NPR News

RICHLAND, Wash. – Supporters of an interpretive center devoted to the Hanford Reach broke ground during a ceremony Wednesday in the Tri-Cities, Washington. The museum is getting a solid start now after earlier opposition from nearby tribes.

Despite the dreary weather, the audience and a school band were in an upbeat mood just beside the stony-tinted, calm waters of the Columbia River.

Steve Jobs, the visionary who co-founded Apple, left the company, and then returned to build it into a global powerhouse, has died at age 56, according to the company.

Jobs had been fighting pancreatic cancer for several years — a battle that forced him to take several extended breaks from his duties as Apple's CEO. He resigned from that post on Aug. 24, 2011.

In a statement on its website, the technology firm said:

Occupy Wall Street is getting a shot in the arm, as some of America's largest unions have announced that they're now supporting the movement. The gain in momentum comes as off-shoots of the original Manhattan group plan marches and protests around the nation.

The AP notes the group's fast growth into a movement:

Hundreds of miles of power lines across Oregon, Idaho and 10 other states would be fast-tracked under a federal plan announced Wednesday. The Obama administration hopes to create more jobs by speeding construction of Idaho Power and Portland General Electric transmission lines.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the country needs to modernize its power grid to meet future demand, and get more green energy to market.

SALEM, Ore. - A pair of murder suspects who were the subject of a two-state manhunt were arrested this afternoon in California. David Joseph Pederson and Holly Ann Grigsby were captured Wednesday afternoon during a traffic stop north of Sacramento, California.

The two are wanted for the murder of a 69-year-old Everett, Washington woman. The pair is also thought to be connected with the disappearance of a 19-year-old Oregon teen named Cody Myers.

SEATAC, Wash. - Seattle native Amanda Knox is thanking all those who defended her during her ordeal in Italy over the stabbing of her British roommate. Supporters yelled "Welcome home, Amanda" as the University of Washington student made an emotional return home Tuesday evening.

An appeals court in Perugia reversed Knox's murder conviction and set her free barely 24 hours before.

Regional grocery and department store chain Fred Meyer has reached a tentative deal with its warehouse workers.

The deal averts for now a possible strike by 360 workers at a major Fred Meyer warehouse in Puyallup, Washington. The facility is a distribution center for the 132 Fred Meyer stores in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.

Neither the Portland-based chain nor the Teamsters union that represents the workers would release details of the agreement. But earlier the union had said the major sticking point was the cost of an employee health care plan.

Her murder conviction overturned by an Italian appeals court, American Amanda Knox has left Italy and is making her way home to Seattle, The Associated Press reports.

Now, the BCC writes:

Amanda Knox has won her freedom after appealing her murder conviction, for which the American had been serving a 26-year prison sentence. In 2009, Knox, who came to Perugia, Italy, as an exchange student, was found guilty in the November 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

Unbearable cuteness is news, right? In any case, we'll get back to the serious news in a bit. But, first, a picture of 12 baby Giant Pandas taking a nap at a breeding center in Chengdu:

There is a bit of news to go along with this picture. As the AP reports, today, China has finished its census of humans and it has now started its once-a-decade counting of pandas in the wild. The AP adds:

Parts of the U.S. are seeing a drop-off in vaccination rates among young children. The falling rates don't necessarily track with poverty or other poor public health trends; in fact, a recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report flagged the poorest rates of kindergarten vaccination in relatively prosperous states, like Washington and Oregon.

ABC News has a report out this morning that claims to name the source of the new information in the D.B. Cooper skyjacking. ABC says unnamed and unspecified sources have confirmed that a woman named Marla Cooper provided the FBI with a guitar strap for fingerprint testing.

NPR is trying to independently confirm ABC's claim. The FBI has yet to respond to a request for comment.

As we reported yesterday, the FBI jump-started D.B. Cooper mania with its revelation it has a new suspect in the unsolved skyjacking that occurred 40 years ago this November.

New details continue to trickle out with each interview with FBI Special Agent Fred Gutt. Among the new bits of information about the man who may or may not prove to be D.B. Cooper:

-- The "suspect" died more than 10 years ago of natural causes

Forty years after parachuting into folklore, the mysterious skyjacker identified as D.B. Cooper may soon be identified.

"We do actually have a new suspect we're looking at," says FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandolo Dietrich in a story in the British newspaper, The Telegraph. "And it comes from a credible lead who came to our attention recently via a law enforcement colleague."

In 2009, four busy jazz musicians — saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Eric Harland — gathered on a rare off day to see what they might cook up together. Out of that came a band they call James Farm, and an album of the same name.