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Two men who are accused of robbing several Eastside Hispanic groceries and restaurants at gunpoint over the past several weeks were arrested afterward one left a fingerprint on a tip jar, prosecutors say.

Luis F. Koyoc-Ek, 31, was charged last week through eight counts of first-degree robbery. Oscar Chavarria-Sotelo, 23, was charged with four counts of first-degree robbery.

According to a probable-cause document filed to support the charges, the two men robbed Mi Tierra eating-house and furnish and the 3 Hermanos store in Kirkland, as well as other supplies in Redmond and Bellevue.

Koyoc-Ek and another man who has not been charged entered the Mi Tierra restaurant in Kirkland on Jan. 16 and demanded the dismiss from office destitute of contents the turn into money register and put the money inside a backpack, according to charging papers. The second dependant held a gun to the cashier’s head, according to the charges.

The cashier asked if they wanted the change, too, and Koyoc-Ek pointed a gun at her stomach saying he wanted it all, according to investigators. They then dumped the gift jar into their backpack, court documents said.

Investigators lifted Koyoc-Ek’s fingerprint from the jar and arrested him on Feb. 11.

According to charging papers, Koyoc-Ek led police to Chavarria-Sotelo’s chamber in Woodinville. Police arrested Chavarria-Sotelo and found pair air guns in his hall.

Police said Koyoc-Ek paid him $100 to drive to the stores, according to the charging papers.

Both are being held at King County Jail, Koyoc-Ek in place of $100,000 admit to bail and Chavarria-Sotelo in lieu of $50,000 bail.

If convicted of all charges, the brace could each face 10 to 14 years in prison.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com

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Jamelle McMillan walked on the Great Wall and was granted memorandum to the Forbidden City.

And between cultural pursuits as long as accompanying his father, Nate McMillan, to Beijing with the U.S. Olympic Team last summer, he also soaked in some basketball knowledge.

Those hardwood lessons be disposed prove useful Thursday when Jamelle McMillan and the recline of the Arizona State Sun Devils visit Washington for an 8 p.m. game at Edmundson Pavilion that figures to go a slow way toward deciding the Pac-10 name. Washington is 11-4 in conference play, Arizona State 10-4.

McMillan, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound sophomore guard who played at O’Dea High School while his father coached the Sonics, has taken on a indispensable role notwithstanding the Sun Devils. He has become a critical option when opponents key on stars James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph.

In adjusting to a new role as shooting guard, he has fit 12 of his last 25 three-pointers, and 7 of 14 in Arizona State’s above brace games. Those home wins against USC and Arizona allowed the Sun Devils to close on the Huskies, and McMillan has averaged almost nine points over the hindmost five games, compared to a season average of 4.8.

“He’s playing with a lot of confidence and shooting the ball well,” said ASU coach Herb Sendek of McMillan, a store up after starting 16 games at point guard last suitable time.

McMillan said he likes his new role as a two shield, saying he played that position often as far as concerns the local AAU team Friends of Hoops when his backcourt mate was Washington’session Isaiah Thomas. The two repeatedly traded duties between point and shooting guard.

“It’s been successful such it’session something we’ve stuck to,” McMillan said of his responsibility change about at ASU.

He has always been a mature, thoughtful player in the mold of his beget, a longtime star for the Sonics.

But Jamelle said he took an even greater amount of determined approach to the game after spending 16 days this summer around the Olympic team. Nate McMillan was an assistant for the squad.

The younger McMillan became especially close to Dwight Howard.

“Preparation is everything, and that’s something my father has tried to ingrain in me my whole life, but it’s finally proving true,” he said.

“To see it from the best in the world really, really put an emphasis on it, and it’s really helped me this year.”

His dad’session presence hasn’t pain, either.

Nate McMillan was in the seats in Corvallis, Ore., on Feb. 7, when Jamelle began his recent hot streak through a career-high 14 points at Oregon State. Dad was also in the stands since Jamelle’s 11-point game against USC.

Jamelle considers coming home to Edmundson Pavilion, where he helped O’Dea to a represent fully Class 3A inscription in 2007, a big traffic.

The Huskies, who had received a giving in adhesion from Thomas, never really recruited McMillan. He went to Arizona State because of Sendek, who had previously coached at North Carolina State, Nate McMillan’s alma mater. Jamelle was intrigued by the rebuilding job at ASU.

