Free Republic

A convicted drug-runner and unapologetic advocate of zoophilia — sex between animals and humans — was warned by a federal judge on Friday that he’s flirting with violating the conditions of his prison release by having others post comments on the Internet on his behalf. Douglas Spink, 42, appeared before U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle after concerns had been raised about Spink’s access to the Internet through third parties, including his mother. Spink allegedly had been having others post comments to websites affiliated with bestiality. Spink is living with his mother after being released from prison after serving...

A Washington state man who impregnated a 12 year-old girl forced her to have an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in order to cover up his sexual assault on the girl. The Bellingham Herald reports that Luis Gonzalez-Jose, 31, of Everson, Washington must serve a sentence of six years in jail, then leave the United States, after raping the young girl in her home while her mother was in the shower, according to documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court. Gonzalez-Jose brought the girl to a Planned Parenthood clinic in August of 2012, where she falsely told staff employed...

The FBI said Monday that no one has been arrested after last week’s discovery of a pair of letters containing the deadly poison ricin in Spokane, but the agency remained tight-lipped about the investigation and a weekend raid at a downtown apartment building. … The letters were postmarked last Tuesday in Spokane and addressed to the downtown post office and the adjacent federal building. They were intercepted by the Postal Service, and no one was injured. … Witnesses have said a man was escorted from the building by law enforcement officers Saturday morning. Sandalo Dietrich declined to say if anyone...

Richland — A Richland florist countersued the Washington attorney general (WAG), Thursday after he WAG filed a lawsuit against her for refusing to provide flower arrangements for a same-sex (male on male) marriage. Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal ministry that advocates for religious rights, filed the suit in Benton County Superior Court on behalf of Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers. ''Barronelle believes, as the Bible teaches, that marriage is defined by God as a union of man and woman,” The lawsuit argues (State Attorney General Bob Ferguson).. lawsuit filed (without any citizen complaint), on behalf of the state...

Three accused people smugglers now face federal hostage-taking charges after they were caught holding Washington-bound immigrants for ransom, a Homeland Security Investigations spokesman announced Thursday. Federal investigators contend Espiridion Pablo-Madrigal, 34, Abel Donce de la Torre-Gonzalez, 32, and Luis Bretado-Aragon, 19, are accused of holding three immigrants hostage in a “drop house” in Phoenix, Ariz. A department spokesman said the kidnappers threatened to kill their hostages if the victims’ family didn’t pay. Homeland Security Investigations agents learned of the house on May 13, after a caller contacted HSI Seattle to report the kidnapping. HSI agents in Phoenix then worked around...

KENNEWICK, Wash. (CBS Seattle) — A McDonald’s employee found her own stolen car in the fast food restaurant’s drive-thru. Kennewick authorities tell KEPR-TV that 22-year-old Katherine York was driving Virginia Maiden’s stolen Toyota SUV while going through the McDonald’s drive-thru Tuesday. Maiden told police that her vehicle was stolen from her apartment complex Tuesday morning. After Maiden spotted her car, she called Kennewick police who responded to the scene as York was pulling out of the drive-thru. York and a male passenger were detained, but the unidentified man was later released.

Tyler Weyer and his fellow seniors at Republic High School began considering possible commencement speakers last fall...But Weyer had a crazy thought. “I said, ‘Hey, let’s just get Sarah Palin,’ ” said Weyer, the 17-year-old senior class president at Republic High...Then came another e-mail from Palin’s people – this time to set up a phone call with him and school officials...On April 18, Weyer and school officials had the phone call with Palin’s representative, and learned that Palin would be coming to graduation... Anderson’s priority is to preserve the event as a commencement ceremony – something focused on the students...

NORTH BEND, Wash. — The King County Sheriff's Office is investigating a home invasion near North Bend in which a woman came to the aid of her husband and fatally stabbed an intruder. Deputies were called to the home in the 10100 block of 420 Avenue Southeast around 1:40 a.m. after receiving 911 calls in reference to a home invasion. King County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindi West said a man was at a home where he lived with his wife, daughter and mother-in-law when his dog began barking. He went to check on his dog and found a man standing in...

