Firefighters are reinforcing their lines at a wildfire in Okanogan County that burned 1,000 acres of sagebrush and threatened a bingo casino, an inn and several homes near Okanogan. Another fire in the county covered about 250 acres and threatened three homes. In Western Washington a fire burned several acres of timber yesterday in Eastern Whatcom County.
    
Arraignment is scheduled today in Kennewick for a 23-year-old woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and cutting out her baby and claiming it as her own. The baby boy was last reported in critical condition at a Spokane hospital. The 27-year-old mother was found stabbed to death Friday night in a Kennewick park.
    
Initiative sponsor Tim Eyman says he has turned in enough signatures to guarantee a spot on the November ballot for his measure to shift some transportation money into an account to relieve traffic congestion. Two other initiatives are expected to make the ballot: the assisted suicide measure and a measure regulating long-term care workers.

Two men accused in the bank robbery and chase that ended in a downtown Seattle shooting both have criminal records. A 50-year-old man who was wounded yesterday in the neck, Douglas Cox, has previous bank robbery convictions and had been released from prison on June 6. The other man under arrest, Kevin Palmer, has previous convictions for theft and possession of stolen property.
         
The military continues to investigate the death of a Lake Stevens Marine whose heart stopped beating while he was exercising in his tent last March at a camp in Africa. An internal investigation by the Marines says Dustin Canham was being punished for throwing a rock, but the exercise routine was not considered hazing.
    
Two Northwest charities, World Vision of Federal Way and Mercy Corps of Portland, are leading relief agencies in sending food aid to North Korea. The agencies also will have 16 workers in the country through the year to monitor the program.

The state Transportation Department has some advice for drivers to help them avoid traffic jams over the Fourth of July weekend. A Web site compares travel times on the busiest highways and suggests the best times to drive:  www.wsdot.wa.gov/Congestion/IndependenceDay

More than 30 tall sailing ships are on display this weekend in Tacoma. They include the three-masted Coast Guard training vessel "Eagle" and the Aberdeen-based "Lady Washington," a replica of one of the first U.S. ships in the Northwest.
    
A stone memorial and plaque will be dedicated Friday in Enumclaw to honor two Fort Lewis pilots and a crew chief who were killed in a helicoptr crash. The Black Hawk was on a night training mission in December of 2006 when it crashed in snowy weather on Mount Peak.
         
Tours start tomorrow at Tacoma's Chinese Reconciliation Park on the waterfront near Old Town. The 4-acre park serves as a cultural and historical reminder of the events in 1885 when a mob drove Chinese immigrants from Tacoma and burned their homes.
         
A citiizens comittee in Seattle has proposed a $140 million levy for the November ballot that would pay for improvements to parks. The city council will discuss the report Monday and hold a hearing on July 10.

As many as 12,000 Starbucks workers could lose their jobs when the company closes 600 stores in the United States because they are not profitable. That's about 7 percent of its worldwide work force. And the 600 stores are about 5 percent of the total number of Starbucks in the United States. The Seattle-based coffee company has more than 16,000 stores around the world.
    
A South Carolina plant that assembles a mid-fuselage section for the Boeing 787 shut down Monday for a day of retraining. The Global Aeronautica plant in Charleston is a 50-50 venture between Boeing and an Italian partner, Alenia Aeronautica. A spokesman says the retraining was ordered to improve procedures to prevent debris from being left in the plane that could rattle or cause damage.

A Port of Seattle report says passenger traffic at Sea-Tac Airport is up more than 7 percent this year, compared to the same time a year ago. More than 12 million passengers traveled through Sea-Tac in the first five months of the year.

SeaPort Airlines has started offering eight round-trips a day between Portland and Boeing Field in Seattle. The plane is a nine-passenger Swiss-built P-12 normally used as a corporate plane. It has no lavatory or flight attendant for the 40-minute flight. The fare is $149 round trip this month as a promotion, then it will be $149 each way.