Washington is on track to fully reopen its economy by June 30, and a full reopening could happen even sooner if 70% or more of residents ages 16 and older have gotten at least one dose of vaccine by then, Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday.Read More
Northwest News
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that fully vaccinated adults can safely resume activities indoors or outdoors without masks or distancing, in gatherings large or small. The announcement marks a major milestone in the effort to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.Read More
The longest ever Idaho legislative session has been filled with unusual events and ended in uncharted ground shortly before midnight Wednesday. The Idaho Senate voted to officially adjourn while the House voted to recess up to Dec. 31.Read More
Openly carrying guns and other weapons are now prohibited at the Washington state Capitol and public protests statewide, under a measure signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Jay Inslee.Read More
The company Gameloft tackled the redesign of Oregon Trail for Apple Arcade just in time for the increase in worldwide play because of the pandemic. Its target audience: the now-40-year-olds and their kids. And more Native American players. Read More
Similar to the national trends, the patients being hospitalized in Washington are now overwhelmingly young and middle-aged adults — not older Americans who are mostly vaccinated at this point.Read More
Under Washington's new Mental Health Sentencing Alternative, judges will have the option to sentence a person to community supervision and treatment in lieu of prison.Read More
Fifty years ago this week the federal government’s experiment with termination was crushed at the ballot box on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington. Termination was a policy that was designed to end the United State government’s role in Indian affairs. It would have abrogated treaties, eliminated federal funding, and “freed the Indians” from Read More
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that children 12 to 15 years old are now eligible to receive a key COVID-19 vaccine as the agency expanded its emergency use authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.Read More
For the second time in less than a year, Washington’s Corrections Ombuds (OCO) is warning that the state’s prison system needs to do more to prevent inmate suicides. In a 15-page investigation released Monday, the OCO found that two inmates died by suicide in 2020 after prison staff failed to recognize signs of mental distress and didn’t follow suicide prevention policies.Read More
Washington has a new law that bans schools from using Native American imagery without a tribe’s consent. The Spokane Tribe says it won’t be endorsing any such proposals.Read More
Two competing guns-in-schools bills will not get a hearing in the waning days of Idaho's 2021 legislative session. They've been in the Legislature for months, but the timing ran out following a shooting this week in Rigby, Idaho, where a sixth grade student shot two other students and a school staff member.Read More
Stargazers across the Pacific Northwest were treated to quite a light show in late March when the errant reentry of a spent rocket sent fireballs streaking high overhead. The uncontrolled disintegration of the rocket rained debris onto eastern Washington. While the search for mangled rocket parts goes on, the event also provided a great learning opportunity for researchers Read More
Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed into law a measure that could lead to killing 90% of the state’s 1,500 wolves in a move that was backed by hunters and the state’s powerful ranching sector but heavily criticized by environmental advocates.Read More
Washington State University graduated its first-ever medical school class during a virtual ceremony Thursday, part of a three-day university-wide festival of commencements.Read More
Easterday Ranches and Easterday Farms has provided beef, potatoes, onions and produce to dinner tables for more than three generations. Now in bankruptcy, many of the family’s key properties will be sold to repay debts. It’s one of the largest sales of prime water-rich agricultural lands in the Columbia Basin in recent history. Read More
The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who looked at excess mortality from March 2020 through May 3, 2021, compared it with what would be expected in a typical non-pandemic year, then adjusted those figures to account for a handful of other pandemic-related factors.Read More
In the middle of this year’s legislative session, the Washington Supreme Court dropped its Blake decision, declaring the law criminalizing drug possession in the state to be unconstitutional. What followed was a sprint by lawmakers to answer the justices’ enormous ruling — a balancing act between conservatives eager to make drug possession a felony again and progressives Read More
The Upper Columbia United Tribes are working together to prove salmon can be reintroduced – and can survive – in the waters above Grand Coulee. Read More
Residents living on the West Coast don't know when the next earthquake will hit. But a new expansion of the U.S. earthquake early warning system gives 50 million people in California, Oregon — and now Washington — seconds to quickly get to safety whenever the next one hits.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday signed into law a new tax on capital gains aimed at the state’s wealthiest residents. But the future of the tax is uncertain.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday said all of the state’s counties will remain in their current phase of the state’s economic reopening plan and won’t face more restrictions because new COVID cases are levelling off after a recent spike.Read More
President Biden on Tuesday is set to announce new steps to reach rural Americans in the push to get as many people as possible vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official tells NPR. This emphasis comes as rural hospitals are raising alarms about the pace of vaccination — even among their own employees.Read More
More people will be allowed at indoor and outdoor spectator events and indoor religious services if there are designated COVID-19 vaccination sections, under new guidance issued by Gov. Jay Inslee Monday.Read More
If approved, a utility-scale solar farm would be the largest in renewable friendly Klickitat County and in Washington. But some residents say its potential location doesn’t take one important thing into account: environmental justice.Read More
Do transgender women and girls have a constitutional right to play on women's sports teams? That question will be argued before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.Read More
