Gary Crawford

A high school football referee association is suing Washington state youth athletic governing bodies over the use of pink whistles for a cancer charity.

[UPDATE 2:25 p.m:from the WSDOT: No additional toll infractions to users of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge will be issued until glitches in the tolling system operated by a Texas-based company are resolved, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) said today.
 
WSDOT Deputy Secretary David Dye said the department is implementing an internal financial audit of Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp. (ETCC) of Texas, the company that took over toll operations on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in February.
 
Also today, Gov. Chris Gregoire asked Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond to reconvene a Tolling Expert Review Panel to conduct a mid-course assessment of the performance of ETCC. The panel originally was convened in 2009 by the Joint Transportation Committee and made recommendations on customer service center operations and tolling-violation enforcement.]

[Oringinal story] Some 18,000 drivers have been sent notices that they failed to pay their toll on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the past few weeks. Now, a Gig Harbor legislator is asking for an emergency audit of the state Department of Transportation and its management of tolls on the span.

If you’re a fan of the movie “Avatar” you might really like the exhibition opening Saturday at Seattle’s Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

“Avatar” director James Cameron – a pal of EMP/SFM co-founder Paul Allen – will be on hand for a Friday event which will feature some of the film’s actors and Richie Baneham, who won the Academy Award for best visual effects.

At the beginning of the year Poulsbo had no breweries. Now it has four.

The breweries produce small batches in kegs. None are bottling yet, but they hope to grow.

In the past decade the number of takeoffs and landings at Paine Field has dropped by nearly half.

The Snohomish County airport at Everett serves Boeing and aircraft maintenance businesses. But, most of the decline is among small private aircraft.

A cool, wet spring has slowed strawberries and other crops in parts of Washington.

One berry farmer, Randy Kraught of Barbie's Berries in Ferndale, told The Bellingham Herald the area needs sun soon to ripen strawberries and following crops of raspberries and blueberries.

More than 200,000 people are expected to visit the Seattle Center over the Memorial Day Weekend for the 40th annual Folklife Festival.

About 1,000 music, dance and other events are scheduled over four days, starting Friday, at indoor and outdoor sites. The festival also includes food and craft booths.

For nearly six months, western Washingtonians who wanted to drive to Winthrop, Okanagan and other north central Washington locations have had to make an extra-long road trip, sometimes adding hundreds of miles to their journey. And vice-versa.

That will change very soon.

Seattle and the Puget Sound area seem to be popping up on those "top ten" and "best places to..." lists with increasing regularity.

With the start - or rather, resumption of tolling on the 520 bridge a few weeks away, history buffs are recalling the opening of the first Lake Washington Floating Bridge, 71 years ago.

Skeptics predicted it would sink, and that tolling would never pay for the cost of construction. Sound familiar?

A vote on whether to build a tunnel to replace the aging Alaskan Way viaduct can take place, a King County Judge ruled today (Friday).

King County Superior Court Judge Laura Middaugh said some parts of the agreements that cover utilities, insurance, right-of-way and other issues can be in the referendum but others can't. She'll hear arguments next Friday on which parts could be included in an August vote and whether she has the authority to partially rewrite language in the referendum.

The public is invited to a special memorial service for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of northeastern Japan in March.

The service is being held by the Northwest Zen Community at St. Ignatius Chapel on the Seattle University campus at 1:30 p.m. this Sunday (May 15).

When the Frye Hotel opened for business, President Roosevelt was a guest at the grand opening. That's Theodore Roosevelt. The new hotel was a hot spot for important gatherings and conventions. Like the National Association of Master Horseshoers and Blacksmiths.

The year was 1911. That's three years before the iconic Smith Tower - also pictured above - was constructed.

Today the Frye Hotel has federal landmark status and is part of the Pioneer Square Historic District.

Happy Mother's Day, Seattle moms. You live in the fourth-best place in the U.S. to be a mother.

At least that's what The Daily Beast is saying after ranking the 100 largest cities and ranking them on criteria such as mothers-per-capita, quality of public schools, number of childcare workers and availability of maternity health specialists.

Starting today (Thursday) a new online registry will allow Seattleites to choose whether or not they receive yellow pages phone books. But an industry group says it’s redundant, because there’s already such a website in place nationwide.

The City of Seattle site is www.seattle.gov/stopphonebooks.