Catch up with the Wednesday morning news briefs: Dorothy Parvaz has been freed, the missing trooper has been found, plus violence in an Everett school and a repeat offense for the kid who beat up the bus driver. more ›

In one of the more horrifying local news items of last year, a garden-loving 60-year-old man was beaten to death at a traffic circle in Rainier Beach. The assaulter, Brian Keith Brown, just pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder charge brought against him and will now face sentencing in May. He's probably looking at between eight and eleven years in prison. Last summer he pled not guilty, so the case against him must have been looking particularly strong. We're not shedding any tears for this guy, though. more ›

• We're going to start with good news, rather than bad today. One guess where the opening game of the coming MLS Season is going to be? That's right, Seattle: the first Sounders MLS game will be the season opener for the whole league. Maybe, just maybe, the Sounders will actually win that game.
• The West Seattle Blog reports a really lovely random act of kindness, with photo evidence. Basically impossible to not feel warm and fuzzy about this story.
• Central District News has what must seem an all too common refrain for parents and teachers of Central District Schools; this time the plea is why T.T. Minor should not be closed.

• My Ballard has lots of tasty news, reporting on Paseo's first day in a new location, Rachael Ray shooting an episode of Rachael's Travels at Volterra, and lots of fat salmon going through the Locks.
• Phinneywood reports and shares photos of an adorable knit crosswalk pedestrian flag that's popped up in Greenwood. We are all for guerrilla knitting projects, especially those that benefit your community, so we say hooray!
• The Belltowner shares, in two posts that should have been linked to each other as proof, how tourists should stay out of Belltown and on the homecoming of Daniel Stoy (an out-of-towner who was beaten unconscious on his visit to Belltown).

• Metroblogging Seattle reported bit-by-bit the developing story of a pedestrian cab-scooter-van accident, which proved to be fatal. A 60-year-old passenger in the pedi-cab was killed after the open-air cab alternative suffered a mechanical malfunction and ran a red light.
• PhinneyWood stays purely hyper-local reporting on two missing neighborhood pets: Sadie (a dog) and Kaitlyn Marie (a pure bred cat). While it might seem tedious or tiny to report, you better believe we'd use every electronic outlet we had to find them if one of the Seattlest guard cats went missing. We hope these folks are reunited with their pets soon.
• The Southlake reports that, even though everyone else had their block party a couple nights ago, they're going to have theirs this Friday. The Southlake Union Block Party will be hosted at the "South Lake Union Discovery Center" which is a neighborhood-positive sounding name for a Vulcan property advertisement. This year there is actually a draw, though. A few decent local music acts and it's free, until you want to eat or drink. Even then, it's just $1 (that goes to non-profits) from a variety of area restaurants. Money you can actually feel good about spending in South Lake Union.

A confrontation in a downtown parking lot escalated into an all-out battle involving nearly 40 people, which took a SWAT Team and Gang Unit to quell. The incident occurred in the Bank of America Plaza parking lot on Fifth Avenue around 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. Two local women were taken to Harborview for injuries sustained in the fight--one had been stabbed and the other beaten. more ›