Benjamin Shors

In a dingy studio apartment in the city's downtown, Robert Kenneth Leavitt began with a confession. "I am a level 3 sex offender," he said, holding hands with his fiancee, leaning a tattooed forearm on his knee. "I'm not going to try to deceive you. I'm being straight-up honest. I look back at the man I was, and I see a darkness that I would not want in the man living next to me. I know you don't find too many people who will give you a second chance."

A homeless camp disbanded Tuesday, ending a weeklong protest in the grassy median on Riverside Avenue. About 20 people – with help from city crews – packed up their belongings and moved into temporary housing after activists reached an agreement with the city and Catholic Charities early Tuesday.

Guilty Conscience is a teen punk band. Barely. This is not a remark on the quality of the band – described by one adult as "very deep" – but on the ages of its five members: 13, 13, 13, 13, and 14.

In the Northwest, a familiar trend has emerged in the last five years: Wages have failed to keep pace with increases in cost-of-living expenses. With health care costs rapidly rising, low-wage workers continue to lose ground even though wages grew 7 percent from 2002 to 2006, according to a new report from the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, a nonprofit based in Seattle.

From the living room, the lights of the city sparkle below, and Mount Spokane looms in the distance. New granite lines the kitchen countertops, and a gas fireplace warms the master bedroom. But when Bruce and Debbie Curran decided to sell their three-bedroom home this fall, they did something that would have been unheard of 12 months ago: They listed it below its appraised value.