Jake Ellison

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington's gay marriage law is now on hold.

Preserve Marriage Washington submitted more than 200,000 signatures Wednesday, blocking the law from taking effect on Thursday.

The St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Seattle has been told that members of the anti-gay church known for its belligerent protest tactics plans to be present at the funeral of Gloria Koch Leonidas on Thursday. Leonidas was one of the shooting victims in last Wednesday's massacre in Seattle.

A St. Demetrios administrator confirmed that a Seattle police officer and another church pastor told them the protest has been scheduled by the Westboro Baptist Church. And a Facebook page dedicated to shielding the funeral from the protesters, known for signs saying “God Hates Fags” and blaming crimes on passages of gay rights laws, is up and running.

(Updated with audio story, attached.)

Seattle has had it with the flare of gunfire lighting up its streets – and that’s driving city leaders to pull out the stops to find solutions.

More aggressive search and seizures, stiffer local gun laws, increased police patrols, video cameras and now a technology that registers where a gun is fired in the city and notifies police seconds after the shooting – these are some of the tools Seattle officials are looking at to tamp down the violence.

In this first person piece, Ed Skoog, a Northwest poet and musician and a regular at the Café Racer, shares his impressions of the local arts and music hangout before the shooting on Wednesday that killed four and wounded another.

Skoog said Drew Keriakedes and Joe "Vito" Albanese, two of the victims, were well known at the café and that Drew especially was a raconteur character who was “always on,” always ready with a dirty joke and a gritty blues song from the ’20s and ’30s, with plenty of songs he’d created himself.

“He was a magnetic performer,” Skoog said of Drew.

Skoog said he’d seen the man identified as the shooter around the bar from time to time, hanging out in the alley “a little out of sight.”

“He was a freaky dude, but normal looking enough to pass,” Skoog said.

Here’s Skoog writing about the Café Racer and its vibe:

Seattle police say a man fatally shot as he drove down a Seattle street with his parents and two children was hit by an errant bullet from a stranger's dispute.

Detective Jeff Kappel said the victim had earlier picked up his parents from the airport and was heading out with them and his two children on a weekend vacation late Thursday afternoon.

The Seattle Times identified the victim as 43-year-old Justin Ferrari who had only recently joined the online real estate site Zillow.

PUYALLUP, Wash. — Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says there have been no new reports Friday morning of a tiger on the loose near Puyallup. However, the reputed tiger is still posting away on its Twitter feed and others have been having fun online with the "loose tiger."

"Today we saw a huge victory..."

Michelle Wilson, a Senior Vice President at Amazon, told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting today in Seattle that Amazon would drop its support for the controversial group ALEC because the public policy organization had made decisions unrelated to Amazon’s business.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, also told shareholders that the company would spend $52 million to add air-conditioning to its packaging facilities this year.

The state Transportation Department has torpedoed a proposal for floating billboards on Lake Washington in Seattle.

The company's owner said he'll pursue other Seattle waters. However, the Seattle Times reports the city of Seattle says no deal.

With the Occupy Seattle protests having morphed into a movement targeting banks and companies that protesters believe do not live up to progressive ideals, the local protest movement self-dubbed “Working Washington” says it will be at Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting Thursday in force.

And, with continual protests focusing on its Seattle offices, as Seattle tech blog Geekwire reports, the company is warning protesters to stay off its property.

A cancer patient's video of fellow patients, parents and staff at Seattle Children's Hospital is on a cyber-world tour, capturing more than 600,000 views -- and hearts, one presumes -- on YouTube.

The video produced by Chris Rumble, a 22-year-old Children’s cancer patient who lives in Kent, shows patients and others dancing, holding signs saying "hope" and "fighter" and singing to the music of Kelly Clarkson’s song “Stronger."

Gregory Schneider of Tucson, Ariz., has won a trip to space in celebration of the Seattle Space Needle's 50th anniversary.

He beat out five finalists in Seattle this week for some final competitions. (Video of the event after the jump.)

The dark clouds looming over higher education in the nation and Washington may have a silver lining, but so far it’s been hard to find and the recent spate of news has been pretty bad for college students.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on building in a silver lining, but first the details.

Boeing launched its new iPad app today – 'Milestones in Innovation.’ The app is free and available on iTunes.

The app carries images and information from nine decades of aviation innovation. You can find 10 of those moments in the story below.

The five finalists in a contest to be sent into space as part of Seattle Needle's 50th anniversary celebration are in Seattle this week.

The final phase of the contest begins Monday morning. The finalists will each face three challenges before the winner is announced on Wednesday. (Meet the finalists after the jump and pick whom you'd send into space.)

With all the broken glass, arrests, tear gas, sharp sticks and black-clad hooligans, it seems no one had any constructive fun during Seattle’s May Day protests. However, going back through our photos, we saw people having fun (at least at the moment the photo was being taken) and getting their message out.