One Anytime Fitness franchisee location in Yakima County has been fined nearly $10,000 for staying open despite not being allowed to operate given the county’s current operating phase. It’s the first business fined for ignoring Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Safe Start” measures. Read More
Northwest News
Seattle police started to dismantle the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone early Wednesday morning after Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an emergency order declaring the blocks-long area an "unlawful assembly" that requires immediate action.Read More
A favorable weather forecast and the Fourth of July falling on a weekend has beach communities in the Pacific Northwest bracing for an onslaught despite the ongoing pandemic. Two beach towns that tend to be holiday crowd magnets are particularly in the limelight this year.Read More
A group of Coeur d’Alene tribal students is learning how to tell stories and make podcasts. The program they’re making tackles a pretty weighty subject. The tribe is working with the University of Idaho and the state University of New York at Buffalo to prepare young people to become tribal leaders.Read More
Over the past two weeks, Inslee said infection rates have increased six-fold in Franklin County and nearly five-fold in Benton County. The main thing that could help, he said: masks. “Yes, there’s controversy, as there is in any great, noble endeavor, but the vast majority of people in (the Tri-Cities region) want to beat this pandemic,” Inslee said.Read More
The Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions convened Tuesday to address plans to reopen schools and workplaces amid the coronavirus pandemic.Read More
Reclaim Idaho suspended face-to-face signature gathering for the initiative on March 18, days after Idaho reported its first case of coronavirus. The group sued on June 8, saying that Gov. Brad Little and Secretary of State Lawerence Denney refused to provide the group an alternative path to pursuing a voter initiative during the pandemic.Read More
A 16-year-old boy was killed and and a younger teenager was wounded early Monday in Seattle’s CHOP zone — the second deadly shooting in the area that local officials have vowed to change after business complaints and criticism from President Donald Trump.Read More
PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist conducted a survey June 22-24 that polled 1,640 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points and 1,515 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.Read More
On June 29, the Spokane City Council will vote on a contract for the union representing the city’s 300 police officers, which will retroactively cover 2016 through the end of 2020. Like the police guild’s most recent contract, it limits the independence of the ombudsman.Read More
A former state ferry now moored on the Olympia waterfront may be headed for auction for the third time in about three years, this time to remedy months of unpaid port bills. The venerable car ferry Evergreen State was declared "abandoned" by the Port of Olympia on Friday, to the dismay of its owner.Read More
A petition that called for new rules to limit when the state can kill endangered wolves that prey on livestock was rejected by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission.Read More
Instead of letting his harvest rot, a farmer in Idaho came up with a creative outcome for his mountain of potatoes.Read More
The F-1 statements, as they’re known, were taken offline last month following an urgent email with the subject line “Stop online posting of F1 data” from Democratic state Sen. Sam Hunt, the chair of the State Government committee which oversees the PDC. Read More
Coyote Ridge has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases of any Washington state prison. The outbreak is concentrated within the Medium Security Complex portion of the prison, which houses more than 1,800 inmates. The total prison population is typically more than 2,400.Read More
Washington fire managers say they’ve seen a significant number of wildfires in “every corner of the state.” So far this year, the state Department of Natural Resources says it has responded to more than 468 wildfires of varying sizes – nearly double the 10-year average for an entire fire season. But this year’s unprecedented uptick in the number of fires has an unforeseen Read More
Ultimately, presiding judge Kristin Ferrera sided with the state and did not issue an injunction on the emergency order. She said she didn’t have enough evidence on its current harms to the plaintiffs, representing business owners and individuals in Chelan and Douglas counties.Read More
Hours after Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee announced a statewide mandate for people to wear masks in public, a Republican sheriff in southwest Washington appeared to urge open defiance of the order. “Don’t be a sheep,” Lewis County Sheriff Robert Snaza said to loud applause from a mostly mask-less crowd gathered in a church parking lot. Read More
The announcement Wednesday from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson came as Bayer, which acquired Monsanto two years ago, said it would pay $820 million to resolve PCB pollution claims and up to $10.9 billion to resolve many claims, both current and future, over contamination from or exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.Read More
Washington state leaders are expressing hesitancy about opening the door to the final phase of the governor's four-phase reopening plan. By the end of this week, eight rural counties will have spent the minimum three weeks in Phase 3 and can then theoretically apply to lift most remaining coronavirus restrictions.Read More
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office is reviewing at least 30 cases in which police killed or wounded people in 2020, amid concerns law enforcement agencies are not following new rules governing how they hold each other accountable in cases of deadly force.Read More
Some of the technology behind coronavirus vaccine development dates back to the first vaccines; other techniques are much newer. Here are eight top strategies scientists are pursuing.Read More
The Washington Legislature commissioned the $250,000 study last year to see if it would be feasible to restart passenger service on the Stampede Pass line. The route crosses the Cascade Mountains from Seattle to Ellensburg, then stretches onward through the Yakima Valley to Pasco and Spokane.Read More
