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Aging Tanks, Aging Watchdogs: Lots To Work On For Washington’s New Waste Program Manager

By Anna King
The Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. The site includes 56 million gallons of radioactive waster across 580 square miles.
David Bowen has owned his own bar in Cle Elum, been a Kittitas County commissioner and managed groundwater nitrate cleanup in the Yakima Valley. Now, he’ll hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for its cleanup at the site using the Tri-Party Agreement. That’s a 1989 document struck between Ecology, the federal Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Read More

Past As Prologue: Remembering A Pasco Civil Rights Protest And Discrimination That Built Tri-Cities

By NWPB News
Black man in the middle of whites in line at grocery store.
By 1950, 20% of Pasco’s approximately 10,000 residents were Black, almost all living in slum conditions. Few lived in the new atomic community of Richland and none in “lily-white” Kennewick -- a fact of which Kennewick city leaders and police at the time were proud. Not only was housing segregated, but Black residents were forced to endure broad discrimination in Read More

President Trump Signs COVID-19 Relief Deal After His Criticism Threatened To Derail It

By NPR News
President Trump, seen here at the White House on Dec. 12, has signed the coronavirus relief package. CREDIT: Al Drago/Getty Images
President Trump on Sunday night signed a massive coronavirus relief and spending package, relenting on a measure he had called a "disgrace" days earlier. The legislation, which combines $900 billion in COVID-19 aid with government funding through September 2021, was passed by large majorities in both houses of Congress on Dec. 21 — only to see Trump blindside legislators Read More

Explosion In Downtown Nashville, Believed To Be ‘Intentional,’ Injures At Least 3

By NPR News
Emergency personnel work near the scene of an explosion in downtown Nashville, Tenn., on Dec. 25. CREDIT: Mark Humphrey/AP
Police responded to reports of shots fired in the area at about 5:30 a.m. CT, when they encountered a recreational vehicle parked in front of the downtown AT&T building. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department says a recording believed to be coming from the RV warned that a potential bomb would be detonated within 15 minutes and that those in the area should evacuate. Read More

In Rural Idaho, Their Young Son Nearly Died From COVID Complications. Now They Urge Masks

By NWPB News
Cooper Wuthrich rests as he lays on a bed at the truck stop his family partly owns Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, in Montpelier, Idaho. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Wuthrich, 12, became one of hundreds of children in the U.S. diagnosed with a rare COVID-19 complication that landed him in an emergency room three hours away from his tiny hometown in a secluded Idaho valley. The boy's parents say he nearly died and their terrifying experience shows why people should wear masks in a conservative state where pushback can be fierce. CREDIT: Rick Bowmer
Shortly after Thanksgiving, the boy from a secluded valley in Idaho became one of hundreds of children in the U.S. who have been diagnosed with a rare, extreme immune response to COVID-19 called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. Cooper Wuthrich’s fever spiked as his joints and organs became inflamed, including his heart, putting his life at risk, his father said.Read More

Shock And Dismay After President Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Who Killed 14 Iraqi Civilians

By NPR News
This combination made from file photos shows Blackwater guards, from left, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough. On Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020, President Donald Trump pardoned 15 people, including Heard, Liberty, Slatten and Slough, the four former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. CREDIT: AP
Among the pardons made by President Trump this week, the pardon of four former guards for Blackwater was regarded by some as particularly galling. Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted six years ago of killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 17 others. Witnesses described how the American men ambushed the civilians unprovoked, firing Read More

StoryCorps Northwest: ‘Hardest Thing To Be Is A Black Person’ Says Jewish Woman Who Hid In Attic

By Sueann Ramella
Step-daugher Robin with her step-mother, Evelyn Woods
When Spokane resident Evelyn Woods was a little girl in World War II Germany, she hid in an attic with her Jewish parents. In today’s StoryCorps Northwest, Evelyn’s step-daughter, Robin, asks her how that confinement compares to today’s COVID-19 restrictions. Evelyn, 82, discusses that and the Black Lives Matter movement in this segment of StoryCorps Northwest recorded Read More

Across The Northwest, Teachers, Grocery Workers, Older Adults May Be Next For COVID Vaccine

By Tom Banse
The first shipment of COVID vaccines arriving at the UW Medical Center in Seattle on December 14, 2020. CREDIT: Pool/Courtesy UW Medicine
Western state governors and state health officials are now reviewing a finalized recommendation from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for how to prioritize future vaccination phases. The initial deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines to Oregon, Washington state and Idaho are spoken for — at least well into next month. High-risk health care workers, Read More

Here Is What’s In Congress’ COVID-19 Relief Package

By NPR News
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speak Sunday following a press conference on Capitol Hill after Republicans and Democrats finally came to an agreement on the coronavirus relief bill. CREDIT: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Congress plans to pass on Monday a bipartisan $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill after intense negotiations over its final details. Leaders of both parties are lauding the agreement, claiming victory for provisions they were able to get in — and keep out. The measure includes up to a $600 relief check for many Americans as well as an assortment of aid for small businesses Read More

Don’t ‘Lose Yourself’ Or Miss Your ‘One Shot’ To Comment On Review Of Washington’s Eightmile Dam

By Courtney Flatt
Eightmile Dam, shown here in May 2018, was in need of emergency repairs at the time. Now a plan - and the environmental review - for a permanent fix is underway, with public comments due in February 2021. Courtesy of WA Dept. of Ecology
Fans of rapper Eminem, whose movie "8 Mile" featured his hit song “Lose Yourself” might note, as the song’s lyrics do, “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.” Now, the public has an opportunity to comment on the environmental review of the aging Eightmile Dam in central Washington's Alpine Lakes Wilderness.Read More

Rural Idaho District Under Pressure To Stay Open, But School Board Refuses To Mandate Masks

By NPR News
Elementary school teacher Sariah Pearson contracted COVID-19, suffering a fever and other symptoms for close to six weeks. CREDIT: Kirk Siegler/NPR
Case numbers have shot up lately in rural America, which skews older and tends to have huge inequality gaps in health care. But there's still resistance in places such as Bruneau, Idaho, which has a population of 500. Here, there's also a pervasive sense in the community that kids need to be physically in classrooms for their education and well-being yet stiff opposition Read More

COVID Cases At Washington’s Largest Psychiatric Hospital Top 200, As Staff Will Be Laid Off

By NWPB News
File photo. As coronavirus cases top 200 in Washington state's largest psychiatric hospital, officials are implementing new procedures to try to get it under control. Making matters worse, the economic downturn that resulted from the pandemic, and the loss of revenues needed to run state government, is forcing the Department of Health and Human Services to make budget cuts, including layoffs. CREDIT: Ted S. Warren/AP
COVID-19 has hit at least 158 hospital workers since March, which takes them off the schedule and means a lot of overtime for the workers left on the wards. At least 64 patients have tested positive and one has died. Making matters worse, the economic downturn that resulted from the pandemic, and the loss of revenues needed to run state government s forcing the Department Read More
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