Washington State

By day, Patti Marcotte is a working mom -- dealing with the balancing act created by a 5-year-old daughter, a demanding job, a split-level house and a willful boxer puppy. Come the post-dinner hour, however, Marcotte begins operating in the shadowy world of smuggled soap.

An oxygen-depleted "dead zone" the size of New Jersey is starving sea life off the coast of Oregon and Washington and likely will appear there each summer as a result of climate change, an Oregon State University researcher said Thursday. The huge area is one of 400 dead zones around the world, most of them caused by fertilizer and sewage dumped into the oceans in river runoff. But the dead zone off the Northwest is one of the few in the world -- and possibly the only one in North America -- that could be impossible to reverse.

Florida versus Texas or USC for this season's national title is no longer the cinch it seemed Saturday when your paper hit pavement. Tim Tebow and/or Colt McCoy for this year's Heisman Trophy also allowed for some rethinking, while opening a lane for speedy California tailback Jahvid Best. He scored one-two-three-four-FIVE touchdowns against Minnesota. And scratch, with the biggest No. 2 pencil you can find, Brigham Young from this year's storybook: No team from a league outside the "power six" has seriously contended for the Bowl Championship Series title and no team is going to do it this season after the Cougars were wiped out at home, 54-28, by Florida State.

USC quarterback Matt Barkley says he is ready to play, pain or no pain. Barkley, who started the first two games and then sat out the loss at Washington because of a bone bruise in his right shoulder, said Tuesday that he was planning to start Saturday night against Washington State at the Coliseum. But Coach Pete Carroll cautioned that he would monitor the freshman's progress before any choice was made between Barkley and Aaron Corp . "It could happen if everything works right," Carroll said of Barkley's starting.

The campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called Sunday for a review of the vote count in this weekend's GOP caucuses in Washington state, saying that Arizona Sen. John McCain was declared the winner prematurely. Ed Rollins, Huckabee's campaign chairman, said in a news release that it was "very unfortunate that the Washington state party chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87% of the vote was counted."

Most boats start out as someone's dream: the tugboat that can be restored and lived on, the fishing boat that represents a chance to make a living on the water. "Men have pipe dreams. They buy a boat at an auction that just needs some work," said harbormaster Robin Leraas, who runs the Westport Marina on Washington's coast. "Then they get the first month's moorage bill, and we don't see them again."

A California gray whale died after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state and then trying to swim out to sea, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah tribe shot and harpooned the whale. Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Hoping to lure disgruntled visitors back to the state's parks, the Washington House of Representatives has voted to repeal a highly unpopular $5 parking fee blamed for driving away millions of people. Democratic House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler said the 3-year-old fee was a failed experiment after nearly a century of free access in Washington. During the first two years, the money was used to whittle away a $350-million maintenance backlog.

Beating drums and deep, resonant chants calling for unity and healing echoed in Washington state's Capitol on Wednesday in remembrance of a 14-year-old Indian boy lynched 122 years ago just across the border in Canada by a Washington Territory mob. The healing circle in the Rotunda followed the presentation of a resolution on the state Senate floor to one of several grand chiefs of the Sto:lo Nation, the Canadian tribe of the slain boy, Louie Sam.

Chinese President Hu Jintao finished up a two-day visit Wednesday to the one state in the U.S. that carries a trade surplus with his country, pointedly talking up the billions of dollars China will spend in coming years on Boeing airplanes, Microsoft software and even Starbucks coffee, all Washington state products.