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News >  Nation/World

Patty Murray voices Democrats’ outrage over GOP spending bill after Schumer folds to avert shutdown

UPDATED: Fri., March 14, 2025

WASHINGTON – Before the Senate voted on Friday to fund the government and avert a shutdown, Sen. Patty Murray made it known that she wasn’t happy.

News >  WA Government

Baumgartner backs bipartisan bill to support fired federal workers

UPDATED: Tue., March 11, 2025

WASHINGTON – Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, gave a bipartisan boost Tuesday to a bill that aims to help federal workers who have lost their jobs as part of the mass firing led by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.

News >  Nation/World

After House Republicans pass Trump-backed spending bill, spotlight turns to Patty Murray and Senate Democrats

UPDATED: Tue., March 11, 2025

WASHINGTON – House Republicans on Tuesday passed a bill that would fund the government through the end of September and bolster President Donald Trump’s effort to reshape the federal government, daring Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and her fellow Democrats in the Senate to endorse the GOP legislation or let the government run out of money at the end of the week.

News >  Nation/World

Baumgartner voices support for Ukrainian refugees as Trump considers revoking their legal status

UPDATED: Sat., March 8, 2025

When Maksym Bedenko arrived in the United States three years ago, he was told, “Welcome to safety.” If Bedenko, his wife and three children were forced out of the United States now, no one would say the same at the Ukrainian border.

News >  WA Government

Rep. Dan Newhouse calls for ‘decency’ after House approves his resolution rebuking Rep. Al Green for protesting Trump speech

UPDATED: Thu., March 6, 2025

WASHINGTON – Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Central Washington, introduced the resolution to rebuke a Texas congressman who was removed from the House chamber after repeatedly interrupting President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress earlier in the week.

News >  WA Government

Trump administration to cut more than 80,000 jobs at Department of Veterans Affairs, internal memo says

UPDATED: Wed., March 5, 2025

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to cut more than 80,000 jobs in the next six months as part of the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically downsize the federal workforce, according to an internal memo sent to staff on Tuesday.

News >  WA Government

Northwest lawmakers react to Trump’s address to Congress

UPDATED: Tue., March 4, 2025

WASHINGTON – In an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump touted his administration’s swift actions to remake the federal government in his image, provoking cheers from his fellow Republicans and loud protests from Democrats.

News >  WA Government

Baumgartner invites teacher to Trump’s address to Congress, while Cantwell’s guest highlights research cuts; Murray to skip speech

Tue., March 4, 2025

WASHINGTON – While President Donald Trump will surely use his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday to tout his administration’s actions and plans for the future, two Washington lawmakers are making their own statements by inviting special guests to attend the customary speech.

News >  Nation

Haitians living lawfully in Spokane face deportation after Trump ends Temporary Protected Status

Sun., March 2, 2025

The congregation at Maranatha Evangelical Church in East Central was smaller than usual when the Rev. Luc Jasmin Jr. rose last Sunday to address his flock about a somber subject.

News >  Military

Mann-Grandstaff loses more VA workers as part of Trump administration’s downsizing plans

UPDATED: Mon., March 3, 2025

Directives from Washington, D.C., are adding to an already confused employment situation for the federal workers at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane.

News >  WA Government

Spokane police chief tells Senate committee to invest in more technology to catch fentanyl being smuggled over the border

UPDATED: Wed., Feb. 26, 2025

WASHINGTON – Spokane’s top cop told senators on Wednesday that law enforcement agencies need more tools and resources to stanch the flow of fentanyl and other opioid drugs to communities across the United States.

News >  WA Government

Medicaid could be on chopping block after Northwest Republicans help pass House budget measure

UPDATED: Thu., Feb. 27, 2025

WASHINGTON – At the end of a dramatic night on the House floor, Republicans on Tuesday narrowly passed a framework for massive cuts to taxes and spending that would likely reduce funding to Medicaid, raising loud objections from Democrats who universally opposed the measure.

News >  WA Government

Union representing Spokane VA workers accuses Trump administration of ‘psychological warfare’ after Musk asks workers to justify their jobs

UPDATED: Mon., Feb. 24, 2025

WASHINGTON – An email arrived in the inboxes of workers at Spokane’s Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center and employees across the federal government on Saturday afternoon with a seemingly simple request from the Office of Personnel Management.

