In the Media
A judge ruled against the Washington Federation of State Employees on Friday, finding it was legal for the Legislature to require 10 unpaid furlough days last year for more than 24,000 workers.
The 10 furlough dates, the last of which is June 10, are expected to save $73.3 million and were one piece of legislative action meant to plug last year’s multibillion-dollar budget gap.
Counselors at Lincoln High School in Tacoma are proud of Gabriel Dumbrique, a senior who’s taking Advanced Placement classes and calculus, maintaining a 3.8 GPA and leading Key Club, a community service group.
In the fall, Dumbrique will be the first in his family to go to college, and he’s a poster child for the school’s effort to get more underrepresented, lower-income students into accelerated programs and off to a university when they graduate.
Washington state lawmakers grappling over how to fill a projected budget shortfall of $5 billion may first have to end a stalemate on a more contentious issue: workers’ compensation.
There is widespread agreement in Olympia that lawmakers must do something to curb the surging costs within a state-run system that doles out billions in benefits, and Gov. Chris Gregoire said this week she doesn’t think lawmakers can leave the Capitol for the year without dealing with the issue. But the House and the Senate — siding with labor and business, respectively — have pushed competing proposals that won’t get consideration in the opposing chamber.
The terms “outsourcing” and “workforce development” rarely appear as allies in the same sentence. At least not in Rust Belt states like Indiana, where the loss of manufacturing jobs has driven an increase in demand for postsecondary degrees that point to jobs that will not soon be exported overseas.
But Indiana’s leaders have embraced an outsourcing solution to the state's outsourcing problem. As Indiana faced down a challenge shared by many other states in the aftermath of 2008's financial bloodbath -- trying to increase capacity, especially for adult learners, at public universities while simultaneously gutting their budgets -- Gov. Mitch Daniels decided that, instead of paying to expand online programs at its existing state institutions, Indiana would contract with a private university outside its borders.
Western Washington University's Karis Anderson cleared a NCAA Division II provisional national qualifying mark of 11-10 3/4 as she tied for sixth place in the women's pole vault at the University of Washington Ken Shannon Invitational Track and Field meet Saturday, May 7, at Husky Stadium in Seattle.
New state grants will help pay for safety improvements along Samish Way and Indian Street, areas where many pedestrians and bicyclists have been hit by cars.
The two-year transportation budget approved by the state legislature funds the two projects, likely to be done in 2012. They involve the following:
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga will give two free lectures at Western Washington University as part of the Bellingham Lectures in Philosophy and Religion series.
On Tuesday, May 10, Plantinga will give a lecture titled "Religion and Evolution: Where the Conflict Really Lies." On Thursday, May 12, Plantinga's lecture will be "Does Science Show that Miracles Can't Happen?"
Most Western Washington residents know they live in an earthquake-prone area and that there is always the threat of the "Big One."
A new project from Western Washington University aims to help us all be better prepared.
The university's Resilience Institute, headed by Assistant Professor Scott Miles, is tasked with assisting local and state agencies with disaster planning.
Artist Ryan Henry Ward, better known as Henry, has only been in Seattle for three years and already he has adorned the city with 116 murals. The first 26 of which he did for free.
His most recent murals were painted last month on the Axis Automotive building on Russell Avenue N.W. in Ballard and on the Better Window Cleaning business in Fremont.
“Ecologist Chris Morgan is no stranger to adventure. Over the last 20 years he has worked as a wildlife researcher, wilderness guide, and environmental educator on every continent where bears exist. From icy polar bear country at 81° North to tropical Andean bear forests on the equator, Chris has sought adventure among the focus animals of his life – the bears of the world. Carnivore work has also taken him to the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Scotland, the Pakistani Himalayas, northern Spain, Turkey, and Alaska – destinations where his infectious enthusiasm for wild places and people has rubbed off on others.