Northwest News

Idaho executed death row inmate Richard Leavitt this morning as planned. Leavitt was convicted for the 1984 murder of 31-year old Danette Elg of Blackfoot.

Researchers have developed a fuel cell that could one day power your neighborhood. From EarthFix, Courtney Flatt explains, this new system is much more efficient than power plants.

Signature gatherers will be out in force in Oregon in the next few weeks. Groups are racing to beat a deadline early next month to submit enough names to get initiatives on the ballot this fall.

The man with a clipboard gathering names on this downtown Salem street corner offers passersby a preview of what could be on their ballot this fall:

"Do you think marijuana should be legalized, ma'am?" he asks.

In fact, pro-pot groups are on track to get not one, but two marijuana legalization measures on the Oregon ballot.

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."