Northwest News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has started the cleanup of a superfund site near Moses Lake in central Washington. As correspondent Anna King reports, this restoration has been in the works for decades.

The contaminated area is made up of an old Air Force airport, a county airport and some adjacent lands. Dumpsites there are loaded with chemicals like PCBs, lead and petroleum. The EPA has started testing and designing a treatment system to remove trichloroethylene from the groundwater at the superfund site.

In 1985, a jury convicted Richard A. Leavitt of the brutal first-degree murder of Danette J. Elg a year earlier. Elg of Blackfoot, Idaho had been stabbed more than a dozen times and her body was mutilated. The state will execute 53 year-old Leavitt Tuesday by lethal injection unless there’s a last minute stay. .

Male death row prisoners are housed in the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, or Idaho Max. Guards moved Leavitt to a lone cell last month after the state Department of Correction served him with a death warrant.

Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies say they’ve swept up more than 200 violent felons in Eastern Washington. So-called 'Operation Scattergun II' focused on wanted offenders in the Spokane, Tri-Cities and Yakima regions last week. Beatrice Bravo is a Deputy U.S. Marshal based in Spokane. She says the felon roundup took a lot of advance planning.

Dr. Michael Gottfredson has been selected as the finalist for the new president of the University of Oregon.

Gottfredson has served as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of California Irvine since 2000. He is an expert in criminology. Oregon University System Chancellor George Pernsteiner calls Gottfredson an academic leader of distinction.

"That's a great combination for Oregon," Pernsteiner says. "Somebody who is committed to higher education and has a track record of real success and is able to work collaboratively with the other elements of education in this state for the betterment of the state and its citizens."

Republican Rob McKenna and Democrat Jay Inslee sparred in an hour-long debate heard on Northwest Public Radio this afternoon, and again at 7 PM Tuesday. Listen to the debate.

Oregon Parks officials are still weighing their options for the giant piece of tsunami debris that washed up on the Oregon coast this week. The Japanese dock continues to draw onlookers to the beach near Newport.

Washington voters find it hard to determine if political campaign ads are accurate, according to a survey by the AARP of Washington. Paige Browning reports, the organization hosted an event in Spokane Thursday to share the results and educate their members.

This week has been a rollercoaster of media attention for Casey Martin. The Oregon men’s golf coach was a surprise qualifier for the U.S. Open at the Olympic Golf Course in San Francisco next week. KLCC’s Rachael McDonald reports from a press conference Friday at the University of Oregon.