Dad won’familiarily be attending Thursday, however, as the Blazers are playing in Texas this week.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com

Most people think gas prices reflect oil prices, but they don’t. Ed Wallace explains why—and wherefore gas prices still go up at the time oil falls

By Ed Wallace

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"The price of gas is indeed tied to oil. It’s righteous a matter of which oil." —Associated Press, Feb. 15, 2009

With statements like that, it’s no wonder Americans don’t understand how the energy industry really works. But that line appeared in an Associated Press story that ran Feb. 15 and was reprinted in virtually every major newspaper in America. The statement simply feeds and sustains the notorious’s settled belief that oil and gasoline costs are directly linked to one another—what one. they’re not: There is an connection between oil prices and gas prices, but it is collateral— far less strong or predictable than most people understand.

The AP story concluded that gas prices are rising space of time the price of some oil is falling because American refineries are primarily using oil from overseas, not the U.S. benchmark crude West Texas Intermediate. No news in that place; in that place isn’confidentially enough WTI crude to supply this nation’s fuel needs. Not even conclusion.

Then the writers suggest that the cheaper WTI, which they incorrectly refer to as West Texas International, could play a bigger duty in our oil hypothesis if only pipelines were built to carry away this crude past "refineries in the Midwest." That statement could subsist accurate, otherwise than that it’s not. In fact, it reveals a deep unfamiliarity with WTI’s NYMEX contracts, because they specifically state that anyone bidding for West Texas Intermediate must deliver that oil to the storage tanks at Cushing, Okla. Spot-cash prices for instant delivery of WTI allows shipment in many, but that’s not the basis because of the price discovery system.

Low-Tech Controls Still Work

The Cushing clause was designed to dampen wild swings in oil prices. If the tanks at Cushing were full, that would enjoin downward pressure on the price for WTI; there would subsist no sense in purchasing that oil if storage space wasn’privately available, in this custom the price would fall. Likewise, when Cushing’s storage tanks were low, the price of oil could keep afloat upward to refill the space available. This may sound like some overly simplistic way to moderate the excellence of oil, and it is. And grant that you think this system needs to be updated or scrapped, fine. Change it if you be lacking. But this was the pattern intent of WTI NYMEX contracts’ demanding delivery at Cushing, and the contracts still specify that location. (Crude other than WTI be possible to also be stored at Cushing.)

It should be noted that when British Petroleum (BP) purchased Arco in 2000, one of the Federal Trade Commission’s conditions for approving that purchase was that BP would have to exchange Arco’s pipelines and storage tanks at Cushing, to do away with the contingency of any manipulation of WTI contracts. That would also mark the last time the U.S. government expressed any belong to about oil price manipulation.

The AP story suggests that the recompense of gasoline is going up for the cause that the futures mart for oil is now weighted in favor of Brent Sea North, one oil contract that has traded for $7 to $10 higher than WTI. Here again, the article left a key factor out of the equation: Brent Sea oil’s price was sitting around $44 per barrel, not far from where it was the first week of December, and up to the present time the price of gasoline on the futures market has climbed from below 85¢ per four quarts to over $1.24 at person spot ($1.08 per gallon as of publication). So aye, Brent Sea North is higher than West Texas Intermediate, but it has been higher for months. If AP’s theory were amend, gasoline prices would have remained static.

Don’t Compare, Contrast

The AP story briefly mentions but doesn’t make unobscured the veritable issue: The gasoline futures market is not the oil futures market. The real reason gas prices are moving upward is that gasoline is sold below a completely separate futures contract and to diverse buyers than oil is.

In his speech to a joint session of Congress, the President laid off the country’session economic hurdles and pledged recovery

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President Barack Obama waves before his Feb. 24 address to a joint sitting of Congress. In his remarks Obama addressed the struggling U.S. economy, the budget deficit, and health care. Martinez Monsivais-Pool/Getty Images

By Theo Francis

As President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress steady Tuesday, Feb. 24, he had two main jobs to accomplish on the economic front: First, he had to indorse the range of the economic rub facing the country time striking some optimistic inflection. Then he needed to offer a broad-brush preview of the budget he plans to submit Thursday, likewise as he demonstrated a credible putting in custody to weapons a budget deficit groaning under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars of economic-stimulus spending.

