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Seattle has started building a new pedestrian bridge called “Overlook Walk” that will connect Pike Place Market to the downtown waterfront. The bridge, slated to open in 2025, will stretch above Alaskan Way, with one arm descending to a new waterfront promenade and another arm extending onto the roof of a new Seattle Aquarium pavilion. The project is part of a redevelopment of Seattle’s downtown waterfront after the 2019 removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
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With just nine decisions left on the docket, the Supreme Court still has yet to weigh in on major cases about abortion, climate law and immigration. The decisions will likely land this week or next.
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A key staffer in Washington's Office of Insurance Commissioner has been fired more than four months after he formally complained about the treatment he and other staff received from Mike Kreidler, the state's elected insurance commissioner.
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Citing low wages and COVID risk, King County and the City of Seattle will grant $7 million in one-time payments to child care workers. The money comes from a $5 million allocation from the county’s Best Start for Kids levy and $2.4 million from the city’s JumpStart tax to aid child care workers. The amount of individual payments will depend on the number of qualified applicants.
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A new report says the benefits provided by four giant hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River can be replaced if the dams are breached to save endangered salmon runs. But the report says finding other ways to provide electricity, irrigation and barge service would cost between $10.3 billion and $27.2 billion.
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The decision follows several recent protests – mainly against measures to quell COVID-19 – outside homes and schools in Clark County.
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Seattle police officers assigned to federal law enforcement task forces will now be required to wear and activate body-worn cameras during arrests. Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz said the updated policy will ensure encounters with suspects are captured on video — and provide consistency for Seattle officers working with federal and state agencies.
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As mass shootings continue to occur around the country, many people are watching to see if Congress passes any new gun safety laws. Here in Washington state, there are already several gun safety laws in effect. Some came from the legislature and others came from citizens. Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins joined KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick to provide an overview.
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The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated a health care staffing shortage in Washington, so the state Legislature this year provided more than $38 million to expand nursing programs statewide.
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Oregon officials and lawmakers say efforts to get millions of dollars in funding to treatment centers and related services as part of the state's pioneering drug decriminalization have been botched even as drug addictions and overdoses increase. Oregonians passed Ballot Measure 110 in 2020 decriminalizing possession of personal amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs — the first in the nation to do so.
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Officials will stop using an algorithm to help decide which families are investigated by social workers, opting instead for a process that officials say will make more racially equitable decisions.
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Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says more federal money is needed to finish the job of cleaning up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a former nuclear weapons production site in Richland, Wash. Hanford created more than two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for nuclear weapons. Left behind was the most contaminated nuclear site in the nation.