A gun registry bill for felons has just been signed into law by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. It's the only gun control bill to make it through the state's legislative session. The bill will require the Washington State Patrol to maintain a felony firearm conviction database and will help officers know when making a traffic stop if the registered owner is a felon and precluded from having a firearm.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. -- Witnesses say a man upset with his neighbors went on a rampage with a bulldozer-like piece of logging machinery in a Port Angeles neighborhood, damaging four homes and knocking out power to thousands of people. The Clallam County Sheriff's Office says it does not appear that anyone was injured during the incident that happened just after noon Friday along Pioneer Road. The suspect was arrested. "A person with a piece of heavy equipment that was very upset, struck (four) homes in the area and also a truck," said Jim Borte with the Clallam County Sheriff's...

(Reuters) - Eight police officers were hurt and 18 protesters arrested in Seattle on Wednesday when a May Day rally that began peacefully turned violent after dark, with crowds hurling rocks and bottles at police who responded with pepper spray grenades. Protesters threw rocks, bottles and chunks of asphalt at officers, officials said, smashing store and car windows, overturning trash cans and lining up newspaper display racks to block streets. Police in riot gear, some riding in armored SWAT vehicles, responded by repeatedly firing "blast ball" grenades, which emit smoke tinged with pepper spray.

Police arrested more than a dozen people and used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray after apparent anarchists and May Day marchers converged in downtown Seattle, throwing pipes, fireworks and rocks, lighting flares and sparking confrontations with officers. Protesters met at Seattle Central Community College at the busy intersection of Broadway and Pine Street and then spilled into the street, blocking traffic.

Developers in Seattle have been leading the U.S. in building hundreds of tiny apartments — some about the size of a generous parking spot — to cater to solo young workers, retirees who prefer city living, students and others looking to downsize. Now, some residents are complaining that micro-apartments crowd too many people together, aren't compatible with some neighborhoods, don't encourage people to put down roots, and circumvent a design review process meant to get public input. They're pushing for a building moratorium and more regulation of such projects. "They're maxing out what they can do under the land use...

“I have some concern about the legislation,” says House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte. Not that it’s stopping him from supporting an Internet sales tax. Not when it could raise $24 billion for state and local governments. (Where do they get these figures? It was only half that when we covered the issue in depth in late 2011.) After 13 years of going nowhere, the idea suddenly has traction in Washington. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 63-30 to send the measure to a final vote one week from today, “and that tally is likely to be even more strongly in...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

Washington state firearms owners will learn Monday morning what kind of fight they will have on their hands when a group calling itself the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility – which sounds increasingly like “gun registration” – reveals its political plans. Meanwhile, some folks on the Seattle Guns forum are looking at a different initiative effort, and they're already working on it. This would be called the Firearms Freedom Act of 2013.And there are also concerns about whether background checks might collide with patient privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).According to the Everett Herald and Seattle...

The war on the English language from gender-neutrality advocates has reached new lows in Washington state, where the governor signed a new piece of legislation dictating that the terms “fisherman,” “freshman,” and “penmanship” all be replaced because of alleged sexism. “Fisherman” will now be “fisher”; “freshman” will now be “first-year student”; “penmanship” will now be “handwriting.”

<p>Police in Tacoma could soon be in real trouble over pot.</p> <p>The department could be found in contempt if they continue to refuse to return a small amount of marijuana seized from a man after a traffic stop. Municipal Court Judge Jack Emery repeated an order to police Thursday to return the drug to Joseph L. Robertson within seven days or they could be found in contempt.</p>

Washington state's governor signed into law on Monday the final piece of a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary, replacing terms such as "fisherman" and "freshman" with "fisher" and "first-year student." Lawmakers have passed a series of bills since 2007 to root out gender bias from Washington statutes, though a 1983 state mandate required that all laws be written in gender-neutral terms unless a specification of gender was intended. "This was a much larger effort than I had envisioned. Mankind means man and woman," said Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle. The new gender-neutral references, for...

Judy Green was well-suited to move into a 10-by-10-foot University District apartment...The units are tiny, typically 150 to 250 square feet, about the size of a hotel room. Six or eight residents share a kitchen. And the rent is lower than the average studio or one-bedroom apartment, about $600 to $900 a month compared with $1,200 and up. Although it’s popular with young urban singles and students, microhousing, also known by the brand name aPodments, is stirring controversy as well. Some contain as many as 64 units, but because they’re in dense neighborhoods served by transit, they aren’t required to...

