UW reaches $2.5B fundraising target

Seattle

The University of Washington announced Thursday it has hit its latest fundraising target of $2.5 billion — helped in part by an $18 million gift from Paccar.

The Bellevue-based truck manufacturer's recent gift allows the company to have naming rights on a new business-school building.

The UW has five months remaining in its eight-year fundraising campaign. The initial target of $2 billion was raised to $2.5 billion last year. Some of the money raised is earmarked for immediate spending while some is saved.

The UW's total endowment — in effect, the piggy bank — now stands at $2.2 billion.

Redmond

Vehicle rolls, driver drowns

A woman apparently drowned after a car crash between Fall City and Redmond Thursday afternoon.

At 12:10 p.m. a 60-year-old woman driving on Highway 202, near 264th Street, apparently drove her Ford Explorer off the road, said State Patrol Trooper Jeff Merrill. The vehicle rolled over and came to rest in a water-filled ditch.

The victim's name wasn't released Thursday.

Washington, D.C.

McDermott pays more than $64,000

Congressman Jim McDermott has paid more than $64,000 in damages to House Republican leader John Boehner — the first payment in a decadelong dispute over an illegally taped telephone call involving Boehner and other GOP leaders.

The payment, which includes $50,000 in court-ordered punitive damages, $10,000 in statutory damages and $4,169 in interest, is the first of what could be more than more than $850,000 in fines and fees owed by McDermott, D-Seattle.

That's how much Boehner, R-Ohio, says he has paid in legal fees over the course of the 10-year-old case, which stems from a December 1996 telephone call in which Republican leaders discussed an ethics case against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that McDermott acted improperly in giving reporters access to an audiotape given to him by a Florida couple who had recorded the cellphone call on a police radio scanner.

The exact amount McDermott owes in the case is the subject of a separate legal dispute being heard in federal court. A ruling on the fees is expected in the next few weeks.

Washington, D.C.

Internet-gambling tax projected

Congressman Jim McDermott says a tax on Internet gambling could generate $8 billion to $42 billion in revenue in its first 10 years.

The figures come from an analysis prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers that McDermott provided to all members of Congress.

The Seattle Democrat introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act.

McDermott says attempts to ban Internet gambling have been ineffective and his approach would protect consumers and subject the revenue to taxation.

Olympia

4 protesters sue over police action

Four people who protested the war in Iraq last November during military shipments at the Port of Olympia filed claims Thursday against the city of $10.4 million.

Each claimant is seeking damages of $2.6 million for alleged Olympia police brutality because of the use of batons, pepper spray and pepper bullets, lawyers for the four say in a news release.

The four include The Evergreen State College professor Larry Mosqueda, students Daisy Montague and Adam Kohut, and William Hamilton, a Vietnam veteran.

Olympia

State: No need to spray for moths

The state Agriculture Department has concluded there are no reproducing populations of gypsy moths in Washington, so no spraying will be required this year.

The last year no eradication treatment was needed was 2003.

A department entomologist, Jim Marra, says inspectors will put out 25,000 cardboard traps next summer to check for the tree-eating pests.

They'll concentrate where a few of the insects were collected last summer — at Wauna in Pierce County, Birch Bay in Whatcom County and Kent in King County.

Seattle Times staff and wire services