Yukon Band B

SPOKANE - A Republican state legislator from Southwest Washington was the target of an extortion attempt by a man he met at an erotic-video store and later had sex with, according to police documents released Tuesday.

State Rep. Richard Curtis, of La Center, Clark County, who on Monday vehemently denied he was gay, was the victim of the reported extortion attempt by a man he brought to Spokane’s Davenport Tower hotel Friday, according to search-warrant documents.

The man told police Curtis agreed to pay him $1,000 for sex and also said Curtis purchased two gay pornographic films from the hotel for them to watch in his room.

Numerous efforts to reach Curtis were not successful Tuesday.

Curtis was among state GOP lawmakers in Spokane last Wednesday through Friday for a retreat to discuss the upcoming legislative session. He went to the Hollywood Erotic Boutique in Spokane on Friday and met a man, who accompanied him back to the hotel, the documents said.

The two arrived at the hotel around 3:34 a.m. and engaged in sexual activities, after which Curtis fell asleep, the documents said.

The man allegedly took Curtis’ wallet and later offered to return it for $1,000, the documents said. Curtis said he only had $200 and left the money at the hotel desk, the documents said.

The man told police Curtis gave him his wallet to hold as collateral for the remainder of the money.

The man called Curtis back and demanded $800. But Curtis had already contacted Spokane police, and a detective was present when the man called, the documents said.

The man, who appeared Tuesday at a Spokane news conference with his lawyer, said the lawmaker “has completely changed what actually happened and turned it around for his favor.”

The man told police and reporters that Curtis gave him his wallet to hold as collateral “for the money that he promised me.”

The lawyer refused to let his client tell reporters what he did for the money.

In his only public comments about the incident, Curtis told The Columbian newspaper of Vancouver, Wash., that he did not solicit anyone for sex and was not gay.

“I committed no crime,” Curtis told the newspaper. “I did not solicit sex. I was trying to help somebody out.”

Curtis, a former firefighter, said, “I am not gay. I have not had sex with a guy.”

Police spokeswoman Jennifer DeRuwe said the evidence found by police would be given to the Spokane County prosecutor, who will decide if criminal charges are warranted.

There have been no arrests, she said.

Republican leaders have declined to comment, saying they had no information about what happened.

Curtis was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2004.

His voting patterns suggest he is a fiscal and social conservative, and he has opposed gay-rights legislation.

MOSCOW - A powerful bomb ripped through a bus in central Russia Wednesday morning, killing eight people and wounding at least 53 in what one official called a terror attack.

Investigators were trying to determine whether the explosive device was carried by a passenger or had been planted somewhere on the bus in the city of Togliatti, according to Russian news agencies.

The explosion occurred near a bus stop in the city center as people were going to work. A group of college students had gotten off at the stop just seconds before the blast, and about 20 students were among the wounded, NTV reported.

Windows were blown out of the long green bus, and its roof partially detached from the force of the explosion, which shattered windows of nearby buildings.

Valery Matkovsky, a local emergency official, said that eight people died and at least 53 were injured, mainly from burns and shrapnel wounds. Russian media said that one child was among the dead.

There is a month before crucial parliamentary elections and similar violence has occurred before other votes.

“Due to (the blast’s) character, its consequences, the main version being considered is a terrorist attack,” Yuri Rozhin, director of the regional division of the Federal Security Service, said in televised comments.

In 1999, just three months before national elections, several residential buildings in Moscow and other Russian towns exploded, killing hundreds. The government blamed militants from Chechnya, where two wars have been fought against separatist rebels.

Opposition activists and Kremlin critics said the government used the blasts to justify sending federal troops back into Chechnya, launching the second war in a decade in the region.

The Volga River city of Togliatti is home to Russia’s largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ and has long had a reputation for gang violence as various groups competed for control over the lucrative factory, now state-owned. A factory spokesman could not say whether there were factory workers among the victims.

Vadim Blagodarny, a local 20-year-old photographer, said people walked around in shock in the minutes after the blast, as investigators picked through the carnage.

