In the Media

Observers said the national GOP tide fizzled in the Evergreen State due to the nature of the local electorate.

“But the Tea Party angst that added on to that elsewhere was nowhere as near pronounced in Washington,” Western Washington University political science professor Todd Donovan said. “It sort of makes sense to see Dems lose seats in Kirkland, Bellevue, Bothell — those are swing areas. But the weak national wave maybe spared some Dem incumbents in other areas.”

Western Washington University students are watching their backs following Monday's botched robbery attempt near campus.

"You have to expect the unexpected," said student Samantha Heim. "You never know when anything can happen, I guess."

At about 4 p.m., police say two men approached a student on a walking trail and demanded his backpack. There was a fight and, at some point, a gun on one of the robbers went off. The bullet grazed the victim's neck and put a hole in his ear.

Detectives suspect the two men may have been involved in another robbery just a few blocks from the trail earlier in the day. In that case, a female student's backpack was stolen.

Noon to 1 p.m., Western Washington University’s Viking Union Multipurpose Room. WWU will host a free Veterans Day ceremony followed by a reception. Featured speakers include WWU President Bruce Shepard, student and WWU Vet Corps Navigator Christopher Brown, WWU Student Veteran’s Coordinator Jordan Linayao and former WWU employee Doris Kent, who is the mother of Cpl. Jonathan Santos, who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2004. Vet Corps will hold a food drive starting Wednesday.

Police are continuing their investigation of a robbery and another attempted robbery Monday, Nov. 8, near Sehome High School and Western Washington University.

The first crime occurred at 9:30 a.m. outside at 25th Street and Taylor Avenue. A woman reported a man robbed her of her backpack at gunpoint. The gunman fled, and the woman was not injured.

In a corner classroom at one of Seattle's lowest-achieving schools, Ms. Coxon has dubbed her fourth-graders the Stanford Class of 2023.

Signs above the classroom door greet her 9- and 10-year-olds as the future students of her beloved alma mater and announce that "The path to college starts now." Her black cap and gown, with its red Stanford sash, hang on a wall inside, not far from where she's stapled a red-and-white Stanford pennant.

It's a little over the top, much like Chrissie Coxon herself, a confident, committed 25-year-old who is cheery but strict, and focuses on building her students' character as well as their academic skill.

Canadians thinking of talking dirty during sex might want to reconsider, given a new study's discovery that prurient language causes people to underestimate how long something lasts.

When researchers displayed taboo sexual words on a computer screen, onlookers consistently misjudged the amount of time that had passed — an effect attributed to the shocking language's capacity to stop them dead in their tracks. Time was perceived by participants to have flown by because their minds were focused on the explicit words as opposed to the ticking of their internal clocks.

You may have heard about the plans to dissolve the Western Washington University music library as a separate entity and absorb it into the Wilson Library, to be serviced by general library staff rather than music specialists. Sadly, it's all too true.

As things stand, a year from today there will no longer be a music library housed in the Performing Arts Center. Yet this proud institution is the crown jewel of the WWU library system, and one of the very top such facilities in the western U.S., a magnet that helps attract top faculty and students to Western's music department.

Bellingham and Western Washington University police surrounded an area near Sehome High School and the university after a botched robbery ended with a gun going off and a man slightly injured Monday afternoon, Nov. 8.

Just after 4 p.m., the man was walking on a trail west of the high school and south of the university, near 23rd Street and Douglas Avenue, when two Asian men in their 20s accosted him.

During an ensuing fight, the victim saw one of his attackers had a handgun. It went off, and the man felt something strike his head, according to police. The suspects fled north on the trail.

Bellingham police are looking for two men they said shot a man during a robbery Monday evening and were involved in an earlier robbery on Monday, police said.

The victim in the later robbery and shooting, a Western Washington University student, was stopped by the two men on a trail near the intersection of 25th Street and Bill McDonald Parkway in Bellingham, police said. The men tried to steal the victim's backpack and some sort of altercation ensued, police said. The victim was shot and a bullet grazed his neck, police said.

Here’s an excerpt from a letter that an indignant father sent to his son after hearing that he had opted for an impractical major:

I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on my way home today. … I am a practical man, and for the life of me I cannot possibly understand why you should wish to speak Greek. With whom will you communicate in Greek?