NCWLIFE Evening News

•The Washington Department of Transportation began repair work on Highway 2 Stevens Pass on Thursday.•Economic development commissioners for Chelan County still plan a vote Tuesday on installing a tax-increment financing district in the Malaga area.•The Wenatchee School District is set to begin a modernization project of the Wenatchee Valley Technical Skills Center next month.

•One of the youth victims of a deadly November auto crash in Wenatchee will be laid to rest tomorrow.•One person is dead and two others injured after a pair of collisions yesterday and this morning on Highway 28.•The state Court of Appeals today overturned the conviction of a Moses Lake man serving 10 years for multiple sex offenses against a child.

•About 11 staff members remain at Holden Village, the Lutheran retreat community above Lake Chelan that was cut off from its only access road by last week’s flooding and landslides.•Eastmont School Board member Jason Heinz was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly assaulting his teenage daughter and stalking his ex-fiancée.•The weather gave the Wenatchee Valley another blast overnight, with gusts up to 61 miles an hour recorded around 4 a.m. today at Pangborn Memorial Airport.

•A drill that struck a two-inch natural gas line caused a major leak into the basement of a longtime Wenatchee apartment complex. The Vradenburg apartments on downtown Yakima Street had to be evacuated just after 2pm today, along with buildings in the vicinity including the Wenatchee Police Department, and the NCWLIFE studios.•Chelan County residents who’ve suffered losses as a result of the recent windstorm and flood are being asked to report the damage to begin the process for financial assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.•Lighthouse Christian Ministries filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Wenatchee today over the closure of its soup kitchen.

•The village of Stehekin is under an evacuation notice as it faces more possible flooding.•That viral photo you saw over the weekend is the real thing. A section of Highway 2 just west of Leavenworth that tumbled into the raging Wenatchee River during Thursday’s flooding.•The city of Leavenworth has begun to restore normalcy after last week’s deluge and windstorm, but similar weather may be yet to come.

•Chelan County has declared a state of emergency in response to damage sustained from the rain and windstorms.•The greater Leavenworth area was still without power this afternoon after widespread power outages followed severe winds and rainfall this week.•Governor Bob Ferguson’s Office announced today that President Donald Trump approved Washington state’s request for federal emergency assistance.

•Eleven thousand Chelan County households were without power this morning and travel through western Chelan County became hazardous in the wake of severe winds and rainfall.•No evacuation notices have been issued related to the area’s floods, and authorities say so far, no serious injuries or fatalities have been reported as a direct result of high waters.•Road closures were declared throughout Chelan County due to high water and falling trees.

•Officials are warning of floods and disruptions as rains continue to fall and river levels rise around the state.•It took a combination of resources to recover the body of an Entiat man missing since December 2nd.•The Cascade School District’s athletic booster club is raising money to support a bus driver injured in a fatal accident while transporting Cascade High School wrestlers to a tournament.

•Police investigating an SUV found in the Columbia River have recovered the body of an Entiat man missing since last week.•The Washington State Patrol is using the DUI arrest of a Cashmere motorist to make a point about driving under the influence.•The Wenatchee School District is preparing to lose more than $2 million dollars in federal funds as it eyes the 2026-2027 budget.

•A pair of auto crashes Saturday morning on Highway 97 and Highway 97A proved fatal for two people and injured six others.•The Wenatchee Valley’s largest healthcare provider has agreed to repay more than $1.8 million dollars to patients whose medical costs should have been covered by charity care.•East Wenatchee police say a man undergoing a mental health crisis fled from them on Friday and took refuge in the Columbia River.

•Authorities have confirmed the name of the 18-year-old driver in the deadly crash two weeks ago that has now killed two East Wenatchee juveniles.•The teacher strike in Moses Lake extended to its fifth day today as the teachers’ union and the Moses Lake School District continue contract negotiations.•An East Wenatchee man is charged with using a juvenile courier to deliver an illegal purchase of Xanax, which may have contributed to the death of its buyer.

•The Wenatchee Police Department has temporarily turned off its Flock Safety cameras, after a Skagit County judge ruled that pictures and information gathered by the license plate readers qualify as public record.•Chelan County authorities today said they’re seeking an Entiat man who’s been missing since Tuesday.•Wildfire smoke filled Wenatchee High School this fall, forcing teachers to move students between classrooms, as the aging HVAC system failed to purify the air.

•Three people with ties to the Wenatchee Valley are charged with acting as drug couriers to bring fentanyl and other illicit substances into the area.•The vote scheduled for next week by the Port of Chelan County to create the proposed Malaga Tax Increment Area has been postponed, following several public meetings where residents and public officials voiced opposition to the project.•President Trump’s Department of Justice is suing the state of Washington over its refusal to turn over personal data contained in the state’s voter records.

