The Bellingham Herald

• Port, city nearing deal on waterfront buildings
  The city and the Port of Bellingham appear to be nearing agreement on waterfront redevelopment issues that have divided them for many months.
  At a joint meeting scheduled for noon Monday, April 20, in City Council chambers, port commissioners and the City Council will discuss what Port Executive Director Jim Darling calls "a proposed planning framework." The framework will be a major step toward completion of a master plan, development regulations, and an agreement on street and bridge connections for 220 mostly idle acres of waterfront property.
  Steve Swan, vice president for University Relations, said Western remains receptive to reusing either the buildings themselves or their materials, but no decisions have been made.
  "We will consider all possibilities, but they have to be financially feasible," Swan said.
  

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• Central sweeps doubleheader
  Pitchers Linse Vlahovich and Lindy Baxter each had complete-game victories as Central Washington University swept Western Washington University, 3-1 and 4-0, in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference softball doubleheader Tuesday at Viking Field on the WWU campus.
  The Vikings fell to 18-18 overall and 14-12 in GNAC play.
  

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• Last-minute taxpayers hit Bellingham library for help
  Eduardo Engelsing, who teaches Latin and Greek at Western Washington University, spent $162 to have his taxes done last year, and that was almost a third of his return.
  "I think it's just wonderful, very humanitarian," said Engelsing, 36, who originally hails from Brazil. "That people are taking their free time to help other people, it's just exemplary."
  

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• County unemployment rates hit 16-year high
  Whatcom County's unemployment rate took another leap in March, reaching the highest level in more than 16 years.
  The local unemployment rate, not seasonably adjusted, hit 9 percent last month, according to the Washington State Employment Security Department. The last time Whatcom County saw 9 percent unemployment was February 1993.
  With the way the jobless rate is trending, Whatcom County should hit double-digit unemployment this year, said Hart Hodges, director for the Center for Economic and Business Research at Western Washington University. He noted that Whatcom County was at this unemployment level in the early 1980s.
  "We've been here before: The question now is how long will it be before we get back to 7 percent," Hodges said. "Back (in the early 1980s), it took a long time before there was a job recovery. Every recession is different, but we need to be thinking about what we can do now that makes sense in the long term."

Seattle P-I.com

• UW to eliminate 1,000 jobs by May 1
  The University of Washington will eliminate about 1,000 employee positions -- including a yet-to-be-determined number of layoffs -- by the beginning of May, the school's president said Tuesday.
  The latest estimate is up from the 600 to 800 job cuts UW officials warned about in February, after Gov. Chris Gregoire released her own budget proposal.

Kitsap Sun

• Get a WSU degree in Bremerton with new Olympic College program
  Qualifying OC students will be guaranteed enrollment in Washington State's online campus program. Olympic College students can now be guaranteed enrollment in Washington State University's online campus program under a new agreement between the two schools.
  OC already has four-year-degree program agreements with Western Washington University and Old Dominion University. But WWU doesn't offer the business degrees (at OC), and Old Dominion is based on the East Coast and doesn't carry the same name recognition locally as WSU.