Courtesy of Inland Octopus

The mural on the storefront of the Inland Octopus toy shop, which measures 638 square feet, may cease to exist after midnight Wednesday.

The clock is ticking to decide the fate of a massive purple octopus mural in Walla Walla, Wash.

The giant sea creature blankets the storefront of Inland Octopus, a toy shop on the town's Main Street. And at 22 feet wide by 29 feet tall, it's nearly 500 square feet too large for a wall sign under a city ordinance.

Now, store owner Bob Catsiff is under legal and financial pressure to paint over the octopus, or make it smaller, by midnight Wednesday or the city will do it on his dime, a bill which would include accrued violation fines, totaling about $89,000. 

The mural has been the cause of relentless legal dispute since shortly after Catsiff commissioned it without a permit on Labor Day 2010, including a petition he filed to the U.S. Supreme Court late last year in a last-ditch effort to keep the giant mural. 

Catsiff continued his fight earlier this month by arguing there are other signs in the city that violate the code, and the city has engaged in selective enforcement against him.

"This is actually a very simple argument: the city has never taken enforcement action against any sign code violator though numerous violations have existed for years," Catsiff wrote in an open letter to the city council and citizens of Walla Walla. 

Catsiff said his lawyer sent a letter to the City Attorney earlier this month regarding the selective enforcement, requesting the city's position, but he has still not heard back. 

However, Walla Walla City Manager Nabiel Shawa told the Union-Bulletin that the city hasn’t had recent contact with Catsiff.

“We are in a holding pattern,” Shawa said. “My hope is he will come forward and bring the sign into compliance with the city code.”

Meanwhile, Catsiff has lost every court decision to prove his mural is legitimate as is. 

About a year ago, the State Court of Appeals in Spokane, Wash., sided with the city's regulations and rejected Catsiff's argument that the sign code infringed upon his constitutional right of free speech, the Union-Bulletin reported. 

Then, last February, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to review that ruling, which exhausted Catsiff's appeals in the lawsuit he filed in late 2010.

Shawa immediately issued a statement, saying the city intended to enforce a hearing examiner’s initial order, giving Catsiff 30 days to bring the mural into full compliance with the sign code or the city could abate it, the Union-Bulletin reported. 

For now, Shawa said the city will decide how to proceed after the Wednesday deadline, which Catsiff seems poised to miss.  

"Though I struggle to weather the mental stress and financial burden this has caused, I shall continue fighting to preserve the mural due to overwhelming community support and my deep belief that I am right," Catsiff said. 

SEATTLE -- A suspected drunken driver slammed into a family crossing the street in a residential Seattle neighborhood, critically injuring a baby and his mother and killing his grandparents, authorities said. The grandparents had recently moved from the Midwest to be near the newborn child. 

Karina Schulte, 33, and her 10-day-old son were in critical condition Tuesday afternoon, said Liz Hunter, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Grandparents Dennis Schulte, 66, and Judith Schulte, 68, died at the scene Monday.

Judith Schulte's sister, Susan Morton, said the retired Indiana couple were walking Monday afternoon with their daughter-in-law and the baby when they were stuck.

Karina Schulte "had the baby in a sling on the front. He just hit all four of them," said Morton, of Cottonwood, Minn., in a telephone interview.

Mark Mullan, 50, was ordered held on $2.5 million bail during a court hearing Tuesday. He is being held on investigation of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. Prosecutors have until Thursday to formally charge him.

In court documents, a Seattle police officer investigating the crash said he smelled alcohol on Mullan's breath and that Mullan showed impairment during sobriety tests. A preliminary test showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.22 percent, nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08, the officer said in court documents.

No valid license
Mullan told police he was unable to see the pedestrians at an intersection in a residential neighborhood because the sun was in his eyes, according to court documents.

His license was suspended at the time of the crash, according to the documents.

"He does not have a valid license," said Brad Benfield, a spokesman with the Department of Licensing.

