AUBURN, Wash. — In the back row of a small community college classroom, I sip my coffee and consider a cumulus cloud, a puffy white pillar over an expanse of blue. I’m not staring out the window, but at a presentation on a screen at the front of the room. Cumulus clouds are a telltale…
ROSLYN, Wash. — Francisco Martinez hefts a canister filled with a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline. A tongue of flame dances above the nozzle. He tips the drip torch forward — whoosh — and a stream of blazing liquid races across the forest floor. In less than a minute, a long wall of fire…
Opponents of President Donald Trump’s decision to sharply downsize two Utah national monuments in July are re-upping their argument that he didn’t have the authority to do so. Retailer Patagonia, environmental groups and tribal organizations waged legal battles against Trump in 2017 after he ordered prior reductions of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.…
Summer wildfires burning through Washington just broke another record. They’ve scorched more than 886,000 acres. Of those, 93,000 acres are on state trust land, marking the record for the largest amount of state-managed land burned by fires in a season since recordkeeping began in 2000. Two-thirds of that state land was forests, meaning a hit…
The number of people staffing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dropped by 3,600 during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to federal data obtained by the nonprofit conservation group Center for Biological Diversity. Oregon, California, Alaska and Washington have seen some of the steepest losses, according to the agency’s year-over-year staff rosters obtained…
A last-ditch legal effort nearly succeeded Thursday to knock a statement off ballots that characterizes how repealing Washington’s new income tax on high earners would affect the state budget. The state Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 on Arthur West’s motion for an emergency injunction to prevent the secretary of state’s office from including the “public investment…
Three states this year have enacted laws that require or allow schools to use mobile, wearable, wireless or silent panic alarms to quickly summon emergency responders. The new laws in Illinois, Virginia and West Virginia bring the number of states with such laws to 13, with 10 of them acting since 2023. Another dozen states…
A state ethics panel has ordered Democratic state Rep. Tarra Simmons to pay roughly $52,000 in penalties and fees for multiple violations of Washington ethics laws. Three weeks ago, the Legislative Ethics Board ruled the Bremerton lawmaker committed three violations of conflict of interest and special privilege laws. The board levied the maximum $5,000 penalty…
A federal judge in Maryland Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s second attempt to redefine birthright citizenship. In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman barred the Trump administration from carrying out the president’s executive order that would deny citizenship to babies born in the United States to parents deemed part of a designated terrorist…
New Jersey asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to review an appellate ruling that found a federal 2010 law bars states from regulating sports bets offered on prediction markets, arguing the high court should step because lower courts have split on this issue. In a voluminous 332-page filing, the state argued a recent 2-1…
