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Native and state leaders push for K-12 schools to fully implement tribal history curriculum
Miranda Lopez remembers when she first learned about local Indigenous activist and athlete Rosalie Fish. Fish, a University of Washington runner from the Cowlitz Tribe, is nationally known for dedicating her races to Indigenous women who are missing or murdered, including her aunt. Lopez is from the same part of eastern Washington where Fish’s aunt […]
Nine detainees still refusing meals at Tacoma immigration facility as protest hits 18th day
The seventh recorded hunger strike this year at a federal immigration detention center in Tacoma has gone from 105 detainees to nine, La Resistencia, a group that advocates for the facility’s closure said on Tuesday. The hunger strike started at the Northwest Detention Center 18 days ago, with detainees protesting conditions there and demanding that […]
Over 200 employees hired to staff Tukwila behavioral hospital bought by Washington
Washington has hired a little over 200 employees to staff a Tukwila psychiatric hospital the state bought in August for nearly $30 million, according to Jo Sahlin, a spokesperson for the newly-named Olympic Heritage Behavioral Health Hospital. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony to formally open Olympic Heritage on Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee said he wanted the […]
Online schooling for Washington’s youngest students is on the rise
If you asked most families with young kids whether they’d do virtual schooling again after the shift to online classes during the pandemic, they’d likely say “never again.” But for Lia Carlile, it’s not a hypothetical — it’s a choice she’s made for her four kids. Her youngest, 7-year-old Samuel Carlile, met his first-grade classmates […]
Immigrant detainees resort to hunger strikes in protest of conditions at Tacoma facility
On a side street in Tacoma, wedged between railyards and the Puyallup River just off Interstate 5, sits the Northwest Detention Center, one of the largest federal immigrant detention facilities in the nation. It’s privately run, long-mired in controversy and as of Friday, about 100 detainees there were refusing meals to protest conditions at the […]
U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer will not run for re-election
Washington Democrat Derek Kilmer will not run for re-election to represent Washington in the U.S. House of Representatives, he announced Thursday. Kilmer, who lives in Gig Harbor, is on his sixth term representing Washington’s 6th Congressional District, which encompasses the Olympic Peninsula, the Kitsap Peninsula and most of Tacoma. He was first elected in 2012. […]
‘We’re burying them every week’: Tribes call on Inslee to declare opioid emergency
Misty Napeahi has been to hundreds of funerals for people who’ve died from opioid overdoses. “We’re burying them every week,” Napeahi, the vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, told Gov. Jay Inslee at a meeting between tribal and state governments last week. Napeahi, alongside other tribal leaders, is calling on Inslee to declare […]
WA hires leader for new investigative unit focused on missing and murdered Indigenous people
A member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe with nearly three decades of law enforcement experience will take a lead role at a new state investigative unit devoted to unsolved cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous people. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Monday that he has hired Brian George as the chief investigator for […]
School culture wars give rise to candidates and activists defending LGBTQ+ rights
It started with opposition to masks during the pandemic. Then came pushback to critical race theory and sex education. Lately, it’s book bans and controversies over pronouns and other LGBTQ+ inclusive practices. As in other parts of the country, public schools in Washington have increasingly been dragged into ideological battles, targeted by groups like Moms […]
How you can help prevent your ballot from getting rejected
There are three basic ways Washington voters can prevent their ballots from being rejected in the upcoming Nov. 7 election: mail your ballot early, sign it with the same signature used on your driver’s license and use your legal name. That’s according to a new study from the University of Washington on the most common […]
Washington clears backlog of over 10,000 sexual assault testing kits
Over 10,000 backlogged sexual assault kits in Washington have been sent for testing, Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Thursday. Ferguson’s announcement comes eight years after Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, first introduced HB 1068, which was later signed into law and began efforts to eliminate the backlog by requiring all law enforcement to submit sexual […]
WA and 40 other states sue Meta, alleging Instagram and Facebook harm kids
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is joining a bipartisan multi-state lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta, alleging the tech giant has knowingly included features in its social media apps that are harmful to children’s health. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that Meta […]