In a move that would capitalize on provisions under President Barack Obama's health care law but could cost the federal government millions of dollars, Washington state lawmakers have found a creative way to pass a large chunk of their health care expenses along to Washington, D.C. - and analysts say others are likely to follow suit. The plan threatens to affect the federal budget and the pocketbooks of some part-time workers, as it would push a group of employees out of their current health care plans and into an exchange developed under the Affordable Care Act. Observers say the shift...

Washington state’s governor signed into law on Monday the final piece of a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary, replacing terms such as “fisherman” and “freshman” with “fisher” and “first-year student.” Lawmakers have passed a series of bills since 2007 to root out gender bias from Washington statutes, though a 1983 state mandate required that all laws be written in gender-neutral terms unless a specification of gender was intended. “This was a much larger effort than I had envisioned. Mankind means man and woman,” said Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle. The bill passed the Democrat-controlled...

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — Police said a man shot and killed by officers in Federal Way first shot and killed his girlfriend and then fatally shot three men at an apartment complex. Investigators said they believe the series of slayings began with a domestic violence incident in which the man first fatally shot his girlfriend in the head at their shared apartment in the complex. He then left their apartment armed with a shotgun. Once outside the apartment he encountered two men. Police said he shot both of them. The resident of another apartment in the building, a 62-year-old man,...

SEATTLE - Washington state’s governor signed into law on Monday the final piece of a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary, replacing terms such as “fisherman” and “freshman” with “fisher” and “first-year student.” Lawmakers have passed a series of bills since 2007 to root out gender bias from Washington statutes, though a 1983 state mandate required that all laws be written in gender-neutral terms unless a specification of gender was intended. “This was a much larger effort than I had envisioned. Mankind means man and woman,” said Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle. The new gender-neutral...

A florist in Washington is being sued for a second time after choosing not to provide flower arrangements for a gay customer's upcoming wedding. Barronelle Stutzman of Arlene's Flowers in Richland now faces two lawsuits, one from the Washington state Attorney General and another from the American Civil Liberties Union, for turning away business for a same-sex couple’s wedding. When frequent customer Curt Freed approached Barronelle Stutzman of Arlene's Flowers last month to provide arrangements for his September wedding ceremony to Rob Ingersoll, the florist said she could not provide services due to her religious beliefs. On the company's Facebook...

PUYALLUP, Wash. — A manager at the Victoria’s Secret store at South Hill Mall was injured Saturday morning while trying to stop three women from stealing bras. KIRO 7 Eyewitness News partner the Tacoma News Tribune reported the incident happened around 11:30 a.m.. According to police, three women entered the store and scooped up 150 bras estimated at $8,000. The manager followed the women and tried to stop them outside of the store’s entrance, but all three women attacked her. Police said two of the women punched the manager in the face. The manager was also sprayed with an unknown...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Friday that it has formally approved Boeing’s design for modifications to the 787 Dreamliner battery system, clearing the way to end the plane’s three-month grounding. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency hasn’t changed the Dreamliner’s ETOPS (“extended operations”) certification, which means the 787 will have continued approval to fly up to three hours away from the nearest airport. Michael Huerta, head of the FAA, told a Senate hearing Tuesday that ETOPS approval was under review. The decision not to reduce the three-hour limit is crucial to the jet’s use for flying long routes...

In the incident Monday a man who returned home and found two intruders shot and killed one with a shotgun. The homeowner also fired at the second suspect as he fled in the stolen SUV, shooting out a window.

A Seattle police official quickly scotched a suggestion earlier this year that citizens with concealed pistol licenses be monitored; just one revelation about how Mayor Mike McGinn’s staff feels toward gun owners that has emerged from e-mails obtained by the Second Amendment Foundation under a Public Records Act request. In addition one e-mail expressed the opinion that the National Rifle Association is an organization that does “dirty work” for the firearms industry, and another suggested that inquiries from Second Amendment activists should be ignored. SAF had asked for all records related to the recently-launched Gun Safety Initiative and the Jan....