•An Ellensburg physician is accused of breaking federal law by falsifying medical exams for commercial drivers license applicants.•The Wenatchee Valley Fire Department is worried the proposed tax-increment finance district in Malaga will cut too deeply into its future revenues, and force unwanted tax increases for fire service.•Travelers on Thursday will have to avoid Blewett Pass if they need to move across the Wenatchee Mountains.

•Police say a Wenatchee motorist sped away from a traffic stop early Sunday and crashed his vehicle into an embankment, injuring a passenger.•Sheriff’s deputies in Douglas county say three men, one of whom was armed with a handgun, forced their way into an East Wenatchee home early Saturday in a domestic violence incident.•Students and teachers in the Moses Lake School District did not return to class today after the district and teachers union failed to reach a contract agreement last week.

•Three Wenatchee Valley residents were hospitalized Tuesday after a three-vehicle accident on snowy Highway 2.•With the holidays approaching, Wenatchee Valley Fire Marshal Kurt Blanchard is reminding residents to stay alert, as colder weather and increased holiday activity raise the risk of fires in the home.•Chelan Valley Hope has launched its annual coat drive and is seeking donations.

•Two of the youth victims in Friday night’s deadly street-racing crash in the north end of Wenatchee have been identified.•A deputy’s efforts to stop a possibly impaired driver led to a police chase Sunday night in Chelan.•State inspectors from the Department of Labor and Industries made unannounced visits to nearly 350 work sites across the state, and four 41 unlicensed contractors on the job, including in Chelan County.

•A 20-year-old man from Lacey accused of shooting and killing two teenage boys in that city was arrested last week in Wenatchee.•One young occupant in a speeding car is dead and two others seriously injured after a head-on two-vehicle crash Friday evening.•An Oregon firefighter on the Lower Sugarloaf Fire in September has now been charged with involvement in three vehicle thefts, including the stolen Jeep in which he traveled to Wenatchee.

•Wenatchee High School students now have another opportunity to earn college credits through the enhanced Accelerated Pathways program.•A judge ruled Thursday that a California man’s statements to highway patrol officers cannot be used as evidence in his trial over a fatal 2022 auto crash.•The Wenatchee City Council approved a $229 million budget for 2026 on Thursday, making it the largest budget the city has adopted.

•Wenatchee Valley College President Faimous Harrison will continue in his position for the next three years.•An East Wenatchee man who made recordings of his sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl must serve 23 years for federal child pornography charges.•Grant County sheriff’s deputies were able to recover a valuable lifesaving tool stolen from a rural fire department.

•A Bridgeport woman who allegedly stabbed a clerk in the face turned herself in to Douglas County authorities on Tuesday.•The operator of one of the Wenatchee Valley’s largest senior living facilities has agreed to a $7 million dollar settlement with the state.•A Wenatchee man was sentenced to federal prison after stealing his brother’s identity to gain a passport for himself, and legal status for a Brazilian national he married using his brother’s name.

•About 200 people crowded into a public meeting Monday on the tax increment finance district proposed for the Malaga area.•The city of Quincy will pay $400,000 to the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and ensure its industrial wastewater treatment facility complies with its permit, as part of a settlement to resolve a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit.•The Chelan-Douglas Child Services Association, which operates the local Head Start programs, is seeking community support to stay operational next month.

•Police say a four-county narcotics investigation titled “Operation Eastbound and Down” netted four arrests and a large quantity of fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs in three cities, including their alleged chief suppliers based in Bridgeport.•The Cascade School District says lead has been detected in several drinking water outlets at different school buildings.•A 16-year-old suspect from Bridgeport has been charged as an adult in last Wednesday’s killing of an East Wenatchee man on Highway 97 north of Orondo.

•The landlord of an East Wenatchee residential complex has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting one of his tenants back in April.•Sheriff’s deputies have released the identity of the man found shot to death Wednesday in a vehicle on the shoulder of Highway 97. •An Ephrata man was killed yesterday afternoon on State Route 28 near Winchester when his vehicle collided with a semi truck and trailer that was attempting to enter the highway.

•Authorities in Douglas County say they’ve arrested a 16-year-old male suspect in Wednesday’s fatal shooting of a motorist on Highway 97 north of Orondo.•A website formed by an anonymous group of faculty and staff is asking the Wenatchee Valley College Board of Trustees to not renew President Faimous Harrison’s contract.•North Central Washington’s two representatives in Congress cast competing votes on the bill to end the federal government shutdown Wednesday.

