Amanda Knox's trial delayed until Jan. 16

Rome

The Italian trial of University of Washington student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend has been delayed until Jan. 16. It had been scheduled to start Dec. 4.

Lawyers said Tuesday that a judge in Perugia ordered the delay to give court officials more time to put together the documentation.

The Seattle woman and the man, Raffaele Sollecito, are accused of killing her housemate, British student Meredith Kercher, in November 2007 in a sexual assault.

The two deny wrongdoing.

Last month, a judge convicted another man, Rudy Hermann Guede, of Ivory Coast, on the same charges and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. He was tried separately under a fast-track procedure.

Bellevue

Bookkeeper arrested in art-gallery theft

A bookkeeper has been arrested in connection with the theft of nearly $100,000 worth of paintings and money from an art gallery over the past several years.

The thefts took place at the Kenneth Behm Galleries, which operated at the Bellevue Square shopping center for 26 years but was sold about 18 months ago.

The galleries then reopened in a commercial building in the 3000 block of Northup Way just north of Highway 520, that had served as a frame shop and warehouse, said the gallery owner, Kenneth Behm.

Suspicions about the thefts first arose in August, said Behm, when GMAC finance called about supposedly delinquent payments. Behm said he was surprised, since he believed all payments had been made.

"That triggered an audit," said Behm, who added that he hired a loss-prevention specialist to review gallery records. That review found about $4,500 in payments hadn't been made to GMAC for a vehicle, he said, but also found about $100,000 in missing money and artwork that had been taken over about six years.

Behm said he then confronted his bookkeeper about the thefts and reported the losses to Bellevue police.

The bookkeeper, 36, of Snohomish, who had worked for Behm since 2000, was arrested Sunday and booked into the King County Jail. He was released after a bail hearing Monday.

The case is being reviewed by detectives and is to be referred to the King County Prosecutor's Office for the filing of charges, said Officer Greg Grannis, Bellevue police spokesman. Behm said that when confronted, the bookkeeper attributed the losses to a need for money arising from events such as a divorce and a family illness. Seattle

Man who killed wife sentenced to 24 years

A Seattle man who fatally shot his estranged wife in Des Moines last year was sentenced Tuesday to about 24 years in prison.

Karl Vance, 46, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Nov. 12.

Monique Vance, 37, was slain on April 27, 2007, as she was running from an apartment. Witnesses reported that she was screaming, "He's trying to kill me."

Vance had been barred through a court order from having any contact with his wife. However, police say she was visiting her husband at his brother's apartment in the 21800 block of 31st Avenue South in Des Moines on the night of the slaying.

Monique Vance was a mother of three who worked as a contractor at T-Mobile. Witnesses told police they heard shots fired shortly after 7 p.m. and saw a woman hobbling down the apartment stairs, screaming for help, with a man following her, firing a handgun. She was found dead across the street.

Seattle

2 arrested in parking pay station theft

Two men were arrested early Tuesday after police found them inside a van hauling a stolen parking pay station.

Seattle police said an anonymous 911 call came in shortly after midnight stating that two men were attempting to steal a parking pay station downtown near Second Avenue and Battery Street by chaining it to a van.

Patrol officers located the van and found a city-owned pay station inside. Officers said the men claimed they had no idea how the pay station got inside the van, nor who owned the van, which later was impounded.

Last week, police reported that six pay stations, which cost the city about $7,000 apiece, were stolen by being ripped out of their concrete and metal mountings beneath the Alaskan Way Viaduct sometime between Oct. 30 and Nov. 12.

Kirkland

Council clears way for revised project

A main intersection in downtown Kirkland could look different in a few months.

Plans by SRM Development for the property at 101 Kirkland Ave. — the Bank of America building — date to September 2007, and have been the subject of months of disputes over building heights and other design features, said Janice Soloff, city senior planner. The disputes eventually led to a King County Superior Court lawsuit and an out-of-court settlement Nov. 4.

That cleared the way for a Nov. 18 City Council resolution approving a revised project, said Soloff.

The revised proposal calls for a stepped-back design, with a two-story height limit along Kirkland Avenue and Lake Street South, rising to five stories farther from the streets, plus 135 underground parking stalls, 66 senior-housing units and an expanded plaza and water feature at the northwest corner of the property, said Soloff.

Work on the project could start by spring, and national financial concerns haven't affected project funding, said Andy Loos, development manager for SRM.

Seattle

2 passenger ferries sold in California

The two passenger-only ferries, the Chinook and Snohomish, have been sold to Golden Gate Ferries in California for $4 million.

The state ferry system had been trying to sell the two boats for months and had no buyers after two attempts on eBay.

Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District negotiated with the state to buy the two ferries.

