Other News

Gas prices in Washington and across the Northwest are inching downward again after peaking above $4 a gallon earlier this month. The trend comes too late to erase the blow delivered to Meals on Wheels programs around the region.

West Nile Virus may be returning to Washington State. The recent wet spring has created an attractive habitat for mosquitoes, some of which carry West Nile.

As reported earlier, Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo has been asking the public for help in naming its new reticulated python. The zoo conducted polling on its Facebook page and the top vote getter was Kaa, which was also the name of the snake in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. The 8-year-old, 100-pound male snake was introduced to the community last week and can be seen at the Day Exhibit during zoo hours.

Soon, the public will have an opportunity to see some initial ideas for what Seattle’s waterfront could look like after the Alaskan Way Viaduct comes down. The city plans to redevelop 26 blocks along Elliott Bay between King Street and Broad Street.

Designers from James Corner Field Operations will present preliminary concepts and ask for input tonight at Bell Harbor Conference Center on Pier 66.  

Dorothy Parvaz, a reporter for Al Jazeera and a former colleague of mine at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, has been released by Iranian authorities after she was detained in Syria and deported to Iran. Parvaz returned to Doha, Qatar, where she is now based.

Here’s the New York Times on this Happy News and, for quick background, what I wrote when D (as she prefers) first disappeared weeks ago when attempting to enter Syria to report on the protests going on there against the Assad government.

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The Army has charged a sixth soldier based in western Washington in the murder of three Afghan civilians last year. The accused soldiers have become known as the "Kill Team" for allegedly killing unarmed Afghans for sport.

Twenty-seven-year-old Staff Sgt. David Bram of Vacaville, Calif., already faced a series of lesser charges in the case. The new charges include solicitation to commit premeditated murder, engaging in murder scenario conversations with subordinates and planting evidence near the body of an Afghan civilian.

Governor Chris Gregoire is directing that $3 million in federal Workforce Investment Act funds go to aerospace training programs in Washington.

She made the announcement Tuesday while speaking from a balcony overlooking the 737 line at Boeing's Renton factory.

Senator Patty Murray broke a bottle of champagne on a tunnel-boring machine near Husky Stadium to kick off work Monday on another link in the Sound Transit light-rail system.

The $2 billion, three-mile tunnel will connect the university with Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood and the downtown Westlake Center.