• Damon Hunter is a big man with a small bike. The principal of a Federal Way middle school is using his tiny scooter to visit the homes of every one of his Saghalie students.


• It's Semaj Booker who's been in trouble with the law lately, but it's his mother who's becoming the focus of attention in Judge Frank Cuthbertson's courtroom.


• The recent decline in violence in Iraq is good news indeed for troops facing deployment from Fort Lewis and elsewhere. President Bush announced Thursday that future tours of duty will be 12 months, rather than the current 15.

Anti-war protesters are on hand at the Port of Tacoma, eager to speak out against the transit of Stryker combat vehicles and other military gear.

Staffer Ian Demsky called me about 20 minutes ago to report at least seven protesters on hand, but no arrests and no unloading of the military transport ship USNS Brittin as of yet.

One demonstrator was taken into custody earlier in the evening, but he was released without being arrested.

Ian and photographer Drew Perine will be on hand into the early-morning hours to monitor the situation. Should anything unusual happen, we'll post it in our Update section of the home page.

UPDATE: Traffic on the police radio indicates one protester has been arrested for obstruction and two others warned that they were trespassing. Ian Demsky called to confirm the arrest, but said most of the demonstrators seem to have left the area.

• So why did the toad cross the lawn? To get to the underbrush, of course. The real question is, what's so appealing about the underbrush? The annual migration of thousands of tiny Western toads from wetlands to woods is underway at Northwest Trek.


• Just when Tacoma school officials were starting to forget about Charlie Milligan, he's back. The former superintendent is suing the Tacoma School District, claiming it owes him as much as $40,000 because it underpaid the taxes on the settlement he got from the district.


• The new publisher of The Morning Tribune is a familiar face around the community and around the newsroom. Dave Zeeck, the paper's executive editor for the past 14 years, is taking over the job.

• They won't pave paradise or much of anything else in Pierce County this year. An asphalt shortage will force the county to severely restrict road sealing and repairs. Tacoma, which has a different supplier, is in better shape.


• Minor Cudihee was a handsome fellow in his Tacoma Police Department uniform. Now, thanks to the work of a department historian and others, his sacrifice as the first Tacoma officer killed in the line of duty will not been forgotten.


• Most people think "golf course" when they think of Chambers Creek. But parks, for dog and human, are also part of the equation and they're beginning to come on line.

I'm not one to ask for trouble, but I have to say I'm surprised at the lack of outrage over our launch this weekend of an online page listing the salaries of employees who work for the state, the county, the city and public schools statewide. We believe taxpayers should have simple access to this information, but we anticipated some pushback.

Our SoundInfo page (www.thenewstribune.com/soundinfo) offers a portal into other existing databases, including those for property values, high school sports scores and area summer camps.

But the salaries are new, and apparently popular. Since Sunday, we’ve had 14,767 page views to the SoundInfo homepage and the salary databases combined. The school employee database is the most popular with 5,576 page views, followed by City of Tacoma at 3,404 page views.

Several other newspapers across the country have posted public salary databases only to be flooded with calls from public employees unhappy about having their salaries revealed.

When the Minneapolis Star Tribune posted salary databases a week ago, editor Nancy Barnes wrote a column explaining why - that taxpayers had a right to know. Among the comments on her column was this one: "I have several friends who are employed by the state who are incensed at this gross invasion of privacy."

As of this posting, our Reader Representative has had no calls about our salary postings. Neither have I. Not one.

We've had only four comments on a similar column by our editor, Dave Zeeck, including this one: "Bravo! Superb idea, TNT."

Hmm. Maybe ours is simply a more enlightened readership. Or maybe public employees are just now finding the site. We'll keep you posted.

• If you spent time at the McChord Air Base Air Expo over the weekend, you probably felt a lack of elbow room, even in the wide-open spaces on the base. That's because more than 375,000 attended the two-day event, shattering all attendance records.


• Thieves using a "skimmer" device to grab debit card information apparently took dozens of county residents for ride earlier this month.