It was unclear Tuesday whether Mullan had legal representation. A message left with an attorney who represented him in a drunken driving case in December was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Mullan didn't answer reporters' questions as police led him away from the scene of the crash in handcuffs Monday. Police said he stopped after the crash and was cooperative. A phone number listed for Mullan was disconnected.

Morton said Karina Schulte, who is from Chile, is a pediatric nurse specialist and is dedicated to her work.

Dennis and Judith Schulte were both longtime high school teachers; she taught English and was a head guidance counselor for years, while he taught math.

They had moved to Seattle from Kokomo, Ind., in February to witness the birth of their first grandson.

They had planned to spend six months in Seattle to be near their son and his family. They were renting an apartment near the intersection where they were killed.

"They were so elated. This is their only grandchild," Morton said. "They wanted to be there when he was born. They got to hold him and be there with him for 10 days."

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It’s the winter that wouldn’t die.

Five days into spring, a winter storm raked the Midwest and Northeast on Monday, turning commutes messy and threatening to dump up to 4 inches of snow around Philadelphia and Washington.

The good news: Temperatures hovering at or just above freezing should hold accumulations down.

“The roads are in pretty good shape this morning because, after all, it is March,” Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel said from Frederick, Md.

More coverage from weather.com

During the morning drive, the storm was dropping snow across a curlicue swath of the country, from the Mid-Atlantic coast back through the southern Great Lakes and down into the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky and Tennessee.

In New York and parts of New Jersey, a winter weather advisory was in effect for most of Monday, and snow and rain showers continued through late afternoon and wind down by early evening.

"I'm ready for flip flops," said Jessica Cunitz, 24 of Westchester County, N.Y., who stopped at a gas station along Interstate 78 in Pennsylvania to fill her overheating car with antifreeze. "It's supposed to be spring."

In Philadelphia, rain during the morning commute was expected to change to a wintry mix that will last for most of the day. Untreated roads could turn slippery, said Brittney Shipp, a meteorologist for NBC affiliate WCAU.

And in Hamburg, Pa. — which has seen three here-and-gone snowfalls in little more than a week — carpet installer Seth Hanna drank coffee and surveyed the slush from a covered front porch.

"We got these warm days a few weeks ago, and everybody got their hopes up. March is supposed to be out like a lamb but it's not doing it," said Hanna, 30. "I love the snow, but I'm ready for some warm spring weather."

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

A woman removes snow from her driveway Monday in Silver Spring, Md. A messy Monday is in store for millions along the East Coast.

Inside the Washington Beltway, forecasters called for a mix of rain and snow, with accumulations of less than an inch. North and west of the capital, 2 to 4 inches of snow was expected — and perhaps as much as 8 inches west of Interstate 81.

Over the weekend, the same storm system pounded parts of the Rocky Mountains east to the Ohio Valley. Denver got almost a foot of snow, and Goodland, Kan., reported 15 inches.

On Friday, a qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup outside Denver was played in near-blizzard conditions — so much snow that officials had to bring in a yellow-and-purple soccer ball.

The United States beat Costa Rica 1-0, and Costa Rica has asked the governing body of soccer to order a replay.

At the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, people waiting in line for tickets to this week's arguments on gay marriage held umbrellas or put tarps over their belongings as the snow fell. Darienn Powers wore a trash bag from the waist down to keep dry, but said the snow still made everything "a little wet and uncomfortable."

The spring snow was not expected to affect Washington's famous cherry blossoms. National Park Service spokeswoman Carol Johnson said the flowering trees are still expected to reach peak bloom between April 3 and April 6.

Mitchell Gaines, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J., said colder-than-normal temperatures the past few weeks had created conditions ripe for snow.

"It's fairly late in March to see a system like this," he said.

And the untimely blast of cold and snowy conditions could also harm parts of the U.S. winter wheat growing area, with widespread freeze damage feared in some of the more mature fields, experts said.

"I think we'll certainly have some (freeze damage)," said Travis Miller, an agronomist at Texas A&M University. "We did not dodge a bullet. It is a mess out there, both from freeze and drought."

