La autopista estatal 20 había sido cerrada entre Newhalem y Rainy Pass, en el condado de Whatcom, ya que es el principal punto de acceso para los bomberos que trabajan en el incendio de Sourdough. Read More
Scenic State Route 20 which runs through North Cascades National Park is now reopened.
The highway had been closed between Newhalem and Rainy Pass in Whatcom County, as it is the main access point for firefighters working the Sourdough Fire. Mark Enty, public information officer with Northwest Incident Management Team 10, said crews are still working in the area and Read More
Air and ground crews continue to fight the Sourdough fire burning in Whatcom County, which had grown to 1,440 acres as of Monday.
The fire is burning in a remote area where the terrain is rugged and steep, which is why crews are attacking the fire from the sky, said Mark Enty, public information officer for Northwest Incident Management Team 10. Read More
Crews made progress over the weekend on the Eagle Bluff fire burning in Okanogan County. The fire was 80 percent contained on Monday and crews said there has not been new growth for 48 hours. Read More
In South Tacoma, there is about 150 acres of land sitting vacant where dry grasses and trees cover an area that, in part, once served as a rail-yard for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Read More
On Monday, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) decided to pause an auction of 102 acres of public, forested lands to harvest for timber in King County that had been scheduled for Tuesday.
King County council members wrote a letter to Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz and the Board of Natural Resources last week, urging them to defer the auction. Read More
The GEO Group, the operator of a private detention center in Tacoma, has filed a lawsuit against Washington opposing new legislation that would regulate private detention facilities in the state.
With the signing of House Bill 1470 into law in May, the Washington State Department of Health was given the authority to do unannounced inspections of private detention Read More
A major collision on northbound Interstate 5 Wednesday morning caused day-long backups across much of Thurston County.
The incident, between a semi-truck and passenger vehicle, closed all but one of the northbound lanes just past the exit to Mounts Road in DuPont, as crews worked to investigate the collision and then clear the debris and vehicles. Read More
With just over two weeks left before the current United Parcel Service Teamsters contract expires, employees nationwide are preparing to go on strike. If they do, it would be the largest single-employer strike in United States history.
In the Port of Tacoma, over 1,000 UPS employees from three distribution centers could walk off the job Aug. 1st, according to Brett Read More
At Northwest Trek in Eatonville, Washington, there are about 300 northern leopard frogs, named for their spotted skin, swimming around in four tanks and getting ready for their new home.
The frogs are part of a conservation project that Northwest Trek is partnering with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Read More
Just minutes away from busy Pacific Avenue in Pierce County, the Franklin Pierce School district administration office sits inside a nondescript, gray building. Inside, a group of women are gathered in a conference room Thursday morning, eating brightly colored Pan Dulce, laughing and sharing their trials and tribulations. Blanca Sagastizado, a family resource navigator Read More
Doctors say end of federal protections affect more than just abortion careRead More
Just in time for the Fourth of July holiday, the west side of Washington is going to see some sunny, hot weather. The daytime highs of 80- and 90- plus degrees being predicted might still seem abnormal to those who call the Puget Sound basin home, but those temperatures are on trend with the hotter summers climatologists have been tracking.
Historically, Western Read More
A number of Washington state public schools are partnering with tribes to bring Indigenous languages into classrooms in an effort to rectify the marred history of Native American boarding schools.
Rachael Barger is a teacher on special assignment with Bethel School District, one of the districts partnering with the Nisqually Tribe to bring its Southern Lushootseed Read More
A medida que los días se vuelven más calurosos y cálidos, muchos habitantes de Washington se preparan para los incendios forestales que arderán este año en toda la región, provocando cielos llenos de humo, evacuaciones y pérdidas potencialmente devastadoras. Read More
The Tacoma Art Museum board of directors has indicated they will voluntarily recognize museum employees who have been organizing for the Tacoma Art Museum Workers United (TAMWU) union, through a privately arbitrated election.
TAMWU organizers said they don’t support the conditions of that recognition, though.Read More
As the days get hotter and warmer, many Washingtonians are gearing up for the wildfires that will ignite across the region this year, causing smoky skies, evacuations and potentially devastating loss. Read More
This year’s funding for Tacoma Rescue Mission homeless shelters has decreased. That means next month, the mission will have to decrease the number of shelter spaces available.