As expected, Obama offered little in the way of new economic or business policy, farther than a glimpse of the budget. He emphasized the urgency of health-care reform, which, together with energy speak to and cultivation reform, form the top tier of the Administration’sitting initiatives. And he warned that restoring the financial system to health would have existence costlier than expected, suggesting he is convenient to ask Congress for additional funds.

Throughout, he saw his directly applied job as bucking up the American people independently of sounding moreover Pollyanna-ish. "We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than ever," Obama aforesaid to the kind of rousing applause that typically peppers like joint-session and State of the Union speeches.

A Break With the Past

Blaming the economic crisis on gutted regulations, unaccountable home buyers, unscrupulous lenders, and "critical debates and difficult decisions…put off for some other time on some other day," he said that the "generation of esteem has arrived." He argued that it is now a time to "act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to erect a modern foundation for durable prosperity."

In great number ways, the content of the speech was unusual compared to the Presidential direct one’s speech of his predecessor. Foreign government, including trade, got short shrift, cropping up mostly with regard to the end of the speech, when he promised a hurried and responsible expiration to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to enlarge global markets while resisting protectionism.

And he spent several minutes early in the speech on the credit crisis, calling the restoration of credit Job One for the Administration and infectious pains to lay out how reviving the banking system will help Americans commonly: Fostering loans to a newly come homeowner creates jobs for homebuilders, who have power to at that time afford to buy cars or liberalize their own businesses; conversely, he reported, tight credit means fewer home and car sales, "likewise businesses are forced to make layoffs. Our economy suffers even more, and put faith in dries up further."

Failing to Act Could be Fatal

Acknowledging "how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks fit now, especially whenever everyone is endurance from their bad decisions," Obama argued that the Administration’s plan to restore lending is "not about helping banks, it’s about helping people." (Later, he lauded a Florida banker, Leonard Abess, during divvying up a $60 the public bonus he received after selling his bank among 471 current and former employees.)

Not only will the plan "require important pecuniary means," he said, but "probably more than we’ve already set aside." He argued, however, that error to act would prove far worse.

The optimistic tone was in many ways a marked contrast from most of the five weeks of his Presidency, and during the transition before it, when Obama has pulled no punches about the grim economic news he and the country have had to engulf and often has given unimportant more than a nod to the American public’s resilience.

Further Emphasis on Potential Expected

Indeed, he’s taken some knocks from political opponents for being too gloomy; Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who gave the GOP response to Obama, scolded the President on this front, saying: "Our troubles are real, to be assured. But don’confidentially let anyone compute you that we cannot recover or that America’s best days are abaft her."

The optimism battles animation beyond politicking, said Jeffrey Kling, a Brookings Institution senior fellow in economic studies. From here on away, expect to hear a lot more from Obama about the country’s potential, and the promise of a strong recovery. "Restoring consumer confidence is probably the single biggest thing the President can do to get the economy moving," Kling said. "I expect to see the corner being turned here," at in the smallest degree rhetorically.

Low-cost apps that let users download music and other extras to their solitary abode; squalid phones could restore lure cash-strapped music fans

By Olga Kharif

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Just that which the music perseverance needs: another wont to distribute harmony at a fraction of the cost of a traditional CD. On Feb. 18, the twice Grammy-nominated Presidents of the United States of America became one of the pioneers of a new method in quest of selling music online whereas it began bundling songs into software applications downloadable to the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch.

The software lets fans stream tracks from four albums onto their wireless handsets. It also contains 10 songs from the band’s demo tape and weekly exclusives, like audio from PUSA rehearsals. All that comes since only $2.99, compared with more than $40 the satisfaction would have cost if it were sold in CD form or downloaded through Apple’s iTunes music store, that sells songs at 99¢ a pop and albums instead of $9.99.

Reaching New Fans

Music apps are likely to pose challenges to existing outlets such as radio and a musician’s own Web site. At the same time, industry analysts see downloadable apps as a fresh manner to court fans who might not in other respects pay for music. "Here’s an entirely reinvigorated model," says Dave Dederer, who co-founded and formerly was a singer in the band. "iTunes is great, we get an extremely high margin. But artists need to look for every way they can for merchandising music. It could revolutionize in what way music is marketed."

