Woman fatally shot by boy hunting bear

Rockport, Skagit County

A woman hiking on Sauk Mountain near Rockport was shot and killed Saturday morning by a boy who was hunting for a bear, Skagit County deputies said.

The 54-year-old woman, of Oso, Snohomish County, was hiking with a friend and stopped on the trail to put something in her backpack. The boy, who lives near Concrete, mistook the woman for a bear and fired one shot, according to the Skagit County Sheriff's Office.

After being alerted at about 10:30 a.m., search-and-rescue teams found the woman's body in steep terrain. The boy was accompanied by at least one adult, deputies said.

The Skagit County Sheriff's Office and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife are investigating.

Issaquah

Woman arrested in stabbing death

A 19-year-old Issaquah woman was arrested Friday night in the stabbing death of a 21-year-old man.

Issaquah police were called to the emergency room at Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah about 10:20 p.m. when the woman brought the man to the hospital with a serious stab wound in the chest.

The man, whose name was not released, was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he died.

The woman left the hospital before police arrived, but she returned to the apartment she shared with the man, in the 1600 block of Front Street South, while police were investigating, said Issaquah Deputy Chief Steve Cozart. Police arrested her and found a knife and bloody clothing, he said.

The couple have a toddler together; the child is now staying with family members, Cozart said.

The couple have a history of domestic trouble, and police have been called to their apartment twice before, though no arrests were made, Cozart said.

The last homicide in Issaquah was in 2003, he said.

Omak

Wildfire blackens Coulee Dam area

A wildfire has burned more than three square miles of timber and rangeland near Omak, and another fire has blackened nearly twice as much rangeland about five miles west of Coulee Dam, Okanogan County.

Evacuation orders for eight homes outside Omak were lifted Saturday morning. But orders remained in effect for five homes to the southeast near Coulee Dam as winds subsided and National Weather Service forecasters predicted breezes under 10 mph.

Koshare Lomnicki, a spokeswoman at the Omak-area firefighting headquarters, said the burn covered 2,275 acres but did not appear to be growing much. About 250 firefighters were at the scene, and more were on the way.

The Omak-area fire started Thursday afternoon, reportedly in a pump house. The cause remained under investigation.

The fire near Coulee Dam started Friday morning near Highway 174, scorched about 4,000 acres of grass and sagebrush, and continued to threaten high-voltage power lines Saturday morning, said a spokesman for the sheriff's office. The cause remained undetermined.

Bellingham

Slimy nets threaten fishermen's catches

A brown slime attributed to a plankton bloom is coating nets on fishing grounds in the Strait of Georgia, making it nearly impossible for many fishermen to get their share of this year's Fraser River sockeye salmon run.

Gill-net fishermen catch their quarry in long, floating curtains of monofilament that don't work if migrating fish can see them. If the brown stuff doesn't clear out in the weeks ahead, other salmon fisheries may also be affected.

Lummi fishers reported the problem in their favorite waters off Point Roberts. Bellingham gill-netter Charles Brandt said he's heard reports of the brown slime as far south as Salmon Bank, just south of San Juan Island.

There was no immediate information on what kind of organism is causing the problem.

Vancouver, B.C.

Road to Whistler to reopen today

British Columbia experts say the main highway for the 2010 Winter Olympics is set to be reopened today.

Highway 99 between Vancouver and Whistler, the Sea-to-Sky Highway, is being cleared after the collapse of a cliff face late Tuesday. Both lanes of the winding road were buried in rock near Porteau Cove, south of Squamish.

The province's chief engineering technician, Mike Oliver, says road crews are making good progress. He pegs the cost of the work at about $1,000 an hour. Oliver says several hundred tons of the rock will be used at construction sites.

Seattle Times staff and news services