• David Corner's non-profit organization has supplied donated goods to the needy of several nations. Now Corner's on the receiving end himself.

• Semaj Booker was back in a Pierce County courtroom Thursday, where a judge decided to keep in him detention after his latest scrape with the law. But Judge Frank Cuthbertson saved some of his sharpest questioning for the 11-year-old boy’s mother.


• The Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team was in the air over McChord Air Base Thursday, polishing skills for this weekend's big air show at the base. Massive crowds and fine weather are expected.


• A Special Forces soldier based at Fort Lewis has been killed in Iraq. But this time, it's a vehicle accident, rather than combat, as the pace of fighting continues to decline there.

• The Bush administration confirmed Wednesday that the leaders of three key U.S. allies personally lobbied President Bush over $35 billion contract for U.S. Air Force refueling tankers.

The White House said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had all raised the issue with President Bush.


• Two more Fort Lewis soldiers were awarded the Silver Star Wednesday. Sgt. 1st Class Chad Kite and Staff Sgt. Chris Federmann, both Special Forces soldiers, were awarded the nation's third-highest honor for valor in combat for their actions in Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq, on June 3, 2007. Under intense enemy fire, the two stopped insurgent attackers from overwhelming allied forces who were out searching for an enemy leader.


• State Liquor Control officials say yes to another alcohol impact zone in Tacoma. The zones are intended to fight alcoholism and public drunkenness.

• When Andy Schroeder saw a car veer onto the shoulder of Purdy Road and strike a woman walking along the shoulder, he didn't think, he took action. He pursued the car as it fled from the scene, then called in a location and license number to police, who arrested the driver.


• Sgt. Michael Alexander Espejo Jr. was on duty at FOB Torkham in Afghanistan last year when he spotted something suspicious. It was a suicide bomber, disguised as an Afghan national policeman, and Espejo shot him dead before he could activate his explosives. For his quick thinking and courage, Sgt. Espejo was awarded the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for valor, at Fort Lewis Monday.


• Central Pierce Fire & Rescue had a great idea, loaner lifevests to help boaters and non-swimmers at Spanaway Lake. But they weren't counting on the jerks who have stolen nearly all of the 40 vests purchased for the program.

Thanks to search engines and referring pages, we're seeing some unlikely stories showing up in the daily top ten stories. Among our top stories for the month so far:

#1. Frugality is a virtue, but Postal Service takes it too far (July 2 Dan Voelpel column)

#5. Desire for small cars might carry Chevy Beat from S. Korea to U.S. (July 6 Associated Press brief)

#10. Laid-back bicycling: Recumbent bikes take a casual approach. (June 19 wire feature story.)

In the case of Dan's column, about the Orting Post Office, it apparently showed up on some Post Office related Web sites. The Chevy Beat brief somehow got picked by Yahoo's search engine and is now in the top spot.

Sometimes, we earn clicks from across the world with a compelling story. Other times, it's just luck. Either way, we'll take it.

We had considerable discussion yesterday about how to cover the flap over Miss Washington Elyse Umemoto's "foolish" Internet photos. On one hand, it was a national story (by TMZ standards, anyway) about a local girl and a provocative talker. On the other hand, when we looked at the photos in question, it was hard to work up much outrage/excitement. In retrospect, seems like we played it about right: We centerpieced the story on our Web site yesterday and played it low on today's front page.

Stacey Mulick did a thorough job following up on the $11 million lawsuit settlement in the foster care abuse case. That's a lot of public money and it begs the question of who is being held accountable and what changes have been made to prevent this from happening again.

• The braille translators at the state prison for women at Purdy have some rare skills. But their jobs are not just a way for them to support themselves once they leave prison. The prison’s Braille program is intended to make sure the blind have access to materials they need, from school books to ferry schedules to voters pamphlets.

• The Tacoma and Seattle police departments have already implemented some new policies and procedures in reaction to a lawsuit against the the two departments and a state agency. Allegations about how the departments handled a child abuse report led to the suit, which resulted in an $11 million settlement that was announced Wednesday.

