The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is offering a multi-year grant for 500 thousand dollars to the Community Foundation of Puget Sound. The award will be re-granted over four years to nonprofits in Mason, Lewis and Thurston counties working to reduce intergenerational poverty.

Gov. Chris Gregoire says she is preparing a new transportation package that would rival the multi-billion-dollar deal she helped approve in 2005.
Gregoire said that she will detail her plan during a budget proposal next week. The 2005 package included a 9.5-cent gas tax increase and other revenues that were slated to total $7 billion over the span of 16 years.
Gregoire says there are great needs to fund basic maintenance of Washington's transportation infrastructure. The state is also looking to pay for major projects such as the Columbia River Crossing in Vancouver, the 520 bridge in Seattle and the North Spokane Corridor.
The Democrat hadn't settled on how the projects will be funded. Gregoire said she'd be having a meeting today to discuss possible funding options for a transportation package, and she said a gas tax is in the mix.


The Tumwater School Board will be recognized as a “board of distinction” during its meeting tomorrow night, by the Washington State School Directors’ Association.


A convicted sex offender caught trying to lure an 11-year-old Elma boy has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Joel Alexander was convicted of attempted child rape. He also was convicted 11 years ago of child rape, so he gets a life sentence under Washington's persistent offender law. Prosecutors believed he victimized more children in Washington and Oregon. Alexander's most recent arrest came after the 11-year-old boy's mother called police when Facebook chats took a sexual tone.


Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna's office filed has filed a lawsuit targeting a Florida-based company accused of sending people unsolicited text messages, calling it another form of spam that annoys people and costs them money. It's one of the first lawsuits by a state attorney general targeting spamming via text messages. McKenna's office is targeting Orlando-based Dinav Holding and its owners, Jonathan Charles Diaz and Juan Carlos Diaz. The lawsuit alleges the company over a period of two days in May targeted residents in Washington with texts advertising payday loans with companies not licensed in the state.
Washington's law does not allow commercial text messaging.

Capital Playhouse interim artistic director Troy Fisher pleaded not guilty in a Pierce County courtroom Tuesday morning to 14 counts of possession of child pornography.  The case against Fisher began in July when Fisher had been reported missing, and Olympia police searched his home computer in an effort to locate him. Fisher was found unharmed July 25 after being reported missing several days earlier. But what police also found were images on Fisher’s computer that were determined to be boys between 10 and 13 years old engaged in sexually explicit conduct, according to court documents. Police later found additional images of suspected child pornography on Fisher’s work computer at the Playhouse. Fisher was released on his own personal recognizance, but a judge ordered Fisher not to have contact with children as a condition of his release.

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