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Vancouver’s future Olympic Village is the largest residential development under way in North America and the first Olympic athletes village ever built that is largely market housing. It’s a miniature European-style city with low-rise buildings along narrow streets. One of the biggest challenges has been meeting the city’s demand that it be an environmental showcase. Toronto Globe and Mail 01/08/2009

The Legislature’s first expansion of Oregon’s storied 1971 bottle bill requires that all plastic water bottles be marked for a nickel deposit beginning Jan. 1. But many stores continue to sell unmarked bottles, state regulators said Wednesday. That means shoppers could pay their nickel deposit — checkout scanners don’t distinguish between marked and unmarked bottles — then have their refund refused. Oregonian 01/08/2009

Many who testified Wednesday at a Seattle School Board meeting criticized the fact that four of the five schools on Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s school-closure recommendations have a high percentage of low-income students and students of color. Seattle Times 01/08/2009

Idaho paid out nearly $9 million in state unemployment benefits during the first week of 2009, a staggering number that prompted Department of Labor officials to warn legislators Wednesday that the state’s Unemployed Insurance Trust Fund is quickly draining. The state’s agriculture industry is expecting a down year for many of its products, especially dairy. Boise Idaho Statesman 01/08/2009

With Portland residents complaining about buses and trains that didn’t run frequently enough, and streets that weren’t plowed and sanded, city officials and nonprofit agencies that help the homeless say collectively they came through two weeks of winter storms with a new sense of just how much they can accomplish in an emergency. Portland Tribune 01/08/2009

SpectraWatt Inc., an Intel spinoff that planned to make solar cells in Hillsboro, may leave Oregon because it can’t find financing to build a plant. The development surprised Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s aides and state economic development officials, who had been negotiating tax breaks for the plant. Oregonian 01/08/2009

The Schweitzer administration has put together a list of $3.1 billion potential state and local projects ready to break ground within six months once Congress approves incoming President Barack Obama’s federal economic-stimulus bill. It amounts to a wish list at this point, because details of Obama’s package have not yet been released. These projects could potentially create more than 100,000 jobs, the administration said. Missoulian 01/08/2009

The Sustainable Sites Initiative, introduced after three years of research by a diverse group of architects, landscape architects, ecologists and engineers, proposes guidelines for creating sustainable landscapes, diverse examples of successful restoration projects, and a point system for rating a landscape, much like the LEED System, which rates the sustainability of buildings. New York Times 01/08/2009

President Bush inherited a peaceful, prosperous America. As he exits, Salon consults experts in seven fields to try to assess the devastation. Salon 01/08/2009