“If it had gone off just a minute earlier, it would have been much, much worse,” he said.

Security at the scene was tight, and some local photographers were either detained or had their equipment confiscated.

The head of the country’s main security agency recently warned of the potential for pre-election violence and said police would bolster security and surveillance nationwide before the Dec. 2 vote.

When a sleepy barge captain rammed the Highway 520 bridge seven years ago, he might have done the region a favor.

The barge broke a column near Seattle, allowing engineers a peek inside. The pillar, they found, was eroding from the inside out. A subsequent report said the 520 bridge on Lake Washington was as likely to fail in an earthquake as its notorious crosstown cousin, the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Even with that wake-up call, it’s taken five years for elected officials to offer the public a proposal for funding Highway 520. Proposition 1, a regional transportation measure on the Nov. 6 ballot, includes $1.1 billion toward a $4.4 billion replacement bridge, with two general-purpose lanes and a bus/car-pool lane in each direction, to open in 2018.

In fact, nobody knows the cost of a new bridge because there’s no consensus on how to design it. And the Legislature’s funding strategy is unclear, too; it relies on a yet-undetermined plan for charging tolls.

This dilemma exists in part because legislators earmarked only 5 percent of new state gas taxes toward the bridge, while pouring greater sums into the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Interstate 405. Until very recently, 520 was a political hot potato, with Seattle and Eastside leaders focused on their own sides of the lake.

Backers of the measure say that if a billion dollars is pulled off the table now, a new bridge likely would take longer to build, and odds of a catastrophe would increase.

“It’s a partial solution. It gets us further down the road to complete funding,” said Jan Drago, chairwoman of the Seattle City Council’s transportation committee.

“Vulnerable” span

In a photo from Proposition 1’s government brochure, whitecaps slosh against the pontoons of the 44-year-old bridge. The state thinks that, besides the quake risk, a 20-year windstorm or sustained winds of 75 mph could sink it.

“Vulnerable bridges would be replaced in the RTID [roads] plan, including the SR 520 bridge, the SR 9 bridge over the Snohomish River, and Seattle’s South Park Bridge,” says a recent mailing funded by Sound Transit.

Redmond Mayor Rosemarie Ives said, “That language is not accurate,” because it leads people to believe passage of the proposition would fully fund a floating bridge. A mailing from the “yes” campaign is more restrained, saying the measure “provides funds toward replacing the SR-520 bridge, with HOV lanes and a bike lane.”

Along with the Proposition 1 money - mainly from a new car-tab tax - the Legislature’s preliminary funding strategy for a bridge assumes $1.2 billion in tolls, $560 million in already-earmarked gas taxes, $1 billion in future gas and car-tab taxes, $110 million in federal bridge grants, and $200 million in possible federal transit money, which hasn’t been applied for yet.

Studies indicate that to reach the full $1.2 billion in tolls, they may need to be charged on the dual Interstate 90 floating bridges as well as the new 520.

Senate Transportation Committee Chairwoman Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, said if Proposition 1 fails, there will be pressure to consider something really distasteful: a toll on the old 520 bridge.

Sponsoring agencies say the regional package is worth $18 billion in 2006 dollars for light-rail and road construction, land, trains and buses. If inflation, short-term financing, overhead and operations are added, the total reaches $38 billion by 2027, when projects are supposed to be done, with additional debt and operating costs afterward.

Campaign foes

Last year, a state Department of Transportation (DOT) document included a drawing of a 15-lane aerial interchange, where an exit bridge might extend from Foster Island to Husky Stadium.

That’s fueled a backlash from some residents. “Neighbors Opposing Prop. 1,” with Sierra Club help, is distributing fliers that depict a mass of concrete over the island.

Fran Conley, co-chairwoman of the opponent group, says defeat of Proposition 1 would give communities more clout to change the bridge’s design, the subject of mediation talks until December 2008. “This is the only choice citizens have to influence design. If it passes, they can start building 520 - and the current plans are unacceptable,” she said.

