Michelle Obama will be in Seattle next month to help raise money for Washington Governor Christine Gregoire’s re-election campaign. Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, will headline the July 17 event at WaMu Theater at Qwest Field.

Gregoire faces a potentially tough race against Republican challenger Dino Rossi, who she beat in 2004. She won that race by just 133 votes, following three vote tallies and a failed Republican court challenge.
(AP)

A King County judge has upheld Washington’s law making it illegal to play poker for money online.

A Seattle-area attorney and poker aficionado had filed a lawsuit last year challenging the state’s right to regulate international online gambling. A 2006 revision to a state statute added online gambling to the list of electronically transferred gambling activities banned in the state.

The lawsuit claimed the state has no jurisdiction over online gaming, which takes place among individuals from around the world and through companies typically located overseas.

However, King County Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts said it was not proven that the state law unfairly protected gambling interests inside the state at the expense of interests outside the state, adding that the state’s historically strict prohibition on gambling influenced her ruling.

The plaintiff says he may press forward to the state Supreme Court if necessary.

Online gambling is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000 - no cases have been prosecuted.

(Seattle Times)

Cleaners began blasting Seattle’s Space Needle with hot water and high pressure hoses on Thursday as they demonstrated how they’ll give the structure what is billed as its first deep external cleaning since it opened in 1962 for the World’s Fair.

German-based cleaning company Karcher will spend five to eight weeks removing decades of accumulated pollution, bird droppings and dirt. Karcher cleaners plan to use a rope-access method and rappel down the 605-foot-tall tower rather than build scaffolding.

Karcher has also cleaned Mount Rushmore and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.

(Seattle Times)