Here’s the quick version of things that are interesting today.

First, to finish up from yesterday, this is the story we ended up printing this morning. As Christina pointed out, we’re quite the fire team. Here’s Jacob’s version from the other side of the state. We texted and back and forth all day yesterday as we traced rumors and Google tidbits and finally tracked down that one of the WSU students arrested for the fires is the son of a well-known judge in Aberdeen. At the end of the day Jacob called to say thanks for both the tip and the most awkward phone interview ever. The judge hadn’t heard about the whole thing until Jacob called to ask him about it, and I’m glad (and a little appalled) that’s included in the story. UPDATE: I should clarify, I get a certain amount of reporter delight in seeing us ruin someone’s day, as if it’s our fault. I have a simultaneous conflicting feeling of pity for the poor judge, who has an awful day and also gets to look kind of silly in the paper. I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to include any of that unless my editor really wanted me to.

Second, here’s a dumb magazine I had to make for class. It turned out alright for putting fairly little effort into it.

Third, we at the Evergreen got a copy of an e-mail the university president sent out today requesting no administrative/professional hires in preparation for economic downturn. It also said he was “not desirous of making a mass announcement to the entire WSU community in this regard.” Check out the story on tomorrow’s front page.

Finally, I got the pretty fun assignment for our “20 of the most influential students” series to write about the ASWSU president and editor-in-chief Brian. For having minimal time to write, they turned out okay. I was glad I was able to work in fedoras, puppies and democracy.