It will take several days after the freeze passes to determine the extent of plant-tissue damage, wheat experts said, with areas where wheat fields were maturing quickly seen suffering the most harm. 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:57 PM EDT

Handout / Reuters

President Barack Obama announced Monday that he will designate five locations, including Patos Island Lighthouse at the San Juan National Monument in Washington, and others around the country as national monuments to protect large tracts of land and historical sites, a White House official said.

President Barack Obama signed proclamations Monday designating five locations around the country as new national monuments to protect large tracts of land and historical sites, a White House official said. 

The locations range from a 240,000-acre expanse in New Mexico's high desert and the town green in Dover, Del., to an archipelago in Washington, a historical home in Ohio and a park in Maryland. 

“These sites honor the pioneering heroes, spectacular landscapes and rich history that have shaped our extraordinary country,” said Obama. “By designating these national monuments today, we will ensure they will continue to inspire and be enjoyed by generations of Americans to come.”

Handout / Reuters

Watmough Bight on Lopez Island at the San Juan National Monument in Washington is seen.

Similar to a national park, the sites, located in Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio and Washington, can be designated as national monuments directly by the president without congressional approval, under the Antiquities Act.

Conservationists and lawmakers said the new monuments are expected to promote economic growth in the local communities through tourism and outdoor recreation.

"Our state will now welcome the many economic opportunities that surround a new national monument and can help boost local businesses and create jobs," Delaware Senator Tom Carper told Reuters.

“There’s no doubt that these monuments will serve as economic engines for the local communities through tourism and outdoor recreation – supporting economic growth and creating jobs," Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said.

The president designated the First State National Monument in Delaware, which spans three historical areas: the Dover Green, the New Castle Court House complex and the Woodlawn property in Brandywine Valley. The site tells the story of the early Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and English settlement of the colony of Delaware, and it will be the state's first designation. 

The president also designated Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico, which contains stretches of the Rio Grande Gorge and extinct volcanoes that rise fro the Taos Plateau. The area is known for its spectacular landscapes and recreational opportunities like rafting, fishing and hiking and serves as an important habitat for many birds and wildlife. 

Handout / Reuters

Minnie's Beach, Active Cove on Patos Island at the San Juan National Monument in Washington is seen.

Obama also designated the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument on Maryland's Eastern Shore that honors the escaped slave who helped lead others to freedom.

The site includes Stewart’s Canal, dug by hand by free and enslaved people between 1810 and the 1830s, and where Tubman learned important outdoor skills when she worked in the nearby timber operations with her father, the White House said. 

Rounding out the new monuments are: the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio, which honors the distinguished officer in the United States Army who was the third African American to graduate from West Point and the first to achieve the rank of Colonel; and the San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington state, home to a number of historic lighthouses and cultural resources and fossils dating back 12,000 years.

Obama has previously designated four places as national monuments, including the home and headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America leader César Chávez and Colorado's Chimney Rock, known for its rich history of Native American culture. 

The King County Sheriff's Office is trying to find Michael Boysen, the grandson of an elderly couple found dead in their Renton, Wash., home on Saturday.

An "extremely dangerous" ex-con was being hunted Monday in the Pacific Northwest after his elderly grandparents were found slain, officials said.

Michael "Chad" Boysen, 26, was staying with his grandparents in the Seattle suburb of Renton, Wash., shortly after being released from prison, King County Sheriff’s Department 911 supervisor Susan Chapin said.

A relative became concerned when she couldn’t reach the grandparents and they did not return phone calls. When she drove to their house, she found their bodies about 7 p.m. (10 p.m. ET) local time Saturday, Chapin said. Their names have not been released.

Police confirmed that a warrant had been issued for Boysen's arrest on suspicion of first-degree murder.

“He was staying there. The couple’s car was taken. There was no sign of forced entry into the home. He was just released from prison after serving a year for burglary,” Chapin said.

Further investigation indicated that Boysen had been searching online for places to buy guns, including gun shows, in Washington state and Nevada.

Police have called him “extremely dangerous.”

“I think the fact that he’s believed to have killed two people who were close to him and then he starts looking for guns, we should consider him armed and dangerous,” Chapin said.

