In the Media
State lawmakers worried that Washington's prepaid tuition program could go broke have proposed changes that the program's director says may hasten its demise.
“What is the problem they are trying to solve?” said Betty Lochner, director of the Guaranteed Education Tuition program.
Much has been made recently of Congressional efforts to eliminate as much as $100 billion in federal spending. And while those efforts resulted in the House approving a $61 billion budget cut, and the Senate and President approving a $4 billion budget cut just to keep the government operating, it's important to consider that this is not just spending that goes off into the ether of supposed "big government," but dollars that have a very real and immediate impact in our communities.
Western Washington University students found a friend over the weekend who was missing in Japan after Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami, but several are still missing.
Mastataka Sugasawa had disappeared after Friday's quake -- his last online message was posted hours before the disaster -- but updated his friends with a Facebook message on Saturday.
"I was evacuated to a nearby middle school," in Iwate Prefecture, Sugasawa's message read, as translated by his friend Chi Xiong, who is in Bellingham.
Three Western Washington University athletes - pole vaulter Ryan Brown, and distance runners Sarah Porter and Jordan Welling - have been named United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Americans.
It's Porter's third such indoor honor, Brown's second and the first for Welling. The awards were based on their performances at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field Championships on Saturday, March 12, where Brown successfully defended his national championship in the men's pole vault, Porter placed third in the women's 5,000 meters and Welling seventh in the men's 5,000.
Three Western Washington University athletes were honored by the Great Northwest Athletic Conference on Monday, March 14.
Former Vikings basketball star Michael Duty will suit up for the Bellingham Slam this spring as they compete in the International Basketball League.
If Washington’s budget problems get too terrible to solve, can’t the state borrow money? Or could it issue bonds against future Lottery earnings or future tobacco-lawsuit payments to the state?
Why not sell off state assets such as land? Or just leave the state budget unbalanced for a year or so – until the economy gets better and money is flowing again?
Lawmakers are in a relative lull after spending weeks handling legislation to help close a budget shortfall for this fiscal year and retool workers' compensation and unemployment insurance.
But a monster in the shadows soon could run amok.
Lawmakers will learn Thursday whether the state's multibillion-dollar budget shortfall is worse than previously projected.
Western Washington University pitcher Erika Quint set a school-record with 16 strikeouts in the opener, and outfielder Michelle Wrigley extended her hitting streak to a school record-tying 18 games as the Vikings softball team swept a Great Northwest Athletic Conference tripleheader with Western Oregon University on Sunday, March 13.
With spring nearly here, it's an important time to see what tone will be set for the local real estate market in 2011.
March has traditionally been the time Whatcom County sees the first uptick in home sale activity, generally peaking in the summer months before school starts. Of course March was a bigger deal for home sales in 2005, when 372 homes were sold, than 2009, when 143 homes were purchased, according to data from the Whatcom County Real Estate Research Report.