Baby-sitter arrested after toddler dies

A 13-year-old girl who police believe killed a child she was baby-sitting has been arrested on suspicion of assault.

The Port Townsend teen was caring for a 19-month-old girl and a 5-year-old Sunday at a home in the 5200 block of 23rd Avenue Southwest, in West Seattle. Medics were dispatched to the house after receiving a report that the toddler was unresponsive, said Seattle police spokeswoman Debra Brown.

The toddler was taken to Harborview Medical Center and died at about 11 a.m. yesterday. Officials with the King County Medical Examiner's Office say an autopsy will be performed today, Brown said.

Vancouver, Wash.

Volcano's monitors stop sending data

New instruments installed on the lava dome at Mount St. Helens have stopped transmitting.

Scientists can't tell what happened until the weather clears, but they say they think the instrument package, installed Friday, may have been wiped out by a rockfall or steam emission.

Before they stopped transmitting Sunday, the video camera, gas sensor, GPS and seismometer indicated the lava dome was continuing to grow vigorously.

The U.S. Geological Survey says magma pushed up into the volcano in October and started oozing into the crater, where it is dramatically expanding the lava dome.

Salem, Ore.

Bill seeks to halt annual wage change

The Oregon Restaurant Association is renewing efforts to persuade lawmakers to scrap the yearly inflation adjustment to the state's minimum wage, which now is the second-highest in the nation.

Just look at the rankings, said House Majority Leader Wayne Scott.

Oregon has the next-to-highest minimum wage and has had the highest or second-highest unemployment rate in the nation for more than three years.

"Do the math," Scott said in an interview yesterday.

The Canby Republican has introduced a bill — at the restaurant group's request — to do away with the annual cost-of-living adjustment in the wage floor that was passed by voters in 2002.

Oregon's minimum wage increased to $7.25 an hour on Jan. 1 and is second only to the $7.35 an hour minimum in Washington, which also adjusts the pay floor for cost-of-living changes.

"Unemployment rises when the minimum wage is indexed" to reflect inflation, Scott said.

But the Oregon AFL-CIO, pledging to fight House Bill 2331, says Oregon hospitality-industry employment didn't fall but actually increased in 2003 despite a 40-cent an hour rise in the minimum wage that year.

Seattle Times staff and news services