Northwest News

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber Tuesday released plans to increase renewable energy in the state. Both Washington and Idaho already have energy plans in place. Reporting for EarthFix, Courtney Flatt has more.

Over the past year, people and businesses in the Pacific Northwest have contributed tens of millions of dollars to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief. It's an unfamiliar situation for a wealthy, industrialized country like Japan to be the recipient of international relief funds. Correspondent Tom

Cody Crawford, the man charged in the firebombing of a Corvallis, Oregon mosque in 2010, will be released from jail Wednesday morning. Judge Thomas Coffin made the ruling after two court sessions Tuesday. KLCC’S Lucy Ohlsen was at the Federal Courthouse in Eugene.

The online classifieds website Backpage.com filed a lawsuit against the state of Washington Monday. It’s over a bill passed by the legislature this year, which aims to reduce sex trafficking.

Village Voice Media owns the national online classifieds site Backpage.com. The company also owns the Seattle Weekly, and they run their online classifieds through Backpage. Seattle police say they have caught pimps selling underage girls…at Backpage.com.

Now, the company is suing Washington state.

Polls indicate a looming vote in Washington over same-sex marriage could be close. Wednesday, the campaign to repeal the state’s new marriage equality law will submit its petitions to the Secretary of State.

Thirty-two times in thirty-two states, voters have said marriage should remain between one man and one woman. The most recent vote was last month in North Carolina. But pollster Matt Barreto at the University of Washington says:

Matt Barreto: “It could be that Washington state is poised to make history on this issue.”

Oregon's gross domestic product grew by 4.7 percent last year, that's the second biggest increase seen in all states.

Gross domestic product is defined as the value added by production, so the wages of employees; the profits of businesses; and the taxes paid to governments.

In Oregon, the GDP of the construction sector, the education sector and health all grew by about 4 percent.
But Josh Lehner of the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis says it's the 15 percent increase in the high tech manufacturing sector that pushed the state to the top of the growth chart.

This fall, people in Washington state will likely vote on a referendum to repeal same-sex marriage. Backers of Referendum 74 plan to turn in signatures by Wednesday to put the issue on the ballot. One of the biggest proponents of the repeal is the Catholic archdiocese of Seattle. It wants all of its parishes to actively campaign against same-sex marriage. But some Catholics are feeling caught in the middle, as Liz Jones reports.

On the Olympic Peninsula the largest dam removal project in history is well underway. The Elwha River flows from the Olympic Mountains down to the Strait of Juan de Fuca near the mouth of Puget Sound. Ashley Ahearn reports that as the two dams come out, new life is coming into the Elwha River.

Hunters once killed nearly all the greater sandhill cranes in Oregon and Washington. But the local crane population has made a comeback. In June, in the mountain lakes of the Cascades, you might hear a pair defending its nest. Amelia Templeton reports.

Most sandhill crane chicks hatch in May. If you get too close to a nest, mom and dad will throw back their heads and beat their wings. This pair is nesting near Howard Prairie Lake, in the Cascades. The adults are grey, with red caps. And they’re about the size and weight of a sixth grader.

Starting Monday, Oregon voters have another party to choose from when they sign up to vote. But as Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports, the group that formed the Americans Elect party is no longer trying to field a candidate.