The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network has detected more than 4,500 tremors over the past two weeks deep beneath the Olympic Peninsula and southern Vancouver Island and from another swarm stretching from Eugene to the Siskiyou Mountains.Read More
If you were among the 1.7 million people who got a mysterious, unbidden $91.94 check in the mail recently, you may wonder if it is legitimate. It is! And the best news may be that recipients will get a similar check next summer.Read More
Whale watch tour companies have knocked a proposed orca protection initiative off the November ballot in San Juan County, Washington. The ballot measure would have asked voters to greatly increase the stand-off distance between boats and endangered killer whales.Read More
Photo analysis by a forensic imaging expert from suburban Seattle is backing up a new search for the pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart. Right now, a National Geographic expedition is at an uninhabited island in the South Pacific looking for Earhart's missing airplane.Read More
Humpback whales are resurfacing in big numbers in the Salish Sea, the Columbia River mouth and the Northwest coast. Along with excitement over the humpbacks' return comes concern about ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.Read More
A whale expert is reporting a rare sighting of blue whales off the Washington state coast. The largest animals on the planet have also been sighted in unusual numbers offshore of Oregon this summer.Read More
A badly entangled whale is swimming free again after a dramatic rescue off the Washington coast on Thursday evening. The 35-foot long humpback whale calmly allowed responders to cut it free of fishing gear, according to witnesses.Read More
Pacific Northwesterners who forage for wild mushrooms are noticing that the late summer and fall delicacies are coming in early this year. Edible wild mushrooms are now flooding wholesale markets.Read More
Dozens of Northwest doctors are teaming up with a national nonprofit to write a different kind of prescription. Their "park prescriptions" direct patients with obesity, anxiety, depression or certain chronic conditions to spend more time outside.Read More
Oregon State University created something of a sensation back in 2015 when researchers announced they discovered and patented "seaweed that tastes like bacon." Four years later, the hard work of commercialization continues, but guilt-free bacon from the sea remains elusive.Read More
Giant rats sound like something to be scared of, perhaps. But the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington, thinks quite the opposite about the African giant pouched rats it just put on display. The rodents are billed as "hero rats."Read More
An environmental nonprofit is gauging interest in the creation of an orca enclosure in Washington's San Juan Islands. The organization is hosting public outreach meetings over the coming week in six Western Washington locations.Read More
Long-distance hiking can be the experience of a lifetime. It also can present dicey to mundane hurdles, like having to hike stretches along busy highways or logging roads. Trail crews are working this summer to improve some enticing regional routes -- that you may or may not have tried -- including the Oregon Coast Trail and the east-west Pacific Northwest Trail from Read More
In the span of just a few years, the Washington State Patrol has built up a fleet of more than 100 drones. At last check, the Oregon State Police had three. The Washington patrol says its small quadcopters are used for crash investigations, not for surveillance.Read More
How's this for emergency preparedness? An elementary school located in the tsunami inundation zone in Cannon Beach, Oregon, has equipped every student with a personal disaster survival kit.Read More
Boeing is running out of space to park grounded 737 Max jets in the Puget Sound region and is now sending some of its Renton, Washington, factory output to Moses Lake's spacious airport.Read More
The tally of dead gray whales washing up on Pacific Northwest beaches during this year's northbound migration keeps going up. That's prompting an unusual request for volunteers from a federal agency.Read More
Oregon State University has established what it considers to be the nation's largest hemp research center. This comes amid a surge of farmer interest in the Northwest to grow the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana.Read More
Cormorants by the thousands have taken up residence under the landmark Astoria-Megler Bridge over the Columbia River. Their poop can corrode the bridge and that is unacceptable to the Oregon and Washington transportation departments. But what actions to take against the protected birds and whose responsibility that is are up in the air.Read More
When you think of made-in-the-Northwest products, diamonds are probably not on your list. But soon, they could be. A contract signed Thursday for Columbia River hydropower clears the way for a foundry to make lab-created diamonds in Wenatchee.Read More
People visiting or living along the Pacific Northwest coast may be completely cut off after "The Big One" —the feared magnitude 9.0 Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. For that reason, the U.S. Navy has been scouting landing sites along the coast for disaster relief delivery by sea. The quake preparations ticked up a notch on Monday, with a practice delivery of supplies using Read More
The starting horn echoed bright and early Monday morning across Port Townsend Bay to launch the fifth annual running of a madcap maritime marathon. The 750-mile Race to Alaska has been compared by its organizers to the Iditarod sled dog race, but with a chance of drowning or getting eaten by a bear.Read More
Activists are asking city or county governments of at least seven Pacific Northwest communities to defy the federal government. They want to stop the deployment of next-generation 5G cellular service.Read More
Get ready to hear a lot of World War II memories over the next two weeks: The milestone 75th anniversary of D-Day is coming up on June 6. Pilots from the Pacific Northwest aboard a historic plane have arrived in the United Kingdom to take part in a reenactment of the invasion of Normandy.Read More
Olympic National Park said a decomposing gray whale washed ashore Friday morning north of Kalaloch Campground. That makes the 24th dead whale stranding in Oregon and Washington this year during the northbound migration.Read More
Crew training deficiencies played a crucial role in the deadly 2017 Amtrak train derailment near DuPont, Washington, according to a final report from federal investigators accepted Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.Read More
