Did you miss your news last week? Here’s a selection of the week’s top news items from across Snohomish County as they appeared in The Herald. For the full stories, go to www.heraldnet.com.
Sunday, Jan. 2
Not every vote counts. Washington election officials bend over backward to make every vote count at each election. But not every vote can count, nor did they on Nov. 2. Statewide, thousands of mail and provisional ballots remain sealed, never to be opened, rejected for any of a number of reasons, most of them linked to the actions of the voters who submitted them.
Jerry Cornfield
Monday, Jan. 3
Surviving the tsunami. Although Curry and Desi Smythe finally returned to their Marysville home this weekend after surviving the deadly tsunami in Sri Lanka, they can’t get the images of devastation out of their minds. The two fled to the second floor of a beachfront hotel just as the tsunami was rushing toward shore. They thank God their lives were spared. But they mourn the deaths of those who only minutes before had been sitting close to them near the beach, relaxing on a sunny Sunday morning.
David Olson
Tuesday, Jan. 4
A mission of mercy. The Everett-based USS Abraham Lincoln is still at the sea-based center of relief efforts for the countries battered by the deadly Indian Ocean tsunamis, and the crew continues to bring food and medical aid to disaster victims. Helicopters from the Lincoln’s air wing have made repeated trips to devastated areas, ferrying victims from coastal villages to a temporary medical treatment site in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
Brian Kelly
Wednesday, Jan. 5
Stanwood faces a fight. Folks who don’t want a giant Wal-Mart store plopped down on vacant land in Stanwood have started to fight for the heart of their city. On Tuesday morning, they started picketing. They say they’ve gathered 1,000 signatures from those who don’t want any big-box retailers in town. And they’ve started a letter-writing campaign and paid for anti-Wal-Mart newspaper ads.
Scott Morris
Thursday, Jan. 6
Bring on the snow. Bundle up, because the cold weather isn’t going away and snow could be coming. Rain expected this morning could turn to snow this afternoon and evening, further chilling Snohomish County residents who have endured a cold spell that descended on the region Sunday. The cold weather sent homeless people looking for shelter and road maintenance workers out to de-ice slippery spots.
Lukas Velush
Friday, Jan. 7
Bevis Lake the butt of a joke? It can’t be a coincidence. A small lake southeast of Lake Stevens has two different names, Bevis and Butthead – almost identical to the snickering characters in TV’s “Beavis and Butt-head” show. “That means someone is playing a joke, I think,” said Ken Brown, a land surveyor with the state Department of Natural Resources. Brown said the department calls it Bevis Lake. But the U.S. Census calls it Butthead Lake.
Yoshi Nohara
Saturday, Jan. 8
GOP scans voter rolls for felons. A group of amateur felon hunters searched through stacks of criminal court files at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Friday, looking for names of people who should not have voted in the November election. It’s part of an eleventh-hour drive by Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi and his party to gather proof of election fraud. If found, it will be used as evidence in a lawsuit Rossi plans to file in hope of forcing another election. Rossi lost to Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes in the hand recount.
Jim Haley
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