Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a top Senate Democrat, revealed Friday that she came “inches away” from an encounter with violent rioters during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, speaking publicly about the experience for the first time as the Senate continued the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.Read More
Featured
How much you pay for auto, home and renters insurance depends a lot on your credit score. If your credit is good, you tend to pay less. If it’s not so good, you likely pay more. Now, Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler wants to ban the use of credit-based insurance scoring to set rates. He says it’s a matter of racial justice. Read More
We have a special place in history. Never have Americans been so experienced in presidential impeachment as we. Two impeachments in just more than a single year. Nonetheless, experience does not yield understanding. Impeachment is a rare and confusing process. This is just the fourth presidential impeachment in history. And each impeachment process and set of arguments is Read More
In southeast Washington, the welfare of more than 50,000 head of cattle is worrying Tyson Fresh Meats. Can the herd continue to be fed and cared for while the company set up to guard over them, Easterday Ranches, files for federal bankruptcy?Read More
President Biden has finalized deals to buy 200 million more COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer and Moderna by the end of July, increasing the likelihood of delivering on his promise to have all Americans inoculated by mid-summer.Read More
Congressional forecasters are projecting a federal deficit of $2.3 trillion this fiscal year, even without the additional $1.9 trillion in spending that President Biden has proposed.Read More
The House impeachment managers concluded their arguments in the Senate trial Thursday with a forceful condemnation of former President Donald Trump, arguing that he should be convicted to send a message that extremism and violence have no place in American politics.Read More
During a special meeting Thursday, the commission voted to let the state parks director decide if daylight restrictions can be lifted or modified after the Navy’s nine-month trial period is up, as long as the Navy complies with limits on when and where it will conduct training operations.Read More
The keyboardist, composer and bandleader Chick Corea — one of the most revered figures in contemporary jazz, but whose work spanned fusion to classical — died on Feb. 9 at age 79.Read More
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now blocked from Instagram after he repeatedly undercut trust in vaccines. Kennedy has also spread conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, accusing him of profiteering off vaccines and attempting to take control of the world's food supply.Read More
Groups representing women and sexual assault survivors are denouncing the appointment of former state Sen. Joe Fain to the state redistricting commission, a body that will shape Washington state politics for the next decade. Fain, 40, narrowly lost his reelection bid in November 2018, after being accused of raping a woman years earlier. The former Republican state senator Read More
President Biden raised some of the thorniest bilateral issues, but also talked about potential areas for cooperation, the White House said. The call comes after Biden and top administration officials did rounds of calls with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, signaling that the United States will depart from the Trump administration's go-it-alone approach to China.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says he looks forward to signing a $2.2 billion COVID relief bill in the coming days. The measure cleared the Legislature Wednesday after a bipartisan vote in the state Senate. Read More
House impeachment managers showed chilling new footage to senators during Day 2 of Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial, highlighting just how close the violent mob got to then-Vice President Mike Pence and congressional lawmakers on Jan. 6.Read More
BY STEPHEN FOWLER The Fulton County District Attorney’s office has launched a criminal probe into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn Georgia’s election results, including a call pressuring Republican […]Read More
Rescheduled fall sports seasons for high school athletes are kicking off this month in large parts of Washington state and Oregon. The general happiness this brought came with a dose of consternation among some coaches and families over strict COVID-19 safety guidelines set down by state health authorities.Read More
Tim Eyman, the watch salesman-turned-antitax folk hero whose initiative campaigns have bedeviled state and local governments across Washington for decades, will no longer be allowed to have any financial control over political committees, under a judge’s ruling Wednesday that blasted him for using donor’s contributions to line his own pocket.Read More
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new research on Wednesday that found wearing a cloth mask over a surgical mask offers more protection against the coronavirus, as does tying knots on the ear loops of surgical masks. Those findings prompted new guidance on how to improve mask fit at a time of concern over fast-spreading variants of the virus.Read More
In the 1920s, the Russian physicist Leon Theremin debuted an electronic instrument that could be played without any physical contact. Players stood in front of a box and waved their hands over antennas, summoning otherworldly sounds seemingly from thin air. The theremin might have been regarded as a passing novelty if not for the late Clara Rockmore, a virtuoso who helped Read More
The Washington State Patrol is mourning the loss of a trooper killed in an avalanche while off duty. Fifty-one year old Trooper Steve Houle died Monday while snowmobiling in Kittitas County. Read More
Mary Wilson, one of the co-founders of The Supremes, died Monday at the age of 76, her publicist announced. Wilson "passed away suddenly" at her Henderson, Nev., home, the singer's longtime friend and publicist Jay Schwartz said in a statement. No cause of death was given.Read More
The Washington state Department of Health told us they aren't keeping track of who's eligible and who's not among those vaccinated, but anecdotal evidence suggests ineligible people are getting vaccines at many clinics across the state. This happens because each provider must come up with its own process for checking eligibility, and most rely on the honor system.Read More
The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will move forward after the Senate voted Tuesday that the trial of a former president is constitutional. Trump was impeached by the House for inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The Senate Tuesday vote was 56-44, with six Republicans joining all 50 Democrats.Read More
After Gov. Jay Inslee extended the moratorium multiple times, most lawmakers, lobbyists and advocates expect March 31 will mark its true end — at least at the state level. Then the question of what will happen to renters without the moratorium’s blunt relief will go from hypothetical to very much real.Read More
The Senate trial of former President Donald Trump for one article of impeachment — incitement of the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — starts Tuesday with a debate over whether the Constitution allows for prosecution of a president once he leaves office. The debate comes about a year after the Senate acquitted then-President Trump on two counts of abuse of power and Read More