Washington state’s gun laws require a waiting period for handguns purchased through a dealer.

Boysen is 5 foot 10 and 170 pounds with dark hair and hazel eyes. He is thought to be driving a red 2001 Chrysler 300. The car’s original tags, which may have been changed, were Washington plates bearing the number 046 XXU.

Police say that Boysen should not be approached and that anyone who sees him should call 911 immediately.

"I can't stress how dangerous this guy is," King County Sheriff John Urquhart said at a Monday news conference. He said Boysen had made threats against family members and law enforcement officials, but he did not elaborate.

"We have to catch him as soon as we can," Urquhart said.

Urquhart said the grandparents were not shot, but he declined to provide other details about their killings, pending autopsies.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

A winter storm was expected to bring up to a foot of snow to parts of New England on Friday.

Forecasters said Boston could get up to 6 inches of snow and New York as much as 3 inches. Interior Massachusetts could be hit harder — up to 12 inches.

The system was expected to hang out through Saturday morning.

"We are watching a conveyor belt of wave after wave of snow coming in over the Atlantic," Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service told the AP. "The morning commute will definitely be a challenge," he added, especially for those headed into Boston from the south.

NBC Connecticut warned that "isolated power outages are possible from the combination of wet snow accumulating on trees and power lines and gusty winds."

"Late Friday into Friday night, the storm will finally shift out to sea with impacts limited to lingering breezy winds along the Northeast coast by Saturday morning," according to weather.com.

Parts of the Jersey shore, still struggling to recover from superstorm Sandy, were dealing with a new bout of flooding on Thursday. 

Pounding surf broke through a temporary dune in Mantoloking during the early-morning high tide, sending water flowing onto a section of Route 35, which was closed for several hours.

New Jersey's Department of Transportation, Mantoloking's public works crews and contractors on Thursday were scooping and pushing sand back into the breach.

"They're trying to keep the dune system intact," Police Chief Mark Wright told the AP. 

Other shore towns also had trouble with flooding, including Sea Bright, where firefighters put out a blaze in a vacant commercial building sparked by a downed power line.

Steven Senne / AP

Ocean waves crash over a seawall and into houses along the coast in Scituate, Mass., on Thursday.

Along the Massachusetts coast, which was hammered by a blizzard four weeks ago, people braced for surging seas. Homeowners were encouraged to evacuate. Photos showed two-story-high waves crashing against seawalls.

“We still have remnants of the last storm in the yard,” Paula Polasky, who lives in the coastal town of Scituate, told NBC station WHDH in Boston before packing up and leaving. “I’m not going to take any chances this time.”

Parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio woke up to as much as 6 inches of snow Thursday, with the possibility of more in the Philadelphia suburbs into Friday, NBC Philadelphia reported.

The system was a no-show in Washington, where predictions of the worst snowfall in two years came to nothing more than a slushy annoyance. It was far more impressive to the west: Parts of Virginia got 20 inches of snow.

People in the nation's capital didn’t even need to break out snow shovels after the storm left only a scattering of flakes.

Federal offices closed, schools were shut and Congress postponed hearings on Wednesday as the city braced for what people online dubbed Snowquester, after the automatic budget cuts known as the sequester.

“They just say that it might snow and the whole city shuts down,” Sheri Sable told The Associated Press as she walked her dogs in a slight drizzle in Washington on Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Snow blankets Midwest, heads east

Jim Mone / AP

A storm system stretching from the Dakotas to the Florida Panhandle is predicted to bring snow to the mid-Atlantic states.

Launch slideshow

Related: 

Full coverage from weather.com

Snowstorm misses Washington, pounds areas west of nation's capital

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 7, 2013 7:07 AM EST

Like so many things in Washington, D.C., the late-winter storm that was supposed to bring the nation’s capital to a crawl on Wednesday proved to be overhyped and underwhelming.

The official forecast was 4 to 8 inches, but by late evening no snow had accumulated, only slush that could make for a slick roads for the Thursday morning commute.