Last year, Wyoming and Montana — another major coal state — asked the Supreme Court to override a decision by Washington state to deny a permit to build a coal export dock on the Columbia River. The interstate lawsuit followed years of unsuccessful attempts by the dock’s developer, Utah-based Lighthouse Resources, to contest the permit denial in federal court.Read More
Whether you recently adopted a pet during the pandemic or are a long-time pet owner, there are things you can do while out and about in the Northwest's hiking season to prepare for warm-weather adventures with your pooch.Read More
Mary Big Bull-Lewis sees the way forward for Native people in Washington: ownership of the land and the stories attached to it.Read More
The Northeast Tri-County Health District on Friday announced that it has moved Ferry County back a step because of an outbreak, brought upon, at least in part, by two maskless parties at an Eagles’ Lodge in Republic in mid-April.Read More
The 2021 Idaho Legislature took its ugliest turn on its 108th day, when the House Ethics Committee weighed a sexual assault complaint against first-year Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger.Read More
WSU's vaccine requirement comes with some major exceptions. Medical and religious exemptions have existed for vaccinations on campus for decades, but this time around, WSU is adding a “personal exemption,” and following that announcement, provided some clarity on exactly what that means.Read More
What the struggle over recognition for WSU's Gay Awareness student group shows is some of the similarities between rural and urban LGBTQ rights. Rural areas — especially college towns like Pullman or Moscow — are also queer places. People in cities who were against gay rights used the same tactic as those in Pullman—the public-referendum—to deny housing or employment Read More
For the first time in its 40-year history, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) will be led by a woman. On Thursday, Gov. Jay Inslee named Cheryl Strange as the agency’s next secretary.Read More
Nearly 30 retired state, federal and tribal wildlife managers sent a letter Wednesday to Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little asking him to veto a bill backed by agricultural interests that could cut the state’s wolf population by 90%.Read More
At Hanford, a hazardous concoction of radioactive waste and chemicals sits in World War II and Cold War-era tanks. Now one of those old tanks has a serious leak. Read More
Idaho Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger resigned from the Legislature Thursday. It came several hours after the House Ethics Committee recommended suspension and possible expulsion of the Republican lawmaker from Lewiston amid an investigation into a rape accusation from a 19-year-old staffer.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to soon roll back the economic reopening of more counties because of rising coronavirus cases. Reverting to Phase 2 would force businesses, museums and churches to reduce indoor capacity.Read More
Just days after the Washington Legislature gave final approval to a new capital gains tax aimed at the state's wealthiest residents, the conservative Freedom Foundation has filed a lawsuit on behalf of five individuals and one couple to overturn the tax. Read More
While some Washingtonians appear eager to get vaccinated and get on with their lives, a new poll reveals even some people who are fully vaccinated remain cautious about getting back to normal.Read More
Known as “breakthrough infections,” cases in which people test positive for COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated are extremely rare. Public health experts are anxious that these cases not be blown out of proportion and discourage people from getting vaccinated. Yet they also say it’s critical to track and study these cases, because scientists do not fully understand who Read More
The investigation into Lewiston Republican Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger’s conduct began in March, when the intern told a supervisor that the 38-year-old lawmaker raped her at his apartment after the two had dinner at a restaurant. The Boise Police Department has a criminal investigation underway, and the Legislature’s Ethics Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing on Read More
The new budget bills still have to pass both houses — and House conservatives have killed three major education bills over social justice and critical race theory concerns. But on Monday, the Senate followed the House’s lead, passing a bill addressing “nondiscrimination” in schools and critical race theory. That nondiscrimination bill, now on its way to Gov. Brad Little’s Read More
As the company weighs its options, two Washington state legislators sent a letter Tuesday to U.S. Congress members in Western states, urging them to find a solution to continue the SuperTanker’s operations, which they described as the “biggest and one of the best weapons in battling the catastrophic fires.”Read More
The CDC says people who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear a mask when they're outdoors, unless they're in a crowd, such as attending a live performance, sporting event or parade. People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after the single dose Johnson & Johnson shot.Read More
The state’s new fuel standards will slowly lower the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses coming out of vehicle tailpipes through 2035. That means cleaner technologies biodiesel or renewable natural gas will get a boost over gasoline and diesel.Read More
Washington public schools with Native American-themed team names or mascots have a decision to make now that Gov. Jay Inslee has signed into law a ban on such symbols. The schools have until year's end to find a new mascot or try to win the blessing of a nearby tribe for continued use under an exception.Read More
On Sunday, Democrats adjourned the session having accomplished much of what they set out to do, including passage of a number of sweeping bills that Gov. Jay Inslee, in a statement, called “historic” in nature.Read More
The number of wolves in Washington state rose strongly last year, according to an annual report from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife released Friday. The rate of increase was more than double what Oregon reported earlier in the week for its wolf population in 2020.Read More
Sage grouse in the Columbia Basin are cut off from others in Oregon and southern Idaho, making them unique in their recovery. In 1998, Washington listed its sage grouse as threatened. They now occupy around 8 percent of their historic range in the state.Read More
