Carissa is vanishing.
The wood chip freighter ran aground in 1999 on the Oregon Coast near Coos Bay, and after failed attempts to get rid of it, much of its rusted hull has been grounded on a beach. But this summer, removal work began under a $25 million court judgment against the ship’s Japanese owners.
The Florida-based Titan Salvage crews have hacked away 850 tons of rusted steel, and the New Carissa is a few weeks away from disappearing altogether, company officials said.
“The ship now looks like a dead beast whose best parts were sacrificed to turkey vultures and scavengers, not much more than a carcass,” Susan Chambers of The World in Coos Bay wrote in a blog recording the dismantling of the New Carissa.
The company had nearly run out of space to store the scrap metal it had been piling on the deck, but it was able to get a barge out last week to haul salvage away and make room for more.
David Parrot, the salvor’s managing director, said the last major part of the ship is the engine room.
Crews have hooked chains to it and pulled it high enough to allow welders to continue to cut it apart without being blasted by heavy surf.
By Sunday or Monday, Parrot said, the 260-ton main engine will be removed, leaving only what’s left of the ship’s starboard side to deal with. He said decisions about how to deal with that final part will depend on how the ship responds as the engine is removed.
Associated Press
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