Explosion deaths possible homicides
Grant County officials are investigating the deaths of two men in unrelated explosions as homicides.
William Arleigh Walker, 69, was found dead Aug. 3 in his shop at 14928 Fourth St. N.E., about four miles east of Moses Lake. The next day, Javier Martinez Adame, 53, of Moses Lake, was found dead on his kitchen floor after authorities responded to a possible explosion. At least one died from an exploding pipe bomb, according to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detectives Ryan Rectenwald or Kim Cook at (509) 754-2011, Ext. 468, then desk extensions 16 or 17.
KENNEWICK
Nuclear waste control remains with feds
The state of Washington said it will live with a federal appeals court ruling that found Initiative 297 unconstitutional.
Voters passed the initiative in 2004. It would have barred the federal government from shipping waste to the Hanford nuclear site until the waste that’s already there is cleaned up.
A judge struck down the law in 2006, saying the federal government has authority over nuclear waste, and in May, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
The state attorney general’s office had until Tuesday to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review, but declined. Lawyers didn’t believe the high court would take the case.
BOISE
Audit reveals $5 employee parking rate
Idaho state employees and elected officials have benefited from bargain parking rates for years at the Capitol Mall in Boise.
A Legislative Services report found there hasn’t been a price increase for more than 1,200 state parking spaces since 1976, the year Jimmy Carter was elected president.
One of the 847 general parking spaces costs state employees just $5 a month.
And agency directors and elected officials pay only $25 monthly for one of the 239 reserved parking spaces.
Auditors also discovered significant weaknesses in the state parking program’s financial and enforcement controls, leaving it vulnerable to fraud or error.
The Department of Administration, which oversees Capitol parking, agreed to address several of the shortcomings highlighted by auditors.
HELENA
Guard steps up PTSD prevention efforts
The Montana National Guard says its new plan for helping troops deal with post-traumatic stress disorder exceeds federal requirements.
The Guard delivered its plan to Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Tuesday, a little more than a year after the governor asked for better ways to deal with the problem in the wake of a returning soldier’s suicide.
National Guard Adjutant Gen. Randy Mosley said the Guard called in outside mental health experts to recommend broad changes. He said the Guard has finished implementing those recommendations, which he said go far beyond what is required by the Department of Defense.
“We will do what it takes to make our soldiers whole,” Schweitzer said Tuesday in receiving the plan from the Guard.
The plan calls for increased medical help following deployment, more mental health resources, improved understanding of the stresses, easier access to help for those who need it, help for family members who also feel the stress of war and other initiatives.
The committee to deal with PTSD was created shortly after the March 2007 suicide of Chris Dana, an Iraq war veteran from Helena. Dana’s family said he had become depressed and withdrawn, and the military failed to help him.