Drago replied that during mediation, there’s “no way” the DOT could simply impose a design. She said highway officials have recently shown more willingness to seek broad support from local groups.

Meanwhile, the City Council and Legislature have each passed bills that request slimmed-down designs.

Bridge supporter Jonathan Dubman said, “I don’t think some folks in that [no] campaign are likely to be happy with anything that’s buildable.”

The road ahead

Win or lose, the election doesn’t mean an immediate infusion, nor shortage, of money: Proposition 1 money wouldn’t be allotted to Highway 520 until 2015 to 2020.

The state can use existing funds to build new pontoons.

A loss could prompt King County to create a roads-improvement district and try again at the ballot, Haugen said.

Also, some transit fans might reopen debate about running light rail across a new 520 bridge, instead of on I-90, where Proposition 1 calls for a Sound Transit light-rail line.

Robert Rosencrantz, president of the Montlake Community Club near the bridge, said he’s optimistic that lawmakers would find money if Proposition 1 fails, because they realize the danger of not acting: “I think it’s simply a matter of priorities.”

Haugen said lawmakers would try, but her colleagues would resist delaying projects in their own areas to free up more money for 520. They stuck their necks out to vote for statewide gas-tax increases in 2003 and 2005, while promising their constituents the money would deliver local road improvements. That’s political reality, she said.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com

It was a sudden and inelegant end for a well-known Puget Sound attraction.

For men wanting to impress a girlfriend or spouse, the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train was known for taking romantic couples on a leisurely sightseeing trip accompanied by perhaps cherry-smoked roasted salmon and a glass of Covey Run.

Tuesday morning, those logging onto the firm’s Web site to book a $78.99 per person dome-seating dinner trip ($63.99 for parlor seating) were greeted with this stark message in a red box:

“Regretfully, as of Monday, October 29th, 2007, The Spirit of Washington Dinner Train has ceased its operating schedule from Tacoma, Washington. We wish to thank all of our patrons that have supported the dinner train the past 15 years.”

Fifty employees were laid off Monday, with 10 or so more being kept on a bit longer to deal with cleanup and passenger refunds.

There is a chance the dinner train might resurrect itself in a Woodinville-Snohomish run. The city of Snohomish optimistically even passed a resolution in March in support of the train.

But that’s at least two years away, said Eric Temple, who, along with his brother, Brig, owns the dinner train, as well as “short line” railroads hauling freight in the Yakima, Moses Lake and Vancouver areas.

“It was more of a labor of love,” he said. “It was the fun part of the railroad business, instead of pushing box cars around.”

As is often the case when businesses close, in Tacoma it came down to money.

And there were some bitter words.

“I’ll probably never operate a dinner train again that’s under someone else’s control,” said Temple. “It’s interesting to see how a municipally run railroad works versus someone like us. We could have made money. It’s the ability to think out of the box, be nimble and be efficient.”

He was referring to Tacoma Rail, the city-owned agency that runs 204 miles of track, mostly used for freight, and which the dinner train was leasing for a round-trip run between Tacoma and Lake Kapowsin.

Temple said ticket sales were off by nearly $350,000 in the three months ending in October.

He was comparing ticket sales in Tacoma to when the train ran between Renton and Woodinville’s Columbia Winery.

After 15 years of operation, the Spirit of Washington had to find a new route when the widening of Interstate 405 was scheduled to sever the railroad tracks going through Bellevue.

There were glowing words all around when the train found a new home out of Tacoma’s Freighthouse Square, and signed a 10-month lease.

Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma and Temple even drove a ceremonial golden spike into the track for the inaugural trip on Aug. 3.

But less than three months later, the initially rosy relationship was over.

Temple said that the dinner train was repeatedly moved around the yard and thus hard to clean; that he had to rent lights so passengers could see when boarding; that there was no sewer access, so a contractor had to be hired to pump sewage from the train.