After weeks of relying on voluntary compliance, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday afternoon announced an enforceable, statewide requirement that people wear face coverings when in public, including outdoors when six feet of separation can't be maintained. The new public health order, to be issued by the Secretary of Health, takes effect on Friday.Read More
Historically, the Yakama Nation Tribal School was a school “of last resort,” says principal Adam Strom, where students came after they could no longer attend other area schools. That’s changing. He says courses like this one in environmental science and natural resources are a big reason why.Read More
A coalition of organizations — including the John Birch Society and Health Freedom Idaho, an anti-vaccination group — are organizing what they are calling a “special session” of the Legislature Tuesday. It’s unclear how many legislators will show and whether legislators can even convene a special session in the first place.Read More
Cases of COVID-19 are rising dramatically in Washington’s Yakima County and the Tri-Cities region of Benton and Franklin counties. That’s driving local health officials to urge residents to wear masks in public. Read More
Politicians argue. Those opposed to mask mandates protest. But meanwhile, growing evidence shows that mask wearing is a critical tool in curbing the spread of the coronavirus.Read More
Small, mostly white rural towns across Washington are standing up in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests. Although dwarfed by comparison with the thousands protesting in places like Seattle and Portland, the people standing up against racism in smaller numbers do not think their message should be dismissed or watered down because they aren’t big enough to make Read More
A study of sea otter restoration in British Columbia is giving encouragement to a group that wants to bring sea otters back to the Oregon Coast. The research team led by the University of British Columbia analyzed the rebound in sea otters off the coast of Vancouver Island. Read More
The support came in the form of a court filing submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice, saying a federal judge considering a lawsuit challenging the ban should conclude that the law does not violate the U.S. Constitution.Read More
As of Friday afternoon, 61 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 in Yakima County. Even though at least another 17 patients were transported out of the county, the region’s major hospital, Virginia Mason Memorial, had completely run out of hospital beds as of Thursday night. Read More
Early data show a 13.5 percent death rate among people with developmental disabilities who live in state-supported, community-based settings and have tested positive. That’s nearly triple Washington’s current statewide death rate of 4.6 percent. It’s a similar story in other states, including Oregon. Read More
In the wake of protests calling for racial equality and other reforms after the killing of George Floyd, there's a growing movement to make June 19 a federal holiday.Read More
Summer officially begins on Saturday, but it still feels like winter if you study the sailing schedule of Washington State Ferries. With ridership depressed by the ongoing pandemic, the nation's biggest ferry system is sticking to a reduced schedule through what would normally be its busiest season.Read More
Even as Washington counties work to reopen in various phases of the state’s four-phase reopening plan, county jails and state prisons and corrections institutions continue to deal with coronavirus outbreaks and COVID-19 infections. Read More
The open-air camp in the Capitol Hill area is more than a week old. Underneath the peace-and-love vibe is an undercurrent of anxiety that it won't end well and that Black people might get the blame.Read More
A narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court extended a life-support line to some 650,000 so-called DREAMers on Thursday, allowing them to remain safe from deportation for now, while the Trump administration jumps through the administrative hoops that the court said are required before ending the program.Read More
The Great American Outdoors Act would permanently allocate $900 million to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which finally lapsed almost two years ago.Read More
In a move not seen since the Great Recession, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday canceled pay raises for some state employees and ordered furloughs for many more through at least this fall. The move came the same day a new state revenue forecast projected an $8.8 billion drop in tax collections over the next three years.Read More
Climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are not part of the $3 trillion in U.S. relief packages passed so far — despite a long history of funding energy programs after economic crises.Read More
An iconic, but disappearing American institution -- the drive-in movie theater -- came to the rescue of the senior classes in several Pacific Northwest communities this month. As luck would have it, a drive-in cinema is well suited for a socially-distanced graduation ceremony.Read More
A survey by the Yakima Health District found that just 35 percent of residents wear masks in public. That spurred the health district to issue a masking directive, hoping to get 80% of residents to use face coverings.Read More
The state of Washington has opened a new statewide toll-free telephone hotline for people who are struggling during the Covid pandemic.Read More
Stepping up an attack he began on Twitter last week, President Trump on Monday spent more than four minutes at a White House meeting inveighing against Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and the six-block protest area now known as CHOP, for Capitol Hill Organized Protest.Read More
Emergency use authorization makes it easier for doctors to use a drug in a manner not specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA granted these drugs this status in March.Read More
The Supreme Court says the federal ban on discrimination "based on sex" also applies to gay, lesbian, and transgender employees. Read More
When COVID-19 caused border closures, a woman from British Columbia and her fiancé in Washington were unable to see each other — not even for their wedding.Read More
Yakima County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita among West Coast states. The largely Latinx agricultural workforce helped secure the backbone of the local economy.Read More
Dozens of advocacy organizations and hundreds of athletes are asking the NCAA to move college sports events out of Idaho in response to a state law that bans transgender women from participating in women’s sports.Read More