What will will the weather throw at us this weekend? Find out with our local weather coverage.
Here are some of the stories that grabbed readers’ attention this week.
Despite looming layoffs, the local head of the union representing papermakers in Camas is hopeful they will land on their feet.
The state Employment Security Department announced Wednesday that the mill will officially begin laying off employees May 1. Mill owner Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, first announced the layoffs in November but hadn’t said when they would happen.
The Atlanta, Ga.-based company plans to shut down its communications paper division — paper for printers, copiers and the like — for which demand has reportedly dropped. The mill’s paper towel manufacturing will continue.
After months of growing exasperation, an “innocent event apparently broke the dam of frustration” that led Ricardo Gutierrez Jr. to kill his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son, a judge said Thursday.
Clark County Superior Court Judge Robert Lewis found Gutierrez, 41, guilty of first-degree murder in the beating death of Jose “Pepe” Castillo-Cisneros, with an aggravating factor that Pepe was a particularly vulnerable victim. The finding allows for a longer-than-normal sentence if the judge sees fit.
Fossil fuel opponents rallied through a rainy afternoon on the porch of the Slocum House in Esther Short Park on Monday, celebrating Gov. Jay Inslee’s decision to reject Vancouver Energy’s proposal to build the nation’s largest crude-by-rail oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver.
“The rain’s not going to stop us, but we are going to stop an oil terminal,” Vancouver City Councilor Bart Hansen told a small but enthusiastic audience. “Thank you for doing what you do. This proves nothing is bigger than the people who want to be a part of it — in this case, it’s the people who want to stop it.”
Gifford Pinchot National Forest — At around 80 degrees, it’s fairly mild for a mid-August day, but I’m sweating as if it were 110, partially from the layers of winter clothes I’m wearing beneath my waterproof pants and jacket, but also from the panic I’m working hard to suppress.
Salvation and anxiety lie below the surface, down an 11 millimeter rope into the dank, muddy darkness of a cave system where the earth has blistered for hundreds of feet and the temperature hovers just above freezing.
Entering Wolff’s Pit, the uppermost portion of this cave system, requires clipping onto a rope and backing into a small pit, then wiggling — feet first — into a hole in the ground that’s a little wider than a kitchen trash can. Forget about wearing a backpack — it must dangle from a strap between my legs.