He said there also was a one-mile steep grade out of Tacoma that meant he had to use three locomotives, instead of one, adding extra labor and fuel costs.

Paula Henry, head of Tacoma Rail, replied: “He has his view of issues, and we have ours. He made his business decisions, right or wrong. He’s been in the passenger business a very long time and he knew up front what he needed.”

Woodinville and Snohomish have high hopes the dinner train will move to a 14-mile stretch of rail between them.

But that can’t happen until complicated negotiations are finished for King County to take over Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad lines in that area, and not before the county and Temple agree on a contract for the dinner train.

Temple said he needs a “20 years or something” contract or it won’t be financially feasible.

Meanwhile, the seven cars, three locomotive engines and one generator car soon will depart Tacoma for Vancouver, Wash., where the Temple brothers run the local rail line.

That’s where Eric Temple expects the train to sit for the next two years.

On the dinner train’s Web site, there still was mention of the vision that led the brothers to start their venture.

It was, it said, “to bring back to life one of the greatest of railroad’s lost experiences, the dinner train.”

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com

MEXICO CITY - About $10 billion in laundered Mexican drug money ends up in U.S. banks each year, Mexico’s federal attorney general said Tuesday.

Appearing before Congress, Eduardo Medina said Mexican banks receive about $1 billion from their U.S. counterparts each year, but return up to $16 billion, about $10 billion of which “does not have an explanation … and could be attributed to the flow of drug-trafficking money.”

Before ending up in the Mexican financial system, the money is laundered through cash purchases of real estate, cars, jewelry, furniture and other expensive items, Medina said.

Medina said his office is drafting a money-laundering bill that would regulate the people who are responsible for monitoring these transactions, such as notary publics in the case of real estate, as well as jewelry and car distributors.

Bottled water, one of the most popular beverages on the market, now comes purified, remineralized, electrolyte-enhanced and infused with vitamins, minerals, herbs and oxygen. Are these souped-up products worth it?

We asked several registered dietitians, who agreed that the health claims for enhanced waters are “iffy” and that food is a far better source of nutrients. Consumers, meanwhile, should watch out for added sweeteners and calories.

“None of the ingredients are harmful,” said Kris Clark, director of sports nutrition and assistant professor of nutrition at Penn State University. “The question consumers should ask themselves include: Are the ingredients useful to me? Do I need these ingredients? Or do I just need water?”

Chances are, you just need plain old water.

VitaminWater

Stats: (per 20-ounce bottle): 125 calories, 32 grams of sugar (crystalline fructose).

Boost: Fruit Punch flavor contains vitamins B-3 (niacin), B-6, B-12, B-5, potassium.

Claim/slogan: “It’s got potassium and B vitamins to help you recover and feel refreshed.”

Bottom line: Watch the sugar. An 8-ounce drink would have 52 calories from sugar. (The same amount of regular soda would have a little more than 100 calories from sugar.) The added potassium can help replace electrolytes lost through sweating or illness, but most healthy people don’t need to supplement B vitamins. Strict vegans and people older than 50 have a higher risk of a deficiency of vitamin B-12, which is found in food and animal products. Foods high in protein, including meat, poultry, fish, nuts and beans, are better sources of B vitamins, said registered dietitian Roberta Duyff, author of “The American Dietetic Association’s Complete Food and Nutrition Guide” (Wiley, $24.95). Bananas, milk, kidney beans, haddock, potatoes and tomatoes are high in potassium.

Propel Fitness Water (vitamin-enhanced

water beverage)

Stats: (per 23.7-ounce bottle): 30 calories, 6 grams sugar (sucrose syrup).

Boost: Vitamins C, E and B.

Claim/slogan: “Nourishes your active body with a splash of fruit flavors and essential vitamins.” Has antioxidant vitamins that “aid in energy metabolism.”