WallStreetBets started as an investment forum — and its moderators continue to insist it is just that as the group has now grown to boast nearly 9 million members. But interviews with some of its members and an examination of its threads also show something else — that it's morphed into a movement of sorts, riding a giant wave of unresolved anger from the Great Recession.Read More
President Trump made history when he became the first president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives. Roughly a year ago, the Senate acquitted Trump on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction. This time he faces one article approved by the House arguing he incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the day that Congress was required by Read More
A bill that increases the minimum weekly benefit for unemployed workers during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and prevents a dramatic increase in unemployment taxes paid by businesses was signed into law Monday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.Read More
Since December, Easterday Ranches in WA has been embroiled in an alleged scandalous cattle rustling scheme. Now, a bankruptcy case calls into question whether a $225M lawsuit will go forward.Read More
A $33.5 billion stimulus package would breach the four dams by 2031. Much of the funding would go toward solutions for what would be lost, including hydropower, less access to irrigation, grain transportation and economic development for Lewiston and the Tri-Cities.Read More
The first sitting member of Congress, Texas Republican Rep. Ron Wright, died Sunday after receiving a positive test diagnosis for the coronavirus infection, his campaign announced in a statement on Monday.Read More
The damage caused by wildfires can be devastating, gutting structures and driving out people who live and work nearby. And researchers say the smoke from the annually recurring blazes also delivers economic damage to areas that were never touched by the flames.Read More
As the Pentagon wrestles with concerns over right-wing extremism among service members, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has signed a memo directing commanding officers and supervisors to institute a one-day stand-down within the next 60 days to address extremism within the nation's armed forces.Read More
The roads taken by the family in The Removed, Brandon Hobson's new novel, are essential ones in this moment of national reclaiming. The story in this book is deeply resonant and profound, and not only because of its exquisite lyricism. It's also a hard and visceral entrance into our own reckoning as a society and civic culture with losses we created, injustices we allowed, Read More
Ever since the coronavirus reached the U.S., officials and citizens alike have gauged the severity of the spread by tracking one measure in particular: How many new cases are confirmed through testing each day. However, it has been clear all along that this number is an understatement because of testing shortfalls.Read More
Ever since the pandemic closed the nation's schools in March 2020, there has been no official national source for understanding where schools have reopened, how many hours of live instruction students are getting online and just how unequal the access to learning has been over the past 11 months.Read More
Public schools with Native American-themed mascots and logos would need to find new team names under a proposal that drew supportive testimony to the Washington Legislature on Friday. The pending phase-out bill hews closely to an earlier, hard-fought policy in Oregon to change names and mascots. Read More
President Biden said on Friday that his plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour is unlikely to happen as part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package.Read More
“Inconsistent.” “Disastrous.” “Senseless.” Those are just some of the words being used to describe Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s plan for reopening the state – and they’re the words of his fellow Democrats. It’s a sign of rising frustration over the slow pace of getting restaurants, gyms and other businesses open again.Read More
The House quickly approved a budget resolution intended to speed the drafting of President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The Senate approved the same budget resolution early Friday morning. With the Senate evenly divided, Vice President Harris cast the tiebreaking vote.Read More
In 2012, when he was already well into his 80s, Christopher Plummer told NPR that he was busier than he had been in a long time – and that was OK with him. "You never stop learning how to act, both on screen and on the stage," he said. "I feel like I'm starting all over again. Every sort of decade I feel this, and that's very satisfying."Read More
With millions of older Americans eligible for COVID-19 vaccines and limited supplies, many continue to describe a frantic and frustrating search to secure a shot, beset by uncertainty and difficulty. The efforts to vaccinate people who are 65 and older have strained under the enormous demand that has overwhelmed cumbersome, inconsistent scheduling systems.Read More
Today we would recognize Harry Allen as trans. That term and concept did not exist in 1912, but there were many people in the past who had been assigned one sex at birth, but later in life transitioned to the sex that they more readily identified with.Read More
Lawmakers in the Idaho state House on Thursday initiated a third attempt to pass legislation to trim the governor’s powers during an emergency such as a pandemic.Read More
The House of Representatives has voted to strip Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, following uproar over her past incendiary comments and apparent support of violence against Democrats. The vote was 230 to 199.Read More
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved disaster relief requests for nine eastern Washington counties and two Native tribes impacted by summer wildfires. That includes aid for the Whitman County towns of Malden and Pine City, which burned during a Labor Day wildfire that was fanned by high winds.Read More
Parler, the far-right-friendly social media site that was knocked offline after the violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, has fired its CEO. John Matze said the company removed him as chief executive, following a fight with conservative donor Rebekah Mercer, who controls Parler's board, after an apparent fight over the future of free speech on Parler.Read More
Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merkley and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer joined with colleagues from Washington, California and Arizona Tuesday in sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Interior. In it, they requested an immediate federal review into the previous administration’s decision to remove 3.4 million acres of the Northern spotted owl’s critical habitat in Read More
Canada's government designated the Proud Boys and 12 other extremist groups as terrorist entities on Wednesday, placing the groups on the same list as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.Read More
News reports and social media feeds have been crowded lately with demands by teachers in Seattle and elsewhere around the state and the country to be vaccinated before they step from behind the computer screen and back into the classroom. Vaccine availability is something not even the governor can guarantee, but teachers are in one of the groups in line for vaccination in Read More