“Northwest News: Tacoma contractor sets online trap, gets back stolen power tools; Count continues in undecided Senate ...”

Northwest News: Tacoma contractor sets online trap, gets back stolen power tools; Count continues in undecided Senate ...

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 08:23 AM PST

Published: Monday, November 15, 2010, 8:10 AM Updated: Monday, November 15, 2010, 8:11 AM

Welcome to Monday, readers of Pacific Northwest News!

To get the week started off on a high note, we bring you two worthy stories to peruse.

But first, a reminder of how things work at Northwest News: we scour newspapers, television networks, and online magazines for articles of interest to folks around the Pacific Northwest. Then we collect snippets of articles (below in italics) from our fellow reporters for you to enjoy. Finally, we invite you to A., click the links to read the full stories for yourself and 2., click back to leave your comments and feedback. So click through, read up and then come back and share your thoughts with your community here on OregonLive. Remarks on topic and in good taste are always appreciated.

The first story comes to us from the News Tribune of Tacoma, where a man whose construction trailer was recently burgled got revenge last week when he conducted a Craigslist sting, getting his power tools back and nabbing the sellers in the process.

The contractor told police his mother alerted him to the fact that tools similar to his stolen ones were being sold on Craigslist. The man set up a buy, and at 9 p.m. Thursday met a man and a woman in a parking lot on Tacoma Mall Boulevard to buy a nail gun, police said.

According to court documents, the contractor met a woman in the parking lot and paid $120 for the nail gun, which he recognized as his. The woman took the money, and the contractor looked into the nearby car the woman had come in.

A man was sitting in the car and the contractor also spotted more of his tools, recognizing them by distinctive markings and damage.

The contractor offered to buy more tools and alerted police, who arrested the couple, now facing charges of fencing stolen property.

Bravo, Contractor Dude.

Our second offering comes from Alaska, where the Anchorage Daily News is on top of the on-going count of ballots in the election of its U.S. Senator.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski retained 89 percent of the undisputed write-in votes in Alaska's still-undecided Senate race, as the fifth day of the ballot hand count ended.

Her campaign hoped she'd be able to overtake rival Joe Miller as early as Sunday, but counters got through fewer than 5,000 ballots -- far fewer than they'd been generally averaging since the count began Wednesday.

Murkowski mounted a write-in campaign after losing the GOP primary to Miller. On Sunday, she trailed Miller by 8,820 votes, according to her undisputed tally.

As of Sunday, Miller had collected 87,517 votes; Murkowski had 78,697 undisputed votes.

Check out more news with a Northwest focus:

» Front pages from 18 newspapers in Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Washington and British Columbia.

» More of our headline picks from Northwest news sources.

-- Kimberly A.C. Wilson

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Monday, November 15, 2010