In brief: Holder’s Spokane visit confirmed
Federal court officials on Friday confirmed that Attorney General Eric Holder was in Spokane to visit the U.S. attorney’s office and other federal offices in Spokane.
Holder was spotted Thursday at the Davenport Hotel, but law enforcement officials declined to confirm Holder was in town.
A news release from U.S. Attorney Mike Ormsby said Friday’s appearance was similar to “routine visits” Holder makes to other federal court districts.
Holder did not make a public appearance during his visit.
Two-way traffic resumes near slide
OSO, Wash. – A stretch of Washington highway buried in the deadly March 22 Oso mudslide reopened Friday afternoon to two-way traffic.
State Transportation Department spokesman Bart Treece said contractor crews spent the past week patching and repaving damaged sections of State Highway 530 to allow for safe travel in both directions. Since late May, traffic had been operating on a one-way basis, with a pilot car alternating directions of travel based on demand.
The speed limit in the area will remain 25 mph to keep construction workers safe.
Treece says work will continue through the summer to build a permanent new section of highway south of the temporarily repaired roadway.
Of the 43 people killed by the slide, a 44-year-old woman, Kris Regelbrugge, is still missing.
One dies, 5 rescued as boat capsizes
ILWACO, Wash. – The Coast Guard says a 25-foot guide fishing boat capsized as it was returning Friday morning across the Columbia River Bar and one person died and five others were rescued by another fishing boat.
Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley said the five survivors were taken to Ilwaco and did not need medical attention.
The accident happened about 9:20 a.m. in 8-to-10-foot waves in the treacherous waters where the river and ocean currents collide.
A 27-foot guide fishing boat saw the accident and pulled five out of the water.
A Coast Guard crew found the sixth person tangled in fishing gear, cut him free and tried to resuscitate him, but he was declared dead.
Two boats responded from Station Cape Disappointment along with a cutter and copter from Astoria, Oregon.
RFK campus speech among recordings
PORTLAND – A Portland State University archivist has uncovered a box of reel-to-reel recordings of campus speeches by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy and Allan Ginsberg.
The recordings were warehoused after the format went out of use, KGW-TV reported. The school has gotten a $10,000 grant to convert 275 hours to a digital format.
School spokesman Scott Gallagher says most tapes sounded “as clear as the day they were recorded.”
Others on tape were Oregon Sen. Wayne Morse predicting devastating casualties from the Vietnam War, Nobel prize-winner Linus Pauling warning of birth defects from nuclear testing, and novelist Toni Morrison speaking on racism.
Ten weeks before his assassination, Kennedy campaigned at Portland State and told students to vote and remember “it was Kennedy who got you out of class.”
Farmer beaten over ‘bird cannon’ use
SALEM – Marion County authorities say there was a beating in the countryside over the booming of devices aimed at shooing birds away.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Chris Baldridge said a neighbor of a blueberry farmer got angry about the noise from “bird cannons,” propane-powered devices that emit a sound like gunfire.
Baldridge said cannons were going off Thursday evening when 37-year-old Luke Adam Chapman fired his shotgun over the head of the farmer and then battered the farmer with the weapon. The farmer was not seriously hurt.
Chapman was booked on charges of unlawful use of a weapon, assault and reckless endangerment.
Baldridge said the farmer had told his neighbors the cannons would start and, to make up for the inconvenience, offered to let them load up on berries.