A bit of good news: the Northgate expansion project that threatened to pave over Thornton Creek and cover it with a hotel and yet another multiplex movie theater has been abandoned. In May, a King County Superior Court judge ruled that the development plan doesn't adequately address environmental concerns, and that the city needs to review the development's impact on a potential salmon stream. Instead of daylighting Thornton Creek as part of its development, Simon Property Group has given up and put the 12.8-acre site up for sale for $25 million. The property has been the focus of an intense planning process to redevelop the entire Northgate area into a housing/mass transit zone, with echoes of the "urban village" concept. The need for a park in the middle of a heavily commercial and residential area is obvious; many Northgate residents are pushing the city to purchase the parcel and build a library or community center on the site, together with a park. Unfortunately, the city has balked at the cost. Never mind that it's a great idea. Paul Schell, the "idea man," can only get excited about his own, dim suggestions.--Maria Tomchick

In the reporting on the EPA's approval of RU-486, a few facts went unnoticed. First, the EPA's trial was based on the use of RU-486 in France, a predominately Catholic country, where abortion laws are very strict (abortion is legal only up to the 12th week of pregnancy). The pill's inventor, Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu, has been lobbying to get RU-486's use extended beyond the seven-week limit. The pill works by blocking the production of the hormone progesterone in the mother's body; but, by the end of the ninth week of pregnancy, the placenta begins producing progesterone on its own and RU-486 become less effective. Dr. Baulieu wants to extend RU-486's use to the eighth and ninth week of pregnancy. This is eminently reasonable. How many women know that they're pregnant after skipping only one period? How many women can even get in to see a doctor within two to three weeks?

There are other, worse barriers to the use of RU-486, especially for poor women. Women have to make three full visits to a clinic, with two of those visits lasting two to four hours. That's a lot of time off work for just a suspicion that you might be pregnant. A surgical abortion takes about an hour (not including any bed rest afterwards, which is less of a factor early in a pregnancy). Then there's the cost, which will be about $300 to $500--a lot of money for women living on a minimum wage.

There are signs that doctors and abortion providers will try to get around the EPA's guidelines and allow women to take the drug regimen at home (cutting down on office visits) and/or using RU-486 as late as the ninth week. However, Danco, the company that markets the drug, wants doctors to sign an agreement not to prescribe it "off-label." Usually, drug companies are more than happy to encourage off-label uses for a drug; it creates more demand for that drug and increases sales. And RU-486 has a number of promising off-label uses: to treat infertility, fibroids, endometriosis, Cushing's disease, meningioma, certain forms of breast cancer, and to help induce labor. It also has potential to be used widely as a "morning-after" contraceptive pill. But only if sanity, not politics, prevail.--M.T.

On September 26, the Supreme Court decided that it will not hear the Justice Department's case against Microsoft. This throws the anti-trust case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit, which has favored Microsoft in two earlier rulings and has all but said it would throw out the government's case. Forget about any break-up, any penalties against Microsoft, or even any conduct restraints. Microsoft just won itself another year of business-as-usual, with an almost guaranteed favorable ruling at the end. As one anti-trust expert said: "Today's the day the break-up died." (Didn't I tell you?)--M.T.

More evidence the game is corrupt: Five days after Russia's Ecology Committee and Forest Service were abolished by Parliament, the World Bank signed over a $60 million loan for sustainable forestry, which was to be implemented by the now-abolished Forest Service. In a strongly worded letter, 67 Russian and international environmental organizations criticized the wisdom and legality of making a loan to a non-existent agency. In addition, the bank has pledged to release another $1 billion to Russia this fall. The World Bank has been a key player in the transnational corporate rape of Siberia's forests. They're not only rapacious, they're incompetent.