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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2011)
www . TheSkANNer . CoM S epTeMBer 7, 2011 S eATTLe , w AShiNgToN V oLuMe XXXiii, N o . 45 25 CeNTS i nSide Family events page 2 Black power Mixtape page 3 Jobs Listings C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow page 3 BumBershoot Bomber’s guilty plea White supremacist court deal wins reduced sentence pHOTO BY SuSan Fried By nicholas K. Geranios The associated press Music Legend Mavis Staples and her band joined hundreds of other musicians, performers, dancers, comedians and artists over the Labor Day weekend at Bumbershoot, North America’s largest urban arts festival. The beautiful weather drew thousands of people to the Seattle Center to hear music and see performances by national and local artists. Back-to-School Shoppers, higher prices Retailers say rising cotton prices are largely to blame for cost hikes By chris levister Special to the nnpa from the Blackvoicenews.com S chool aged kids have made their post Labor Day return to the classroom and the tell-tale signs of rising cotton prices and a sluggish economy are everywhere. “The prices are sky high, and the quality stinks,” says Lisbeth Rose-Scott, a mother of three school children. Tis’ the season of the back-to- school sale, second most impor- tant time on the retailer’s calen- dar after Christmas. Early indi- cations are consumers aren’t buying this year’s bevy of high- er priced merchandise from jeans to pencils. With costs for consumer goods and services from apparel to food and gas on the rise par- ents like Rose-Scott are back- to-school shopping at thrift stores and dusting off hand-me- downs. “I buy nice clothes for the kids at the beginning of the school year and halfway through they’re already worn indeX out. Even their corduroy’s have holes in the knees. I can’t afford to keep throwing money down the drain.” Retail experts say manufactur- ers are “quietly” making clothes that are thinner and made with cheaper quality. Parents know this season bet- ter than anyone. Back to school shopping occurs from July through Labor Day, around the start of fall semester. Adver - tising for this heavy shopping time started earlier, with some stores cranking out ads in mid- June, when some schools were still in session for the spring semester. In August 2010, prime school shopping season, consumers spent a combined $7.4 billion at family clothing stores, accord- ing to the U.S. Census Bureau. Apparel, the season’s top-sell- ing category for school-aged children, is bracing for cotton cost inflation of as much as 20 percent, the first in at least a decade. The recent weeks’ price See priceS on page 3 SpOKane, Wash. (AP) — A man with extensive ties to white supremacists pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges he planted a bomb along a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade route in Spokane, Wash., targeting minorities. Kevin Harpham, 37, reached a deal with federal prosecutors for a recommended sen- tencing range of 27 to 32 years in prison just days before his trial was to begin in U.S. District Court. The pipe bomb was loaded with lead fish- ing weights coated in a chemical, and could have caused mass casualties, prosecutors said. Harpham told U.S. District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush that it took him about a month to build the bomb. He acknowledged placing the device along the parade route in an attempt to commit a hate crime. The backpack bomb was discovered by parade workers and disabled before it could explode. “This community was terrorized on Jan. 17 when this occurred,” U.S. Attorney Mike Ormsby said after the hearing. “Hopefully the healing that needs to occur as a result of this happening can begin.” Harpham acted alone, Ormsby said. “There is no evidence to suggest anyone else was involved in this event,” he said. Ormsby praised the various law enforce- ment agencies that gathered evidence lead- ing to Harpham’s arrest on March 9. There was no particular tip that led officers to Harpham, Ormsby said. Rather, it was evi- dence from the bomb itself, he said. The detonator was a remote car starter purchased over the Internet. The shrapnel that would have maimed victims was lead fishing weights purchased from Walmart. Harpham’s DNA was on the handle of the backpack that held the bomb. After the arrest, officers found deleted photos in a See BOmBer on page 2 Agreement unanimous on County Jail City, county find fnal resolution on avoiding new facility construction News ........................2.3 Calendar ....................2 A&e .............................3 Bids/Classifieds............3 T he Seattle City Council Tuesday unanimously approved an Interlocal Agreement between Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine to use the King County Jail as the primary provider of bed space for the City’s misdemeanor inmates over the next two decades. “Just over a year ago, the City was con- sidering spending $200 million on a new jail. Because we were able to work with King County Executive Dow Constantine to negotiate this agreement, we can focus our scarce public funds on priorities higher than incarceration – creating jobs, supporting our kids and maintaining the human services that people rely on more than ever during these tough economic times. Thank you to Councilmember Tim Burgess for his leader- ship on today’s vote. This is some great news to head into our next budget cycle with,” said Mayor Mike McGinn. In May 2010, the City ended its process of siting a new regional municipal jail for mis- demeanor offenders after receiving a com- mitment from the County to house a certain number of City inmates from 2017 to 2020. The new proposed contract would strength- See jail on page 2