Bottom line: Propel is Gatorade’s water for the less intense health-club crowd. Unlike Gatorade, it’s free of high-fructose corn syrup. It also has fewer calories than Gatorade, but again, whole-food sources of vitamins C, E and B are better. You can get vitamin C by eating citrus fruits - oranges, grapefruits - red and green bell peppers, guava, papaya and broccoli. Vitamin E is found in vegetable oils (but is destroyed in frying), nuts, seeds, salad dressings, margarine and other processed foods made with vegetable oil, Duyff said.

Dasani Plus (vitamin-enhanced flavored water beverage)

Stats: (per 20-ounce bottle) 0 calories, 0 grams sugar (sweetened with sucralose).

Boost: Vitamins B-3, B-6 and B-12 plus chromium, guarana and ginseng.

Claim/slogan: “Refresh and Revive.”

Bottom line: No added calories, but healthy non-vegans don’t need any of these added vitamins. Meat, eggs, whole-grain products and cheeses are all good sources of chromium, which works with insulin to help the body use glucose, or blood sugar. Women of childbearing age need 25 micrograms of chromium a day. One ounce of cheese (48 micrograms) provides almost twice the amount. Herbs such as guarana and ginseng should be taken in appropriate doses for effect.

SmartWater (electrolyte-enhanced water)

Stats: (per 32-ounce bottle) 0 calories, 0 grams sugar.

Boost: Vapor-distilled water plus electrolytes (calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium bicarbonate).

Claim/slogan: “Purity you can taste, hydration you can feel.”

Bottom line: Electrolytes (chloride, potassium and sodium) can make water taste better and are important for those who have lost fluids through illness or longer workouts. But they will not raise your IQ, and the general public gets enough. Chloride can be found in salt and salty foods; potassium is in bananas, milk, kidney beans, baked potatoes, salted pretzels, tomatoes, oranges and almonds.

Metromint (peppermint water)

Stats: (per 16.9-oz. bottle) 0 calories, 0 grams sugar.

Boost: Peppermint.

Claim/slogan: “The real mint naturally stimulates the nerves, instantly opening your senses to send a fresh, cool feeling throughout your body. The all-natural combination of pure water and real peppermint relieves your thirst, soothes your body and revives your soul.”

Bottom line: Plain water does this too. Or, you could drink a hot or cold cup of mint tea. “Peppermint is a digestive help,” said Alexa Fleckenstein, author of “Health2O: Tap Into the Healing Powers of Water to Fight Disease, Look Younger and Feel Your Best” (McGraw-Hill, $16.95). “But essential oils should be taken with caution. There’s no reason to drink pepperminted water.” We did, however, like the taste.

Evamore (alkaline artesian water beverage)

Stats: (per 16.9-ounce bottle) 0 calories, 0 grams sugar.

Boost: Artesian water, potassium, chromium, molybdenum, selenium, vanadium.

Claim/slogan: “Naturally alkaline artesian water enhanced with antioxidants and key minerals because research shows that neutralizing acid to balance your body’s pH can help maintain overall health.”

Bottom line: The body does a respectable job of maintaining your pH level on its own; otherwise you’d feel pretty sick. And artesian water is a mechanical way to get water from a deep source; it does not render the water more healthy, Fleckenstein said. “We are too acidic because of too many meat and dairy products,” she said. “The remedy would be better nutrition - fruit and vegetables are alkalinizing.”

Aloe Breeze Organics

Stats: (per 16.9-ounce bottle) 0 calories, 0 grams sugar (sweetened with stevia leaf).

Boost: Purified water, organic aloe vera juice.

Claim /slogan: “Purity you can taste, hydration you can feel.” And: “Restore, help boost immune-system response, improve digestion, promote cell health and tone skin with every life-enhancing drop.”

Bottom line: Aloe vera, an extract from a cactus, is considered a healing herb for the digestive tract and taken internally for inflammatory bowel disease, ulcers, candida, intestinal infection, constipation and other digestive-tract disorders. But it’s not clear how much aloe vera is actually in the product. “There’s no known benefit to adding it to water,” Duyff said.

So much for party politics.

