The St. Johns herald., 1922-04-13

WESTERN
 Loss estimated from $225,000 to $25o,O0O was caused by a fire which swept the upper floors of the Olympic cereal mills at Portland, Oregon.
 The retrial of Madalynne Obenchain, charged with the murder of J. BeltOn Kennedy, her sweetheart, in Beverly Glen, near Los Angeles, the night of Aug. s, last, will commence June 6. The first trial of Mrs. Obenchain re- suited in a disagreement of the jury.
 Seattle police are Investigating an explosion which wrecked the real es- tate office of Frank Atwood in Carle- ton Park, a Seattle suburb, and did considerable damage to neighboring buildings, declare a deliberate attempt had been made to destroy the proper ty. The explosion shook the entire northwest part of the city.
 June 1 has been set for the depar- ture from Seattle of Captain Roald Am9ndsen's Arctic expedition, Fl. H. Hammer, Captain Amundsen's agent, has announced. With this ship, the Maud, the explorer expects to drift past the North Pole with the Arctic ice pack and to make scientific obser- vations over a wide area in the Polar basin.
 To the growing list of radio fans add Mary Garden. The grand opera manager and singer, who has to bring the Chicago Grand Opera Company to San Francisco for the annual engage ment, telegraphed ahead to the hotel and requested that her suite be equipped not only with radio receiv- ing set, but with a high-power broad casting set as well.
 James Ogle, serving a life sentence in the state penitentiary at Salem, Ore, for the murder of George Per ringer and Newton Burgess at the Claremont tavern, near Portland, dur ing a robbery two years ago, was shot to death in the court yard of the iso- lation ward of the prison by John Da- vidson, a guard. The attempt of Ogle to make good repeated threats to kill his guard unless he was released from the isolation ward, where he has been confined for nearly year, was re- sponsible for the shooting, according to prison officials.
 WASHINGTON
 Coal operators who face the pros pect of a strike of their employees April 1, but who still refuse to enter a national conference with the coal min erse' union, are not controlled by o mere madness, but determination to cure a deep-seated disorder" George H. Cushing, managing director of the American Wholesale Coal Association, declared in an address before the Washington City Club.
 The American government has sent to the allied powers another note SUD- pleHental to that recently dispatched and designed to support it's claim for equality with those powers in the payment of costs arising from the Rhineland occupation. The new note declared that whether or not there should be deficit in the French ac- count for its occupation army costs as of May l, 1921, the claim for equality on the part of the United States would not thereby be affected.
 Plans for early establishment of an air route to the Panama canal zone as a measure of national defense are be- ing made by the War Department, Sec retary Weeks announced recently. When landing places have been sur veyed and selected, he said, army planes will be sent to the zone under their own power.
 The federal power commission has approved the issuance of a final li- cense to the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation of Fresno, Calif., for the construction of a hydraulic power plant on the north and west forks of the Kings river In California. The project will cost approximately $50,0OO,0O0, according to the plans sub- mitted will develop 250,000 horsepower and 35O,O0O kilowatts.
 It was learned at the White House recently that the President and his cabinet had discussed the Colorado river project in it's various phases and had determined that, pending a settle ment of the water rights matter, there shall be no more grants of water pow CT franchises. Further grants will be withheld until the commission now considering the subject shall have re- ported and congressional action taken.