WATERVILLE

Yakima trucker hurt when rig rolls near WatervilleA Yakima man was hurt Thursday morning when he rolled

his semi truck on U.S. Highway 2 west of Waterville, the Washington State Patrol reported.

Theodore Mobley, 24, was driving his tractor-trailer combi-nation west of the Chelan-Douglas county line when he lost control in a curve and landed the rig on its side about 6:50 a.m., troopers said.

He was taken to Central Washington Community Hospital, where he was listed in satisfactory condition Thursday afternoon, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Troopers blamed the crash on inattention and speed. Charges were pending. He was wearing a seat belt. Intoxicants were not suspected, according to a State Patrol news release.

— Yakima Herald-Republic

LONGVIEW

Longview city attorney won’t return gun to ownerThe Longview city attorney refuses to return a gun to its

owner after an accidental shooting.City Attorney Steve Shuman said the gun should be forfeited

because it was involved in a crime. The brother of the owner dropped the 9mm Glock last

October in an apartment. The gun fi red a bullet into the apart-ment below where a girl was hit by the spent bullet or debris but not injured. The brother admitted he would be found guilty of unlawfully discharging a fi rearm.

The gun owner is former Kelso reserve police offi cer Kirk Turya. He was not involved in the accident and does not have a criminal record. He says there’s no reason for the city to keep his gun. A hearing is scheduled Wednesday.

— The Associated Press

FEDERAL WAY

Burglar tries to escape by jumping in lake — but can’t swimA suspected burglar confronted by an armed homeowner

ran out of the house and jumped into a nearby lake to escape. But apparently he couldn’t swim, and the homeowner ended up helping him out of the water, police said.

Melanie McAllester, a spokeswoman for the Federal Way Police Department, said a homeowner in the Twin Lakes neighborhood of Federal Way came home and noticed his front door was ajar. He armed himself, then entered and confronted the intruder.

The intruder fl ed and jumped into nearby Lake Lorene. But McAllester said the man had a lot of clothes on and was strug-gling in the water. Eventually, he managed to return close to shore, and the homeowner gave him a hand to help him out of the lake.

McAllester said the homeowner told police the intruder was really cold and did not try to run away. The homeowner stayed with him until police arrived.

— McClatchy News Service

PORTLAND

Oregon protesters bare breasts for HanfordOccupy Portland went topless Thursday in downtown

Portland to draw attention to its planned Hanford rally in Richland on April 15, Willamette Week reported.

The publication posted a picture on its website showing the back of a shirtless woman wearing a gas mask as she faced a Metropolitan Area Express light rail train. It also said the bare-chested activists, a group of eight women and three men, had painted multicolored radiation symbols on their bodies.

The rally, “Hanford: America’s Fukushima,” is planned for noon to 5 p.m. next Thursday in the John Dam Plaza in Richland.

— Tri-City Herald

PORTLAND

2 salmon-eating sea lions killed at Bonneville DamA Washington state wildlife spokesman says two salmon-

eating California sea lions have been captured this week at Bonneville Dam and killed by lethal injection.

The Oregonian reports the deaths are the fi rst this year after a federal judge ruled last month the program could proceed.

Washington Fish and Wildlife spokesman Craig Bartlett says the sea lions were captured Tuesday.

The killings are limited to California sea lions documented as targeting spring chinook or steelhead near Bonneville, the fi rst dam the returning fi sh encounter on their run up the Columbia River. The sea lions also must return to the dam despite nonlethal hazing and be spotted nearby for at least fi ve days, though the days can accumulate over several years.

— The Associated Press

BOISE

Idaho governor signs texting ban into lawIdaho has offi cially banned texting while driving, after three

years of trying.Gov. Butch Otter on Thursday signed HB 1274a, the bill

banning texting while driving, into law. The new law, which passed this year after three years of unsuccessful attempts in the Legislature to enact such a ban, makes texting while driving an infraction. Idaho has misdemeanor penalties for inattentive driving, but unlike most states it had no specifi c law banning texting while driving.

Two years ago, a ban that had passed the Senate died on the fi nal night of the legislative session in the House, when then-Rep. Raul Labrador, now an Idaho U.S. representative, used a parliamentary maneuver to force a two-thirds vote. The bill failed with just a 37-30 majority. Last year’s version would have banned texting while driving only if it distracted the driver; the bill failed.

This year’s bill got strong support in committee hearings, from teens to law enforcement to the AAA to to insurers. It also got a solemn boost when an 18-year-old Caldwell woman, Taylor Sauer, died in January in an Idaho freeway crash while texting. Her surviving family members off ered tearful testimony in favor of the bill in committee hearings in both houses.