Dozens of resorts with permits to operate on national forests have bought or acquired rights to use nearby bodies of water for snowmaking. The Forest Service had adopted a clause that said those resorts had to transfer their water rights to the federal government ... After the National Ski Areas Association sued, a judge ruled last year that the agency violated procedure in not seeking public comment before adopting the clause. The agency now plans open houses April 16 in Lakewood, Colo., on April 17 in Salt Lake City, and April 18 in Lake Tahoe, Calif., to get input.

Liberal anti-gun readers of the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I.com are having fits over the announcement that the State Republican Party will auction an AR-15 during this weekend’s annual fund raising banquet. The event kicks off with a silent auction beginning at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the Bellevue Hilton, followed by the live auction and dinner beginning at 7 o’clock, according to State GOP Chairman Kirby Wilbur. He was filling in all week on KVI for vacationing John Carlson. This was like an old home week for Wilbur, who used to occupy the morning drive slot on KVI before a...

Former PLU head football coach Forrest "Frosty" Westering has died. He was 85. For more than four decades Frosty was a college football coach. From 1972 to 2003 he led Pacific Lutheran University to four national titles. Frosty's 305 career wins rank him 9th among all college football coaches, but the wins didn’t make the man. For Frosty, excellence on the field was only a by-product of his overall life philosophy. "I’m not going to use fear, I’m going to use caring, I’m going to use love, actually," he said. "It shows you can do it the right way and...

WALKERSVILLE — A gun rights group is taking aim at the town to try to force a change in its firearm restrictions. The Second Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue, Wash., formally demanded that Walkersville repeal a ban on shooting and carrying loaded guns within town limits. "It has come to my attention that the town of Walkersville purports to regulate firearms, which violates of state law," Alan M. Gottlieb, foundation president, said in a March 26 letter. The town charter bans shooting "a rifle, air rifle or air gun of any kind ... a bow and arrow, slingshot, shotgun, gun...

Sandra Mize confronted an intruder breaking into her north Spokane home early Wednesday morning. She fired one shot in his direction and held him at gunpoint until officers arrived. Police arrested the man and said they do not believe it was his first burglary of the night. Sandra Mize has a motto: "You don't get do-overs." That's why the 63-year-old grandmother of 10 keeps a gun by her bed, a canister of mace in her living room, and reinforces the doors in her north Spokane home with deadbolt locks and metal jambs before she goes to sleep every night. Her...

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Tuesday filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts, a Richland florist that refused to supply flowers to the same-sex marriage of a longtime customer. Ferguson said he sent a March 28 letter to owner Barronelle Stutzman asking her to reconsider and supply flowers to customer Robert Ingersoll. Through an attorney, Stutzman declined to change her position. “As Attorney General, it is my job to enforce the laws of the state of Washington,” said Ferguson. “Under the Consumer Protection Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against customers based on sexual orientation. If...

A plan to drop a recognizable logo in this part of the country — the Forest Service’s iconic shield — generated so much outrage among the agency’s retirees that the idea has been dropped. In early January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly introduced a policy to phase out all of its sub-agencies’ logos, including the Forest Service’s, and replace them with the USDA symbol. But that policy was kept so under wraps that not even Pacific Northwest forest supervisors were told. Some of them only heard about it in retrospect late last week — after the USDA had decided,...

One admitted to kidnapping and ransoming hostages in the Ivory Coast. Others said they had molested children or committed rape. And one, as he prepared for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, contemplated assassinating President Barack Obama. These are among the thousands of applicants who have sought sensitive law enforcement jobs in recent years with the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection. In many cases, these people made it all the way through the hiring process until one of the last steps – a polygraph exam. Once sitting with a polygraph examiner, they admitted to a...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Boeing is expanding in South Carolina and will invest another $1 billion, creating 2,000 new jobs during the next eight years, the aerospace giant announced Tuesday. Company spokeswoman Candy Eslinger said the company, which operates a 787 assembly plant in North Charleston, will expand its operations. The first of the new 787s made in South Carolina rolled off the assembly line about a year ago.

A 66 year old in Washington refused to be a victim after having his property burglarized multiple times. The homeowner called 911 around 4am to report a burglary. Shortly thereafter, the homeowner called 911 again to report he had shot 2 suspected burglars on his property. When police arrived they found a man and a woman suffering from gunshot wounds. The male suspect was pronounced dead at the scene while the female was airlifted to an area hospital in serious condition. While neither suspect was armed, police say that it is possible to feel threatened on your own property even...

