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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2013)
WWW . THESKANNER . COM N OVEMBER 20, 2013 S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON V OLUME XXXVI, N O . 7 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 New Website Launch BOOK JAM The Skanner News online has a new look, more news By Lisa Loving Of The Skanner News T PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Rajah 11, joined over 30 middle school kids in the annual Reading Marathon at the Rainier Beach Branch Library on Saturday Nov. 16. Middle school kids from Seattle public, private and home schools could read at any of the six participating Seattle Branch Libraries in the 6-hour marathon reading event. Prizes were awarded for each hour completed and a grand prize was given to the students who read for the entire six hours. Insurance Signups Going Great Report shows that young and old are answering the call to enroll By Donna Gordon Blankinship The Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) _ Early sign- ups on Washington’s health care exchange include both young and old, according to data released Friday by state offi- cials. The Washington residents who signed up for health insur- ance during October come from across the state and are also eco- nomically diverse. Most appli- cations have come from one-person households and about 22.6 percent of the enrollees buying private plans were in the 18-to-34-year-old category. More than half are between the ages of 45 and 64, about 19 percent were 35-44 and the rest are under 18. “Young adults are a critical target for us and it is great to see that 6,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 have signed up for health coverage in just the first month,’’ said Michael Marchand, spokesman for the Washington Health Ben- INDEX News ..................2,3,6,8 Calendar ....................2 Opinion .......................4 A&E .............................5 Bids/Classifieds............7 efit Exchange. Only 328 in that age range signed up for private policies. The rest will get free insurance through Medicaid. Marchand said the state will continue to target young adults with some help from local musi- cians, at concert venues and through mobile advertising. Officials from California say most of those who have applied in the state with the largest unin- sured population are older peo- ple with health problems. In Ohio, groups helping people enroll describe the people com- ing to them as mostly older res- idents who lost their jobs during the recession. In Washington in the first month after health care reform launched on Oct. 1, about 57,730 insurance sign-ups were completed. Most of those were for the free insurance offered for low income individuals through Medicaid. But a quarter of the other participants signed up for insurance and paid full price because they did not qualify for See HEALTH on page 3 o mark 38 years of publishing in the Pacific Northwest, The Skanner News has updated our website. Online at www.theskanner.com you will find an expanded calendar, more local news and a photo-oriented layout that makes the site bloom with images. It is best viewed using the Chrome browser. It is more beautiful, more functional and offers more news than ever before, says The Skanner News Publisher Bernie Foster. The goal with the new site is to put more tools into the hands of our readers to, as our mission states, “build a better future now.” We’re very excited about this new site, and after working on it for two years I can appreciate what healthcare.gov is going through,” Foster says. “Ours is not nearly as complex but it is certainly bigger and better than our last site. “The Skanner News built one of the first news websites in our region, and we are still dedicated to using technology to help our readers improve their lives,” Foster said. “We made the extra effort to make it use- ful, fast and powerful – whether you just want to look at our slideshows, see which movies are opening this week or keep up with breaking news.” The Skanner News’ first site was regis- tered in 1995, the first year that commercial ISPs were made generally available, the year that the first Wiki was built, and the same year when the domain name “Yahoo.com” was registered. Also that year, Microsoft promoted Inter- net Explorer 1.0, and Ebay first opened. By contrast, www.oregonlive.com started in 1997 as did www.seattletimes.com; www.willametteweek.com started in late 1998 and www.seattleweekly.com went live in 1999, all according to the Internet archive the Wayback Machine. Web developer Wayne Branch was the See WEBSITE on page 3 Coal Export Plan Proves to be Hot Topic Thousands weigh in with public comments on disputed proposal By Phuong Le The Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — Regulators have received an unprecedented number of pub- lic comments on a disputed proposal to export millions of tons of coal to Asia from a facility along the Columbia River in Washington. The Army Corps of Engineers, Washing- ton’s Ecology Department and Cowlitz County are preparing to sift through more than 163,000 comments to decide which environmental effects should be reviewed. ``This obviously is more comments than we’ve had for most projects we’ve been involved in,’’ said Ecology spokeswoman Linda Kent. ``What I’m hearing is that they haven’t seen this level before.’’ Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview, owned by Ambre Energy Ltd. and Arch Coal Inc., wants to build and operate a $650 million terminal at Longview, Wash., to export coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia. The coal would be carried on trains to the dock, which would ultimately be able to handle 44 metric tons of coal a year. It’s one of three coal-export docks pro- See COAL on page 3
