PERUGIA, Italy Prosecutors on Saturday requested life in prison for an American student and her ex-boyfriend accused in the fatal stabbing of her British roommate during a drug-fueled sex game - charges the U.S. woman dismissed as "pure fantasy."

KENNEWICK, Wash. An eight-week operation headed by the U.S. Attorney's Office has netted 79 arrests in the Yakima and Tri-Cities areas.

YAKIMA, Wash. The boys in the back of the room aren't listening to Bubbly Brittany.

VANCOUVER, Wash. In an effort to drive down costs for the Columbia River Crossing project, engineers have pulled out plans for a quicker connection between Interstate 5 and State Route 500.

SEATTLE The provost at the University of Washington has taken on a second job as a director on the corporate board at Nike.

BELLINGHAM, Wash. An argument escalated into a shooting leaving one man dead, Bellingham police say.

PORTLAND, Ore. The federal judge getting ready to decide whether the government is doing enough to save Columbia River salmon will have a question for its lawyers Monday: If you have plans in your hip pocket in case the fish numbers crash, why not put those plans to work now?

ATLANTA When Liz Fitzgerald realized her son and daughter were forced to read books in math class while the other children caught up, she had them moved into gifted classes at their suburban Atlanta elementary school.

SEATTLE A man was shot and critically injured in a Friday night shooting on Seattle's Capitol Hill.

TACOMA, Wash. The case of five emaciated horses found abandoned in a Pierce County forest has prompted the Humane Society of the United States to offer a $2,500 reward for information leading to arrests and convictions.

SAN DIEGO The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a San Diego County man with securities fraud, saying he targeted Somali immigrants in San Diego and Seattle.

BILLINGS, Mont. A former Billings school bus driver accused of hitting a high school student with the bus while driving drunk will be returned to Montana to face charges.

TACOMA, Wash. A 43-year-old California man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to several bank robberies in Washington state. Robert Vincent Mendez has also been indicted in four other bank robberies in Oregon.

EVERETT, Wash. A Gold Bar-area couple have pleaded guilty to six counts each of felony animal cruelty in the wake of a January raid that rescued more than 150 dogs.

SEATTLE A King County Superior Court judge says Seattle doesn't have to do an environmental review before July Fourth fireworks displays at Gas Works Park.

SEATTLE Gov. Chris Gregoire says the state of Washington is going to wait until the second round to compete for money from a new federal fund for education reform.

COEUR d'ALENE, Idaho The Burlington Northern Santa Fe refueling depot in Huetter is in compliance with local environmental regulations.

SEATTLE The parents of Amanda Knox are so hopeful she'll be freed after her murder trial in Italy they have bought an airplane ticket home to Seattle for their daughter.

OLYMPIA, Wash. Police have identified a suspect in the shooting death of a man whose body was found Monday on a street in Olympia.

CHEHALIS, Wash. A man suspected of shooting another man with a cross bow near Pe Ell (pee-EL') surrendered Friday to Lewis County sheriff's deputies.

FARGO, N.D. A philanthropist and former Microsoft Corp. executive who built a big-time company with small-town people is the recipient of North Dakota's highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider award.

SEATTLE A man who stabbed his girlfriend to death as they rode in a car on Interstate 5 in Seattle has been sentenced to 31 years in prison.

MOXEE, Wash. The off-duty Las Vegas police officer killed in a shootout with intruders in his own garage grew up in Yakima where he graduated in 1997 from Davis High School.

TRI-CITIES, Wash. The Energy Department predicts employment at the Hanford nuclear reservation will peak at 10,800 next year then begin to decline as clean-up work is completed.

KENT, Wash. The King County medical examiner's office says the death of a man at a Boeing facility in Kent was a suicide.

FORT LEWIS, Wash. The Defense Department says a Fort Lewis soldier was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

YAKIMA, Wash. A police officer was knocked unconscious in a struggle with a suspect in a pickup truck that crashed into a parked car in Yakima.

PERUGIA, Italy An American student accused of fatally stabbing her British roommate in Italy had a growing hatred for the victim and killed her in retaliation during a drug-fueled sex game, a prosecutor contended Friday in closing arguments at her murder trial.

NILE, Wash. A gigantic landslide that buried a highway, uprooted homes and rerouted a river in Washington state's Cascade Range left hundreds of smaller victims: fish.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. Work has officially started on building Boeing's $750 million aircraft assembly plant in South Carolina - the largest industrial investment in state history.

SEATTLE The federal Government Accountability Office has denied an appeal of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's decision to move its research fleet from Seattle's Lake Union to Newport, Ore.

VANCOUVER, Wash. A Bonneville Power Administration proposal to build a new high-voltage power line across one of several possible corridors between new substations in Castle Rock, Wash., and Troutdale, Ore., is drawing heated comment.

AUBURN, Wash. The Washington State Patrol says a 19-year-old Auburn woman called 911 to report that she pulled over to the side of a highway because she was "very drunk" and needed a lift from police.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. The Washington state Transportation Department says a 42-year-old employee died Thursday after he was hit by a falling tree limb while working to clear a slide on U.S. Highway 101 near Port Angeles.

SEATTLE Immigration officials say six illegal immigrants have been arrested in Mount Vernon, Wash., after agents descended on a trailer park.

OLYMPIA, Wash. Washington's insurance commissioner says unpaid medical bills in the state will cost about $1 billion a year by 2011.

PORTLAND, Ore. The U.S. House has lent support to efforts to restore a Willamette Valley stream degraded over the years by lightly regulated logging, trashy campers and rowdy partiers.

YAKIMA, Wash. Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences says its president has resigned.

SEATTLE Gov. Chris Gregoire opposes state schools chief Randy Dorn's proposal to delay the requirement for students to pass state math and science tests to graduate, because the economy depends on Washington students leaving high school well trained in both subjects.

BREMERTON, Wash. Bremerton school officials are trying to figure out how the resurfacing of the high school track was botched so badly.

SEATTLE The Coast Guard has suspended its search for a body reportedly seen by two people in the water near the Mukilteo ferry terminal.

SEATTLE Deportations of illegal immigrants with criminal records from Alaska, Oregon, and Washington this past year spiked by nearly 40 percent, while overall removals dropped for the first time in five years, according to new data released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

SEATTLE The Seattle Fire Department says a safety rope helped save the life a window-washer who fell eight stories from a downtown building.

PHILADELPHIA Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia have charged three men with diverting traffic from the Web site of telecom giant Comcast last year.

ARLINGTON, Wash. The Snohomish County sheriff's office says an Arlington burglary victim turned into a homicide suspect when the body of the burglary suspect was found in a field.

SEATTLE Seattle's Swedish Medical Center says it might stop accepting Regence BlueShield - the region's biggest health insurer - as a provider because its reimbursement rates are too low.

WAPATO, Wash. The Yakima County sheriff's office is investigating the killing of a man whose body was found about 1:30 a.m. Thursday in a car at an intersection near Wapato.

SEATTLE Three school districts and a coalition of charter schools have agreed to be test kitchens for some radical ideas for improving teacher quality - from paying new teachers to spend another year practicing before getting their own class to letting student test scores affect teacher pay.

OLYMPIA, Wash. Tax increases probably can't be avoided as the state tries to patch a budget deficit that's ballooned to about $2.6 billion, top Democratic lawmakers said Thursday.

PASCO, Wash. Opponents of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Pasco say they may appeal the city council's decision approving a special permit.