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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 2013)
WWW . THESKANNER . COM A UGUST 28, 2013 S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON V OLUME XXXV, N O . 47 25 CENTS For The Skanner news alerts Text "NEWS" to 503-715-0890 or scan this QR code C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW Tribe Settles with Feds BIG DAY OF PLAY Yakama Nation sued over DOJ searches on tribal lands PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Isaac, 2, gets fitted for a free bicycle helmet provided by Seattle Children’s Hospital during the Big Day of Play, Saturday, Aug. 24, at Magnuson Park. Seattle Parks and Recreation and many community partners including PCC Natural Markets, CLIF Kid, and Pemco Insurance sponsored the event, which gave children and their parents an opportunity to participate in a huge variety of recreational activities. In addition to soccer, basketball, and football, kids could try water activities like stand up paddle boards and kayaking; play chess on a giant chess board; learn golf from PGA Northwest; and listen to live music performances by Recess Monkey and School of Rock. Computer Games + Math = Fun Revolutionary tools help kids learn algebra and more, faster By Katherine Long The Seattle Times SEATTLE (AP) — Washing- ton teacher Tammie Schrader is so enthusiastic about computer games in education that she thinks they can be used to teach programming skills that lead to college — starting in middle school. Canadian teacher Justin Hol- laday wrote a few simple, tablet-based games to help his students practice math skills, and when they caught on, he started his own company to cre- ate more of them. And the University of Wash- ington’s Zoran Popovic got more than 4,000 Washington students to master linear equa- tions this spring by playing a computer game for just a few hours. The growing availability of inexpensive tablet computers and a new generation of young teachers who grew up playing on a computer has spurred inter- est in games for serious purpos- es. This week, Schrader, INDEX News .....................2,3,6 Calendar ....................2 Opinion .......................4 A&E ..........................2,8 Bids/Classifieds............7 Holladay and Popovic were among those who gathered in Redmond to talk about the future of educational games at a four-day ``Serious Play’’ con- ference at DigiPen Institute of Technology. “Six or seven years ago, sell- ing games to schools was bru- tal,’’ said David Martz, of Muzzy Lane Software, a Boston company that produces games for publishers such as McGraw- Hill. Now, he said, schools are interested in the promise of games — perhaps because gam- ing is so much more main- stream. One of the most successful examples, for adults and stu- dents alike, is the UW Center for Game Science’s Foldit, which challenges users to help uncover the structures of bio- logically important proteins. Players around the world have made a number of important discoveries about the structures of proteins just by playing the game. The UW lab has recently See GAME on page 3 YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to notify Yakama Nation police before executing warrants against tribal members on tribal land. The agreement stems from a Feb. 16, 2011, federal raid on King Mountain Tobac- co, which is owned and operated by a Yaka- ma tribal member in White Swan. Federal authorities took computers and documents from the business without informing tribal leaders and blocked tribal police from entering the property during the raid. The tribe sued the Justice Department a month later for allowing the FBI to execute the raid without notifying tribal authorities. ``It’s historical from the standpoint that there is not another agreement like this with any other tribe and the U.S. Department of Justice,’’ Tribal Council Chairman Harry Smiskin told the Yakima Herald-Republic about Monday’s agreement. The lawsuit also named sheriff’s offices in Yakima and Benton counties and govern- ment agencies in Virginia and Mississippi for participating in the raid. Delbert Wheeler, King Mountain owner, is accused of avoiding state cigarette taxes in those states. He has claimed that ciga- rettes manufactured on tribal land are not subject to federal taxes. Similar agreements were reached with Yakima and Benton counties and Virginia and Mississippi authorities, and the case subsequently was dismissed. Smiskin said the agreements reaffirm the tribe’s self-governance and establish proce- dures for outside agencies seeking to arrest tribal members on tribal land. Benton and Yakima counties have agreed to not only allow a tribal police officer to be present when executing such warrants, but also to book tribal suspects into the tribe’s jail and go through an extradition process. However, those arresting procedures may not apply to federal authorities who often See YAKAMA on page 3 Life Sentence for Bales Angers Afghans Victims brought all the way from Middle East for court case By Gene Johnson The Associated Press JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. (AP) — The villagers traveled near- ly 7,000 miles to learn the fate of the Amer- ican soldier who gunned down their children, siblings and parents, who set their lifeless bodies afire with a kerosene lantern. And when the news came, it came in a sim- ple gesture: a thumb’s up from their inter- preter. A military jury sentenced Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 40, to life in prison without the possibility of release Friday. It was the most severe sentence possible. The villagers expressed gratitude for that, but they were nevertheless deeply unsatisfied that Bales lived at all. ``We wanted this murderer to be execut- ed,’’ said Hajji Mohammad Wazir, who lost 11 family members in the attack by Bales. ``We were brought all the way from Afghanistan to see if justice would be served. Not our way — justice was served the American way.’’ Bales pleaded guilty in June in a deal to avoid the death penalty for his March 11, See BALES on page 3