• Pierce County prosecutors filed child abuse charges Wednesday against a 23-year-old man they believe beat and burned the son of a woman who worked for him as a prostitute.

• The athletic director at Puyallup High School violated several district policies, an investigation determined, including one involving an athletic equipment supplier where he hoped to find a job. Now Jeff Kindle will be forced to retire at the end of the year. But until he does, he'll continue to draw his full salary.

• Secretary of Defense Robert Gates continued his visit to Puget Sound military bases Tuesday, getting a first-hand look at several Fort Lewis-based Stryker vehicles.

• A toddler who was the victim of abuse is in a foster home recovering from his injuries, investigators say. And several of those involved in the incident, including the man believed to have hurt the 22-month-old boy, are facing arrest.

TNT photographer Dean Koepfler posted a gallery of photos from Gov. Chris Gregoire's campaign appearance in Tacoma yesterday. The governor spent a couple of hours job-shadowing an in-home health care worker.

Since the photos are elsewhere on our Web site, here's a link to Dean's photos.

As a side note, we got this query today from a Republican activist in Pierce County: "In order to offer balance in your news reporting do you plan to give Dino Rossi the same coverage you gave Governor Gregoire in the article by Niki Sullivan?"

Was Rossi in T-town yesterday cleaning out a bed pan? No? Then I'm not sure how we're supposed to "balance" the story. Our core mission is to cover news in the South Sound (mainly, south King to north Thurston counties). Gregoire came to Tacoma and did something a bit unusual for a governor. That's a news story. Not a big one, but it's a story, which is why we put it on the front of our local section. If Rossi wants to do a job shadow in Pierce County, or do something else that's newsworthy (Tall Ships volunteer?), we'd make an effort to cover it.

Our goal is to cover either of the candidates when they make appearances in Pierce County (we'll also try to have a little coverage of the other eight candidates for governor). In today's media-and-politics climate, I expect we'll get more queries and criticism during the next few months. but keep this in mind: Pierce County is likely to be a battleground in the governor's race. In their 2004 contest, Rossi won it by 4 percentage points. I assume that means we'll have many more stories about Gregoire and Rossi visits to the South Sound between now and Nov. 4.

A final thought (because I can't resist): Darcy Burner's house burned down today. Since Dave Reichert's house is still standing, as far as I know, I don't anticipate "equal coverage" for him today.

Following are notes taken this morning as editors critiqued today's paper:

A1
Tall ships coverage is fun and comprehensive, but we keep learning every day. Tense shifting in Kathleen's blog posts today is a little awkward; starting with the oldest post first not ideal. Could we have just dropped the first post, which seemed dated by this morning? Some transmission problems, too, from the Coast Guard ship. But we love that Kits and Janet are doing this and expect better luck (and more frequent posting) today as they get closer to civilization.

New law roundup worked well as an alternative story form. (That's when we bold-face the first phrase of a paragraph to make the story easier to scan.) The story was tops on the Web this a.m.

Names of swimmers too small in teasers at the top of the page?

Wanted a pix of a lynx, even though a pix of this lynx was not available. (We're talking about the NW Trek animal, not the tall ship of the same name.)

B1
We were generally OK with where Gregoire "bring your governor to work" package landed today. But let's keep asking ourselves about proper play of these campaign stories.

SPORTS
Appreciate playing up the local swimmers at the Olympic trials.

BIZ
Bus driver help-wanted story was appropriate in these troubled economic times. And Russ Carmack only had to walk, like, 500 yards across the street to get the photo.

SL
Pirates were a rip-roaring fun story, with engaging in-your-face photos that are family friendly and appeal to a child's curiosity. (How did "Big Bones" black out his teeth? We use a crumbled Oreo/Super Glue mix in our household.) Some question as to why we didn't make this an A1 teaser.

-- compiled by Matt Misterek, Suburban team leader