Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Federal officials said there was no sign that any radioactive material had leaked after crews discovered that a 20-foot section of a 100-foot long tunnel - containing rail cars filled with nuclear waste - had caved in . Henderson said all non-essential employees north of the site's Wye Barricade and outside the 200 East Area were asked to stay home Wednesday.
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson received national attention after he filed the first state lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban and won. "Moving forward, I've been grappling with how best to decide how to handle different initiatives coming from this administration," Ferguson said on Friday morning while speaking to members of The Columbian's editorial board.
Workers began filling in a tunnel containing radioactive waste collapsed at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington, the Department of Energy said Wednesday. On Tuesday, nearly 4,800 employees took shelter indoors for five hours after a 20-foot-by-20-foot section of 360-foot-long tunnel containing eight railcars filled with radioactive material caved in.
The collapse of an underground tunnel containing radioactive waste that forced workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to shelter in place is the latest incident to raise safety concerns at the sprawling site that made plutonium for nuclear bombs for decades after World War II. Officials detected no release of radiation Tuesday and no workers were injured, said Randy Bradbury, a spokesman for the Washington state Department of Ecology.
Inspectors who visited Washington state's largest psychiatric hospital found that safety problems that thrust the facility into the national spotlight after the escape of two dangerous patients a year ago persist, including neglected patients. And a survey of Western State Hospital staff, conducted as part of federal oversight in December and January, found that administrators make decisions that "adversely affect patient safety" and there was a lack of trained or qualified staff, fear of retaliation from managers and too much focus on bureaucracy over staff safety.
President Donald Trump has approved a disaster declaration for Washington state to address damage from late January and February storms that brought flooding, landslides and mudslides. The action, in response to a request from Gov. Jay Inslee, makes federal funding available to state, local and tribal governments as well as certain nonprofit groups.
Washington lawmakers reached agreement Thursday on a two-tiered licensing system that seeks to bring Washington state into compliance with federal identification requirements. With final passage of the measure, lawmakers end a multiyear struggle over how to best comply with the REAL ID Act, a 2005 federal law that requires state driver's licenses and ID cards to have security enhancements and be issued to people who can prove they are legally in the United States.
President Donald Trump is a unifying force for Democrats, bringing together disparate factions in opposition to nearly every presidential move. But solidarity - at least for now - doesn't necessarily add up to a strategy that can help Democrats win more elections after a precipitous slide from power in Congress and around the country.
Gov. Jay Inslee speaks to the media at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 28, where he joined protesters in blasting President Donald Trump's executive order banning entry of refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations. The order was blocked from going into effect by a federal judge in Seattle.
In stepping up legal challenges to President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, Democratic attorneys general are trying to use the court system to thwart the executive branch in the same way their GOP counterparts did under President Barack Obama . Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Thursday he was asking a federal judge to find that his order last month halting the old travel ban applies to the new one, too.
Some governors, including Republicans, are unhappy with a GOP proposal to replace former President Barack Obama's health care law and say they will work on their own legislation to compete with the House bill introduced Monday. A sampling of their comments: "We want to make sure that we continue to be a state where virtually everybody is covered and people feel they have the access they need and the coverage they need to stay healthy."
Authorities said a Sikh man... . A man bows his head as he attends Sunday services at the Gurudwara Singh Sabha of Washington, a Sikh temple in Renton, Wash., Sunday, March 5, 2017, south of Seattle.
Policies supported by Republican congressional leaders to repeal and replace Obamacare could lead millions of people to lose their health coverage, according to a presentation given to state governors meeting Saturday in Washington. The presentation, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News, estimates that the number of people covered by Obamacare through the individual insurance market could be slashed by as much as 51 percent in states that chose not to expand Medicaid coverage under Obamacare and by 30 percent in those that did expand the federal-state health program for the poor.
Local marijuana shops say they will take a wait-and-see approach after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer recently made allusions to a federal crackdown on legal pot. Ramsey Hamide, whose co-owned dispensary Main Street Marijuana is Washington's top seller of marijuana, said cannabis-based businesses are worried they could face fines or jail time, but for many it's too soon to say.
President Donald Trump's administration said Thursday for the first time that it will crack down on marijuana sales in states that have approved recreational pot use. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's administration said Thursday for the first time that it will crack down on marijuana sales in states that have approved recreational pot use.
Mayor Ed Murray heads to the stage to speak during Never Again: Japanese American WWII History and American Muslim Rights Today at Fisher Pavilion on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. Mayor Ed Murray heads to the stage to speak during Never Again: Japanese American WWII History and American Muslim Rights Today at Fisher Pavilion on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017.
States in the American West are marking the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that forced 120,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans into internment camps. Adults, including the elderly, and children could only bring what they could carry and were transported by bus and train, often with blacked-out windows, They were sent, ostensibly to avoid sabotage and spying, to camps in California, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and other states as far away as Arkansas.
In this Jan. 16, 2017, file photo, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, second from left, speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash., to announce that he and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, third from left, have proposed legislation to abolish the death penalty in Washington state. Despite the backing from Inslee and Ferguson, it appears the measure still won't see a vote in either chamber of the Legislature, leaving it to suffer the same fate as repeal bills introduced in previous years.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, center, speaks with Solicitor General Noah Purcell, left, and Civil Rights Unit Chief Colleen Melody in a hallway before a news conference about a federal appeals court's refusal to ... . Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson speaks at a news conference about a federal appeals court's refusal to reinstate President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2... .
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson smiles at a news conference about a federal appeals court's refusal to reinstate President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Seattle. The ruling dealt another legal setback to the new administration's immigration policy.