•Authorities are investigating the case of a motorist found dead this afternoon along Highway 97 in Douglas County.•A 56-year-old man armed with Samurai swords was arrested by the East Cascade SWAT Team on Tuesday after allegedly threatening to QUOTE “blow up” Chelan County sheriff’s deputies.•Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown is demanding the Federal Communications Commission publish a rule to expand emergency alerts to 13 additional languages.

•Wenatchee Valley military veterans and their many supporters marched, rode, and drove the route today along Chelan Avenue, in commemoration of Veterans Day.•The Chelan-Douglas Regional Port Authority plans to hold a public meeting on Monday concerning its proposed Tax Increment Financing district, which it hopes to install in the Malaga area.•Washington’s two U.S. Senators were NOT among the eight who crossed party lines to vote for an end to the 41-day shutdown of the federal government.

•Wenatchee Valley firefighters were called to the Columbia Riverside near the foot of Crawford Avenue on Friday for a campfire that grew out of control.•The Wenatchee Valley honors its veterans tomorrow with its annual parade and related events.•Chelan County commissioners awarded thirty-five tourism-related groups a portion of over $220,000 in grants last week.

•A 35-year-old motorist was arrested Thursday morning after crashing at the Easy Street roundabout, and then fleeing from the scene on foot.•The Wenatchee City Council on Thursday adopted a Criminal Justice Sales Tax, adding a 0.1 percent sales and use tax on business conducted within the city.•A Wenatchee Valley man whose child was exposed to illicit drugs in the family home two years ago was sentenced this week to a year plus one day in jail.

•A judge has blocked Chelan County’s attempt to place a moratorium on new tax-increment financing districts.•A 35-year-old motorist was arrested Thursday morning after crashing at the Easy Street roundabout, and then fleeing from the scene on foot.•Residents in the Lake Wenatchee fire district have succeeded in a lawsuit to overturn the election that approved a $15 million dollar bond issue over the summer.

•A rural highway collision on Tuesday involved a Moses Lake school bus carrying children, but fortunately did not result in any injuries.•The Grant County Jail in Ephrata has become the site of another inmate death, the second one in less than a year.•Federal prosecutors allege that an Omak man downloaded child sexual abuse material to his smartphone on multiple occasions.

•Okanogan County Sheriff Paul Budrow says a single-vehicle crash outside the town of Okanogan proved deadly on Saturday. All told, 11 individuals were in the vehicle when it rolled.•Teachers and staff at the tiny Palisades Elementary School in rural Douglas County discovered a burglary Monday morning.•The Chelan-Douglas Action Council says it began to see some increased need last week as SNAP users prepared for the funding to end.

•A Brewster woman was struck and killed Saturday night on Highway 97, five miles east of her hometown.•Authorities have identified the Wenatchee woman killed last week when her bedroom caught fire.•Community members from the Wenatchee Valley gathered this past weekend at the Wenatchee Valley Museums' Day of the Dead event to celebrate and honor loved ones who’ve died.

•The Wenatchee and East Wenatchee Police Departments have disabled a default setting on their Flock Safety surveillance systems after U.S. Border Patrol was able to access their license plate data without their knowledge.•A sheriff’s deputy’s sense of smell led to an arrest Wednesday in what authorities say was a major Douglas County cannabis operation.•Travelers on Interstate 90 will have to divert throughout the weekend as they approach Cle Elum.

•Washington State’s top cop is calling for a lower standard to measure intoxication among drivers.•Wildfire teams began their last steps this week to wrap up response to the Lower Sugarloaf and Labor Mountain Fires.•Prosecutors on Wednesday withdrew charges against a Wenatchee man accused of hurling three Molotov cocktails in an attack on his former partner and her current boyfriend.

•A Bridgeport woman is dead following a two-car head-on accident Tuesday afternoon on Highway 97, about a mile north of the Beebe Bridge.•The East Wenatchee City Council Tuesday night tabled a resolution to change its banner display policy, following more than an hour of comments from the public in the Eastmont Junior High Auditorium.•An East Wenatchee woman is facing a possible 10-day jail term plus an agreement to repay more than $25,000 after pleading guilty to embezzling from her employer.

•A Wenatchee man faces a likely prison term of almost 10 years after pleading guilty this week to sex crimes against a child.•Warnings about a possible gunfire incident Friday led East Wenatchee police to make three arrests.•The city of Quincy’s $15.7 million dollar plan to build a new aquatic center at East Park is beginning to come together.

•Two separate accidents on Highway 97 near Chelan, happening about three miles apart, sent a combined 10 people to the hospital this weekend.•An estimated 1,500 people were on hand Saturday for Wenatchee’s second No Kings rally of the year, voicing opposition to Trump administration policies on immigration, the environment, the economy and more.•Okanogan County deputies say a man visiting his student girlfriend at Liberty Bell High School in Winthrop brandished a firearm out of his vehicle window last week.