Snohomish County’s annual budget-writing scene - indisputably important but rarely riveting - this year is underscoring a testy relationship between County Executive Aaron Reardon and the County Council, which is controlled by his fellow Democrats.

Reardon on Sept. 28 unveiled his proposed $673 million budget for 2008 with a speech extolling his administration’s commitment to “fiscal solvency” and his reversal of “the trends of deficit spending.”

The council recently responded with a formal statement portraying Reardon as a fiscally irresponsible hypocrite.

Key elements of the dispute include disagreements over repaying a $23.4 million bank loan related to the former Cathcart Landfill and confusion over how the executive’s budget accounts for “under expenditures.”

Reardon in previous years had criticized - “blasted,” in the council’s words - the council for balancing the county budget by significantly spending down the county’s reserve fund.

Reardon halted that practice - which he calls deficit spending - after taking office in 2004, and under his watch the county’s reserves have more than doubled to over $30 million.

Now the council is accusing Reardon of hiding his own deficit spending by creatively moving a column of numbers inside his budget charts.

“It’s how you warp the numbers to say it’s balanced,” said Fred Bird, the council’s public-information officer.

Reardon responded by pointing to his budget’s bottom line. His proposed 2008 budget includes a modest boost to the reserve fund, he stressed, which proves that revenues must exceed spending.

The council’s budgets in 2001 through 2004, on the other hand, required withdrawals from reserves to make ends meet, he said.

When questioned about the tone of the council’s Oct. 19 written statement, Council Chairman Dave Gossett said the budget disputes are nothing personal. It’s about a need for transparency in budgeting, he said.

But he acknowledged tension between the council and Reardon.

“We do not have a good relationship, for a couple years at least,” Gossett said.

Reardon responded in kind. At first, he firmly maintained that this latest disagreement “is all about the money.”

Later, however, he tossed in a postscript.

“They’ve been upset ever since I vetoed their pay raise,” said Reardon, who in October 2005 nixed a package of salary increases for the county’s elected officials. “Their feelings were hurt.”

The council’s focus on the county’s Cathcart debt is connected to the county’s anticipation of an additional $3 million in sales tax revenues next year, under a new state law that changed distribution formulas. The council contends some of that money should be earmarked to pay next year’s $1.8 million in interest due on the Cathcart loan.

The county in 2004 bought the old landfill site from its own public-works department, with plans to sell it to a private developer. Next year’s budget includes $800,000 for a consultant charged with creating a master plan for the property, off Highway 9 east of Mill Creek.

Reardon’s budget rolls both the interest and the consultant costs into the existing KeyBank loan. The council says it’s unwise to borrow money to repay debts.

“We believe it’s not sound fiscal policy to use your Visa card to pay off your MasterCard,” Gossett said.

Reardon’s budget analysts say that’s nothing new - previous budgets have used similar mechanisms to pay the Cathcart loan interest. The land’s value is growing steadily, they said, and the interest costs will be covered when the 205-acre site is sold.

“We’ve never used general-fund current revenues to pay any portion of [Cathcart’s] debt service,” said Bill Haseleu, Reardon’s budget manager.

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com

WASHINGTON - The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, three senior law-enforcement officials say.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

“Once you give immunity, you can’t take it away,” said a senior law-enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

It’s not clear why investigators would make such a move, or who authorized doing so.

State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. One official - who refused to be quoted by name - said: “If, in fact, such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorization from any senior State Department official in Washington.”

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd and FBI spokesman Rich Kolko also declined to comment.

FBI agents in Baghdad have been trying to collect evidence in the Sept. 16 embassy convoy shooting without using statements from Blackwater employees who were given immunity.

The senior law-enforcement officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said all the Blackwater bodyguards involved in the incident - both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above - were given the legal protection as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened. The bureau is an arm of the State Department.

Government officials who spoke to The New York Times - also on condition of anonymity - said the investigators offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the newspaper reported on its Web site. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, those officials added.

Iraq is demanding the right to launch its own prosecution of the Blackwater bodyguards.

