In brief: Mayor arrested after dispute
SEATTLE – The mayor of Granite Falls, Wash., has been released from jail after police arrested him at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, alleging he threatened an adult niece.
Airport spokesman Perry Cooper said Haroon Saleem was arrested Monday night after port police responded to a dispute that involved shouting and threats. The Everett Daily Herald reports Saleem was arrested for investigation of domestic violence harassment.
Court papers say Saleem was at the airport to pick up his 13-year-old daughter who had been on vacation in California, where she had quarreled with relatives. The dispute lingered and the daughter sat apart from her relatives on the flight to Seattle.
The mayor’s wife tells KOMO-TV her husband was just acting as a protective father in a long-standing family dispute.
King County prosecutor’s spokesman Dan Donohoe said a judge released the mayor Tuesday on personal recognizance pending a charging decision.
Idaho wildfire nearly contained
BOISE – Federal land managers say the state’s largest wildfire is no longer actively burning.
A steady wind has spread the Kinyon Road Fire across nearly 340 square miles of grass and sagebrush in south-central Idaho over the past three days. The Bureau of Land Management said the fire burned 216,050 acres and was 75 percent contained.
BLM spokesman Jerry Rohnert said firefighters remained cautious, with projected wind gusts between 11 mph and 20 mph. The lightning-caused wildfire started on Saturday and was expected to be fully contained by early today.
In southwestern Idaho, a westbound portion of Interstate 84 was closed after a car caught fire during a rollover crash and set nearby grass ablaze. To the north, firefighters responded to nearly a dozen lightning-caused fires in the Payette National Forest.
Timber harvest up in Oregon
PORTLAND – State officials say log exports helped Oregon’s timber harvest to increase for the second year in a row.
The Oregon Department of Forestry reported that the 2011 harvest of 3.65 billion board feet was up 13 percent from 2010. The 2011 harvest figure represented a 32 percent jump from 2009, when harvest was at a low following the housing market collapse.
The department’s principal forest economist, Brandon Kaetzel, said the increase is being driven by exports to Asia, especially China. He said the U.S. housing market is slowly recovering.
About 49 percent, or 30.2 million acres, of Oregon is forested.
Preserve Marriage donations lag
OLYMPIA – The campaign seeking to overturn the state’s new gay marriage law raised just over $17,000 in cash in June, much less than the nearly $900,000 in cash donations raised by supporters of the law.
According to Public Disclosure Commission filings that posted Tuesday, Preserve Marriage has raised a total of $139,702 for its campaign. Washington United for Marriage has raised more than $2 million.
Referendum 74 was certified for the ballot last month after gay marriage opponents turned in more than 240,000 signatures. The referendum seeks to overturn the law passed earlier this year allowing same-sex marriage in the state. That law is on hold pending the November vote
Preserve Marriage chairman Joseph Backholm said he expects the campaign to raise $4 million in the coming months.