The new law takes eff ect July 1.— The Spokesman-Review

Briefl yNews from around NCW and the Northwest

The Seattle Times

SEATTLE — A semi-truck driving too fast for road conditions caused a spectacular rollover crash that blocked all lanes of southbound Interstate 5 on Thursday afternoon — and created traffi c hell for drivers across the city even hours after the semi and four other vehicles were towed from the freeway.

“We closed off the mainline and people started pouring off into the city. It was a domino eff ect of people trying to avoid those trouble spots -- and it created more trouble spots,” said Trooper Julie Startup, a spokeswoman for the State Patrol.

The 2:12 p.m. collision — which remarkably resulted in only minor injuries — had traffi c backed up from the Interstate 90 interchange to Northgate as the State Patrol diverted cars into other lanes.

The semi driver — identi-fi ed in a State Patrol colli-sion memo as Jeremy Ross, 31, of SeaTac -- apparently saw cars coming to a stop

ahead of him, but failed to brake in time, Startup said. The semi struck a car driven by Michael Murray, 58, of Auburn, causing Murray’s vehicle to spin into a 1999 Oldsmobile driven by Leslie Halvorson, 30, of Olympia, the Patrol memo says.

The semi then rolled over, striking two other cars being driven by Rodriguez Clifton, 48, of Renton, and Albaro Quinteroromero, 40, of Tacoma, according to the memo. Quinteroromero was taken to Harborview Medical Center, while Halvorson and Murray were treated at the scene.

I-5 semi crash causes chaos

Seattle Times photo

Emergency responders investigate the scene where a semi-truck overturned in a collision with an automobile on I-5 on Thursday.

The Associated Press

OVER THE GULF OF ALASKA — A U.S. Coast Guard cutter poured cannon fi re into a Japanese ghost ship that had been drifting since the last year’s tsunami, sinking the vessel in the Gulf of Alaska and eliminating the hazard it posed to shipping and the coastline.

The cutter’s guns tore holes in the 164-foot Ryou-Un Maru on Thursday, ending its long, lonely journey across the Pacifi c that began when the deadly tsunami set it fl oating more than a year ago.

The crew pummeled the ghost ship with high explosive ammunition, and the derelict Ryou-Un Maru soon burst into fl ames, and began taking on water, offi cials said.

A huge column of smoke could be seen over the gulf as a Coast Guard C-130 cargo plane, sent to observe the sinking, dropped a buoy to monitor for any possi-ble pollution.

The Coast Guard warned mariners to stay away, and aviation authorities did the same for pilots.

In about four hours, the ship vanished into the water, said Chief Petty Offi cer Kip Wadlow in Juneau.

It sank into waters more than 6,000 feet deep, about 180 miles west of the southeast Alaska coast, the Coast Guard said.

Offi cials decided to sink the ship rather than risk the chance of it running aground or endangering other vessels in the busy shipping lanes between North America and Asia.

The ship had no lights or communica-tions system, and its tank was able to carry more than 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Offi cials, however, didn’t know how much fuel, if any, was aboard.

“It’s less risky than it would be running into shore or running into (maritime) traffi c,” Coast Guard spokesman Paul Webb said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospher-ic Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency studied the problem and decided it is safer to sink the ship and let the fuel evaporate in the open water.

A light sheen and minimal debris were visible as the vessel sunk, but the sheen is expected to quickly dissipate, the Coast Guard said in a news release.

The ship was at Hokkaido, Japan, and destined for scrapping when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck

the country in March 2011 triggered a tsunami.

The waves dislodged the vessel and set it adrift. In total, about 5 million tons of debris was swept out to sea.

The boat did not have any cargo aboard, Webb said. He said he didn’t know who owned the Ryou-Un Maru, which had been traveling about 1 mph in recent days.

In the year since the tsunami, the debris from Japan has washed up on shores across the Pacifi c. In January, a half dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska’s panhandle and may be among the fi rst debris from the tsunami.

Coast Guard guns sink ‘ghost’ ship

AP photo/U.S. Coast Guard

A plume of smoke rises from the derelict Japanese ship Ryou-Un Maru after it was hit by cannon fi re by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on Thursday in the Gulf of Alaska. The Coast Guard decided to sink the ship, dislodged by last year’s tsunami, because it was a threat to maritime traffi c and could have had an environmental impact if it grounded.

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