As of June 23, the mission had 24 spaces available in their women’s shelter and 39 in their men’s shelter. But by July 1, those will go away, according to the mission. Read More
Sense of community. Belonging. Teamwork. Identity. These feelings can come from playing a team sport.
However, sports often are gendered spaces that follow traditional societal expectations. Then, there’s roller derby, which has a history of defying traditional female roles and giving a space for women to compete. One derby league, Dockyard Roller Derby in Tacoma, is Read More
With the deadline looming to secure enough signatures to get their initiative on the ballot, volunteers with Tacoma For All canvassed across Tacoma Friday.
Zev Cook, field manager for the campaign, led a group of eight volunteers in the late afternoon around a South Tacoma neighborhood. Read More
For Jami Pitman, her child’s elementary school changed their lives.
Eight years ago, when she enrolled her child in Bellingham Public Schools, they were homeless. Pitman said she sought housing support from the Opportunity Council, an organization that provides a variety of wraparound services. Opportunity Council is part of the county’s coordinated entry system. The Read More
The Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington couldn’t be further away from waterfront property. But at the end of the last ice age, the area was, at times, underwater. Torrential flooding cascaded through the area and created the current landscape, including the Grand Coulee.
Some 15,000 years later, that geological gravitas has inspired a composition for guitars. Read More
The Tacoma School District has the largest number of students experiencing homelessness in Washington. Month after month, more students and their families are counted as homeless in Tacoma, the third largest city in the state.
“We started the fall at 1,626, and as of the end of April, we're at 2,382,” said Taj Jensen, director of Title, Learning Assistance Programs Read More
Organizadores del grupo de defensa de los derechos de los inquilinos Tacoma Para Todos, y quienes los apoyan, se reunieron con pancartas y megáfonos hace unas semanas para mostrarse en favor de una iniciativa, conocida coloquialmente como una declaración de derechos de los inquilinos, que Tacoma Para Todos espera poner en la boleta electoral para los votantes este otoño.Read More
Organizers from the housing justice group Tacoma For All and their supporters gathered with signs and megaphones Thursday afternoon to show their support of the initiative, known colloquially as a tenant bill of rights, which Tacoma For All hopes to get on the ballot for voters this fall.
The rally took place before a meeting of the city’s Community Vitality and Safety Read More
The Army Corps of Engineers began emergency repair work May 22 on a jetty that sits at the mouth of the Skagit River’s North Fork, near La Conner.
Crews will use cobble and sediment to essentially plug porous areas of the McGlinn Island Jetty. Those gaps have stranded, harmed or killed out-migrating juvenile salmon this spring, according to a press release from the Read More
Northwest artists have drawn inspiration from salmon as long as people have walked along the running streams. But, the movement to close four dams on the lower Snake River has some artists, activists and naturalists hopeful that their pieces will not only tug at heartstrings, but also move forward the conversation of salmon conservation and restoration.
Washington Gov. Read More
A new documentary, Healing US, premieres in Tacoma at the Grand Cinema on May 19. The documentary tells the story of the national movement for Medicare for All, where folks are advocating for an universal healthcare system. One of the key players in that story is Laura Fielding, founder of the Red Berets for Medicare for All coalition in Tacoma. Read More
Two Tacoma groups have filed a joint-appeal against the city’s recent decision to issue a land-use permit for a highly controversial warehouse in South Tacoma.
The South Tacoma Neighborhood Council and 350 Tacoma, a grassroots environmental organization, filed the appeal on May 5. Earthjustice, a non-profit, environmental law organization, is representing the groups. Read More
Washington state has one of the largest numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples cases in the nation.
On May 4, the Nisqually Indian Tribe’s Annual Protecting Our Sovereignty Tribal Summit focused on the missing and murdered Indigenous peoples crisis. Read More
At Sweet Peas Tea Room in Battle Ground, Washington, the Union Jack will fly proudly for the coronation, May 6 of King Charles III. Owner Sharon Harbeck is hosting a full English tea at the British tea room she and her daughter, Chantelle, have run for six years. Read More
By signing into law House Bill 1512, Washington state will create an online toolkit meant to assist families and law enforcement seeking to locate and recover missing persons.
