Politics

Updated at 3:36 p.m. ET

President Trump ordered new economic sanctions Thursday against any bank or other company doing business with North Korea, in response to Pyongyang's renegade nuclear program.

The move is designed to tighten the economic screws on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in hopes of halting his development of nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said she requested a meeting with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his visit to Portland Tuesday. But she says she never got a response from Sessions or his staff.

Oregon lawmakers are returning to the Capitol Monday for a three-day flurry of meetings. It’s the first round of “Legislative Days” since the 2017 session adjourned in July.

Intelligence experts say North Korea is several years or more away from having the capability to threaten the U.S. West Coast with a nuclear missile. But recent sabre rattling was enough to make Washington state senators hold a hearing Wednesday about preparedness.

Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson has turned over a database of state voter information to the Trump administration.

The threat of a nuclear attack, immigration enforcement and paying by the mile to drive are all on the agenda as Washington lawmakers hold meetings the week of September 11.

Could a hacker alter your voter registration to disrupt an election? According to a study by Harvard researchers out Wednesday, the answer is yes.

Eastern Washington’s Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is the most powerful Republican woman in the U.S. House of Representatives. And now, she’s speaking out against President Donald Trump’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—or DACA.

Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson is hearing from opponents and supporters of a proposed change to the state's initiative process that could help campaigns jump-start the signature gathering process.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is leaving an Obama-era policy on transgender military service members largely intact, saying he needs input from an expert panel to determine the best way to implement President Trump's ban that would keep transgender people from serving in the U.S. military.

Trump barred transgender would-be recruits from signing up, but he gave Mattis discretion to decide the status of transgender people who are already serving.

Critics of a new Oregon law that would make it easier to get guns out of the hands of people suffering from mental health crises are gathering signatures to overturn it.

On Saturday August 12, a woman was killed at the "Unite the Right Rally" in Charlottesville, Virginia where Confederate flags flew, racist and anti-Semitic insults were chanted and KKK robes were donned. After President Donald Trump's initial statement blamed "both sides," Republicans across the country were scrutinized for what they said, what they didn't and when. We collected some online statements of Northwest Republicans in the week after Charlottesville.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has signed into law a bill to require health insurance policies to cover the cost of abortions.

Four Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife employees were fired this month after an investigation found an “extremely sexualized culture” at a fish hatchery on the Columbia River.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers hosted her first town hall of the year Thursday night in Spokane. According to the Town Hall Project, which tracks these events across the nation, she’s the first Republican member of Congress from Washington or Oregon to hold a town hall event in 2017.

Large crowds are expected to flock to Goldendale Observatory State Park to watch the August 21 eclipse. But as visitors look to the skies, they may not realize a renovation of that south central Washington observatory is on hold for very earthly reasons.

Lawmakers in Washington state had a fight so bad last month, they got together in a basement conference room Wednesday.

Updated at 5 p.m. ET

Anthony Scaramucci is leaving his position as White House communications director — less than two weeks after being named for the job.

Scaramucci's departure followed the Monday-morning swearing in of the new White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John F. Kelly. Scaramucci had negotiated an unusual deal to report directly to the president rather than the chief of staff (Reince Priebus at the time).

Political strategists, take note: For the first time, millennials and Gen Xers outvoted their elders in 2016, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

Fully 69.6 million millennials (defined as people who were 18 to 35 in 2016) and members of Generation X (ages 36 to 51) cast votes in 2016, according to a Pew analysis of data from the Census Bureau. By comparison, 67.9 million baby boomers and members of older generations voted.