The company has said its convoy was under attack before it opened fire in west Baghdad’s Nisoor Square, killing 17 Iraqis. A follow-up investigation by the Iraqi government, however, concluded that Blackwater’s men were unprovoked. No witnesses have been found to contradict that finding.

An initial incident report by U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, also indicated “no enemy activity” was involved. The report says Blackwater guards were traveling against the flow of traffic through a traffic circle when they “engaged five civilian vehicles with small-arms fire” at a distance of 50 meters.

The FBI took over the case early this month, officials said, after prosecutors in the Justice Department’s criminal division realized they could not bring charges against Blackwater guards based on their statements to the Diplomatic Security investigators.

Officials said the Blackwater bodyguards spoke only after receiving so-called “Garrity” protections, requiring that their statements only be used internally - and not for criminal prosecutions.

Garrity protections generally are given to police or other public law-enforcement officers, and were extended to the Blackwater guards because they were working on behalf of the U.S. government, one official said. Experts said it’s rare for them to be given to all or even most witnesses.

“You have to be careful,” said Michael Horowitz, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and senior Justice Department official. “You have to understand early on who your serious subjects are in the investigation, and avoid giving these people the protections.”

The FBI has re-interviewed some of the Blackwater employees, and one official said Monday that at least several of them have declined to answer questions, citing their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. Any new incriminating statements that the guards give to the FBI could be used to bring criminal charges.

If prosecutors do bring charges, they will have to prove that any evidence they include was uncovered without using the guards’ statements to State Department investigators. They “have to show we got the information independently,” one official said.

Bureau of Diplomatic Security chief Richard Griffin last week announced his resignation, effective Thursday. Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said his departure was directly related to his oversight of Blackwater contractors.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a series of measures to boost government oversight of the private guards who protect American diplomats in Iraq. They include increased monitoring and explicit rules on when and how they can use deadly force.

Blackwater’s contract with the State Department expires in May and there are questions whether it will remain as the primary contractor for diplomatic bodyguards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company.

Congress also is expected to investigate the shootings, but a House watchdog committee said it has so far held off, based on a Justice Department request that lawmakers wait until the FBI concludes its inquiry.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this story.

OLYMPIA - Secretary of State Sam Reed is forecasting a 51 percent turnout for the November general election.

Reed, the state’s chief elections official, says most voters are casting ballots by mail, boosting the turnout higher than it might have been. Ballots must be postmarked by midnight Tuesday.

Nearly all counties, 36 of the 39, have vote-by-mail and King, Pierce and Kittitas are expected to make the switch by next year. A record 95 percent of the August primary vote was mailed in.

Reed says 51 percent is the average of the last seven odd-year elections. He says six statewide ballot measures are generating a modest amount of interest, especially a referendum dealing with insurance, and voters in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties face a big roads-and-transit proposal.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Shareholders of Applebee’s International Inc. on Tuesday approved a $1.9 billion offer by pancake house operator IHOP Corp. to buy the casual dining chain.

The sale, which also includes Glendale, Calif.-based IHOP taking on $155 million in Applebee’s debt, is expected to close later this month.

Under terms of the deal, Applebee’s shareholders will be paid $25.50 per share, a slight premium from the $25.20 the company’s shares fetched at the end of trading Monday.

Officials at both companies have characterized the deal as a way to help rejuvenate Applebee’s, one of the nation’s largest restaurant chains that has been plagued for the past year by falling sales and diminishing profits.

It also is viewed as a coup for IHOP, which is smaller than Applebee’s but has shown success in building its own brand and sales in the face of economic headwinds.

Julia Stewart, IHOP’s chief executive officer and a former Applebee’s executive, has said she plans to refranchise hundreds of Applebee’s company-owned stores and sell real estate tied to around 200 of those stores as a way to pay for the deal.

Shares of Applebee’s were up 5 cents at $25.25 in trading early Tuesday. Shares of IHOP were down 17 cents at $62.51.