Donna Jones to enter state controller race

Former state Rep. Donna Jones announced Sunday she will enter the race for state controller, Idaho’s top financial officer.

Jones, a Republican from Payette, served in the House from 1987 to 1998, and was chairwoman of the Revenue and Taxation, and Ways and Means committees. She’s been director of the state’s Real Estate Commission since retiring from the Legislature, and has also been vice chairwoman for the Idaho Republican Party since 2002.

This will be Jones’ second attempt at the position. In the 2002 Republican primary she lost to current controller Keith Johnson by about 4,000 votes.

TUMWATER, Wash.

Deputy shoots ax-wielding man

A Thurston County sheriff’s deputy shot and wounded an ax-wielding man early Sunday at the scene of a traffic accident.

The shooting happened after the man grabbed a fire ax off a firetruck that had responded to the single-vehicle crash after reports that a pickup truck was burning, the Olympian newspaper reported on its Web site Sunday.

Tumwater police officers and Thurston County sheriff’s deputies were called when the man became verbally abusive while being treated, the Olympian said.

According to the incident report, the man charged toward deputies after grabbing the fire ax, then a deputy fired a single shot, hitting the man in the torso.

The man, whose name was not released, was in stable condition.

SEATTLE

Plane evacuated after bullet found in cabin

Passengers had to be taken off an Alaska Airlines plane Sunday afternoon at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after a federal air marshal found a cartridge in the cabin, the airline said.

Airline spokeswoman Caroline Boren said Transportation Security Administration agents found no gun or any other items of concern during a search of the San Francisco-bound aircraft.

It was not immediately clear how the ammunition got onto the plane.

Boren noted that the airline flies many hunters to Alaska, and that from time to time, cartridges have fallen out of passengers’ pockets.

FORT LEWIS, Wash.

Soldier’s wife found dead in Army housing

Military police were investigating a possible homicide involving the death of a soldier’s wife at this post south of Tacoma, an Army spokesman said Sunday.

Military police were notified at 6 p.m. Saturday that the body of a 28-year-old woman had been found in family housing on post.

Criminal Investigation Command officials were in charge of the investigation, Fort Lewis spokesman Joseph Hitt said Sunday afternoon. “She’s the wife of a soldier assigned to Korea,” Hitt said. “I have no other information at all.”