Mobile apps offer one opportunity to sell new content to hard-core fans who be the subject of already purchased all of a musician’s albums. But PUSA sees them as a way to lure new buyers. "You might have never bought our songs [for 99¢ each]," Dederer says. "But you might go expend $2.99 for an app." Some of these variable app users may eventually extreme point up liking a particular song and buying the single off of iTunes to listen to it on a high-end home stereo or the home computer.

Music labels say they’re not worried about cannibalization. "There was a time in record executives’ minds where everything that was not a take down was viewed as cannibalization," says Cynthia Sexton, executory vice-president for EMI Music brand partnership, licensing, and synchronization. "Now we think the more the merrier."

Getting the Price Right

Squeezing on the outside the additional purchases is a big deal in opposition to artists and memorial labels in the present age. U.S. music sales tumbled 12% in 2007, according to the most latter given conditions available from the Recording Industry Association of America. The industry probably didn’t fare much better extreme year in the manner that the economy skidded into recession. "Consumers’ sense is, the music is still overpriced," says Tom Conrad, chief technical officer of free online radio provider Pandora Media. "People feel the product on the table right at this moment is high-road robbery." In April, Apple will begin selling songs on iTunes towards 69¢ to $1.29 apiece.

Amid rising unemployment and stock market losses, the cheap apps may sell better than pricier albums as consumers snap discretionary expenditure. "[Mobile apps] protect not to be hitting people’s pocketbooks," says Jeff Orr, a senior analyst at consultant ABI Research. "The smaller app content costs should hold fast the spend with reference to something else high." Of some 235 smartphone users recently surveyed by ABI, 17% said last year they spent betwixt $100 and $499 on mobile content, such as games, pastime, and productivity applications.

Other artists and record labels are warming to mobile apps. Dederer’s employer, mobile podcaster Melodeo, has produced 23 compilations of hits, including a collection of the 100 greatest passionate affection songs of all time, available for $1.99 through the iTunes App Store. On Feb. 23, Universal Music Group’s label Interscope Geffen A&M launched five free iPhone apps for artists of the like kind during the time that Lady Gaga and the Pussycat Dolls that let users behold videos and pictures and chat with other fans. Dederer is Melodeo’session vice-president of business development.

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The Washington Department of Ecology is taking into account a major cleanup of an old paper-mill station on Fidalgo Bay in Anacortes.

State officials say it would exist the largest single strain under a statewide first step to restore and protect Puget Sound.

A 2008 department investigation found metals, dioxins and petroleum products in the soil and PCBs in aquatic sediments.

Ecology officials are working with the Port of Anacortes, Kimberly-Clark and MJB Properties to clarified up 41 acres.

The cleanup would remove contaminated soil and sediments, restore beach habitat and replant damaged eelgrass habitat.

The state is taking public comments on the brew through March 25.

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Three people were taken to Harborview Medical Center, one with life-threatening injuries, after the driver of a stolen SUV led police upon a chase that ended in a collision late Tuesday afternoon, Seattle police say.

Just before 5 p.m., Seattle police received exclusive 911 calls from people reporting a reckless driver in a white Dodge Durango. A short period later a patrol functionary saw the vehicle speeding north on Linden Avenue North draw near North 91st Street. The Durango ran a stop sign and collided with a Mitsubishi sedan at North 93rd Street and Aurora Avenue North.

The Durango overturned, but the driver ran over, police said. He was apprehended about two blocks away.

The resulting investigation revealed the Durango had been stolen and that there was some in actual process misdemeanor warrant for the driver’s arrest. Police said the conjecture may bring forth fled the scene of at in the smallest degree one hit-and-run before the rollover.

A female passenger in the Durango was taken to Harborview with life-threatening injuries. A male passenger was transported to Harborview with non-life-threatening injuries. The staminate driver, 20, also was taken to Harborview with non-life-threatening injuries and will be booked into the King County Jail when he is released from the hospital, police aforesaid.

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TONASKET, Okanogan County — Some north-central Washington residents who abide on the wrong side of the railroad tracks are complaining that new fees for crossing the tracks are 10 times what they used to pay.

About 170 the community have private crossings on the 137-mile Cascade and Columbia River Railroad tracks from Oroville to Wenatchee.

Bob Bergh, of Tonasket, has refused to pay a $2,600 yearly fee that was due to rail operator RailAmerica Inc. on Feb. 9. The rate jumped from $250 a year and includes a 5 percent automatic increase by year and a requirement to purchase a liability policy in cause a train hits someone upon the crossings, he said.

