Morning Press: Hazel Dell rapist released; HP expanding Vancouver presence; Cosmic Crisp apples here

Will we get a glimpse of the sun this weekend? Check our local weather coverage.

In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories from the week:

Hazel Dell rapist’s release set for Friday

A serial rapist who terrorized Hazel Dell in the late 1980s is set to be released from prison Friday to live in Vancouver after serving three decades behind bars.

In November 1989, a Clark County jury convicted Brian Ashley Hass, then 25, of first-degree rape, first-degree burglary and first-degree assault for attacking a 21-year-old Hazel Dell woman in her home.

Read more about Ashley Hass.

HP planning move to former mine site in Vancouver

HP Inc., a printer and PC company with a corporate campus in east Vancouver, is in negotiations to purchase 68 acres of industrial land in an area key to future development in the city.

The city of Vancouver announced Wednesday afternoon that HP was planning to move out of its current leased facilities at the Columbia Tech Center and build a new location from scratch at what was once the English Pit gravel mine.

Learn more about HP’s plans.

• More on HP’s announcement: Amid takeover talk, HP Inc. betting big on Vancouver, 3D printing

Rosie memories of Kaiser Shipyard days

Naomi Parker Fraley died in Longview last year. You may not know her by her full name, but you definitely know her by another one.

Fraley was likely the original inspiration for Rosie the Riveter, the World War II-era feminist icon who urged women to join the workforce when men shipped overseas in the 1940s. Rosie’s design — flexed arm, red bandana, emblazoned with “We Can Do It!” — became a defining image of the era.

But Fraley wasn’t the only local woman with a link to Rosie. Vancouver became ground zero for women entering the workforce during the war, as thousands flooded into the Kaiser Shipyard to take up work building ships for the U.S. Navy and transforming the city’s social and economic landscape.

Read more memories from women of the Kaiser Shipyard.

Eagerly awaited Cosmic Crisp apple begins arriving in Clark County grocery stores

A new breed of apple more than 20 years in the making is traversing the galaxy and making its way to a grocery store near you.

Cosmic Crisp, developed by the Washington State University apple breeding program, is now available at several local grocery stores and will be at more in the coming days.

The cheery red-and-yellow fruit, named for the white starlike speckles on its skin, is a sweet-tart hybrid of Honeycrisp and Enterprise apples. It’s been the subject of excitement among Washington’s apple fans in recent years as the first shipment prepared to launch.

Find out more about this special new fruit.

Changes at Hazel Dell RV park stir troubled waters for low-income tenants

A change in ownership has created uncertainty for low-income tenants at a trailer park in Hazel Dell, with fears that rent increases or other requirements might force them to park on the streets.

The situation at Sam’s Good RV Park is the latest case where residents at the most basic entry point to housing are being squeezed as housing becomes increasingly less affordable in Clark County.

When tenants at the park off Highway 99 received notice on Nov. 19 that their monthly pad rent was going from $400 to $595 at the start of 2020, many worried they couldn’t cover the increase.

Read more about changes at the RV park.