The act, known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Persons and Lucian Act, is in part named after Lucian Munguia, who was 4 years old when he went missing in Yakima last September. His Read More
The City of Tacoma approved land use permits to develop a warehouse in South Tacoma.
The decision came April 21 after over a year of feedback from residents and public agencies expressing environmental equity concerns over the development. Read More
Five years since it was first published, Maps, a collection of poems by Tacoma writer Christina Vega, is still relevant today as a response to social injustice, they said.
“I'm asking readers to return to the work,” Vega said. “Let's look at it again, these issues are still here.” Read More
On April 20, Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law House Bill 1177 that establishes a cold case unit specifically for missing and murdered Indigenous women and people in the state.
“This legislation will ensure that Indigenous victims of crime receive robust, thorough investigations, and potential prosecution,” Inslee said. Read More
The Olympia School Board plans to vote tonight on whether to begin a reduction in force (RIF) process. School board President Darcy Huffman said it’s likely the board will approve the process, which would mean staff below a certain seniority level could be let go. Read More
For decades, the federal government declared all forest fires in the West a destructive force. Now, it is viewed as a fundamental part of the western ecosystem. Lauren Gallup and Mary Ellen Pitney explain.Read More
April is National Poetry Month and today/Wednesday, the Washington State Arts Commission announced that Arianne True will serve as the state’s new poet laureate beginning in May. Lauren Gallup spoke with the Tacoma-based writer and educator.Read More
The Olympia School District, like others across the state, is facing a budget deficit that could result in layoffs. The district is estimating a shortfall of up to $11.5 million for the 2023-24 school year. Read More
The Tacoma Art Museum Workers United committee is still in limbo after a special meeting March 31 with the museum’s board of trustees. The board did not announce a decision on whether to recognize the workers’ union. Read More
That history tends to repeat itself, especially when people don’t learn lessons from the past, is the guiding sentiment for Teresa Pan-Hosley in her work as the president of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation. This organization is solely dedicated to reconciling the dark history of the Chinese expulsion from Tacoma in 1885. Read More
After months of rallying and demanding recognition for their union, the employees of the Tacoma Art Museum got some assurance that the museum’s Board of Trustees would discuss at the end of the month the most recent union proposal. Read More
In downtown Tacoma, Rachel Ahrens said she sees drug use and abuse frequently.
“I've personally seen somebody that was just slumped up against the door and looked to be like an overdose,” said Ahrens, who is the building administrator for First United Methodist Church. “I didn't have Narcan at that time, so I wasn't able to administer that. So I had to call 911, for them Read More
While the West Coast is known for grunge and surf rock, Stephanie Clifford’s latest novel, a piece of historical fiction, reminds readers of the roots country music has here, especially Tacoma.
Tacoma, a burgeoning port city on Commencement Bay in the 1940s and 50s, plays a central role in The Farewell Tour. The book is an American West tale of coming home, with a few Read More
The use of aerial fire retardant to fight wildfires could be further restricted to protect the environment.
A handful of groups from western states filed a motion last week to intervene in a lawsuit brought by an Oregon environmental group against the U.S. Forest Service for inadvertently dumping fire retardant into streams. Read More
Two days before Camille Patha’s exhibit, "Passion Pleasure Power," opened at the Tacoma Art Museum, the artist walked around the gallery, a space filled with some of her new works from the past three years. Read More
Electron Hydro dam and its chief operating officer could have to pay the largest fine and restitution for an environmental crime in Washington state history.
COO Thom Fischer and the company, pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor permit violation for allowing the toxic contaminants crumb rubber and artificial turf to flow into the Puyallup River during a construction project. Read More
A group of poets in Kittitas County will honor eight important Washington women in verse.
March is Women’s History Month, and this Friday at Gallery One in Ellensburg, the poets will perform their crown of sonnets, a succession of seven, separate sonnets, at the Women’s History Month Poetry Extravaganza. Read More
The site of the last coal-fired power plant in Washington state will soon be home to proving grounds for a carbon-emissions free mining truck.
The truck is a battery and hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle, developed by Seattle-based First Mode, and it's the largest emissions free vehicle in the world. Chris Voorhees, co-founder and chief product and technology officer at Read More
Brian Hanson, an engineer who works remotely in Idaho, adjusts the Starlink satellite on his house for better internet reception. (Credit: Lauren Paterson / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 3:53) Read Reporting […]Read More
