Cliff rescue, community-center reductions, train horns among TNT’s top stories

Four stories shaped the South Sound news cycle Friday, from an overnight cliff rescue near Wilkeson to a military court sentencing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Budget cuts and a railroad delay also hit Tacoma residents directly.

Here are key takeaways:

• Pierce County crews completed an 11-hour overnight rescue of two men whose vehicle plunged 250 feet down a cliff near T-Rex Falls outside Wilkeson, with one victim pinned under the engine before being airlifted to a hospital.
• Parks Tacoma will roll back hours at four community centers starting July 1 as part of $9 million in budget cuts, with all locations closing Sundays and the STAR Center opening three hours later on weekdays. The agency also eliminated funding for after-school programs Beyond the Bell and Club B, subsidized childcare options that families relied on in a region with high childcare costs.
• Old Town Tacoma residents face at least two more months of loud train horns after a malfunctioning wayside horn system at McCarver Street and Ruston Way forced train engineers to manually sound louder horns. BNSF Railway’s new authorization process requires the city to hire third-party railroad flaggers, pushing the $50,000 wayside horn installation from the end of June to the end of August.
• Army Capt. Brandon Jones-Adams was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to secretly slipping the abortion drug Mifepristone into the drink of a pregnant soldier he was dating, causing her to miscarry at 13 weeks. The Joint Base Lewis-McChord officer, who lived in Puyallup, also pleaded guilty to domestic violence, fraternization and conduct unbecoming of an officer, and was dismissed from the Army with forfeiture of all pay.

The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by senior editor Adam Lynn. The source reporting referenced above was written and edited entirely by journalists.