North Side fire put out quickly
A fire broke out Tuesday night in an abandoned building near 10929 N. Newport Highway, north of Hawthorne Road.
District Nine Deputy Fire Chief Bob Waldren said that a mattress or couch caught fire first, and the flames spread up the wall and onto the ceiling. Firefighters found cigarette butts near the source of the fire.
“An investigator will look into it, but it’s pretty obvious what happened,” he said.
A passerby saw the flames from the highway and called 911 about 9 p.m.
It took firefighters less than 10 minutes to put out the fire. No one was injured.
Olympia
Officials tour site of WASL scoring
Two Washington education officials toured the Iowa scoring center where Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests will be graded as part of a thorough review of the company that has had problems in grading the SAT college-entrance exam.
The state officials found last week that Pearson Educational Measurement has already instituted procedures to avoid problems that led about 4,000 SAT exams to be misscored last year.
In discussions between the state office of the superintendent of public instruction and company executives, they agreed that an independent review would be a good idea.
“We just want to make sure there’s nothing falling through the cracks,” said Joe Willhoft, interim assistant superintendent for assessment and research.
LAKEWOOD, Wash.
10-year-olds find body near school
Two children found human remains Tuesday while they were playing in a vacant lot near a school.
It was too soon to say whether the skull and portion of a spinal column are from an adult or a child, or from a male or female, said Lakewood police Detective Michael Zaro.
Ten-year-old boys found the remains in a blackberry bush, Zaro said. Investigators later found some additional pieces of bone.
The site is about two miles from the home of Adre’anna Jackson, a 10-year-old girl who vanished Dec. 2 while walking to school.
Zaro said police had made no connections, but that dental records from the skull can be used to determine whether the remains are those of the missing girl.
BAKER CITY, Ore.
Postal worker kills co-worker
A postal worker shot and killed a female co-worker outside their workplace in an eastern Oregon town Tuesday afternoon, Baker County authorities said.
The shooter was taken into custody shortly after the 4:15 p.m. shooting, the Sheriff’s Office said. The names of the gunman and the victim were withheld, pending notification of family members.
From staff and wire reports