More than a year after that test began in October 2020, a Spokesman-Review investigation found problems with the system continue to threaten patient safety and have left employees at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane exhausted and demoralized, with nearly two-thirds saying in a recent internal survey it has made them consider quitting.

In an order signed by all nine justices Friday, the court said the commission did meet its statutory deadline by voting on the actual maps just before midnight.

Inslee said the state saw a 75% increase in the number of people using the Department of Health vaccine locator in the last three days. But he warns it may take some time for everyone to get their dose. 

Inslee told reporters he does not have the authority to make an emergency declaration to delay it, but he could work with lawmakers to come up with a pause. 

The Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on the case, and conservatives on the court — who currently hold a 6-3 majority — indicated they would likely uphold the Mississippi law. It could signal the biggest shift in abortion rights since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

The program requires workers to pay 0.58% of their wages into the fund beginning Jan. 1. But concerns, particularly from those who work in Washington but live elsewhere, may force the Legislature to make changes this session. 

While gerrymandering is a problem the nation needs to address, recent events reveal Washington’s bipartisan redistricting commission isn’t the perfect replacement for those bad old hyperpartisan legislative practices.

Unvaccinated members who wish to be in their on-campus offices during the session must receive a negative test three days a week. 

Former state Sen. Steve Hobbs is officially Washington's 16th secretary of state.

Because of its size, the way the House operates and what it is able to pass can be much different than the Senate.

Washington state's Secretary of State Kim Wyman is the last statewide-elected Republican on the West Coast and as she readies for a new election security job in the Biden administration she says she'll approach it with her core philosophy: "Party politics aren’t as important as our country’s elections.”

State Sen. Doug Ericksen of Ferndale who was sickened with COVID-19 in El Salvador is now in stable condition at a Florida hospital after a medevac flight, according to a former state lawmaker.

For more than half a century, Spokane’s 6th Legislative District was the region’s most reliably Republican. That began to change in the late 1990s and by 2010 two of the three legislators the district sent to Olympia were Democrats.

Like nearly all Congressional delegations, members of Congress from Idaho and Washington voted Friday along party lines for a roughly $2 trillion bill that would make fundamental changes to numerous federal social and environmental programs.

The maps that were sent to the Supreme Court had consensus among the voting members of the commission, according to a statement, but they were not completed in time. 

The biggest things Inslee is looking for before restrictions can be lifted are a higher statewide vaccination rate, lower hospitalization rates and lower transmission rates.