The San Francisco agency operates ferries between Sausalito and San Francisco, and Larkspur and San Francisco.

The state had been hoping to get $9 million for the two ferries. The Snohomish was used as a backup on the Port Townsend-Keystone route and as a temporary ferry on the Bremerton-Seattle run.

The Chinook has been mothballed at the Eagle Harbor maintenance yard on Bainbridge Island for the past four years after the state pulled out of the Bremerton-Seattle passenger-ferry route four years ago.

Olympia

Election broke turnout record

Washington state's 2008 General Election broke a voter-turnout record that had stood since World War II.

The record fell in election returns certified Tuesday. They showed 84.55 percent of the state's 3.63 million registered voters cast ballots this year. It was the first time more than 3 million voters cast ballots in the state.

The previous record was set in 1944 (84.5395 percent).

Two counties, San Juan and Jefferson, topped 91 percent turnout, and Garfield and Island weren't far from the 90 percent mark. King and Pierce, with some poll-site voting, were at 84 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Turnout in Snohomish County hit 87 percent with more than 324,000 voters returning their ballots.

Aberdeen

Man set on fire dies from wounds

A 41-year-old Aberdeen man who was beaten and set on fire last week has died of his wounds.

Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott says Marlon Lee died Monday night at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

He was found along a road Nov. 18 by a man driving to work and dropped off at Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen. The good Samaritan driver didn't realize the extent of Lee's injuries. He was transferred to the Seattle hospital and never regained consciousness.

Detectives are asking for help from anyone with information about the case.

KXRO radio reports that a man arrested Thursday by U.S. marshals in a fugitive roundup is a person of interest who was seen at a casino with Lee.

Mount Rainier

Highway at Rainier reopened Tuesday

Highway 123 in Mount Rainier National Park reopened Tuesday after crews finish stabilizing the roadway following last week's washouts.

The highway closed on Nov. 13 when a 2 ½-foot rock blocked a 3-foot-wide-pipe. The resulting flooding damaged the underpinnings of the road causing the highway to washout in three places.

The highway stretches from the Cayuse Pass summit in Mount Rainier National Park south to Highway 12 in Lewis County.

The state Department of Transportation closes Cayuse Pass every winter because of high avalanche risk and hazardous-driving conditions. Crews are actively monitoring the weather forecast and expect to close Cayuse Pass in December.

Olympia

Man pleads guilty in 3 boat deaths

A man who was piloting a boat under the influence of alcohol when it overturned in the Nisqually River, killing three people, has pleaded guilty to homicide by watercraft.

Vincent Farler entered the modified guilty plea on Monday in Thurston County Superior Court. Prosecutors say they'll recommend a five-year sentence for the 42-year-old Farler.

Farler's blood-alcohol content was 0.19, more than twice the legal intoxication threshold for operating a boat, when the boat hit a logjam and capsized June 12.

Nine-year-old Cameron McCartney and his 5-year-old brother, Sean, drowned, along with 32-year-old Bryan Pierce. Farler and the boys' mother, Erin McCartney, survived.

None of the five people on board was wearing a life jacket.

Tucson, Ariz.

Man sentenced in traffic wreck

An Arizona man has been sentenced to 36 years in prison for causing a traffic accident that killed two friends from Washington State University and injured 22 other people.

Phillip Musgrove, of Tucson, was found guilty of manslaughter, endangerment and aggravated assault last month.

He was driving his mother's sedan at about 85 mph when he plowed through two lanes of stopped cars and ran a red light in Tucson one year ago. There was no evidence he was drunk or on drugs.

Killed were 24-year-old Craig Gmur, of Seattle, and 21-year-old Thomas Flynn, of Trabuco Canyon, Calif. They were friends from Washington State University.

Juneau, Alaska

Fishing company to pay $450,000 fine

The Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska has agreed to pay $449,700 in fines to settle civil charges that the company interfered with the work of federal fishery observers who monitored the catch aboard a company trawler.

The settlement — announced by NOAA Fisheries Tuesday — covers a series of violations of federal fishery-conservation law that occurred between 2002 and 2004 aboard the Alaska Juris, a company trawler fishing off Alaska. Violations included interfering with observer sampling, fishing in a conservation area and other violations.

The federal observers collect a wealth of biological information that is used by federal fishery officials as they manage the harvests off Alaska, which are the nation's largest.

"Our certified groundfish observers serve a vital role in providing real time data to fisheries managers," said Mike Killary, a NOAA Fisheries special agent involved in the investigation.

In the settlement, the Fishing Company of Alaska and three licensed crew — Leon Duvall, Christian Ralph Thome Jr. and Brian Madruga agreed to pay the fines.

Times staff and news services