With the 2008 legislative session freeze on fundraising behind her, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire raised twice as much money as GOP challenger Dino Rossi in April.

According to figures provided by the respective campaigns, the Democratic governor raised about $1.3 million in April, while Rossi’s campaign brought in about $625,000 during the same period.

Combined with previously reported contributions, Gregoire has raised about $6 million and has $3.8 million in cash on hand. Rossi’s totals were about $4.4 million raised and about $3 million on hand. Disclosure reports show that Rossi has spent $1.2 million but spending in April was not included.

Detailed public disclosure reports are due next week.

(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Investigators in a preliminary report say a collision between two small planes last week at McCall’s Municipal Airport that killed three people happened while both planes were in flight about 30 feet off the ground.

The report filed on Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board did not place blame on either pilot, who were both in Cessna 172s. The report says the collision happened at the approach end of the runway and that “both airplanes were destroyed in the collision, uncontrolled descent, and postcrash fire.”

Killed were McCall public works Director Bill Keating, 52, and two of his grandsons, ages 1 and 6. A third grandson, age 3, was taken to a Salt Lake hospital for burn treatment.

Justin Mooney, 30, the pilot of the other plane, pulled the 3-year-old from the wreckage. Mooney and his passenger, Mark Fuller, 27, escaped with minor injuries.

(AP)

U. S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, giving the Democratic presidential contender five of Washington’s 17 superdelegates.

Larsen joins fellow Reps. Adam Smith and Brian Baird, Gov. Christine Gregoire, and Democratic National Committee member Pat Notter.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, also has five superdelegates in her corner – Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, Reps. Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee, and King County Executive Ron Sims.

The state’s other seven superdlegates remain undecided. They are Congressman Jim McDermott, former House Speaker Tom Foley, State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz , Vice Chairwoman Eileen Macoll, and Democratic National Committee members Ed Cote, Sharon Mast, and David McDonald.

Attorneys for an Idaho woman convicted of killing her parents when she was just 16 years old told the state Supreme Court on Friday that the verdicts should be overturned, because the judge gave the jury instructions that didn’t match the charging document.

Sarah Johnson was convicted in 2005 of using a .264-caliber rifle to kill her parents at their Bellevue home on Sept. 3, 2003. She was sentenced to two life terms for the murders, plus 15 years for using a rifle.

Her state-appointed appeals attorney told the justices they should vacate Johnson’s convictions partly because prosecutors didn’t include aiding and abetting a murder in their charging document, but jurors were instructed they could find her guilty of the charge.

Under Idaho law, aiding and abetting a murder carries the same penalty as actually committing a murder, and it can be an included charge in a murder case. But Johnson’s attorney said that because her trial lawyers weren’t given notice of aiding and abetting in the formal charging documents, they didn’t know they needed to prepare a defense to the charge.

An Idaho deputy attorney general said the charges of murder and aiding and abetting were interchangeable under Idaho law and that charging a defendant with both for the same crime could violate double jeopardy rules.

The state’s highest court took the matter under advisement. It is not clear when they will issue a ruling on the case.

(AP)

The U.S. Marshals Service says a Washington registered sex offender who disappeared after cutting off his state issued GPS tracking ankle bracelet has turned himself in to police in Camden, Arkansas.

David Torrence, a Level 3 offender, had been released from prison on April 20 after serving a one-year sentence for failing to register as a sex offender. State Department of Corrections officials were unable to find adequate housing for the 43-year-old offender so he was fitted with the tracking device, given a sleeping bag and permitted to live beneath a bridge in Snohomish. His ankle bracelet was found on April 24th at an apartment complex near Lynnwood.

Since the incident, the head of the DOC ordered that victims of sex crimes must be notified when those convicted of attacks remove their GPS tracking device.

Torrence was one of nearly 90 Level 3 sex offenders who had been assigned to GPS monitoring since the program began late last year. Of those offenders, four have removed their ankle bracelets and with Torrence’s apprehension only one, James Murphy, remains on the loose.

The DOC started using GPS tracking late last year in reaction to Gov. Christine Gregoire’s promise to keep people safe from sexual predators.

(Seattle Times)

A federal judge in Boise has denied a motion by Idaho and Washington news organizations to know the results of a recently completed psychological exam of convicted killer Joseph Duncan that was ordered to help decide whether he is competent to act as his own attorney in his federal sentencing hearing.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ruled that with jury selection still going, unsealing the exam results could potentially taint the jury, and that any release of the results could be a violation of Duncan’s privacy rights. Lodge reasoned that Duncan’s fundamental Constitutional rights outweigh the public’s First Amendment right of access. He added that there is no proper alternative than to seal the documents.

Duncan faces life in prison or the death penalty for the 2005 kidnapping and molestation of Shasta and Dylan Groene, and killing of Dylan. The children were kidnapped from their Coeur d’Alene-area home after Duncan murdered three members of their family. He has already pleaded guilty in Idaho state court to the killings of the family members – he was sentenced to life in prison, but Kootenai County prosecutors say they could seek the death penalty depending on the outcome of the federal case.

Jury selection for the federal hearing is on hold until Lodge decides whether to grant Duncan’s request to serve as his own attorney.

Legislation that expands the borders of Idaho’s Minidoka Interment National Monument is now law.

President Bush on Thursday signed into law a larger public lands bill that includes the Minidoka measure, as well as the bill to create Washington’s Wild Sky Wilderness.

Minidoka was one of 10 detention camps in the West and Arkansas that the federal government operated between 1942 and 1946. The camps held thousands of West Coast residents who were deemed a security risk because they had at least 1/16th Japanese ancestry.

The measure, authored by Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig and Rep. Mike Simpson, allows the Minidoka monument to stretch its borders through a series of acquisitions of adjacent public and private land. Backers of the project have identified more than 200 acres to add, an amount that would more than triple the monument’s size.

The legislation also clears the way to allow private groups to raise money for the expansion and pay to refurbish the camp and rebuild a block of barracks.

President Bush on Thursday signed into law a bill to establish the first new wilderness area in Washington state since 1984.

The House gave final approval to the Wild Sky Wilderness bill last month. It designates 167 square miles in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest north of Seattle as federal wilderness, the government’s highest level of protection.

Wild Sky, first introduced in 2002, covers approximately 106,000 acres of low-elevation forest on the west slope of the Cascades. The wilderness designation will block development and other economic activity in a sprawling area north of U.S. Highway 2 that includes habitat for bears, bald eagles and other wildlife, as well as streams, hiking trails and other recreation.

The bill signed on Thursday also designates a site on Bainbridge Island, where hundreds of Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes on the way to internment camps during World War II as a national historic site.

(AP)