News >  Health

VA secretary orders employees back to office after 18 employees take buyout offer to leave Spokane veterans hospital

UPDATED: Fri., Feb. 21, 2025

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs on Friday ordered its employees to end remote work and return to the office in the coming months.

News >  Nation/World

Baumgartner says ‘very clear’ that Russia started war in Ukraine after Trump blames Zelenskyy for his own country’s invasion

UPDATED: Thu., Feb. 20, 2025

WASHINGTON – A day after President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s leader “grossly incompetent” and blamed him for the Russian invasion that has left tens of thousands of his countrymen dead, an Eastern Washington lawmaker said Wednesday that Russia clearly started the war.

News >  WA Government

What can Democrats do about Trump and Musk’s policy blitz? Here’s what Washington lawmakers say

Sun., Feb. 16, 2025

WASHINGTON – Less than a month into their new administration, President Donald Trump and his billionaire deputy Elon Musk have unleashed a dizzying set of policy changes by fiat, flexing the power of the executive branch and in some cases steamrolling the legislative branch with virtually no public pushback from Republicans in Congress.

News >  WA Government

Senate confirms RFK Jr. over opposition of Washington’s senators and ex-GOP leader McConnell

UPDATED: Thu., Feb. 13, 2025

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services over the loud objections of Democrats, including both of Washington state’s senators.

News >  Local Government

Republican who ran USAID under Bush calls dismantling it ‘madness’ as Trump, Musk cut nearly all staff

UPDATED: Thu., Feb. 6, 2025

WASHINGTON – Since the end of World War II, the United States has remained a global power through foreign policy defined by what retired Ambassador Ryan Crocker calls a “three-legged stool” of defense, diplomacy and development.

News >  WA Government

Trump’s plan to ‘take over’ Gaza would be ‘a cataclysm for the Middle East,’ Ambassador Ryan Crocker warns

UPDATED: Wed., Feb. 5, 2025

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to “take over” the Gaza Strip, displace the nearly 2 million Palestinians who live there and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East” has drawn skepticism from around the world – including from Eastern Washington.

News >  Nation/World

Maria Cantwell urges U.S. to embrace ‘capitalism in the digital age’ amid Trump’s tariff threats

UPDATED: Tue., Feb. 4, 2025

WASHINGTON – A day after the Trump administration struck last-minute deals with the governments of Mexico and Canada to delay and possibly avert a trade war, the Washington Democrat who leads her party on the Senate Commerce Committee took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to lay out a different vision for the U.S. economy.

News >  Nation

Trump tests the limits of presidential power with little resistance from Congress

Sun., Feb. 2, 2025

WASHINGTON – For nearly 250 years, the American system of government has been defined by the separation of powers between three coequal branches of government.

News >  Local Government

Chief VA watchdog who helped expose flawed computer system in Spokane speaks out after being fired by Trump

UPDATED: Fri., Jan. 31, 2025

WASHINGTON – A year after the Inland Northwest became the testing ground for a new computer system that promised to revolutionize veterans’ health care, leaders at the Department of Veterans Affairs had received grave warnings from staff at Spokane’s VA hospital and evidence that flaws in the software had contributed to serious patient harm.

News >  Local Government

Judge delays Trump’s federal spending freeze after it prompts ‘chaos and confusion’ in the Northwest

UPDATED: Wed., Jan. 29, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal judge on Tuesday delayed a sweeping order by the Trump administration to freeze trillions in federal grants and loans just as it was set to go into effect, after the move sowed confusion and panic among state, local and tribal governments and other entities that rely on the funds.

News >  WA Government

‘The Chick’ changes hands: Freshman Reps. Michael Baumgartner and Emily Randall inherit famously bad painting as part of Congressional tradition

UPDATED: Thu., Jan. 23, 2025

The newest members of Congress from Washington were officially welcomed to the state’s delegation on Thursday with the ceremonial transfer of “The Chick,” a famously ugly painting that has been passed down among the Evergreen State’s congressional greenhorns for half a century.

News >  Nation

After Trump pardons Jan. 6 rioters, some of his Northwest supporters disagree

UPDATED: Tue., Jan. 21, 2025

WASHINGTON – A little more than four years before President Donald Trump took the oath of office at the Capitol on Monday, some of his most fervent supporters forced their way into the same building in an attempt to stop his presidency from ending, spurred on by Trump’s insistence that he was the rightful winner of an election he had lost.