Northwest News Network

One of two gun-control proposals aimed at November’s ballot is facing possibly insurmountable odds.

Beginning next month, driver’s licenses in Washington state will be changing. Regular licenses and ID cards will be marked with the words “federal limits apply.” Oregon is going down this path too, but not until mid-2020.

What should a 21st century public school system look like? Washington’s superintendent of public instruction says it’s time to have that conversation now that the state’s decade-long school funding legal fight is over.

After years of debate, the Portland City Council on Wednesday took a big step towards making the city’s old brick buildings more earthquake-safe.

The starting gun fires bright and early Thursday morning for the fourth annual running of the maritime Race to Alaska. The 750-mile adventure marathon has been compared to the Iditarod but with a chance of drowning, being run down by a freighter, or getting eaten by a grizzly bear.

Ocean Shores, Washington, has no natural high ground inside its city limits. On Tuesday night, residents will meet with government and university experts to discuss whether to build a tsunami evacuation platform as in a few other Northwest coastal towns.

Washington House leaders are recommending that state Rep. David Sawyer, D-Tacoma, lose his chairmanship, but are not demanding he resign from the Legislature, following the findings of an external investigation into his conduct that could also result in an ethics probe.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld an Ohio law that aggressively purges inactive voters from the state’s voter rolls. But Oregon officials have no interest in a similar policy.

A drinking water advisory in Salem has been extended for another two weeks.

Renewable energy developers are showing interest in converting public grazing lands in sunny central Washington into large solar farms.

The Port of Newport on the Oregon coast has revoked a docking permit for a pair of tall ships based out of Aberdeen, Washington. Efforts to reach a compromise between the port and the ships' operator seem to be foundering.

As boat inspections in the Northwest ramp up for summer, an inspection at the Washington-Idaho border near Spokane last week turned up highly invasive zebra mussels.

The Washington Supreme Court has ended the decade-old school funding case known as McCleary. The high court issued an order Thursday that said the state has complied with the mandate to fully fund its new system of basic education by September of this year.

Since 2008, wildlife biologists in Washington state have worked to reintroduce the fisher, a locally-extinct forest weasel. They are not shouting from the tree tops about success, but say things are looking positive. Fishers were previously reintroduced in the southern Oregon Cascades.

Dennis Richardson is being treated for a “small, cancerous brain tumor,” he announced Wednesday.

Richardson, Oregon’s Secretary of State since 2017, revealed in his regular newsletter that he was diagnosed with cancer in May and that he’s feeling “blessed and optimistic.”

Two candidates for the Washington Supreme Court have been disqualified from appearing on the November ballot.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is suing Facebook and Google for campaign finance violations. The lawsuits filed Monday allege the companies failed to keep records about who purchased political advertising from them.


The U.S. Supreme Court issued a narrowly focused ruling Monday that favored Masterpiece Cakes, a Colorado bakery, which refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

On Oregon’s highest court, women justices outnumber men, five to two. But never in its history has the court had a woman serve as chief justice.

Until now.

Firefighters scrambled Sunday night at the Hanford nuclear reservation to corral a 2,800-acre wildfire. Hanford officials said the wildfire started Sunday evening.

Farmers in north central and northeast Washington are waiting for the waters to recede from their fields so they can repair the damage from recent flooding.

In the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 students and staff dead, the state of Washington established a “work group” on mass shootings. It will hold its third meeting on Tuesday.

Two projects that would convert cropland in Oregon and Washington into large solar farms are hitting new bumps.

The Olympia city prosecutor's office confirmed to public radio Thursday that it will file animal neglect charges in the next day or two against the owner of an Oregon-based sloth sanctuary. This is fallout from a raid two months ago on a satellite center under development in Olympia, Washington.

The first round of talks to modernize the U.S.-Canada Columbia River Treaty took place this week. Officials from the U.S. negotiating team briefed reporters on Thursday on progress at the talks, which are aimed at revising the 54-year-old agreement which governs hydropower and flood control along the Columbia River. 

Gov. Kate Brown is declaring an emergency and mobilizing Oregon National Guard soldiers in response to an ongoing water quality situation in and around Salem.

Democratic state Rep. Timm Ormsby of Spokane, the chief budget writer in the Washington House of Representatives, has pleaded guilty to reckless driving. Ormsby was facing a possible drunk driving conviction after he rolled his jeep in February.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is lobbying for a bipartisan prison reform bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month. The Republican made the pitch in Spokane this week.

A text message alert that caused widespread confusion in the Marion County area on Tuesday marked the first time Oregon emergency planners had tried to use the warning system.

The message that blared onto people’s phone screens was brief. And vague.

Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital is no longer in immediate jeopardy of losing federal funding.