Washington is getting its first new full-service state park in many years. The planned park build-out is on land the state owns along the Nisqually River near Eatonville, Washington. Nisqually State Park will be developed thanks to $3 million included in a state construction budget to be signed into law by Washington's governor Tuesday.Read More
With the stroke of the governor's pen Wednesday, Washington officially became the first West Coast state to ditch the twice-yearly time switch. But the end of "spring forward-fall back" won't happen until Congress gives the green light to all of the states moving toward year-round daylight saving time.Read More
A legend about a great flood has been passed down through the centuries among the Klallam people on the north side of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. As re-told by Klallam elder Ed Sampson on a recording preserved by a University of North Texas linguist, the people noticed the fresh water turning salty -- a detail from which we infer a tsunami. Read More
A big rebound in the sea lion population along the West Coast in recent years has created a constant battle to wrangle the protected animals. They're smart and fun to watch from a safe distance, but also noisy, smelly and proving to be a headache for some coastal marinas.Read More
In their last minute dash to adjournment Sunday, Washington state legislators revived a lapsed sales tax break for buyers of electric cars. The resurrected incentive will be similar in value to a publicly-funded rebate for battery-powered cars that Oregon now offers. A valuable tax break for buyers of fully-electric and plug-in hybrid cars in Washington expired last May.Read More
Executives from Seattle-based Alaska Airlines say they foresee minimal impact from the ongoing grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX model. The airline has 32 Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets on order.Read More
The peak stranding time for gray whales in the Pacific Northwest is normally April, May and June. But the federal agency NOAA Fisheries has already logged nine dead whales washed ashore in Washington and one in Oregon. That's on top of 21 strandings on California beaches since the beginning of the year.Read More
Pacific Northwesterners are undeniably fond of their endangered resident killer whales. Many locals are also fans of salmon fishing, a hobby that sustains charter fishing fleets in coastal harbors from Neah Bay, Washington, to Brookings, Oregon. But now there is a chance future fishing trips on the ocean could be curtailed to leave more food for the killer whales. Read More
Last September, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated a region of Indonesia, killing more than 4,300 people. Two Oregon State and University of Washington professors who surveyed the aftermath say the far-away disaster should elevate attention to quake-induced landslide risks here at home in the Pacific Northwest.Read More
Today, automakers Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes make hydrogen fuel cell electric cars in very limited numbers. None of their Pacific Northwest dealers currently stock or sell those models to local drivers. Nevertheless, Toyota is laying the groundwork to bring its hydrogen-powered vehicles to the Northwest.Read More
A measure to adopt daylight saving time all year-round is now one small step away from the desk of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. The same issue is still chugging along in the Oregon and California legislatures as part of a loosely coordinated movement to dispense with the unpopular ritual of springing forward and falling back.Read More
Politicians and wildlife managers are engaged in a fresh debate about whether to intervene in nature to save an imperiled species. The question is whether humans can get seals and sea lions to lay off Chinook salmon so there's more for killer whales to eat.Read More
The Douglas County Public Utility District operates Wells Dam on the Columbia River north of Wenatchee. The dam generates a lot of surplus electricity, especially during spring runoff. Quite a few years ago, utility managers hit on the idea of using surplus electricity to split water molecules to make hydrogen.Read More
Outdoor retailer REI is planning a major expansion of rentals and used gear sales this year to sustain growth. The Washington-based co-op's vast membership may also get the opportunity to sell second-hand gear back to the company for REI credit as it seeks ways to maintain relevance and loyalty in an evolving retail marketplace.Read More
Some psychiatric patients are spending not just hours in the emergency room, but days or a week. They're living there in the ER because there is nowhere else to send them. Northwest policymakers are now making it a priority to create more treatment capacity for people in mental health and addiction crises.Read More
Two people who allegedly placed online ads to sell elephant ivory carvings are the first to be charged under wildlife trafficking laws passed Northwest voters a few years ago.Read More
A former Navy landing ship commissioned during World War II could come to the rescue when a big Cascadia earthquake hits someday. A group based in Astoria, Oregon, envisions a new role in disaster relief for the storied vessel Salvage Chief.Read More
Astonishing feats in automotive fuel efficiency will be tested in competition later this week by high school and university students from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.Read More
There's a good chance that people who ride Washington State Ferries will see a permanent fare increase this fall. As part of the deal, passengers could glide across Puget Sound on the state's first hybrid-electric ferries three to five years from now.Read More
Sen. Patty Murray said she is committed to helping West Coast states get the congressional OK to adopt year-round daylight saving time. This comes as Oregon, Washington and California state legislators move toward nixing the twice yearly time change.Read More
Cryptocurrency companies in Central Washington were left to wait in suspense on Tuesday after they asked a federal judge in Spokane to block an imminent, targeted electric rate increase. The energy-intensive data center operators claim they would be crippled by the Grant County Public Utility District rate hike. The utility says the case is without merit.Read More
The options to share your fandom or your love of nature through your car license plate keep growing in Oregon and Washington. But not all license plate ideas go down smoothly.Read More
A research project to model the effects from a Cascadia megaquake found higher risk of collapse for modern tall buildings than previously thought.Read More
The Washington House of Representatives voted 89 to 7 Saturday in favor of observing daylight saving time year-round. The state Senate is expected to vote in the coming days on the issue, which is gaining steam in statehouses across the West. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has not yet signaled where he stands on the measures.Read More