•Two of the dozen men arrested in the Wenatchee Valley in last summer’s Net Nanny sting operation have been charged federally.•The already-historic Hanford Nuclear Site has made history again, turning the first of its deadly radioactive waste into rods of glass for easier storage.•The Eastmont High School Choir is joining the Apollo Club to perform “Firefighter’s Creed,” a choral piece composed by Central Washington University professor Vijay Singh.

•Even as the threat from natural wildfires begins to wind down, prescribed burn operations in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest are set to begin for the season.•Managers on the Lower Sugarloaf Fire issued their final written update today as they put the worst of that wildland blaze behind them.•Fusion energy company Helion has been granted a conditional use permit by Chelan County to begin the next phase of developing the first-ever fusion power plant in Malaga.

•Serve Wenatchee Valley is continuing to ask for the community’s help as it works to reopen.•The former Diamond Company warehouse on Columbia Street near Hale Park is now rubble, after a fire early Monday consumed much of its interior.•For the first time in six weeks, there are no wildfire evacuation notices active in Chelan County.

•A 42-year-old teacher at a Coulee Dam elementary school was arrested Monday as a part of a police operation targeting alleged online predators.•A teenage Moses Lake driver was injured Monday when she allegedly passed through a stop sign at a highway intersection south of Ephrata and was struck from the side.•Fire crews are gaining a tighter and tighter grip on the two large wildfires burning in the vicinity of Wenatchee.

•A warehouse alongside the Wenatchee railroad track was consumed by fire early this morning, and fire officials say they haven’t yet been able to search the structure for anyone who might have been inside.•The cool wet weather and snowfall that closed Blewett Pass for nearly four hours this morning has been good news for those watching the Labor Mountain and Lower Sugarloaf Fires.•The Eastmont parks system is asking for a “levy lid lift” which would allow the parks to take home more property tax revenue, to keep their doors open and their programs operating.

•Three Grant County men are jailed on suspicion of drug crimes after a Moses Lake investigation netted about 25 pounds of illegal drugs.•After more than a month of stress for homeowners around the Lower Sugarloaf Fire, all evacuation alerts around that nearly 43,000-acre wildfire have been lifted.•There was no better time than National Hydrogen Day in the middle of Public Power Week for the Douglas County PUD to cut the ribbon on a project years in the making.

•Containment estimates jumped today on the Lower Sugarloaf Fire, which has menaced Wenatchee and Upper Valley communities since it was sparked by lightning September 1st.•A Wenatchee man arrested back in April for hosing down a car full of people with a fire extinguisher has entered a probation agreement. •Washington Senator Patty Murray held a press conference Wednesday with residents and small business owners in the state who rely on tax credits through the Affordable Care Act to insure themselves or their employees.

•A jury in King County has awarded nearly $17 million to the family of a Wenatchee man who was killed in a 2019 plane crash in Alaska. •Managers on the Lower Sugarloaf Fire say they’re happy with their progress on that 42,000-acre blaze, which is now at 66% containment. •After more than two weeks of detours and closures, drivers can once again use Blewett Pass.

•An early morning flood has temporarily closed the Serve Wenatchee Valley office and Fresh HOPE Market after a waterline broke overnight. •One of the two wildland firefighters accused of traveling to the Lower Sugarloaf fireline in a stolen Jeep has pleaded guilty in the crime.•The Wenatchee School District is preparing to ask voters to approve a $294 million bond to replace Wenatchee High School. District officials say the 1971 building is operating above capacity, and its outdated systems make repairs cost-prohibitive.

•The city of Wenatchee has closed one of its two Safe Park locations, for people living out of their vehicles.•A group of voters are asking a judge to overturn the successful bond issue passed in August to support Lake Wenatchee Fire and Rescue.•Teams controlling the Lower Sugarloaf Fire spent much of Sunday using controlled firing operations to shore up containment.

•The weather outlook tonight has crews at the Lower Sugarloaf Fire on high alert.•The Grant County Sheriff’s Office has identified the employee who was allegedly involved in a domestic violence incident this week.•Governor Bob Ferguson has condemned the sudden termination of more than $1.1 billion dollars in federal funding for Washington clean energy projects.

•The regional port authority says Chelan County overstepped its bounds in setting a moratorium on the creation of new tax-increment finance districts. That’s the assertion in a new lawsuit, just filed in court by the port district.•The Wenatchee man arrested last year after firing off an AR-15 in a dispute with his family has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.•A Grant County sheriff’s employee involved in a domestic violence incident in Soap Lake has been taken off active duty pending an investigation.