Is spring in the air? Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed it, here are some of the top stories of the week:
Hundreds of students protested across Clark County campuses Wednesday, while tens of thousands across the country organized in the wake of continued mass gun violence across the nation.
District officials and parents in the Vancouver, Battle Ground, Evergreen and Camas districts estimate schools had walkouts ranging from a few dozen students to a few hundred students at middle and high schools.
In most cases, students walked out for 17 minutes, one for each person killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School one month earlier. Students at most schools were marked with unexcused absences for the period, a punishment akin to cutting class.
Alex Lovell says he awoke, nearly in a dream state, to his girlfriend of two years striking him in the side of the head with the blunt end of a samurai sword. His survival instincts kicked in, he said, and he was ready: “She woke the dragon.”
“Everything happened so fast,” Lovell wrote Tuesday afternoon in a Facebook message to The Columbian, his first interview with the media since the attack. “I’ve been piecing everything together laying here in this hospital bed for the past week.”
The 29-year-old Camas man suffered extensive injuries, particularly to his limbs, as he tried to fight off his alleged attacker, Emily Javier, 30.
A driver died and two others suffered multiple injuries in a two-vehicle crash northeast of Washougal on Sunday night, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Police and medical crews were called to the 36500 block of Northeast Washougal River Road, about 4 miles northeast of Washougal, around 8:15 p.m. Sunday, according to emergency dispatch logs.
A Hazel Dell cannabis store operating in defiance of the county’s ban on such businesses lost a court battle on Tuesday. But its owner said it will stay open while it takes its case all the way to the state Supreme Court.
The Washington State Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Clark County’s ban on recreational cannabis in unincorporated areas of the county. A challenge to the ban was brought last year by John Larson, the owner of Emerald Enterprises, a recreational marijuana business that operates a store called Sticky’s Pot Shop at 9411 N.E. Highway 99.
A Canby, Ore., woman piloting a small, single-engine airplane was killed when the plane crashed near an airfield south of La Center on Sunday afternoon.
Fire, medical and police personnel were called to Daybreak Field, 4403 N.E. 290th St., shortly after 1 p.m. for a call about a crashing plane.
Clark County Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Dawdy said firefighters arrived to find that the plane, a Piper Super Cub, had crashed into some trees. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office identified the pilot as Mary H. Rosenblum, 65.