“We just didn’t have the cold air that we needed to produce a snow event here at the capital. It was not produced by the storm and it did not come in from the storm,” Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore said on NBC’s Nightly News.

The real snowfall occurred west of Washington, in towns like Front Royal, Va., which got pummeled with 17 inches of heavy, wet snow. It caused power outages up and down the mid-Atlantic, with crews struggling to keep up.  

National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro described the snow as gloppy and “consistent with wallpaper paste.”

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell declared a state of emergency and more than 200,000 residents of the state were without power, especially along the Interstate 81 corridor, which tracks the western border of Virginia. Emergency crews in northern Virginia responded to dozens of weather related accidents throughout the area.

In D.C., fear of a commute-crippling storm closed federal offices and most school districts in the area. Nearly 4,000 salt trucks and plows set out to clear roads throughout northern Virginia.

More than 600 flights were canceled at Reagan National airport and more than 500 at Washington Dulles.

The storm spun just off the mid-Atlantic coast, feeding moisture to the west. Where the air was cool, particularly around Baltimore, it produced sleet. Where it was colder, outside of Washington and especially the Shenandoah Valley to the west, it produced snow.

As the storm lumbered north, it threatened high wind and waves along the coast, including in some cities and towns battered by Hurricane Sandy last fall.

Authorities in Delaware urged people to get out of flood-prone areas and the New Jersey towns of Brick and Toms River issued voluntary evacuation notices and encouraged people in low-lying areas to get their cars to higher ground.

Slideshow: Snow blankets Midwest, heads east

Jim Mone / AP

A storm system stretching from the Dakotas to the Florida Panhandle is predicted to bring snow to the mid-Atlantic states.

Launch slideshow

The storm originated in Montana and moved east over the Ohio Valley, dropping 6 inches of snow on Chicago on Tuesday. More than 1,100 flights were canceled in and out of that city’s two airports on Tuesday, according to NBC Chicago.

In the Chicago suburbs, part of the roof of a banquet hall caved in Tuesday afternoon, and snow poured into one wing of the building. Fire officials in the city of Des Plaines said that the building was empty and no one was hurt.

Illinois banquet hall roof collapses under weight of snow

The storm was forecast to dump a mix of rain and snow on the New York area Wednesday, leading to as much as 2 inches of accumulation in New York City.

On Thursday, the low-pressure storm powering the storm is expected to move off the New England coast, but bands of snow wrapping back to the west should complicate travel there.

Andrew Rafferty and Reuters contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Wed Mar 6, 2013 4:42 AM EST

A 4-year-old girl in Washington state pulled her little sister from the wreckage of a car crash that killed their mother, then kept the two of them warm under a blanket in the chilly rain for six hours until a passing driver found them.

State troopers said that the girls probably only survived because the older sister had the wherewithal to get them out of the car and cover them. The younger girl is 2. Both were hurt, NBC affiliate KING5 in Seattle reported.

The crash happened at about 2 a.m. Wednesday in a remote part of the state near the Pacific coast. It was after 8 when a driver noticed a fresh cut in the bark of a tree along the road — an orange gash in otherwise green and gray woods.

“I just can’t imagine what the little girls were going through,” the driver, Kraai McClure, told KING5. “It could have been a really different ending, but it is, you know, a halfway happy ending.”

The mother, 26, was on her way to pick up her husband, a fisherman, along the Washington coast, The Seattle Times reported. He told her on the phone that his boat would be coming into Portland, Ore., instead, and that she and the girls should head home, KING5 reported.

The woman, identified by troopers as Jessica Rath, apparently decided to drive to Portland anyway. Troopers said she probably fell asleep at the wheel and was killed instantly when the vehicle crashed.

“We’re lucky we had someone paying attention or we may not have found them for a long time,” Trooper Russ Winger, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, told The Times. “Hypothermia could have set in if they were found any later.”

Both girls were taken to a hospital in Astoria, Ore., and the 2-year-old, who troopers said was seriously injured, was later flown to Portland.

A woman died in a car crash near Naselle, Wash., early Wednesday, but her two daughters survived the accident.