McGavick’s funds trailing Cantwell’s
Washington state Republican Mike McGavick has raised more than $1.4 million in his bid for the U.S. Senate, but he still badly trails incumbent Democrat Maria Cantwell in the race for campaign cash.
Cantwell, who was elected to the Senate in 2000, raised nearly $7 million last year and has more than $5 million on hand, according to campaign finance reports filed at the end of January.
McGavick has about $955,000 on hand, his report said.
McGavick, who began broadcasting his first statewide TV ads this week, said he is still in the beginning stages of the campaign, which officially kicked off Jan. 21.
Spokane
Man run over by own car dies
An 85-year-old Spokane man who was run over by his own car died Saturday at Deaconess Medical Center, the Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
Cpl. Dave Reagan identified the man as Lloyd S. Leland.
Leland became trapped under the left front wheel of his 1984 Ford Thunderbird while backing out of a parking space Jan. 20 at the House of Hose, 5520 E. Sprague Ave.
Witnesses said the driver’s door opened and Leland tumbled out.
The car rolled backward over him.
An investigator was unable to determine what caused Leland to fall out of his car.
Spokane
Crash victim is still in critical condition
A 79-year-old Republic, Wash., woman remained in critical condition Wednesday at Deaconess Medical Center with injuries she suffered in a Jan. 17 traffic accident on U.S. Highway 395, two miles northwest of Colville.
Vivian J. Dragnich and her husband, Louie W. Dragnich, were headed toward Republic when Spokane Valley truck driver Ernest D. Ellard pulled into the path of their 1999 Cadillac DeVille, the Washington State Patrol said.
Louie Dragnich died at the scene.
The WSP said Ellard, 58, was at fault for failing to yield the right of way.
The investigation is continuing.
NORTH BEND, Wash.
Man killed after stripping on I-90
A man who owned three McDonald’s fast-food franchises crashed his truck on Interstate 90 early Wednesday, then got out, took his clothes off and stood in a traffic lane, where he was run over and killed.
Brett T. Arnes, 35, of Ellensburg, crashed his red pickup about 4 a.m. just west of Snoqualmie Pass, the Washington State Patrol said in a news release.
The westbound truck crossed the median and the eastbound lanes before stopping against a guardrail. Arnes then took off his clothes and stood in the second eastbound lane, the WSP said. A white pickup ran him over.
Trooper Kelly Spangler said no charges were pending against the driver of the pickup, Erick Hanson, 60, of Wilkeson, who was on his way to work. Hanson was not injured.
Arnes had been a McDonald’s franchise-holder since 1996, said McDonald’s spokeswoman Cheryl Lewis in Kirkland.
Spangler said investigators have no idea why Arnes removed his clothing.
Twin Falls, Idaho
Death not linked to mad cow disease
A test on brain tissue has confirmed that an Idaho woman died of a form of the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease not believed to be linked to the consumption of beef tainted by mad cow disease.
“Test results showed it was not the variant form of CJD,” Tom Shanahan, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, told the Idaho Falls newspaper, the Times-News, on Tuesday.
Classic CJD, also known as sporadic CJD, has no known cause or cure but is not believed to be linked to consumption of mad cow-tainted beef. Beef-related cases are classified as variant CJD, which has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and Europe since the 1990s.
The state health department has investigated nine Idaho deaths for possible links to CJD since January 2005. Of the nine, four people were buried without an autopsy and brain tissue could not be tested.
Of the five remaining, brain tissue was sent to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where three tested positive for CJD and two tested negative.
Of the three positive CJD tests, more extensive tests were done to determine which form of CJD was involved. Now, all three have been confirmed to have died of the classic form of CJD.
Classic CJD hijacks the body’s ability to control movement and causes dementia. There is no treatment.
Olympia
House approves sex-offender bill
House lawmakers unanimously passed a package of 25-year sentences for sex predators on Wednesday, with Republican critics warning that the measure doesn’t go far enough.
The Democrat-led House sent the measure to the state Senate on a 97-0 vote after lengthy debate and several unsuccessful GOP attempts to alter the bill.
The measure would impose 25-year minimum sentences for several serious offenses against children younger than 15, developmentally disabled or mentally ill people, and old or frail adults.
But sex offenders who target relatives still could get lighter terms under a special sentencing program, a point that has caused disagreement.
Democrats cited the advice of prosecutors, who say child sex-crime victims may be less likely to cooperate in criminal cases if a relative who assaulted them would be jailed. GOP leaders vowed to push for a stricter measure in the Senate.
Olympia
Report on state’s voters released
Secretary of State Sam Reed released the first complete report from the state’s new $6 million voter registration database Wednesday, which showed more than 8,000 dead and duplicate registered voters have been removed from the voter rolls.
But more than 37,000 registrations are still being investigated, including 108 registered voters who voted in the November general election but are now listed as deceased.
Reed noted that the number should not be taken as 108 illegal votes – a person could have voted in the election and died the next day or could have voted absentee before the election and died after sending in a ballot.
County elections workers are comparing signatures, names, birth dates and most-recently cast ballots to determine whether duplicated registrations belong to the same or different people, officials said.
Olympia
Senators endorse August primary
After years of angst over whether to change the state’s mid-September primary – one of the nation’s latest – lawmakers are poised to move the election up by a month, starting in 2007.
The Senate, which has been a graveyard for the primary move bill in previous years, gave the August primary a surprisingly strong bipartisan sendoff, approving it 37-11 on Wednesday. The House is expected to follow suit.
Secretary of State Sam Reed, the county auditors, the military and others have long advocated moving the primary forward. They said the seven-week window between the September primary and the November general election doesn’t leave enough time to count ballots, deal with any recounts or contested elections, and get out the absentee ballots for the general.