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- If you think 2013 will be a half-baked year for tourism in Seattle, you haven't been paying attention to the curiously pungent smoke signals emanating from this city. On a recent chilly evening, an unmistakable smell has drifted across the street from an industrial space in the SODO neighborhood. Inside, a DJ spins an eclectic mix of rock while a man in a tie-dyed hoodie distributes cannabis-infused buttered rum and root beer-flavored hard candy to a diverse crowd of revelers. Another volunteer passes around a 12-foot-long "vape bag" filled with marijuana vapor -- one way to...

Boeing said its flight of a 787 on Friday should wrap up the testing for its fix of the battery problems that have kept the plane grounded. Boeing called the flight "the final certification test for the new battery system." The next step will be for the Federal Aviation Administration to decide whether Boeing's battery fix is good enough for airlines to safely fly it again. Friday's flight took off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. It returned one hour and 49 minutes later. The test was "to demonstrate that the new system performs as...

The world's widest tunnel boring machine arrived in Seattle in pieces Tuesday aboard a ship from Japan. It will be reassembled in a pit to begin the year-long dig to create a two-mile tunnel under downtown Seattle.

One of usually peaceful springtime rituals of childhood — the Easter egg hunt — turned nasty at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Blame the moms. A statement on the Seattle Police Department blotter Monday says the "hard-boiled tale" began Sunday afternoon, "when one woman reportedly pushed a child aside as her own child was scrambling toward some brightly colored eggs."

BREMERTON, Wash. — A “large scale” criminal organization targeting gun owners’ homes for robberies and then reselling the guns to methamphetamine dealers was recently uncovered in Kitsap County, Bremerton police reported Monday. According to Bremerton police, five suspects were arrested after a single residential burglary uncovered a complex crime ring where the suspects used “inside” information to target gun-owning victims. Joseph Peck, 29, of Bremerton, is being charged in federal court, and four other West Sound men being held in state custody have not been officially charged. Three additional arrests from unrelated crimes were made during the investigation that started...

Crimson Soldiers remembered on Veterans' Day By JOHN C. WITTER Managing Editor Emeritus Posted Nov 11, 2009 SPORTSWRITERS OFTEN DESCRIBE athletes with generous amounts of melodrama and grandeur, using (and overusing) terms like “heroic” to describe their feats. But when the big picture makes its way back into our consciousness -- say, when our nation goes to war -- we realize what an inadequate home a basketball court or football field is for a word like “hero.” No, that word belongs at the frontlines and foxholes of foreign soils, with men and women much too far from home and family...

LAPUSH — An ultralight pilot's curiosity over the 185-ton concrete dock that had washed up from Japan on a remote stretch of Olympic National Park beach south of LaPush resulted in a citation and fine. Raymond Helvey of Forks was cited by a park ranger March 4 at the Forks Municipal Airport after he illegally landed his ultralight aircraft on a beach that had been closed to the public to allow work on dock removal, according to Rainey McKenna, a park spokeswoman. McKenna said she did not know the amount of the fine associated with the citation. Helvey was spotted...

Lazy postal worker burns, buries undelivered mail BELFAIR, WA (KOMO/CNN) - A disgraced mailman is in trouble again after admitting to burying thousands of pieces of mail in his backyard. Postal investigators state mailman Richard Farrell is accused of using a backhoe and burying the undelivered mail in a deep trench. "Just because I was lazy, and I became a not very good employee," said Farrell. "I just wanted to get out of their as soon as possible." According to court documents, in 2010, fellow coworkers discovered Farrell dumping mail in a recycling bin. Those actions prompted investigators to follow...

A northeast Washington judge has found two boys, ages 10 and 11, competent to stand trial in juvenile court on a murder conspiracy charge. Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen says the fifth-graders had a handwritten plan listing seven steps leading up to the planned killing of a female classmate. That list was submitted as evidence at their mental capacity hearing Friday. The boys were arrested Feb. 7 at Fort Colville Elementary School after a fourth-grader saw one playing with a knife on a school bus and told a school employee. A backpack search also turned up a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol...

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