A Seattle bank teller who chased down a would-be bank robber thwarted the theft, but ended up getting fired as a result.

Last Tuesday, a man walked into a Key Bank branch in the city, placed a bag on the counter and demanded money from 30-year-old teller Jim Nicholson. But instead of handing over the cash, Nicholson asked the man where "it" is, referring to a weapon. When the man didn't answer, Nicholson lunged after the man, who ran out of the bank.

The ability to charge your cell phone literally from the thin air may someday be possible if experiments at the Nokia Research Center here come to reality.

Researchers are studying how to convert ambient electromagnetic radiation, such as that emitted from wi-fi devices, cell phone towers and TV masts, into electrical signals that could recharge cell phones.

Thai officials are saying a young Seattle woman likely died of food poisoning, but her family doubts that conclusion after a pathologist they hired said her lungs were completely congested.

The woman, Jill St. Onge, a 27-year-old artist, died May 2. Her fiancée, Ryan Kells, also a Seattle artist, found St. Onge in their hotel room on the island of Phi Phi on May 2 struggling to breathe.

Five children were found shot dead inside a mobile home in the Graham area of Pierce County Saturday. Their father was also found dead inside a car near Auburn earlier in the day.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Office believe the father, 34-year-old James Harrison, is the one who slain his children, a boy age 7 and four girls age 11 to 16. The murder weapon was a rifle, which the father also used to shoot himself in the head.

As an indicator of the worsening housing problem in the U.S., more shanty towns were observed to have risen in major American cities the past few months.

Among the cities which are grappling with an increasing number of tent city residents are Fresno, Sacramento and Los Angeles in California, New York City, Seattle and Olympia in Washington, and St. Petersburg in Florida.