In the News

Are you worried about the political division in our country? We are too, and over the last seven months KUOW’s community engagement team has been partnering with StoryCorps on a solution. It’s called "One Small Step," an initiative that pairs strangers who have different political views for a conversation in which they get to know one another as people. Today, we’re going ...

Washington should make insulin more widely available at cheaper prices and offer a free 30-day supply at least once a year for people who are short on the drug and can’t afford it. That’s the message delivered to state lawmakers from a workgroup assigned to chart a course to increase insulin access and affordability. Hundreds of thousands of Washington residents with ...

OLYMPIA — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday he was suing O’Reilly Auto Parts, the car parts and accessories chain, for discriminating and retaliating against pregnant workers, alleging that at least 22 women were harmed as a result. Ferguson is suing the company, which has 169 stores in Washington, in King County Superior Court. “O’Reilly’s top-down practice of discrimination caused physical ...

When a judge in Texas issued his ruling invalidating the FDA’s approval of abortion pill mifepristone on April 8th, Karen Keiser ’69, MSJ ’73 was outraged. “It was ridiculous,” the Washington State Senator said, “that a federal judge having no medical information and accessing no information that was available to him just [ruled] based on legal fiction, in my opinion.” Mifepristone is one ...

Washington taxpayers are funding a great experiment in sustaining local journalism. It’s already off to a good start. The state’s new biennial budget includes $2.4 million for “a journalism fellowship program focused on civic affairs.” This will place eight graduating journalism students per year at local news outlets across the state. The gigs last two years so the roster will grow to ...

Gov. Jay Inslee signed five new pieces of legislation into law on Thursday aimed at protecting reproductive health-care rights in the state of Washington. “We are here to proclaim very vocally and very forcefully that we will not allow any state, or any Trump-appointed judge, to jeopardize a woman’s right of choice in the state of Washington,” Inslee said. “We ...

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington State Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 5111, first introduced by Senator Karen Keiser (D-Wash.), aimed at helping short-term construction workers earn paid sick time. Currently, state law outlines a 90-day minimum at one job before a worker can take paid sick leave, according to a press release from the Washington Senate Democrats. This leave ...

OLYMPIA — Washington employers would be prohibited from refusing to hire a potential worker solely because of a drug test showing they had used cannabis under a bill that passed the state Senate on Wednesday. Washington voters approved recreational marijuana in 2012 through Initiative 502. More than a decade later, though, as more states have moved to legalize the drug, Washington ...

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state senators have introduced a senate bill this legislative session that aims to focus on retail theft and business assistance. SB 5259 is summarized as, “ensuring commerce and workplaces are safe from product theft,” and aims to create a retail theft task force and help businesses with security expenses through a tax break. ...

Employers saved roughly $2.5 billion in state unemployment insurance (UI) premium payments over the last three years because of legislation passed in 2021 and 2022 in Olympia, according to a new report from the Washington State Security Department.