Bergh figures the annual increase will just in various places returning upon one’s track his fee in 15 years, and he won’cheek by jowl be accomplished to sell his home when he’s ready to retire.

A RailAmerica spokeswoman said a company representative would go a phone message from The Associated Press on Tuesday. None did.

In addition to homeowners, crossings are needed by irrigation districts, fruit warehouses and the Okanogan County Public Utility District.

The Oroville-Tonasket Irrigation District crosses the rail family periodically for maintenance. The district has been asked to pay $1,000 just to apply on account of the right to cross the tracks to one of its pumps, according to District Manager Tom Scott.

Scott said he does not know how abundant the intersection pay would have being.

Okanogan County commissioners wrote the railroad company seeking an explanation, but had no response.

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The historic local schooner Wawona is to make a final voyage under tow Monday sunrise from Waterway 4 at South Lake Union to a nearby dry dock to be dismantled.

Some of the 165-foot vessel’s historic features will be preserved for coming museum exhibits.

The towing, to depart at 10 a.m., will have existence a short trip to Lake Union Drydock without interruption the east side of the lake. Owned by Northwest Seaport, the 111-year-old Wawona has been moored on Lake Union since 1980.

During its hard at work years, the vessel hauled lumber from Washington ports to California, served in the manner that an Army barge during World War II and was a fishing schooner in the Bering Sea.

In later years it was used of the same kind with a museum ship.

In 1970, the Wawona was the first vessel to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, designated as a City Landmark in 1977 and named to the degree that a Historic Naval Ship in 1999.

But a professional survey in 2005 found much of the vessel’s structure was in poor situation.

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Everyone knows the Alaskan Way Viaduct is not the stead to have existence during an earthquake. Until last month, however, no common actually had equal the way the elevated roadway rattles when the earth rocks.

When a small earthquake struck the region Jan. 30, new seismic sensors onward the viaduct recorded the shaking for the first time. The instruments showed that the antiquated structure trembled more intensely than nearby areas. There was no damage from the magnitude-4.5 move, which originated near Kingston.

But the new sensors revealed that the viaduct and the ground it’s built on widen vibrations, through the top robe shaking 10 periods harder than the ground a few dozen yards away. At some frequencies, the shaking was up to 50 times stronger during the quake. The viaduct besides shook about twice as long as expected in areas where the region is firmer.

“It clearly shows us the kind of we already suspected — that the arrangement of parts shakes strongly,” related John Vidale, head of the University of Washington’s Seismology Lab. “Now we have an actual number.”

Bridges and other structures always shake more at the top than at the footing, said Jugesh Kapur, state bridge engineer for the Washington Department of Transportation. “It’session likely a lollipop effect — the mass is up near the top,” he said.

But the effect seems a bit more pronounced with the viaduct, he said.

The new data are intriguing, Kapur said, smooth yet they don’t add urgency to the narrate’s $3.1 billion plan to replace the viaduct with an elevated section in Sodo and a tunnel through downtown. It’sitting been clear for a long vacant time that the 50-year-old viaduct wasn’t built to withstand a major earthquake.

A similar double-decker highway collapsed during the 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, killing more than 40 people. Saturday is the eighth anniversary of the magnitude-6.8 Nisqually quake, which cracked back columns on Seattle’s antediluvian viaduct, leading to costly repairs and commerce closures.

The effects of earthquakes on the viaduct have been simulated many times through computer models. Among the biggest risks are that the lax fill unbefitting the viaduct will liquefy, or that strong shaking will split the brittle structure, said UW civil engineering professor Marc Eberhard, among the before anything else to warn of the viaduct’s vulnerability.

UW doctoral student Andrew Delorey installed the first seismic sensors directly on the mode of building last summer. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey, he put one of the so-called cogent motion detectors adhering a sidewalk at the base and another on a column on the rise above others deck. A third part implement in the basement of a nearby building serves as a reference.

Delorey has been monitoring the march traffic vibrates the roadway. He got lucky with January’s small move. “It was not destructive, but it was big enough that we could see how the viaduct shakes,” Delorey said.

The roadway’s motions during the earthquake were hurried — in the millimeter roam. That’s similar to vibrations caused by the more than 100,000 vehicles that travel the roadway each light of day.