The Columbian

Northwest

Jay Williams, a driver/engineer with the Port of Seattle fire department, sprays water from the Aircraft Rescue Firefighting Vehicle (ARFF) he is driving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The vehicles can pump out 600 gallons a minute at low flow and 1200 gallons at high flow. (Ellen M.

Inside Sea-Tac’s efforts to clean up PFAS firefighting foams

July 8, 2024, 6:00am Health

Taxiing jet engines groaned on the tarmac, their fumes filling the Port of Seattle’s firetruck bays on an early summer day here. Snaking hoses connected tanks and filters in a complex cleanup operation. Read story

The M/V Guemes crosses the channel between Anacortes and Guemes Island. The 45-year-old vessel is scheduled to be replaced by a newer model, paid for with cap-and-invest dollars, unless voters decide to kill that program in the fall election.

WA ballot initiative would cut $848.6M of environmental programs

July 8, 2024, 6:00am Latest News

It takes about five minutes to cross the channel between Anacortes and Guemes Island. But the trip seems a lot longer to the people waiting in their cars to board the ferry that takes them across. Read story

Department of Ecology poised to begin $160M cleanup of Bellingham inlet

July 7, 2024, 5:20pm Northwest

Sampling and dredging begin this month on the I & J Waterway, a polluted inlet on Bellingham's industrial waterfront. Read story

A person cools off during the Waterfront Blues Festival on Friday, July 5, 2024, in Portland, Ore. A slow-moving and potentially record-setting heat wave is spreading across the Western U.S., sending many residents in search of a cool haven from the dangerously high temperatures.

Persistent heat wave in the U.S. expected to shatter new records as it bakes West and swelters in East

July 7, 2024, 2:30pm Nation & World

A long-running heat wave that has already shattered previous records across the U.S. will persist, baking parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that will soar into the 100s and holding the East in its hot and humid grip throughout the week, forecasters said Sunday. Read story

A two-blade propeller is covered in zebra mussels on a 36-foot sailboat.

Washington shoring up aquatic invasive species program

July 7, 2024, 6:02am Business

A cash infusion is going to help Washington shore up its forces in the battle against invasive zebra and quagga mussels. Read story

Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, was a delegate who spoke against Resolutions 23 and 27. While she supported Resolution 22 and its call for a ceasefire, she said Resolutions 23 and 27 were controversial in their calls to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Why Gaza-related resolutions divided the Democrats at their convention

July 7, 2024, 6:00am Latest News

Three resolutions related to the ongoing war in Gaza passed Sunday at the Washington State Democratic Convention, but not without controversy. Read story

How a rural WA school overcame the pandemic slump

July 7, 2024, 6:00am Northwest Free

OTHELLO, Adams COUNTY — Kayla Garza's eyes whipped around the room, watching her fifth grade students at Wahitis Elementary in Central Washington scribbling down the answer to a math question. When they were done, they set their pencils down. Read story

In this photo taken Oct. 30, 2012, Bruce Sherry, a contract engineer at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle, manually programs a DEC PDP-10 computer from the early 1970s next to a photograph of Microsoft co-founders Paul Allen, seated, and Bill Gates, standing at Allen’s left, working on a teletype machine. Allen has just opened the Living Computer Museum, which features working models of old computers. (AP Photo/Ted S.

Paul Allen’s Living Computers: Museum + Labs will close permanently

July 7, 2024, 6:00am Life

While most museums protect their collections under glass, the vintage computers and other electronic artifacts at the Living Computers: Museum + Labs were open for guests to play, code and educate themselves. Read story

‘Like you’re walking on stars’: How to see bioluminescence around Bellingham this summer

July 7, 2024, 6:00am Latest News

It’s summer, which means it’s the ideal time to see one of Washington’s most striking natural phenomena: bioluminescent plankton. Several places around town offer kayak tours to see the sea light up, or you can try to see it on your own at a nearby beach. Here are the best… Read story

The Tacoma General Hospital School of Nursing — the first to be established in the state of Washington — and the Deaconess Hospital School of Nursing both shuttered their doors in 1980. More than 2,000 nurses graduated from the school in its almost century of operation.

These Tacoma nurses broke into field when needles were reused, secrets kept from wives

July 7, 2024, 5:31am Health

Janet Runbeck is 71 and working the same job she began at age 20. And she doesn’t get paid for it. Read story